Iran: Another Year, another Spring

"Tehran Postcard: What Has Rouhani Changed In One Year?," by Claudio Gallo, Worldcrunch, 3 June 2014 (originally La Stampa, 27 May 2014) 

• "'The atmosphere here has gotten better,' says Nima. 'The morality police aren’t harassing us so much anymore, and the tourists have come back. But we’re from Isfahan, in the center of the country, and everything there is still closed.'"

The Sedition Incident Would Be A Good Name For A Band

Iran's Revolutionary Guard commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafar, appears to use the official term for the Green Revolution:

Greenery or Shrubbery: You Decide

• "Members of the reformist camp who have not crossed the red lines can naturally participate in political campaigns," he said. "However, Mr. Khatami's success in his activities depends on his stances. Mr. Khatami [former President Mohammad Khatami, elected to office twice with more than 70% of the popular vote] did not pass his test successfully during the sedition incident and he showed a lot of support for the sedition leaders." ("IRAN: Commander outlines Revolutionary Guard's muscular role in politics and economy," Babylon & Beyond, Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2011)

Gaming the System in Tehran

Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Even dictators, especially dictators,  need to remain popular (that is, they need a constituency). President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to have added his iffy performance in the last election, plus (+) the many protests since then, plus (+) street protests across the nearby Arab world (especially Syria?), plus (+) stalled economy, to equal (=) a need to change the system. This might not buy him new support (although Pres. Ahmadinejad is not an unintelligent political operative), but it certainly will bring him into conflict with the inheritors/watchdogs of the 1979 Revolution.

• Ahmadinejad also confronted the conservative majority in parliament by rejecting its demand for a new committee to oversee the parliamentary elections due this winter...
• This escalating confrontation between the president and the leader on the one hand, and the president and the parliament on the other is causing new cracks at the leadership level, effectively creating a three-tier system....
• The controversial Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is Ahmadinejad's chief of staff, his main adviser and confidant, leads the president's team. They are the most rightwing conservatives; yet, because they are nonclerical and younger looking they seem bold in challenging the clergy. Mashaei is demanding an "Iranian republic" rather than an "Islamic Republic" – apparently in an effort to attract the young who protested after the presidential elections of 2009. ("Ahmadinejad has fuelled Iran's power struggle," by Massoumeh Torfeh, guardian.co.uk, Saturday 21 May 2011)

Taking on both the leader and Parliament might be a bridge too far. Ali Larijani, who was just reelected as Speaker of the Majles (Parliament) for another year, appears to have had coups in mind when he commented on Iranian history a half-century back:

• In a speech he delivered at a conference on the history of the Majles, Larijani said that the parliament is not supposed to be controlled by the executive branch. Referring to the late Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Larijani said, "Mosaddegh's strategic mistake was that he dissolved the Majles. That laid the foundation for the [CIA-sponsored] coup [of 1953], and concentrated the power in the executive branch, which led to the Majles becoming powerless. Any country that commits such an error will either have a revolution or a coup. If the countries of the region had powerful legislative branches, they would not have experienced popular revolutions. Moreover, if the legal framework [to express] the popular demand is respected, there would never be a dictatorship. It is not an honor for the executive branch to declare that to develop the country it must control the Majles; this is the foundation for a dictatorship. But it is an honor when the legislative branch controls the executive branch."("Is Mashaei Next?," Frontline Press Roundup, May 26, 20110)

Women and Revolt: Happy International Women's Day

• [T]his year, women across the Middle East and North Africa are highlighting their role in the protest movements that have toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and appear on the verge of pushing through major changes in other places. Twitter and Facebook were filled with messages of support for the women of Egypt and Tunisia, as well as protesters in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran....
• A Million Woman March was planned for Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday, and activists in Beirut planned their own march against sexual harassment.
• In Iran, opposition leaders called on women to use the occasion of International Women's Day to take to the streets in protest of the ongoing crackdown against anti-government demonstrations. ("Middle East: Protest movements give new energy to International Women's Day," Babylon & Beyond, LA Times, March 8, 2011)

For Iran today, see "Live blog report of International Women’s Day events in Iran," by Saeed Valadbaygi, 8 March 2011(Posters from 25 Bahman)

Wolves and Leopards

"We're at the Crossroads and this is the Time of Decision / Too much Informers... / Wolves and Leopards are Trying to Kill the Sheep and the Shepherd."  Dennis Brown, 1978.
And in 2011?

• A "mukhbir," or informer, knocking on doors in Cairo, Egypt is the same as the "etelaati" in the neighborhoods of Tehran, Iran. The Supreme Leader and his supporters are the same as those in Saudi Arabia, who use Wahabi rhetoric to marginalize secular, religious and ethnic minorities. Like the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who uses force against protesters, the leaders of the IRI have no issue in exercising violence against peaceful dissenters, political prisoners, students or labor unions. Every day, hundreds of tortured prisoners of conscience rot in Evin Prison, similar to prisoners in the American-run Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay detention center. Just as the Israeli military oppresses Palestinian political prisoners, the IRI denies access to legal counsel and uses emotional blackmail, torture and murderous tactics on the opposition. We must recognize that the IRI is the essence of an oppressive, militant dictatorship, which sustains itself through its systemized spread of lies, violence and hatred. It debases the image of Islam and subverts the cause of global freedom struggles in Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. ("Build connections to oppose tyranny," letter to the editor, Daily Targum, Rutgers, by Farah Hussain, February 28, 2011) Farah Hussain is a Rutgers College senior majoring in Middle Eastern studies and comparative literature. [Quite an insightful letter.]

Army Remains Key in Revolts

And the organizational structure varies.  But in Iran, as in Libya, the old revolutionary elite distrusts the army, so there is a distinction between the armed forces and the security forces.  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controls the Basij militia and the intelligence operation.  But they are distinct from the military.  There seems to be mutual distrust on both sides.

• As I discussed in my articles about the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, it is crucial for the Green Movement to gain the support of the rank and file of the IRGC to the extent that they would be unwilling to open fire on peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. (PBS, Frontline, Tehran Bureau, "Fissures in the Revolutionary Guards' Officer Corps?," by Muhammad Sahimi, 01 Mar 2011) 

I wonder, however, if outside pressure will cause them to split or lump together in response?  The latest list of those considered for sanctions is mainly IRGC and Basij heads, but there, I believe, army officers as well.  (February 26, 2011, Laura Rozen, Politico, "European list IDs 80+ Iran militia, police for possible EU human rights sanctions")

Wanted in the West: Better Headline Writers

Anger?, Turmoil?, Unrest?  Framing devices are either old and tired or hard to come by.

"Arab and Middle East revolt - an interactive map"

• Middle East in Revolt (Time Special, with lead article "How Democracy Can Work in the Middle East," by Fareed Zakaria Thursday, Feb. 03, 2011)
• "Anger on the streets: unrest in Iran, Algeria, Yemen, Morocco and China" (Guardian Special, by Nora Fakim in Rabat, Giles Tremlett, Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Tania Branigan in Beijing and agencies, 20 February 2011) "Peaceful demonstrations staged in Morocco but violence breaks out elsewhere in the Middle East and Chinese police crackdown on planned unrest"
• "Arab and Middle East revolt - an interactive map" (Country-by-country guide to the spate of protests across the Middle East, Guardian, by Paddy Allen and Guardian research department, 23 February 2011)
• "Middle East in Turmoil" (interactive map, Washington Post, by Sam Sanders, Wilson Andrews, Feb. 28, 2011)
  

Sullivan's Travels:  Keeping Watch on the Arab (and perhaps Iranian?) 1848

• Wouldn't it be a fanastic development if the uprisings throughout the Arab world rekindled the spirit of June 2009? Khamenei is obviously concerned it might:
• 'Iran has arrested opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the opposition website Kaleme said on Monday. "Sources say that they have been arrested and transferred to Heshmatiyeh jail in Tehran," Mousavi's website Kaleme reported.' ("Tehran Begins To Panic?," The Daily Dish, 28 Feb 2011)
  

"Mubarak! Ben Ali! It's now the turn of Seyed Ali!"

Coverage of Iran in the context of the Arab World revolts to its West  (the newest deal, 19 February 2011, "After Tunisia, Egypt, and 25 Bahman, a Clear Shift in Iran's Political Landscape") and in the Arab world itself ("The awakening: As change sweeps through the Middle East, the world has many reasons to fear. But it also has one great hope," The Economist, Feb 17th 2011).  [Note Green bracelet of the Iranian movement on a de facto leader of the Egyptian movement.]

The Seditionists Would Be a Good Name for a Band

And MKO and the like has become for the Iranian regime the equivalent of Muslim Brotherhood in Mubarak Egypt: the go to explanation to tar any protest.

