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Imprisoned Physicist Honored For Refusing To Work On Iran's Nuclear Program
New submitter I3MOUNTAINS writes "Omid Kokabee, a University of Texas graduate student who has been imprisoned in Iran for more than two years, received the American Physical Society's Andrei Sakharov human rights prize for refusing to collaborate on the country's nuclear program. In May, an Iranian court sentenced him to ten years in prison for 'communicating with a hostile government' and receiving 'illegal earnings.' The so-called 'illegal earnings' were the student loans he received while in Texas."
This guy has 'em. There are other ways to sacrifice for worthy principles than warfare.
Hook 'em.
Any prizes for Mordechai Vanunu?
--Joakim Ziegler
Wouldn't it be nice if the west had the entire moral high ground on this? Considering iranian physicists and physics professors are murdered by foreign agents over a low shoe, you can't blame Iran for being paranoid.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
For plutonium nukes, the sphere of explosive around the plutonium must be perfectly shaped. What else must be perfectly shaped: mirrors and lenses for telescopes.
The article says he was studying lasers and optics. This makes him an unlikely choice for a nuclear anything program.
Congratulation!
You are the one-millionth poster on /. to post without reading the article! Great job! Keep up the good work!
[Balloons drop] [Confetti mortars fire]
"Iran has been pursuing a kind of uranium enrichment called SILEX which uses carbon dioxide lasers, the same kind of lasers that Kokabee was using in his graduate studies."
Answer to 2) is in TFM#1:
Answer to 1) took a few more Google cycles:
You can find the quote here:
http://iran.usembassy.gov/education.html
The background story for this is: "Iran is currently trying really hard to make a deal with the West, if not with the US then at least with Europe. We've got to stop that. Throw everything at them that you got."
All Iran wants is to be untouchable like Israel, North Korea, Russia, China, India and Pakistan. And I completely understand after what the USA did to them in the 80s.
The so-called 'illegal earnings' were the student loans he received while in Texas.
I hate to think how much compound interest he will have accumulated while in jail.
And, several iranian students are attending phds here at our university (Italy), some of them in microbiology to cite something that could be "borderline", so are all they at risk now?
Islam generally frowns on "usury", so I guess a determined Iranian Religious Judge could easily fudge a conviction with a trumped up charge about that. Islamic Banking jumps through all kind of hoops to keep the Imams happy when making loans and paying interest.
But I'm curious if student loans are a general problem with Islam . . . ? Do pious students avoid them . . . ?
This would be a catastrophe for the US, if it would wake up tomorrow an Islamic Republic . . . all those students saddled with debt that will never be able to pay back would face prison, as well!
My wacky thought for the morning . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
And it's a completely fucked-up policy, because the hoops that a US company needs to jump through to hire an Iranian national are insane. So you end up educating a load of people, then telling them that they're second-class people and sending them back home. Guess how favourably disposed they are to the USA after that...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
1) Why was an Iranian national studying in the US to begin with?
Entering US is quite regulated, so I think US government knows and accepts that students or workers from Iran go there, and think it's an advantage for both. The world is no more the one from the cold war era, and many people from Bin Laden's country (for example) always were and are in USA (even his relatives if I remember correctly).
"Iran has been pursuing a kind of uranium enrichment called SILEX which uses carbon dioxide lasers, the same kind of lasers that Kokabee was using in his graduate studies."
This is like saying he was studying computer aided design, and got arrested for refusing to join their computer hacking program, that happened to use similar computer systems.
Just b/c he had used the same kind of lasers, would not of meant he could do anything with uranium enrichment
Because the Iranian government has done to the post-secondary education system in Iran what the Republicans have attempted to do(and in some cases succeeded) in doing to secondary education in the US, i.e. hand it over to the religious fundamentalists who only care about promoting whatever imaginary being they happen to believe in. The University of Tehran appointed as president a guy who had no post secondary education but lots and lots of Islamic bona fides. If they want an education that is more rigorous than "Muhammed is great!" they have to look elsewhere.
Monstar L
which is a shame because before the fundies started changing everything Iranian schools were pretty good. Ironic that one of the biggest impediments to the religious fundamentalists getting a homegrown atomic weapon is their own religious fundamentalism.
Though this is hardly the first time ideological purity has ruined a once great educational system. Supposedly a lot of German scientists complained that during the war they found it almost impossible to do research because all their graduate assistants could do is recite Nazi propaganda and not much else.
Monstar L
Congratulation!
You are the one-millionth poster on /. to post without reading the article!
You must be nude here.
It's more like the one-millionth-billionth poster.
I sometimes get the feeling that most folks don't even bother to read the post that they are replying to, let alone the article.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
But you took a lot of money off them in the process.
That's all that matters, right?
Yeah, fsvo "trial":
(This was from the second article linked at the top of this discussion, BTW.)
What a bunch of BS. there.
I am Iranian scholar staying outside Iran. Your post does not make any sense whatsoever.
I knew it - carbon dioxide causes nuclear warming :)
On a more serious note this sort of state driven military research in other places via graduate students happens a bit. I taught a bit of stuff to a masters student from Indonesia that wanted to work on composite materials with a very low radar signature to be used in aircraft. The first I could help him with, the second was a bit outside of what I knew so there was no moral dilemma.
