Elaine Loughlin: Simon Coveney under scrutiny for Iran embassy plans

A growing number of Fine Gael members are extremely uneasy with the move, claiming it gives credibility to a brutal regime in Iran.

Elaine Loughlin On the Plinth

Simon Coveney could be facing a revolt within his own ranks if he persists with the plan to reopen an embassy in Iran.

In the 10 weeks since the death in police custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, more than 400 anti-regime protesters have been killed and at least another 15,000 men, women, and children have been arrested.

It should be said that getting true figures in a state which actively clamps down on information is difficult and other human rights organisations have come out with higher estimates.

In September, as the protests began to spread after the killing of Amini, who had been arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaching the country’s severe dress code, authorities cut off mobile internet, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

There have been reports of security forces arriving at schools in vans without licence plates and arresting children inside who had attended marches.

In October, the education minister confirmed that an unspecified number of children had been sent to “psychological centres” after they were arrested allegedly for participating in anti-State protests.

Meanwhile, concerns have been raised for the country’s soccer team who took part in their own silent protest at their first World Cup game last week. Iran’s heavily censored media made very little mention of the team not singing the national anthem.

Iran fans in the stands hold up signs of protest ahead of the World Cup match against England. Picture: Mike Egerton/PA Wire

The team did sing the anthem ahead of their second game against Wales on Friday amid boos from the crowd, some of whom were caught on camera with tears streaming down their faces.

Calling for the immediate release of human rights defenders, journalists, students, lawyers, opposition politicians, environmentalists, and members of the public, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said arresting people solely for exercising their rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

He went on to describe the situation in Iran as “full-fledged human rights crisis” last week.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner recently, Coveney insisted that opening the embassy is “not a reward”.

“We need to have embassies in countries that we disagree with, as well as countries that we have very close relationships with. So then we have a line of diplomatic communication to ensure that we can try to bring about change,” he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney insisted that opening an Iran embassy is “not a reward”. Picture: Damien Storan/PA Wire

A growing number of Fine Gael members are extremely uneasy with the move, claiming it gives credibility to a regime which is at odds with everything we stand for as a nation.

Last year, Coveney announced the embassy in Tehran, which was closed during a round of cutbacks in 2012, would reopen by the end of 2023.

Making the announcement in March 2021, Coveney cited the Government’s Global Ireland strategy which commits to a doubling of or our global impact by 2025.

Ireland’s election to the UN Security Council, a rotating position which comes to an end this year, was also raised as well as the need to ensure an Iran nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), succeeds.

But members of Coveney’s own party remain unconvinced about the need for the embassy and, indeed, are extremely concerned about the optics of opening up shop in a country that, on top of its shocking human rights violations, is also suspected of supplying weapons to Russia.

The move was deemed “despicable” at a private meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party last week when senator Regina Doherty, in raising the issue for a second week, pointed out that there are just 18 Irish citizens in the country at present.

Leader of Seanad Éireann, senator Regina Doherty. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

Doherty told her party’s meeting that if the reasoning for opening the embassy was trade that this would be out of kilter with Ireland’s support of human rights and Ukraine. She asked that the business case for the reopening be published.

I can’t see any reason why Ireland, as a progressive country that enshrines, or at least espouses to try and enshrine, human rights with dignity and respect, that we would want to do business with them,” Doherty said after the meeting.

Others, including Carlow-Kilkenny TD John Paul Phelan and senator Mary Seery Kearney, also hit out at the plans, but couldn’t take a direct swipe at the minister, who was speaking to the Seanad last Wednesday night so couldn’t attend the meeting.

Phelan took the opportunity to question Coveney in the Dáil the following day.

Calling on the Government to reconsider the proposal, Phelan said it would be “an appalling slap in the face” to the ordinary citizens of Iran who are “risking their lives on a daily basis against what is one of the most vile and barbaric regimes anywhere in the world.”

Coveney provided a chink of hope, but no solid promise that he would go back on the embassy plan, telling the Dáil that his department is not “looking at the appropriateness of opening an embassy again next year”.

He added: “We had an embassy up to 2012. We are watching very closely political developments in Iran before finalising that decision.”

It is understood that Phelan and the small group within Fine Gael who have been vocal on the issue for many weeks now have been quietly mobilising and recruiting others with the plan to make yet another appeal when the minister is present at the party’s weekly meeting scheduled for tomorrow evening.

They argue that instead of legitimising a brutal regime, Ireland should be sending out a strong signal that we will not tolerate the oppression of basic human rights.

As Phelan put it, “we have to be on the right side of this”.

Did You Know?

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. Picture: Leon Neal/PA Wire

Ursula von der Leyen became president of the European Commission in 2019. 

While her political career only began in 2003 after being elected to the Bundestag for Lower Saxony in state elections, she comes from a strong political family. 

Her father, Ernst Albrecht, was a senior commission official in Brussels in the 1950s, before he decided to enter German domestic politics. 

She is married to Heiko von der Leyen, a professor of medicine and the CEO of a medical engineering company. They have seven children.

This week in years gone by

1925

December 3: The Boundary Commission recommended no change to the border. The final report of the commission was never published, but a leak in the conservative Morning Post newspaper in December 1925 suggested nothing like the transfer of territory to the Irish Free State that Griffith and Collins had envisaged. Moreover, it proposed ceding, for instance, sections of east Donegal to Northern Ireland.

1976

December 6: Patrick Hillary became the sixth president of Ireland. It was reported that there was “little public reaction” to the inauguration ceremony but children, who had a day off school in honour of the occasion, formed “interested knots of spectators as the motorcade, flanked by garda escort cars and army outriders, sped through the Christmas-lit city streets” to Dublin Castle.

1984

December 3: It was reported that Dublin Castle had been transformed into a “fortress” as then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher joined other heads of government for an EEC summit. The Cork Examiner reported at the time that “sophisticated anti-terrorist equipment, including missiles, has been made available, all garda and army leave has been cancelled, and a special watch is being kept on movements of sympathisers of the IRA and other subversive organisations”.

2000

December 6: Pressure was mounting on then food minister Ned O’Keefe to explain his position or resign from the government after it was revealed that pigs at his family farm had been fed with meat and bone meal that was linked to the spread of BSE in cattle. It came as agriculture minister Joe Walsh was due to travel to Egypt on a mission to save beef exports worth IR£200m per year, which were cancelled due to fears of BSE in Ireland.

Hot topicals

Serving up Justice: After a very busy final day attending events in Dublin and Wexford, Helen McEntee has now taken maternity leave. We wish her and her family the very best. It means Heather Humphreys is starting her first week in her former temporary role as she has yet again been asked to take on the Justice portfolio.

Taking its Toll: After a controversial announcement to increase the cost of tolls from January sparked anger inside and outside Leinster House, Sinn Féin is bringing forward a motion this week to scrap planned hikes.

VIP Address: EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will address both houses of the Oireachtas on Thursday afternoon.

A Healthy Budget: The Opposition has already raised serious questions around an extra €1.4bn which the Department of Health has been allocated to meet pandemic costs such as vaccinations and the public sector pay deal.

Expect robust exchanges when Health Minister Stephen Donnelly comes before the health committee tomorrow to discuss the supplementary estimates.