Sudanese engineering, American censorship
One of the world's largest scientific societies is under fire for barring
researchers from five 'rogue' nations - including one in Africa - from
publishing in its journals.
In a bid to comply with US law, last year The Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE) prevented scientists from Sudan, Iran, Cuba, Iraq
and Libya from receiving electronic versions of the journals (print
subscriptions are permitted) or from attending conferences unless they pay more
expensive non-member fees. Institute officials said they would violate U.S.
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions if they proceeded with a
conference in Iran, and said failure to comply with OFAC regulations could
trigger fines of up to $500,000 and up to 10 years in jail.
Months of protest letters from the world's engineering community have failed
to sway IEEE, which has declined to respond to questions. The society's
leadership is now under fire from numerous critics in academia and the science
community. It remains to be seen whether the Institute's rank-and-file members
support the policy.
Institute President Michael Adler argues that his association's actions are
prudent. "We must ... do what is necessary to protect the organization and
its volunteers," he writes in an open letter to members to appear in next
month's issue of IEEE Spectrum. IEEE publishes 30% of the world's literature on
computing, electronics, and electrical engineering and has 380,000 members in
150 nations.
But other scientific organizations do not discriminate against scientists
from these countries, leaving some observers to accuse IEEE of playing the
rogue. "The IEEE's treatment of its members living in Iran and other
embargoed countries has been a disgrace," says Ken Foster, a bioengineering
professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and a former
president of an IEEE chapter. "I see a shocking lack of transparency and
ethical timidity on the part of the IEEE."
All five nations are subject to American trade sanctions but with 1,700
member engineers, Iran has suffered the most. In a letter to members at the
University of Tehran, then-president Joel Snyder wrote that the Institute
"can no longer offer full membership privileges or support activities"
in Iran. Then, without notice, IEEE blocked Iranian members from accessing their
e-mail accounts through IEEE.org, according to Fredun Hojabri, president of
Sharif University of Technology Association, a nonprofit that
represents alumni, faculty, and students of Iran's premier engineering
university.
In September 2002--9 months after it imposed the restrictions-IEEE petitioned
the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, which set the embargo policy, to
confirm its stance "or at least issue us a license to permit these
activities as an exception," Adler says. IEEE had not received a reply.
The issue boils down to the interpretation of the term "service" in
the OFAC regulations. In an undated internal memo, Michael Lightner, IEEE's vice
president of publications, states: "OFAC's position is that publication and
formatting for publication is allowable but editing is not allowed. OFAC does
not precisely define 'editing' so it is possible to prohibit much of our peer
review and article preparation process."
Other scientific societies see things differently. A spokesperson for the
American Geophysical Union, which has a dozen members in Iran, says AGU does not
consider publishing to be a trade issue and "accepts paper submissions from
anywhere in the world." The American Society of Mechanical Engineers echoes
that view, as does word's largest scientific society, the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
IEEE's singular position is causing headaches for its leadership. Lightner
appears to have anticipated the furor. "Improperly understood or presented,
[the policy] could cause ... concern," he wrote in the memo. "We are
asking that distribution be limited to those with a direct need to know."
With the containment strategy having gone bust, it will be up to IEEE's
rank-and-file members to decide whether to support the policy itself.
Information sourced from www.scidev.net
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