Kind of like an Iranian Snowden. Snowden was also nominated for the same prize right. Both guys not cooperating with their government evil plans.
Bin Laden's country is Saudi Arabia, which is a major US ally.
Well, something that will never get nuked are that guys student loans.
You gotta have some balls to take that position you know. I have respect for people of these sort.
"Iran is now 22nd among the top 25 places of origin for international students."
Yes, yes, but how high is it among the top 100?
This is like saying he was studying computer aided design, and got arrested for refusing to join their computer hacking program, that happened to use similar computer systems.
Just b/c he had used the same kind of lasers, would not of meant he could do anything with uranium enrichment
Yes, because studying the usage and calibration of the exact necessary type of lasers will in no way qualify you to perform a job where you are required to select and calibrate those lasers.
Just because he doesn't know anything about uranium doesn't mean he can't take a sheet of paper from a nuclear physicist saying "set energy output to X for period Y or until target reaches maximum temperature Z."
Nice troll for ayatollah, but the fact remains they appointed as president of the University of Tehran a man who has no academic qualifications but he does believe really hard in an imaginary man in the sky and a child rapist who claims to have spoken for the imaginary man in the sky.
Monstar L
Well, obviously if they're 22nd among 25 they would be 88th among 100th. /. these days.
Really, it's depressing how down is math level in
Fun to see it transition from "Iran imprisons scientist for having the courage of his convictions" to "USA / Israel evil". Good to know Slashthink is alive & well.
In May, an Iranian court sentenced him to ten years in prison for 'communicating with a hostile government' and receiving 'illegal earnings.' The so-called 'illegal earnings' were the student loans he received while in Texas."
Let's change that up a bit.
In May, an American court sentenced you to ten years in prison, $1 million in corporate fines, and $250,000 in individual fines; civil penalties up to $55,000 per violation for 'violating trade embargo'. The so-called 'violation of trade embargo' was you visiting your family in cuba and buying a cigar while you were there.
Sorry Iran, US laws are more ridiculous and our penalties are greater.
Turn in your Austin Powers ring. It's more like the "meeeeeeellionth poster".
Energy from Thorium gives us one more way to resolve this issue, ie, beyond 1. Withholding nuclear technology and 2. Sharing it with Iran, namely:
Share the safe, non-Plutonium-generating Energy from Thorium (LFTR technology with Iran &;anyone who' ready to use it.
It makes absolutely no difference whatsoever whether he believes in anything you regard as imaginary or not. What matters is whether he is trying to impress on the curriculum any improper or undue slant. At worst he is an accomplice (not necessarily willing) in a pervasive system of brainwashing and subversion. It is more honest and effective to concentrate on the system.
Please understand, it's not that I necessarily object in principle to bigotry against belief systems that are arguably evil or at least retard civilization. What I object to is unclear process and wrong targeting. The target ought to be a government incorporating exclusive support of a specific religion and targeting those who do not support that religion in violation of elementary human rights.
Well, something that will never get nuked are that guys student loans.
Not until the lawyers get their hands on this. I think they are the only ones able to get him out of prison, out of Iran, to the US, just so he can pay off his loan.
Welcome to the physics career path, where you may make several large jumps to other similar fields, sometimes with little to no experience on the exact devices you will be working on. I jumped from not working with lasers at all to working with lasers right out of grad school, so going from working on the same type of laser to the same type of laser is a rather small jump.
Antifoidus is probably referring to the 4 year presidency of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas-Ali_Amid_Zanjani. That was apparently the only cleric who ever was president there and it really didn't work out. But apart from that I fully agree with AC about 'a bunch of BS'. I checked UNESCO and Iran is doing pretty well in education, while in the good old days of 1976 they weren't. In 76 25% of the women could read.
And it's a completely fucked-up policy, because the hoops that a US company needs to jump through to hire an Iranian national are insane. So you end up educating a load of people, then telling them that they're second-class people and sending them back home. Guess how favourably disposed they are to the USA after that...
Do you have some sort of reference for that? I used to go to college recruiting fairs to pick up engineering talent for my projects. At that time I was working for a government contractor with both classified and ITAR related materials floating around. We had an especially qualified Iranian national come by. Unfortunately we did not have any work that was not, at the very least, covered by ITAR. I pretended that it was not the case and asked HR and our DSS liaison as to whether we could hire this individual. Both indicated that they were perfectly eligible for hire, and that we just had to place them on a contract that was not covered by ITAR or other security clearances.
Remind me again of that time an American was sentenced to jail for having a loan because he didn't work for the government. Oh that's right, Americans aren't bat shit insane.
You can find the quote here: http://iran.usembassy.gov/education.html
I find that link name a little humorous in that the US has not had an embassy in Iran since some, ahem, "unpleasantness" in the late 1970s. But we do need to keep accepting and educating them because it benefits big business (US universities) and anything that benefits big business can't be bad? Right?
