Iran tightens government control
The government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in the midst of one of the most intensive crackdowns on domestic dissent in the last two decades, targeting groups as diverse as banks and labor unions, students and civic organizations.
In the United States, attention has focused on the detention of four Iranian American dual nationals, three of whom have been charged by the government in Tehran with endangering Iran’s national security. But according to human rights activists and ordinary Iranians who described the events, the effect of the crackdown has been far more widespread at home.
The first extensive detentions came in April aimed at people wearing clothes deemed not to comply with Islamic strictures. Security forces swarmed streets in Tehran and grabbed people wearing skimpy head scarves, short overcoats or tight shirts. By the end of the month, about 150,000 had been stopped or detained, the chief of the national police said. Most were held only briefly.
Since then, the campaign has widened. Student and union leaders have been arrested, and scholars have been harassed for refusing to sign statements denouncing Israel, human rights groups say. Private banks have come under attack for their interest rates.
The government moves have been met with resistance in Tehran and other parts of the country. But government officials have taken a tough line. “Those who damage the system under any guise will be punished,” Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei declared in April, shortly after the campaign began. He accused women and student groups of attempting to overthrow the government under the guise of civil society movements.
The U.S. Congress appropriated $66.1 million this year to support Iranian opposition groups, and Bush administration officials have talked openly of seeking “regime change.” Iranian leaders say they believe the U.S. is trying to manipulate domestic groups to overthrow their rule the way Western-backed civil society organizations helped unseat the Ukrainian government in that country’s Orange Revolution 2 1/2 years ago. The U.S. government has refused to say which groups in Iran received its money.
Although the internal crackdown has been widespread, it has attracted relatively little attention outside Iran, in part because the government has also clamped down on the news media.
Iranian news outlets have been issued a three-page letter from the Supreme National Security Council listing forbidden topics. Barred subjects include the enforcement of Islamic restrictions on dress, the effect of United Nations sanctions on everyday life, international sanctions on Iranian banks and travel bans on Iranian nuclear and military officials. Also on the do-not-publish list are stories about tensions between Iran’s Shiites and Sunnis, ethnic clashes in the provinces, and strained relations between Iran and other Muslim countries worried about Tehran’s regional ambitions.
Western news organizations have also felt intimidated. The bureau chief of one in Tehran likened present-day Iran to the former Soviet Union, where foreign journalists writing about human rights abuses would have their visas revoked and local staffers were regularly summoned to interviews with intelligence officials.
“There are many things that I would like to write about, but can’t,” the journalist said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They would shut down our office and kick us out.”
latimes
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