Paleonet: Should science as a whole be considered in embargo issues?

Mon May 6 13:57:04 UTC 2013

It is unfortunate, and hinders the dissemination of knowledge, when politics interferes with the publication of scientific reports. I note that Elsevier exists primarily for the purpose of making a profit, whereas AAAS exists primarily to disseminate knowledge. This may explain their two different responses to pressure imposed by the US government.

David C Kopaska-Merkel
Geological Survey of Alabama
Box 869999
Tuscaloosa AL 35486-6999
205-247-3695
www.gsa.state.al.us<http://www.gsa.state.al.us>
fax 205-349-2861

Geology ends when the Universe is reduced to protons and photons.
________________________________
From: paleonet-bounces at nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-bounces at nhm.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Mansoureh Ghobadipour
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 5:32 AM
To: paleonet at nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Paleonet: Should science as a whole be considered in embargo issues?

Today's Topics:

 Should science as a whole be considered in embargo issues?

Dear colleagues,
I believe that science in general (and natural science in particular) is in international domain and must not be a subject of censorship from the state; otherwise we are on the way to the 'Big Brother state' with 'Lysenko biology' and 'arian physics'. I guess that this action is against freedom of information and represents a genuine example of censorship. Most of the existing allegations against Iran are mostly a matter of believes, spin and manipulation by politicians and media, but often they have a little or no relation to actual facts and without doubts to the natural sciences. I am teaching my students for eight years about the Darwinian evolution by natural selection and the evolution of the Earth - Moon system freely and without intervention of the third party, unlike in some other places.

Personally, I would like to confess that there are indeed an increased number of paper rejections without consideration by the editors for the Iranian scientists. I have at least two such reports from my colleagues in the department. Sometime ago, I myself, together with some other Iranian and foreign colleagues, have received rejection without formal consideration of the paper under some strange reasons from the editor of another respected Elsevier Journal. Later it was published with minor changes in the Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. In all these cases there was no direct reference to OFAC Sanctions. It seems that similar ban is in place in Canada. Recently I have seen a report that Canadian Journal of Psychiatric Nursing Research refused to publish an article by an Iranian assistant professor despite the earlier acceptance of the article on non scientific reasons.

Mansoureh

--------------------------------------
Dr Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour
Geology Department,
Faculty of Sciences,
Golestan University,
Gorgan, Iran

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Today's Topics:

  1.  Should science as a whole be considered in embargo issues?
      (Bruno Granier)

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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 03 May 2013 10:19:11 +0200
From: Bruno Granier <bruno.granier at univ-brest.fr<mailto:bruno.granier at univ-brest.fr>>
Subject: Paleonet: Should science as a whole be considered in embargo
    issues?
To: paleonet at nhm.ac.uk<mailto:paleonet at nhm.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20130503095840.034d5d28 at mailhost.univ-brest.fr<mailto:5.0.2.1.2.20130503095840.034d5d28 at mailhost.univ-brest.fr>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed"

Hi,
I received a puzzling message (partly duplicated) below from a well-known
publishing house.
I am not an US but a French citizen (in France a call for embargo is not
legal) and I am worried about the implications.
US have an embargo on Cuba (but it probably does not apply to science as a
whole). Probably the same issue with North Korea!?... Other countries
probably do the same with Israel!?...

I can get the point when the topic is nuclear science, virology, ...
but why should this censorship apply to paleontology, stratigraphy, ... ?

US editors and reviewers can no longer handle submissions by authors
employed by the Government of Iran
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the
Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions. As a result
of OFAC sanctions we have been made aware that US editors, US Elsevier
staff and US reviewers are now unable to handle scientific manuscripts
where any of the authors are employed by the Government of Iran. This
includes the research departments of the various oil and gas companies
which are deemed to be entities of the Government of Iran.
(...)
When rejecting manuscripts which fall under this OFAC regulation please use
the new EES Decision Term "Reject - OFAC Sanctions" and the following text:
"As a result of OFAC sanctions all editorial staff who are US-based/US
nationals are unable to handle scientific manuscripts which are authored by
Iranian scientists, employed by the Government of Iran. Based on this OFAC
regulation we are unfortunately unable to handle your manuscript. We wish
you success with your submission to another Journal."

The full version of the text can be found at
http://mail.elsevier-alerts.com/go.asp?/bESJ001/mTR68G9F/uQX51PJB/xD82RH9F&utm_source=ESJ001&SIS_ID=&utm_term=20130430%20Iran%20OFAC%20Sanctions%20NON%20INC&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&bid=V9HZG9F:QX51PJB

Or may be there are too shy ... Why didn't they suggest to not cite papers
by Iranian authors who are/were "employed by the Government of Iran" etc. ?

Bruno Granier
Brest, France
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