Any Iranian national who leaves the country to do anything in the west (US in particular) should expect to at the least be interrogated and at the worst, jailed. That this guy was getting an advanced science/engineering degree makes him all the more valuable to the state. I realize his "family" still was in Iran, but to think for a moment he was not going to have serious problems at some point while visiting was the height of stupidity. When he made the decision to study in the US he effectively made the decision to leave Iran for good.
Back to third grade also for the idiot moderator.
Now you have educated people who has seen how life is outside Iran back in Iran.
You might have to get your ring looked at.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Well, yea but, how can we make this Obama's fault?
Where advancement in the Iranian nuclear industry is quick and puts your career on the fast track to the top, there are some serious issues. The least of which is any moral objection to what you are working on.
Over the last decade, nuclear scientists have been dying in droves in Iran. Consider it an occupational hazard. No they are not dying from dangerous research or risky experiments gone wrong, they are dying from what I call "High speed Lead Poisoning" and "Rapid dismembering due to proximity to large energy releases". (They are getting shot and blown up..)
His decision was more likely about not getting killed and less about any moral objection to what he would be doing. If he had a moral objection, I would think he would have chosen a different area to study.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Why anyone would go back to Iran once they are out is a complete mystery to me.
The owners of Slashdot are in lock-step with the Siamese-twin depravities of Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING that helps develop the circumstances for genocidal attacks against nations deemed targets of the Saudis or zionist psychopaths of Israel is seen as god's work by Slashdot's owners.
You sheep really need to read PNAC again, and study the list of target nations slated for destruction by the depravities that created this document. And then you sheeple need to read up on the state of Iraq and Libya since team Tony Blair launched their 'invasions'.
Iran has active terror cells trained and financed by Israel, who specifically target ALL senior scientists and their families in Iran. These Iranians take money from Israel to rape, torture, kidnap and/or murder the targets or members of their families. Periodically, Putin hands over details of Israel's terror networks, and Iran rounds up these terrorists wholesale- leading to the usual racist filth claiming that Iran is abusing Human Rights again. It does not matter to the zionists apologists that flood Slashdot's comments that these terrorists have engaged in some of the worst atrocities ever seen, and dedicate themselves to providing Israel with lists of EVERY scientist in Iran linked to Iran's ability to defend itself from the sickening arsenal of genocidal weapons the zionists of Israel have stockpiled since the 1950s.
Slashdot will continue to promote pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian stories until Slashdot's owners get their wish, a US nuclear attack against Iran. Meanwhile you will never see Slashdot discuss stories like the recent UN report that confirmed that Israel, at the highest level, abuses non-jewish children as official policy. Of course Israel, to the cheers of Slashdot's owners, convicted an Arab man for rape- for having consensual sex with a jew after telling her he was 'jewish'. Can't have members of the 'sub-Human' classes thinking they can have sex with the 'master race', can we. The British and US government had to pretend outrage at this conviction, but behind the scenes applauded this NAZI-identical form of racist atrocity.
PS jews all across the world defended this conviction in forums. They claimed the 'impersonation' law present in most West nations justified it. The 'impersonation' Law actually refers to a stranger sneaking into a woman's bed, and passing himself off as her husband/boyfriend, because it is dark, or she is drunk. It NEVER, EVER refers to the lies a person may tell about themselves before indulging in consexual sex (unless the lies are about gender or state of infection with certain diseases- in which case other laws may come into play). The abuses of Human Rights in the depraved state of Israel are almost infinite, and almost entirely aimed at people described by the zionists as 'sub Human'. A tiny number of abuses are aimed at some jews, when a jew offends a more powerful religious jew (say, when a jew refuses to give permission to his partner for a divorce, at which point the depraved state of Israel imprisons him until he cries 'uncle').
It was pretty obvious to me that he was poking fun at mestar's inability to grasp that if you're 22nd out of the top 25, you're 22nd out of the top 100. And most likely mestar knew that full well but was trying to joke. Poorly; there are way too many barely literate and barely numerate people who think being a nerd means you buy shiny stuff from Apple and Microsoft.
Free Martian Whores!
Moderators, plural, all three of whom correctly tagged it as "funny".
Free Martian Whores!
Christianity obligates the US into a suicide pact with Israel. Christian (j)ihad requires it.
There is nothing to be done about that, but at least most of the casualties are Superstitionist so not much of value is lost.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Amen Brother!
Thankfully articles like this one put those canards to rest where they should:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/23/terrorism.iraq
And bullying scientists into helping them achieve that goal and imprisoning the ones who refuse is also understandable? Fuck off.
Wait a moment here....There are articles?
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
doesn't mean he can't take a sheet of paper from a nuclear physicist saying "set energy output to X for period Y or until target reaches maximum temperature Z."
Just because he had used a carbon dioxide laser in his studies, does not make him an expert technician in the operation of all kinds of carbon lasers.
Furthermore, anyone off the street, with a little bit of training could probably due to the "set energy output to X for period Y" bit.
The article implied they wanted him to collaborate with them as a physicist, not some lowly laser technician that Iran would have an ample supply of.
"Isreali"
Sure sign the anonymous coward is a neo nazi lying shitwad racist: they can't even spell the name of that country correctly for fear "the jews" will see them talking about it.