[Marxism] Iran crackdown

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Iran Curtails Freedom In Throwback to 1979
Repression Seen as Cultural Revolution

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 16, 2007; A10

Iran is in the midst of a sweeping crackdown that both Iranians and U.S. 
analysts compare to a cultural revolution in its attempt to steer the 
oil-rich theocracy back to the rigid strictures of the 1979 revolution.

The recent detentions of Iranian American dual nationals are only a 
small part of a campaign that includes arrests, interrogations, 
intimidation and harassment of thousands of Iranians as well as purges 
of academics and new censorship codes for the media. Hundreds of 
Iranians have been detained and interrogated, including a top Iranian 
official, according to Iranian and international human rights groups.

The move has quashed or forced underground many independent civil 
society groups, silenced protests over issues including women's rights 
and pay rates, quelled academic debate, and sparked society-wide fear 
about several aspects of daily life, the sources said.

Few feel safe, especially after the April arrest of Hossein Mousavian, a 
former top nuclear negotiator and ambassador to Germany, on charges of 
espionage and endangering national security.

The widespread purges and arrests are expected to have an impact on 
parliamentary elections next year and the presidential contest in 2009, 
either discouraging or preventing reformers from running against the 
current crop of hard-liners who dominate all branches of government, 
Iranian and U.S. analysts say. The elections are one of several motives 
behind the crackdowns, they add.

Public signs of discontent -- such as students booing President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad on a campus last December, teacher protests in March over 
low wages and workers demonstrating on May Day -- are also behind the 
detentions, according to Iranian sources.

"The current crackdown is a way to instill fear in the population in 
order to discourage them from future political agitation as the economic 
situation begins to deteriorate," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace. "You're going to think twice about 
taking to the streets to protest the hike in gasoline prices if you know 
the regime's paramilitary forces have been on a head-cracking spree the 
last few weeks."

Despite promises to use Iran's oil revenue to aid the poor, 
Ahmadinejad's economic policies have backfired, triggering 20 percent 
inflation over the past year, increased poverty and a 25 percent rise in 
the price of gas last month. More than 50 of the country's leading 
economists wrote an open letter to Ahmadinejad this week warning that he 
is ignoring basic economics and endangering the country's future.

Universities have been particularly hard hit by faculty purges and 
student detentions since late last year, according to Iranian analysts 
and international human rights groups. Professors still on campus have 
been warned by Iran's intelligence ministry about developing 
relationships with their foreign counterparts, who may try to recruit 
them as spies.

"Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stated his goal of purging Iranian society 
of secular thought. This is taking shape as a cultural revolution, 
particularly on university campuses, where persecution and prosecution 
of students and faculty are intensifying with each passing day," said 
Hadi Ghaemi, the Iran analyst for Human Rights Watch.

In recent weeks, the government has also tried to dissolve student 
unions and replace them with allies from the Basij -- a young, volunteer 
paramilitary body, human rights groups say. Between April 30 and June 6, 
eight student leaders involved in the elections at Amirkabir University 
-- where Ahmadinejad was reportedly jeered as students set his pictures 
on fire -- have been jailed in Evin Prison.

The campus purges have been mirrored in virtually all government-funded 
organizations, as hard-liners have been slotted into positions in the 
civil service, security apparatus, financial institutions and public 
services in the two years since Ahmadinejad took office, Iranian 
analysts said.

Leaders of groups defying the new strictures -- such as bus drivers 
trying to unionize, teachers protesting pay rates below the poverty line 
and women's activists trying to gather 1 million signatures to demand 
reform of Iran's family law -- have been arrested, human rights groups 
said. Others have been summoned for interrogations by the intelligence 
ministry.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council last month also laid out new 
censorship rules in a letter to news outlets, instructing them to 
refrain from writing about public security, oil price increases, new 
international economic sanctions, inflation, civil society movements, or 
negotiations with the United States on the future of Iraq, according to 
Iranian journalists.

"Censorship has got much worse recently," Nobel Peace Prize laureate and 
human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi told the BBC in Tehran this week. 
"Iran's government doesn't like . . . events inside the country to be 
reflected in the outside world."

One of the biggest crackdowns has been the campaign against "immoral 
behavior" launched this spring. Iran's police chief said in April that 
150,000 people had been detained, but few were referred for trial. The 
rest were asked to sign "letters of commitment" to honor public behavior 
and dress codes. An additional 17,000 were detained at Iranian airports 
in May, the airport security chief told Iranian news agencies.

The Bush administration's $75 million fund to promote democracy in Iran 
is the key reason for the recent arrest of several dual U.S.-Iranian 
citizens in Iran, including D.C. area scholar Haleh Esfandiari. Iranian 
analysts contend that the U.S. funds have also made civil society 
movements targets because of government suspicions that they are 
conspiring to foster a "velvet revolution" against the regime.

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism