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May 2001, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
"Shari L. Rosenblum" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 7 May 2001 23:07:41 EDT
Content-Type:
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Susan Tavernetti reports:
>At the recent San Francisco International Film Festival (April 19-
>May 3), artistic director Peter Scarlet moderated a roundtable on
>Iranian cinema. The panel included the co-producer of MARAL
>who lives in Iran (but whose name escapes me), Behrouz
>Vossoughi (the "De Niro of Iranian cinema" now living in the
>U.S.) and Sussan Deyhim (composer, SHIRIN NESHAT
>UNVEILED),  among others. Scarlet was outraged by Jafar
>Panahi's detainment and fingerprinting in New York while en
>route from Hong Kong to the Buenos Aires and later to the San
>Francisco and Los Angeles Film Festivals. He emphasized a
>point not mentioned in Panahi's letter: The State Department has
>traditionally WAIVED such transit visas and fingerprinting for
>artists, including those entering the country from Iran.
[. . .  ] [excerpted portion commented upon herebelow]
>Therefore, Panahi
>found this newly instituted policy (Scarlet points his finger at the
>Bush administration) particularly humiliating and refused to be
>fingerprinted.

Perhaps some actual legal / historical facts would help here. 

First, according to the Federal Register, the requirement to fingerprint
and photograph non-immigrants bearing Iranian travel documents was
promulgated under President Clinton on or about September 5, 1996. 

Also according to the Federal Register, this policy was reiterated in
July 1998, still under President Clinton, at which point the Clinton
government consolidated previous requirements for nonimmigrants
carrying travel documents from Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan.

According to the July 1998 notice, the Attorney General, in consultation
with the Secretary of State, has the power to exempt certain nonimmigrants
from the regulation in the interest of foreign policy or national security.

Media sources, both American and Iranian, confirm several instances of
Iranian protest against the fingerprint/photography requirement ---
academics, fencing teams, wrestlers refusing to comply and being sent
back home --- occurring primarily between September 1996 and December
2000, solidly under the Clinton regime.

Not surprisingly, the outrage expressed on each of these occasions used
the very same verbiage used by Mr. Panahi in his ostensibly fresh outrage
this past month.

Now, to the next point. Transit visas, despite Mr. Scarlet's confusion, are
apparently an entirely different question.

Again according to the Federal Register, citizens of certain nations are not
eligible for transit without visa (TWOV) *under any circumstances.* 

Iran has been among these listed nations since 1982. Others, as noted on
the most recent list, effective February 5, 2001 (or April 6, 2001 pursuant
to extension) include Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Belarus,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burma, Burundi,  Central African Republic, 
People's Republic of China,  Congo (Brazzaville), Cuba, India, Iran,
Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Sierra
Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Sudan -- a group that proudly
encompasses members races White, Black, Latin, Asian, Arab, Indian
and other.

Ms. Tavernetti cites to Mr. Scarlet further:
>Panahi
>was not fingerprinted upon entering the US last September for
>the New York Film Festival, nor in March when he went to
>Washington, D.C., for a tribute in his honor.

To attend either event mentioned here, Mr. Panahi would not have needed
a transit visa -- i.e., as he was not transiting through the U.S. on his way
to someplace else.

Given the facts as stated by Mr. Scarlet, I suspect that both trips were
conducted under a different class of non-immigrant visa --- maybe even
an O-1, which, according to the State Department and other online sources,
is available under stringent regulation to (inter alia) foreign nationals who
have made extraordinary achievement in art and science, including in
the motion picture industry, and are coming to the United States to
perform temporary services relating to an event or events.

In any case, the fact that he was at such times treated in a way that
comports with his stated expectations seems to me to go a long
way toward confirming that the treatment he received at JFK this last
time was not a result of racist rejection of his national origin, which
he presumably had on all points of touchdown on U.S. soil, but rather a
result of his failure to comply with U.S. regulations for entry and his
refusal to comply with U.S. regulations upon arrival, two substantial acts
that distinguish this trip from the others.

Shari L. Rosenblum

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