For Immediate Release
September 21, 2009
Contact: Kimmie Lipscomb, press@unitedagainstnucleariran.com
Phone: (212) 554-3296

UANI Calls on The Essex House to Refuse to Host President Ahmadinejad

New York, NY – United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) today called on The Essex House hotel to refuse to host President Ahmadinejad and offered the Essex House an opportunity to clarify its role as the host of a banquet for the Iranian delegation and as host for a speech by President Ahmadinejad on September 25, 2009 during his stay in New York for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

In a letter to Scott Dawson, General Manager of the Essex House, UANI President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace wrote “UANI calls on the Essex House to clarify and reconsider its decision to host the banquet and address and instead decline to provide such a venue for President Ahmadinejad.  By doing business with the Iranian government the Essex House is accepting blood money from a regime that brutally suppresses its own people and that is a danger to global security.  Given that other area venues including the New York Helmsley Hotel and Gotham Hall have rejected hosting President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian delegation, the Essex House’s provision of a forum for Ahmadinejad’s propaganda is even more egregious.”

To the extent that the Essex House persists in its plans to host President Ahmadinejad, UANI will call on members of the public to boycott Jumeirah properties.

Following UANI’s campaigns last week, The Helmsley Hotel and Gotham Hall have both cancelled events in which President Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak.

Click here to send a letter to The Essex House New York

Click here to learn how UANI has partnered with GE against doing business in Iran
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United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race. In short, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran is a danger to world peace.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

The Objectives of United Against a Nuclear Iran

1. Inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran’s role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad;
2. Heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran poses to the region and the world;
3. Mobilize public support, utilize media outreach, and persuade our elected leaders to voice a robust and united American opposition to a nuclear Iran;
4. Lay the groundwork for effective US policies in coordination with European and other allies;
5. Persuade the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people, and;
6. Promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures.