April 28, 2007
Dear Members of the American
Chemical Society:
On behalf of the Iranian
academic community and the
Iranian American
Professional Associations we
are writing you to ask your
assistance in reversing the
unilateral decision of the
Board of ACS to terminate
the membership of chemists
living in select countries,
mainly in Iran, and mostly
university professors.
We
are Iranian
Americans adhering to moral
and ethical values. We would
like to offer our strong
support to our colleagues in
Iran who need our help, not
punishment motivated by
irrelevant and unjustified
intentions.
We believe that this
decision is ill-conceived
and misguided, without
justification, and is
gravely undermining the
integrity of ACS as a
prestigious scientific
organization that we have
collectively worked very
hard to achieve. In this
regard please note the
following:
1.
ACS decided to not renew
the membership of its
Iranian members starting
January 2007 without
disclosing it to the public.
ACS Members heard of this
decision only when it was
reported in the March 30,
2007, issue of the Science
Magazine (1).
2.
On April 9, ACS decided to
go public, and at the same
time file for an Exemption
License with the Office of
Foreign Asset Control (OFAC)
(2). In its News Release of
April 16, 2007, ACS actually
makes reinstatement of these
members conditional to the
approval of its application
by OFAC (3).
3.
We believe that termination
of Iranian membership was
against the ACS Bylaws (4)
that provides dismissal of
members only for:
Sec. 3- Article 4:
“A member may be dropped
from membership for
nonpayment of dues or for
conduct which in anywise
tends to injure the SOCIETY
or to affect adversely its
reputation or which is
contrary to or destructive
of its objects. No member
shall be dropped except
after opportunity to
be heard as provided in the
Bylaws. (1/1/63)”
None of the reasons stated
above apply to this mass
termination case, and due
process was most certainly
violated by this ACS
decision.
4.
ACS asserts that the
dismissal was according to
the advice of lawyers, both
in-house and external, and
intended to follow the rules
governing the Sanction Law
and Iran Trade Restrictions.
ACS further claims that this
decision was at the advice
of OFAC (5).
5.
Berman Amendment to the
Sanction Law excluded
Information Exchange from
this law, and OFAC actually
recognized this in its
November 3, 2003 ruling (6),
in which it makes a
statement in favor of
professional membership:
“The
prohibition in ITR § 560.204
on exports to Iran or the
Government of Iran does not
apply to the exportation to
any country of information
and informational materials.
ITR, § 560.210(c)………
The extension of membership
to and acceptance of annual
dues from Iran in connection
with receipt by Iran of the
U.S. Entity’s association
publications and information
would not be prohibited by
the ITR.”
6.
If ACS has a ruling by OFAC
that explicitly prohibits
the membership of Iranian
nationals in US professional
organizations, then it has
the duty to disclose such
document to its members.
Paradoxically, no other
professional organization
has terminated its Iranian
members.
7.
ACS Executive Director and
CEO, Ms. Madeleine Jacobs,
even in this week’s C&EN
(7), emphasizes that she was
made aware by the lawyers
that not dropping Iranian
members would result in
heavy fines of $500,000, up
to 20 years jail sentence
for key officers, and the
danger that ACS would lose
its tax-exempt status. This
advice that was also given
to IEEE in 2001 appears to
us more like ‘scare tactic’
and is unfounded.
OFAC does not prohibit
Information Exchange and
Membership of nationals from
Embargoed Countries in U. S.
Professional Organizations,
and to our knowledge it has
never prosecuted or
penalized any US
professional organization,
or its Board members, for
violating US Laws by having
Iranian members.
8.
After having Iranian members
for many years since passing
of the Sanction Law, if ACS
was still concerned about
legality of having Iranian
members, it could have
applied for Exemption and
exclude its Iranian members
if its application was
rejected by OFAC, and not
use the ‘Shoot first, ask
later!’ strategy. This sort
of action is not expected
from a scientific
Organization that believes
in its own Constitution and
the ‘Universality of
Science.’
Many US professional
organizations have not even
applied for Exemption
license with OFAC to have
Iranian members, because
they believe that Sanction
Law does not require them to
do so.
Since the disclosure of the
ACS decision many members of
ACS and concerned members of
other professional
organizations have written
to ACS and have expressed
their dismay about the
exclusion of Iranian
members.
Please contact the President
and Board members of ACS via
secretary@acs.org
and ask them to repeal this
unjust decision and
reinstate the Iranian
members.
With best regards,
Fredun Hojabri, Professor of
Chemistry & former Academic
Vice-President of Sharif
(Aryamehr) University of
Technology,
hojabri@aol.com
David Rahni, Professor of
Chemistry, Pace University
Adjunct Professor of
Dermatology, New York
Medical College
Former Chair of the ACS New
York,
Prof. Fazlollah Reza
President and Founder of
Iranian Academic Association
of North America
dr.freza@sympatico.ca
Fariba Aria, Ph. D. in
Chemistry
President, Sharif University
of Technology Association
(SUTA)
kimia@ix.netcom.com
Mohammad Behforouz,
Professor of Chemistry
President, Shiraz University
Association (SUA)
mbehforo@bsu.edu
Ali Banijamali, Ph. D. in
Chemistry
Chair, Iranian Chemists'
Association of the American
Chemical Society (ICA-ACS),
banijamali@yahoo.com
Ali Akbari,
Professor of Economics,
California Lutheran
University
President, Association of
Professors and Scholars of
Iranian Heritage (ASPIH)
akbari@clunet.edu
Hamid Javadi, Ph. D.,
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Iranian-American Physicists
(IrAP) Network Group
(c/o Hamid Javadi, IrAP
Network Group President)
hamidhjavadi@sbcglobal.net)
References:
1-
Science,
Vol. 315, 30 March 2007,
page 1777
2-
Chemical & Engineering
News, April 9, 2007, page 11
3-
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i17/8517news1.html
4-
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/resources/ACS/ACSContent/bulletin5/bylaws06.pdf
5-
Flint H. Lewis, ACS
Secretary and General
Counsel, Letter to Prof. D.
Rahni
6-
http://treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/iran/int_guide/ia121603pm.pdf
7-
Chemical & Engineering News,
April 23, page 9
