Rooyesh

Rooz online conducted an exclusive interview with Iranian dissident and journalist Akbar Ganji as more and more students and activists find themselves behind bars. Below you can read the interview.

Rooz (R): Why does the government put so much pressure on students, women and labor activists?

Akbar Ganji (AG): The Islamic Republic is a regime that is seriously frightened by the prospect of society’s empowerment. An authoritarian regime can survive only when society is weak. The Islamic Republic knows well that an empowered society paves the way for democracy, while a weak society corresponds to authoritarianism and dictatorship. This is why the regime has focused its energy on sabotaging society’s empowerment.

R): What can be done in such circumstances?

(AG): A strange confusion has afflicted us all. We either try to acquire power through revolution and armed struggle, or we do nothing other than participating in elections. In either case we are “Leninists,” meaning that we summarize change in taking over power. In reality, however, the only right way of transitioning to democracy is through organizing society: to organize diverse desires and interests, as well as identities – all of these have to be organized to empower society. Democracy won’t come until society is empowered. This is why in today’s Iran any project that supports democracy must promote the organization of diverse social interests and desires. The people who have been arrested in Iran today are the voices of democracy and liberty in Iran. Unfortunately, not only do we not do anything for democracy and liberty in Iran, but we also fail to support those who do fight and ignore their sacrifices.

(R): You mean both inside and outside Iran?

(AG): These are two different discussions. The opposition outside Iran operates several good websites that disseminate information about what is really going on inside the country. Besides that, it has thus far failed to fulfill other missions that is expected from a genuine opposition. You don’t have an opposition just because you release statements. Group work requires structural organization. If opposition groups outside Iran are not able to publish a newspaper, if they are not able to manage a satellite television network, if they are not able to organize gatherings to protest the regime’s oppression, no one will take the idea of a hegemony and united opposition seriously. Millions of Iranians who reside outside the country can do a great deal to further the cause of democracy in Iran. We are all inexcusably passive. Anyone who stays silent in face of human rights violations has morally participated in those violations. Young students like Abdollah Momeni, who fight day and night for liberty and only get prison sentences in return, must make us wonder. No one asks what the millions of Iranians who live outside Iran and are rich and educated have done for their country’s transition to democracy. If someone tells them that with your efforts you have demonstrated that you are no more qualified than Ahmadinejad, has he lied? Must we be mad? We must not make legends out of people – especially out of a people who have only produced dictatorships in their long history. Any country’s political system fits the level of its people. If we claim that a Sultanist regime is not appropriate for us – which it is not – we must show that in action.

Iran has recently intensified its harassment of critics and people it deems threatening to the government. The current crackdown in Iran is harsher than it has been for many years. It seems to be a reaction to Iran’s internal problems and also outside pressure — including growing international pressure over Tehran’s nuclear program, economic sanctions, and a budget allocated by the United States to promote democracy in Iran — that has led to fear of a “velvet revolution” in the Islamic republic.

The crackdown is also seen as a result of the appointment of younger hard-liners and people with military backgrounds to key state positions. Targets of the crackdown range from intellectuals and women’s-rights activists to teachers and workers. Students have also been targeted through summonses to court, threats of expulsion, suspensions, detention by police, and even jailings. Iranian officials have said publicly that they suspect the student movement and women’s-rights activists of being part of an enemy conspiracy for a “soft subversion” of the government. On July 9, six members of the central committee of Iran’s largest reformist student group, the Office To Foster Unity, held a sit-in at the Polytechnical University in Tehran to mark the eighth anniversary of the large student demonstrations and also to protest the continued detention of a number of their colleagues from 1999. All six were detained by security forces and are now in prison. A few hours later about 10 other members of the Office To Foster Unity were detained during a raid at the group’s office in Tehran.

Iranian human-rights groups say all of the detained student activists are being held in the 209 section of Tehran’s Evin prison where political- and security-related prisoners are often held. On July 10, prominent union leader Mansur Osanlu was abducted in the capital. Iranian authorities at first did not comment on his whereabouts. But two days later officials from Evin prison told his wife that he was, in fact, being held there on unspecified charges. On July 16, Iran’s state television showed footage of two detained Iranian-American scholars. Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant with George Soros’s Open Society Institute, were shown in an promotion for a program that state television said would be broadcast in full on Wednesday (July 18, 2015 Prague time). Journalists and critics of Iran’s regime have in the past appeared on television and made “confessions.” Many of them have subsequently exposed the nature of the “confession” and said they were forced to incriminate themselves under duress. There is widespread belief that Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh have also faced pressure to appear on TV. The two scholars are facing security charges including acting against Iran’s national security. Another Iranian-American, peace activist Ali Shakeri, is also being detained on security-related charges. Parnaz Azima, a broadcaster for Radio Farda based in Prague, was charged with disseminating propaganda and is free on bail awaiting trial. She traveled to Tehran to visit her mother when her passport was seized by Iranian officials. She holds dual American and Iranian citizenship. Human Rights groups believe the measures are an attempt by Iran’s security authorities to sow fear into the wider community of journalists, writers, scholars, and critics.

