The Latest from Iran (26 June): Absolute Security?

1745 GMT: More on the Khomeini Challenge. Earlier we noted growing concern within the Iranian establishment over the influence of "radicals" (1235 GMT).

Radio Zamaneh has more on that concern through the remarks of Seyed Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, as he spoke to families of victims of a 1981 bombing.

Khomeini said “extremism” must be abandoned and “extremists” must be "churned away" from the Islamic Republic.

Noting the growing economic problems in Iran, which has "disheartened" its people, Khomeini said Iranians want their officials to get over “personal vendettas” and “childish grudges” and instead try to resolve the country’s problems.

NEW Iran Document & Analysis: US Gov’t Statement on Sanctions, Nukes, & Human Rights
NEW Iran: Summary of the New US Sanctions
NEW Iran Interview: Ahmad Batebi “The Green Movement and Mousavi”
The Real Race for Iran: Human Rights v. Tehran’s Defenders (Shahryar)
The Latest from Iran (25 June): The Important Issues

1640 GMT: Another Execution? Six weeks after five Iranians were hung, concerns have escalated over Zainab Jalalian and Hossein Khezri, who are reportedly at risk of imminent execution.

The death sentence for Jalalian, convicted of mohareb ("war against God") because of her membership in the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), was upheld and sent to the enforcement section today. Zainab's plea to say goodbye to her family was met with, "shut up" by the sentencing judge, and she was condemned to death by hanging. As Zainab was not permitted legal representation,

Amnesty International has issued an Urgent Action Alert for Zainab Jalalian and Hossein Khezri, who are believed to be at risk of imminent execution. We have assembled a sample letter you can send to Iranian authorities regarding these two cases.

1230 GMT: Taking on the "Radicals"? After a week of clear escalation in conflict --- not between the "Greens" and the regime but within the establshment --- the Iranian political scene is filled with warnings of "radical" behaviour threatening the Islamic Republic.

Khabar Online features an analysis declaring that conservatives and principlists "will pay for" the actions of the radicals. radicals' move, historical review pointing at this radical current since the IR establishment

Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Vice Speaker of Parliament, http://www.aftabnews.ir/vdcjivevmuqeyhz.fsfu.html of the "threats of fundamentalism" while suggesting a faction of reformists may "reappear in a new form".

High-profile MP Ahmad Tavakoli has criticised attacks on political figures, saying that even those who have done wrong to the Iranian system should be treated with justice.

And Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, Seyed Hassan Khomeini, has declared that people want radicals to be banned and asked Iranians to listen to the warningsor marja (senior clerics) about moral decline, poverty, and inflation.

1220 GMT: Asking about Political Rights. Member of Parliament Kazem Delkhosh has raised a query: why do other parties need a permit for rallies when (Basij protesting in front of the Majlis gets receive meals, cookies, Sundis [juice drinks] and buses?

1215 GMT: All is Well (Nuclear Edition). The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, has emphasised that, despite recent conflicts and the UN sanctions resolution, Tehran will continue to work with monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

1210 GMT: More "Absolute Security". Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi has announced new commando deployments will soon take place.

1200 GMT: Video Turmoil. A couple of clips from this week apparently pointing to tensions in Iranian politics. The clash between prominent member of Parliament Ali Motahari and pro-Ahmadinejad legislators, culminating in Motahari's "shut up and sit down", has emerged.

Then there is this claimed video of a crowd in Rasht facing up to "morality police", breaking the back window of their vehicle. Persian2English asks further information, including the report, "A few minutes later, Special Guard forces entered the scene with batons and shot tear gas into the crowd."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxoHdkLTzDo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

1140 GMT: Critiquing Iran and the World. A group of Tehran University professors have issued a statement assessing Iran's foreign policy approach as an attempt to project power by creating divisions amongst others.

1130 GMT: We have posted two features out of Washington --- the sanctions provisions passed by the US Congress and soon to be signed by President Obama, and the statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton linking those sanctions to Iran's nuclear programme and human rights.

0650 GMT: All is Well (Gasoline Special). Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Ali-Reza Zeighami has declared that sanctions passed by the US Congress on Iran's energy sector will not put any pressure on the country: "Despite sanctions, Iran will be self-sufficient in gasoline production within two years and after that we can begin exporting gasoline."

Zeighami claimed that the completion of five projects at refineries will triple Iran's output.

0645 GMT: Culture Corner. It appears that Iran is not absolutely secure against the excesses of "Western" culture, however. Thomas Erdbrink, writing in The Washington Post, highlights the success of Rupert Murdoch's Farsi1 satellite television channel, with situation comedies and Latin American, Korean, and US soap operas dubbed into Persian.

We leave it to Iranian authorities to explain why --- unlike many other foreign channels which have been jammed --- Farsi1 has made it into Iranian homes.

0630 GMT: We emerge from the Iranian weekend with comments from human rights activist Ahmad Batebi on the dynamics of the Green Movement and the role of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Meanwhile, Iran's authorities continue to talk up the notion of "absolute security". Iran's police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, after his recent reflection on the post-election crisis (including admission of security mistakes and an implicit indication of electoral manipulation), is now giving assurances about the present.

Ahmadi-Moghaddam said Iran's aim is complete protection of borders by 2015, with more investment in the construction of roads and checkpoints. He also announced a plan to increase border patrol units with "state-of-the-art" equipment.

Comments

[Bahman_Azad]

Barry,

As I eluded to it, MEK prior to their disasterous decision to take up arms had a fairly large following among the Iranian youth especially the ones from middle class and upper middle class families. One could say that many of their supporters were quite similar to the current Green supporters.

You may already know this story but since I'm not sure here's a brief version....Having sacrificed so much in fighting Shah, IMO the MEK leaders really expected to be included in governing the new Iran. So as it is well documented elsewhere, in the early days after khomeini's return to Iran, they went to Qom to meet with khomeini and pledge their readiness to actively participate in building a new nation.

But khomeini never liked them both because he disagreed with armed struggle against shah and more importantly because of the whole history of some MEK leaders changing the organization's ideology from a leftist Islam to an outright Marxism.

Although the leftist Islamic branch took back the MEK name, khomeini and some other Islamic anti-shah leaders never trusted them again.

IMO that treatment by khomeini, set MEK on an unavoidable path to head-on collision with khomeini. So MEK used every subsequent opportunity to undermine khomeini (usually for good reason but regardless, ignoring khomeini's huge grassroots popularity among ordinary Iranians).

I can even go back farther to the actual founding of the MEK by several university students and point to their decision to take up arms against Shah as their original mistake that set their eventual destiny (i.e, instead of working to educate the public to rise up against Shah, they decided to use assassinations to trigger a revolution. As it turned out, assassinations had very little impact on the future of Iran).

So you asked: how was MEK before their disastrous decision to take up arms against the regime? IMO, they were a leftist group who realized that in Iran's Islamic society, an outright socialist group could not gain a major influence among Iranians and therefore wrapped its own leftist beliefs inside of an Islamic cover.

That's why I believe that MEK has always believed in "ends justify the means" and they do not shy away from even torturing and executing their own members in order to manage appearances and block any major PR embarrassments.

All MEK news releases, activities, and speeches still indicate that they have not changed.

The good news is that they finally figured out that the armed fight was not achieving anything (although I'm sure that internally they justified their tactical change as something like "the armed phase of the struggle achieved its goals and we must now transition to the 2nd phase, blah blah).

To my knowledge MEK has never admitted any mistake. In that regards, they remind me George Bush. Always confident and never allow facts to get in the way of a good story.

I don't believe that MEK even believes in democracy. I think their version of democracy is very similar to khomeini's: everyone is free until their freedom crosses path with what MEK believes is "right".

It is a sad story of a group of very brave, idealists who made huge errors in their analysis of their environment and have refused to admit mistakes.

That's one reason why I have so much respect for people like Montazeri who did not allow their own ego get in the way of analyzing their own actions and becoming better people for it.

Sorry about the lengthy reply but I believe these issues are too important to be treated lightly.

[Bahman_Azad]

Arshama,

If you go back to the sequence of comments you will note that I did NOT initiate the discussion on MEK. I was reacting to earlier comments.

The situation between MEK/Monarchists is quite difefrent from the reformists. There is no evidence to believe that MEK and Monarchists have any major support among the opposition in Iran. OTOH, one of the most frequently heard chants across all of the videos from the past year has been:
"Ya Hossein-Mir Hossein" showing me that the reformists do enjoy a large support among the opposition.

Of course the extent to which each group's actions aligns with the wishes of the Iranian people will determine their role in Iran's future. So if the reformists do not continue to earn the respect of substantial numbers of Iranian people, they will join MEK/Monarchists/Marxists, etc.

That's why I view the reaction of Iranian people as the true measure of whether anyone's position is helpful or harmful to our goal of improved lives for all Iranians.

[Bozorg]

The slogan "Ya Hossein Mir Hossein" does not necessarily signal support for reformism. Mousavi himself has acknowledged that people were forced to choose between bad and worse during the election. The Iranians I know use to that chant to express their support for Mousavi's defiance, not reform.

Anyone who continues to insist on reform through electoral politics after the utter failure of the Khatami era, and the events of the past year is either woefully naive, willfully ignorant or harbors partisan interests.

[Arshama]

Bahman Azad,

Concourse on Low has written an excellent reply to your comment.
Your problem is that you are unable to surpass the narrow intellectual boundaries, set out by this regime for 31 years.
My point aren't the monarchists or MEK, I want democracy for Iran. Unfortunately some reformists still insist on their failed experiences, because they fear to be 'naked' without their Khomeini mantra. Criticism? No chance!
Rethinking wrong paths? No chance!
All they want is business as usual, i.e. a continuation of violating human rights, a mockup parliament, and lack of competition in nearly every realm, be it business, science or administration -- as it happened during Khatami's era. People will not go to the streets to repeat this historical error, people want REAL freedom...

Arshama

[Baz]

Arshama

"I want democracy for Iran."

I have to admit that I wonder if this is at all possible. However I also wonder about it in relation to other places as well - Iraq, Afghanistan - but also even places like Russia and the old USSR Republics.

These places and their people have no real understanding of what Democracy is and have no real experience of it. They only have a theoretical understanding of it. There are "technical" aspects of Democracy that I am sure they do understand - eg it means "one man/one vote", "freedom to seek election", "respect for the counting process" , etc. But it also means much more- the most important being that in a true Democracy, there are winners and losers - and the losers MUST accept that they have lost. (Providing of course that everything has been done completely properly, which was not the case for the Iranian elections) In the places mentioned above, probably most of the elections held since their release from Dictatorship are suspect - and therefore there has often been a reluctance on the part of the losers to accept their loss. BUT - in countries which are largely defined by their religious differences, nationalistic difference, ethnic differences, etc - such as Iraq, Iran -- can the losers ever accept that they have lost????

I have heard Democracy described as a "Dictatorship of the majority". This means that if you are part of a minority, then you will always be part of the losing side of a Democratic contest. The reason that democracy works in western countries now is that, over time, we have largely lost those religious, ethnic differences that used to define us - and no one of us are really part of a "minority". In my own country, even though we all identify with different segments of the political spectrum (Left, right, central) , we understand that our "side" may lose this time around, but eventually the coin will flip to the other side eg US Republican /Democrat, UK Labor/Conservative, Australia Labor/Liberal. I don't see at all in Iraq, the political maturity needed amongst the population , for a Democracy to survive. Iraq is a prime example of that - -- I guess the jury is still out on that decision and only time will tell.

Barry

[Arshama]

Barry,

Iran ratified the first reasonably democratic constitution in the Middle East, back in 1906. It would also look somewhat different today, if the CIA hadn't decided to putsch democratically elected Mossadegh away in 1953.
Your assessment sounds rather pretentious, following the line of: we in the west are democrats and deserve it, don't mind the "niggers" of the rest of the world (pardon to all black readers).
Iran is certainly a multi-ethnic country, but totalitarian regimes stress the differences on purpose, according to "divide et impera". As it has stressed gender differences on purpose to gain the support of the male population, feeling itself superior to the female population. But as you have noticed yourself, presenting Majid Tavakoli in a chador (i.e. a dress signaling "inferiority") had the opposite effect, and hanging four Kurdish citizens was perceived as a brutal act against ALL Iranians, regardless of ethnicity, religion etc. The point you miss completely is that all of this happened after 31 years of religious dictatorship, i.e. total absence of a real democracy.
It's simply not true that Iranians don't deserve democracy, because they have none -- the opposite is true.
I agree with you that democracy needs practical experience, but denying it to others lacking such an experience reminds me of supporters of slavery.

We don't need a "benevolent dictatorship", we need freedom like every other human being on the world.

Arshama

[Baz]

Arshama

I apologise if I sounded "pretentious" - I certainly do not ascribe to the idea that we in the west somehow "deserve" it , while others do not. However, our Democracy has taken a long time to evolve to the level it is at today. Only about 160 years ago - not that much longer before your Iranian Democracy of 1906, the level of Democracy in my country was much lower than it is today. It was a Democracy only for some - not for women and not for my convict GGG-Grandfather. But is has evolved, grown and strengthened - even with a heredity Monarch. ( BTW - I much support our system of Constitutional Monarchy, against the recent attempts to change over to a Presidential Republic)

I agree that Iran deserves Democracy - I just can't see how it can go from where it is to where we all would like it to be overnight. I am keen to see how Iraq eventually turns out.

And there is no point in continually looking backwards to CIA interventions of over 50 years ago - before that the British Empire intervened in things , as did the Ottomans, the Austrians, Mongols, Romans, etc, etc.

[Bozorg]

Pretentious isn't the right word. Racist is more accurate.