• Tehran is bracing for what are expected to be widespread anti-government protests, but before anyone took to the streets the semi-official Fars News Agency was already warning of violence.
• "The MKO [a banned anti-government group], in collaboration with seditionists, are planning to act according to a scenario in which pocket gatherings in different parts of the city...will carry out massive killings with their armed struggle to create bloodshed," the report said. ("Iran: Tehran braces for violence as state media warns of 'bloodshed,'" LA Times, Babylon & Beyond, February 20, 2011)

Meanwhile, Elsewhere

• Algeria
• Call for a popular march on February 19 in Algiers (El Watan, 13 Feb. 2011)
• (Babylon & Beyond, "Algeria: Clashes, arrests reported at banned anti-government demonstration," February 12, 2011)
• Iran
• TEHRAN - One of Iran's most prominent opposition leaders was placed under house arrest Thursday, with security agents posted at the entrance saying they would stay there until a possible anti-government protest had passed, the cleric's Web site reported.  "Only his wife is being allowed into the house," Sahamnews.org said. "This probably has to do with the protest scheduled for Monday, Feb. 14." ("Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi placed under house arrest," by Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, February 11, 2011)
• And, after 25 Bahman (14 February), protests continue: (16 February 2011, BBC, "Iran protests: Clashes at demonstrator's Tehran funeral")
• Libya
• Global Voices in English, "Libya: Protests Begin in Benghazi Ahead of February 17 Day of Wrath," by Amira Al Hussaini, 16 February 2011) 
• ("Violent protests break out in Libya: Clashes reported in eastern city of Benghazi as security forces and government supporters confront demonstrators," Al Jazeera, 16 Feb 2011)
  
• Bahrain (and all of the above)
• ("In Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, protesters take to streets," February 14, 2011, by Ramin Mostaghim and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times)
  
  
  • 
    A woman shows empty packages of tear gas said to have been used by riot police… (Hamad I Mohammed, Reuters)

Roll me over, Romeo

Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi have made a request to support the Egyptian protests. "With just under a week to go before the proposed demonstration, the call has provoked a large online response centering around the 25 Bahman Facebook page, a reference to the rally’s date in the Persian calendar"  ("Iran’s Opposition Seeks Rally to Back Egypt and Tunisia," by William Yong, New York Times, February 7, 2011)  It should be noted that the Iranian government changed more than Egypt's in the last few decades, I suppose.

Iran Film Director Jafar Panahi Sentenced to Prison, Artistic Ban

Amnesty International notes the following with a call for action and signatures

• Jafar Panahi, an internationally celebrated film director who won the coveted "Golden Lion" prize at the Venice Film Festival for his 2000 film "Dayareh" (Circle), has been sentenced to six years in prison plus a twenty-year ban on all his artistic activities—including film making, writing scripts, traveling abroad and speaking with media. Jafar Panahi was convicted of “propaganda against the state” for having exercised his right to peaceful freedom of expression through his film-making and political activism. He was specifically accused of making an anti-government film without permission and inciting opposition protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election. Mr. Panahi's artistic collaborator, Mohammad Rasoulof, was also sentenced to six years in prison. (see also, Offside Director Remains Imprisoned)

The Dangers of Reification (Verdinglichung) of Riot and Rebellion


Green Revolution, Jasmine Revolution, Twitter Revolution, Pink Revolution 1, and Pink Revolution 2:  some are, some aren't.  The revolution happens after the riots.  And it is difficult for journalists to know.  The danger is not just in our pronouncements.  It is also on the streets.

It Is Official (at least according to President Ahmadinejad): The Cape Verde Islands Are British!

The President's speech at Hamedan (where he may or may not have been attacked) included the following bit of historical geography news:

• Look at this country of England — a small island west of Africa. These people made weapons and ships; they attacked people; they subjugated India, whose area is 10 times the size of England, whose populations is tens of times larger! (August 4, 2010, "The Iranian President’s Geography Lesson," by Robert Mackey, The Lede)

(It would make for longer days in Winter in Lincolnshire.)

Rereading Tehran

Misreading Tehran is a fine series of articles by Iranian-Americans looking back over the past year of the so-called Green Revolution. (Foreign Policy, 7 June 2010).  As much as these are from outside Iran, they often still point to the importance of "granular details from Iran" to get a fuller story.  ("What the West Isn't Hearing About: To understand the big stories of the last year in Iran, we need better access to the little stories," by Azadeh Moaveni, July/August 2010)

 (picture from "A Year Later," the Daily Dish, 8 June 2010)

Notes of Evin Prison outside Tehran

• After the Iranian Presidential elections of 12 June 2009, and subsequent widespread political arrests, the visitation pattern of political prisoners’ families changed drastically from previous years. The number of political prisoners increased and therefore the number of families who were in search of their arrested loved ones also increased. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has conducted several interviews with the families of political prisoners regarding the details of their visits to Evin prison. (for a summary of their descriptions of Evin Prison, see "Evin Prison: Visiting political prisoners," 4 March 2010)
  

Offside Director Remains Imprisoned

• Internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, slated to serve as a jury member at the [63rd Cannes Film Festival] festival, couldn't attend because he was being held in Tehran’s Evin prison....

