UANI Responds to Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek's Ridiculous Remarks and Refusal to End Iran Business

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 21, 2012

Contact: Nathan Carleton, [email protected] 

Phone: (212) 554-3296  

UANI Responds to Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek's Ridiculous Remarks and Refusal to End Iran Business

UANI: "For Swatch to Argue that Selling Luxury Jewelry Serves Some Greater Purpose Other than Enriching the Company is Highly Sanctimonious, Disingenuous, and Nothing More than a Thinly Veiled Excuse for the Pursuit of Short-Term Profits"

New York, NY - On Tuesday, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) refuted Swatch CEO Nick Hayek's justification of Swatch and Omega's business in Iran. On August 17^th, Mr. Hayek sent UANI a letter implausibly defending Omega's business activities with the Iranian regime. UANI is calling on Omega and the Swatch Group to stop selling its luxury goods to Iranian regime elites.

Last week, UANI launched its Luxury Goods Campaign by calling on Omega, the "Official Timekeeper" of the 2012 Olympic Games, and its parent company Swatch to end their presence in Iran. Omega is active in the Iranian luxury goods market, with ten authorized retailers in Tehran that regularly service regime elites.

In response, Swatch CEO Nick Hayek sent UANI a sanctimonious defense of his company's business in Iran. "You seem to be totally misinformed about Swatch Group and its brands," Hayek wrote to UANI. "We, a Swiss company, are serving all customers in the world that love our products... This message has been well appreciated in many cases, especially by the American consumer as proved by the huge success of the Che Guevara Swatch watch."

Hayek went on to criticize the U.S. 1980 Olympics boycott, and portray Omega as a virtuous and valiant actor that "serve[s] all athletes" with no regard for profit.

UANI finds this response disingenuous, and is renewing its call for Omega and Swatch to pull out of Iran. In a letter to Hayek sent August 21, UANI CEO, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, wrote:

            ... Since its founding in 2008, UANI has yet to read a more blatant and cynical example of naked consumerism than the response of Swatch, one that is wrapped in the cloak of some bizarre, vague and disingenuous notion of false corporate egalitarianism. Let's be serious and clear: selling luxury jewelry timepieces to regime elites in Iran is hardly the equivalent of providing essential medical equipment or foodstuffs to the Iranian people. In Swatch's response, you state that your "customers are people - not regimes." In the case of luxury sales to Iran, however, this is a distinction without a difference. Those with the ability to purchase luxury jewelry items like Omega timepieces are, in fact, the elites of the regime; consequently, the idea that the Swatch does not care about "status" is both patently and demonstrably false.

            Consider a few facts on the ground in Iran. UANI appreciates, as Swatch notes in its correspondence, that the company does not discriminate on the basis of gender. Is Swatch aware that women are stoned to death in Iran by the regime elites who buy Swatch jewelry products? Swatch also notes in its correspondence that the company does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Does Swatch know that homosexuality in Iran is punishable by death, including public execution by hanging? In addition, Swatch notes in its correspondence that the company does not discriminate on the basis of political beliefs. Is Swatch aware that political dissent in Iran is punished with arbitrary imprisonment and torture at the hands of regime elites who buy Swatch jewelry products? Finally, Swatch notes in its correspondence that the company does not discriminate on the basis of religion. Is Swatch aware that religious minorities in Iran including Christians, Jews and Baha'i face discrimination, persecution and in some cases execution for adhering to their beliefs?

For as much as Swatch attempts to convey in its August 17 letter that it is motivated by humanitarian and egalitarian goals and that its lucrative business with regime elites is justified by some self-righteous corporate neutrality policy, it is apparent that the record of brutality of Swatch's regime elite and IRGC clientele and the status of oppressed dissidents and minorities in Iran has not penetrated the confines of Swatch's offices in Bern. Over the course of the year, the international community, including governments, businesses, human rights groups, and NGOs, have joined together to isolate regime elites in Iran. This growing international coalition has emerged in such force and strength not only because of the egregious human rights situation in Iran, but also in response to Iran's pursuit of an illegal nuclear weapons program, its sponsorship of terrorism worldwide, and most recently, its active support of the Assad regime in Syria in massacring its people-where Swatch embarrassingly maintains a number of stores, including in Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia.

A number of government officials in both the United States and the European Union have all concluded that this pressure has been instrumental in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table. Apparently, however, given the nature Swatch's response, the company is content to remain part of the problem and not the solution.

Swatch concludes its correspondence to UANI by stating that it has embarked

on a "quest to build bridges through sport" in its capacity as the official timekeeper of the Olympics. This sophistry may resonate in the context of the Olympics, but let us not delude ourselves: The only bridge Swatch is building in Iran is with regime elites who terrorize their own people, sponsor terror, and threaten to spark a nuclear arms race in the region. For Swatch to argue that selling luxury jewelry serves some greater purpose other than enriching the company is highly sanctimonious, disingenuous, and nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse for the pursuit of short-term profits - one that UANI imagines will not be lost on consumers.   

UANI last week launched a Luxury Goods database on its website, listing firms that supply the regime with high-end consumer products including extravagant automobiles and lavish jewelry at a time when the majority of Iranians languish under a mismanaged and floundering economy.

This month, Ambassador Wallace, appeared on the Fox News special "Persian Bling," and discussed the Iranian regime's taste for high-end goods, and its control of the luxury market.

"The IRGC and the Iranian elites have for many years purchased and sought the finest of western goods," Ambassador Wallace told Fox News. "And unfortunately over the years, because of petro dollars, the elites have had the ability to purchase these goods."

Click here to read UANI's full response letter to Omega and Swatch.

Click here to read UANI's August 10 letter to Omega and Swatch.

Click here to send a message to Omega.

Click here to watch Ambassador Wallace appear on the Fox News special "Persian Bling."

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