The recent claim that Carleton University’s Iranian student club received financial assistance from an organization affiliated with the shuttered Iranian embassy should ring alarm bells.
Maclean’s magazine reported that Ehsan Mohammadi, president of Carleton’s Iranian Cultural Association last year, wrote to an Iranian government official asking for financial assistance.
Whether or not funding from the regime was received is unclear, but Maclean’s also claimed that the club received about $1,600 from the Cultural Centre of Iran, which was affiliated with the embassy.
Some concluded that this makes the Iranian club an “extension” of the Iranian embassy. That charge may be a stretch, but it does bring the issue of club funding to the fore. In this case, Mohammadi evidently tried to obtain funds through Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s chief-of-staff.
Such solicitation should be prohibited. Rules need to be implemented at Carleton University restricting clubs and societies from receiving funds from foreign governments. That rule should be vigorously enforced.
It’s easy to pick on Iran, given its appalling human rights record. However, the rule should apply across the board: there should be no receiving of funds by Carleton university clubs from foreign governments. Period.
Carleton University and the Carleton University Students’ Association should strive to champion human rights. Receiving money from an organization, government or otherwise, is to be associated with that organization, as well as its policies. Being linked with governments, whether it’s Iran or Israel, or whoever else, is to be identified with its crimes and abuses.
True, some countries respect human rights more than others, but all have made errors, and the majority continue to do so. It’s better to avoid them all.
Alex Golovko, Carleton University’s student association president, says he supports the Iranian student club’s actions. Granted, he wasn’t the president when Mohammadi asked Tehran for money last year, but Golovko should raise the standards. Maclean’s may have overstated things when it charged the Iranian club for being an entity that does Iran’s bidding, but the very fact that Mohammadi had no problem in being identified with a foreign regime should be a cause for worry.
Student clubs are not sprawling corporations with multiple sectors in different countries. They are relatively small operations that usually receive modest amounts of funding. It’s not a terrible lot to ask that they be held to a certain standard.
Of course, all university sectors should be held to a similar standard in terms of respecting human dignity. If getting Carleton to divest from Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems is a difficult task, then barring clubs from receiving government funding is definitely a more realistic starting point.