• In March 2010, plainclothes security officials raided Panahi’s Tehran home and arrested him along with his wife, daughter and 15 house guests. Though Iranian authorities shortly released the others, they held on to Panahi, accusing him of “making a film against the regime following the post-election events," according to the French daily Le Figaro.
• Despite this, the prosecutor's office in Tehran argues that Panahi’s imprisonment has no political motive.
• "The arrest of Jafar Panahi is not because he is an artist or for political reason[s]," prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the Iranian Students News Agency....
• Authorities had previously arrested Panahi, a supporter of the protest movement that emerged after last year's disputed presidential elections held in June, for participating in a memorial service for Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman killed in July 2009 allegedly at the hands of a pro-government militiaman. ("Iran: Cannes 2010: Imprisoned filmmaker Jafar Panahi is honored at film festival," Babylon & Beyond, May 13, 2010)

The director's arrest and imprisonment is so counterproductive for the current Iranian regime, as Panahi's "Offside" (2006) is a film which suggest the richness and vitality of modern Iranian culture.
(see "Jafar Panahi on Offside," Payvand's Iran News 7 March 2007)

Movement within the Regime?

• A leading conservative rival to Ahmadinejad, lawmaker Ali Mottahari, warned that Iran was not yet out of the clear.
• "We cannot claim the crisis is totally over until both sides make up for their mistakes," he said in an interview with Khabaronline (in Persian), the news website affiliated with parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani. "The differences of opinion between the government and [the opposition] might have been eased to some extent, but they still exist. Our statesmen should not imagine that people's massive presence in the Thursday rally reflects the approval of their performance...."
• Mottahari recently called on opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to stop calling for protests for a bit and let government insiders like him take care of Ahmadinejad and his ilk.
• In the interview he seemed to be auditioning to replace them, echoing their calls to restore civil liberties. "The government should respect social freedoms and stop its press bans," he said. "The government should also take action to secure the release of political prisoners and create a climate of friendship and affection."(LA Times. Babylon & Beyond, "IRAN: A day after 22 Bahman rally, a conservative Ahmadinejad rival opens fire," February 12, 2010)

(Note: Babylon & Beyond has a full post-mortem of the Iranian government's actions and those of the Green movement on 22 Bahman here.)

Iran: Prisoners Issue Statement in wake of 22 Bahman

• On February 11th, the regime once again showed its true face. It used all its power to prevent people from peacefully expressing their righteous demands in the streets.
• Not only did they fill every step of the streets with security and plainclothes forces, but they did not spare us, the prisoners, either. They took several prisoners such as Mansour Osanloo (the head of the bus driver union) and Arzhang Davoodi (long time political prisoner) to solitary confinement, and denied all prisoners every form of communication with the outside world, such as telephone calls and visitation. They even closed the gates of all sections, halls, and cells, thus depriving us from breaks in the open air....
• As the entire world witnessed, the regime blocked people’s way to freedom, and even to Azadi (Freedom) Square. We wish that the international and human rights organizations, and in particular, governments, would realize that lack of freedom is Iranian people’s essential problem with the regime. The solution to all the problems that foreign governments have with this regime lies in Iranian people’s freedom, and we hope that they would see the necessity of taking action and seriously supporting the Iranians. (Persian2English, "Gohardasht Prisoners Issue Statement," February 13, 2010)

Gohardasht prison in Karaj includes, among others,

• arrested Baha’is — Leva Khanjani, Babak Mobash-sher, Payam Fana’ian, Nika Hoveyda’i, Jinous Sobhani, Artin Ghazanfari, Farid Rohani, Ahmad Rohani, Ibrahim Shad-Mehr and Zavosh Shad-Mehr — who have been arrested on charges of participation in Ashura observances and organizing [Baha'i] gatherings, have not had any visits with their families....
• Some time ago, the Tehran Prosecutor-General [Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi] had talked about finding weapons and bullets in the homes of the arrested Baha’is. The Baha’i International Community has vehemently denied these accusations, and declared that the arrested Baha’is were innocent. ("Transfer of arrested Baha’is to Gohar-dasht prison in Karaj," January 26, 2010, Iran Press Watch)