Rights groups have long accused Iranian authorities of bringing politically motivated charges of “endangering national security” and “working with foreigners” against intellectuals and activists. In recent weeks, a number of international rights organizations have called on Iran to free the four detained Iranian-American nationals, students, and all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. Yet the Iranian establishment remains and the list of the victims of the state crackdown gets longer as time passes. It also includes cases against many individuals that do not get much media attention. The intensified crackdown comes at a time when President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s government is under intense criticism over what is being described as “economic mismanagement.” It also comes at a time when Iran’s Islamic establishment has toughened its stance on a number of issues, including women’s dress code. On July 15, a Tehran police chief was quoted in Iranian newspapers as saying that police this month will enforce — with renewed vigor — a drive against clothing deemed un-Islamic. Observers believe that the current crackdown and persecution of critics will only serve to isolate Tehran further. Some believe the campaign will fail. Ali Afshari, a former student leader who was jailed in Iran a number of times because of his activities, told RFE/RL recently that Iran’s repressive methods have actually led to the spreading of protests. He said women, students, and activists know they have to pay a price for their activism — yet they continue their fight.

Source: Radio Farda

The United States is ready to hold new direct talks with Iran on the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the State Department said Tuesday. The Bush administration accused Tehran of supporting Shiite insurgents there. “We think that given the situation in Iraq and given Iran’s continued behavior that is leading to further instability in Iraq, that it would be appropriate to have another face-to-face meeting to directly convey to the Iranian authorities that if they wish to see a more stable, secure, peaceful Iraq, which is what they have said they would like to see, that they need to change their behavior,” spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

“They need to stop supporting sectarian militias that are exacerbating sectarian tensions, they need to stop supporting EFP networks that pose a direct threat to our troops,” he said, referring to Explosively Formed Penetrators, devices crafted to penetrate armored vehicles that Washington claims are being sent to insurgents by Iran. “It is important to directly convey to the Iranian government the importance of their changing their behavior, not only for the safety of our troops, but also for the future of Iraq,” McCormack said. He said a date for the talks had yet to be arranged but suggested that discussions were under way on setting a time for the meeting, which would be the first between the two arch-foes since late May when U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, met Iranian officials in Baghdad. That May 28 meeting marked a break in a 27-year diplomatic freeze and was expected to have been followed within a month by a second encounter. But since then, bitterness has mounted as U.S. officials have stepped up allegations of Iranian involvement in the Iraq insurgency. Tensions have also risen over Tehran’s detention of four Iranian-American scholars and activists charged with endangering national security. The U.S. has demanded their release, saying the charges against them are false. At the same time, Iran has called for the release of five Iranians detained in Iraq, whom the United States has said are the operations chief and other members of Iran s elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Iran says the five are diplomats in Iraq with permission of the government. Until Tuesday the United States had resisted another round of talks despite entreaties from the Iraqi government and Iranian hints at their willingness to sit down. Earlier Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was willing to hold a second round of talks with the United States over stabilizing Iraq in the near future if Washington officially asks for one. “We look positively at holding a second round of talks. There exists a possibility to hold such talks in the near future,” Mottaki told a news conference in Tehran. However, he said the U.S. had not yet made such a request through official channels. That means through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran — which looks after U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations. McCormack declined to discuss specifics of how the arrangements were being made. The Iraqi government, which is backed by the U.S. but closely allied to Iran, has been trying to get the two sides together, hoping some cooperation will reduce violence in the wartorn country. Source: Associated Press

Monica Maggioni of Foreign policy writes Iran’s radical president is sinking fast, and he knows it. Now, there’s only one man who can keep Mahmoud Ahmadinejad out of the unemployment line: George W. Bush. In Tehran, the mood is quickly shifting. And it’s easy to feel it every time you stop to buy a newspaper, have a coffee, or wait in line at the grocery store. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s star is fading fast. Since his election in June 2005, Iranians have had conflicted feelings about their president.

At first, he evoked interest and curiosity. And there were great expectations from this humble man who was promising economic reform, an anticorruption campaign, and a rigid moral scheme for daily life. Then came fear—when Ahmadinejad began to destroy any chance of good relations with the outside world. But today in Iran, laughter is supplanting fear. Mocking the president has become a pastime not only for rebellious university students, but also members of the establishment and the government itself. Behind the high walls of Iranian palaces or in the quiet of Tehran’s parks, Iranian elites will indulge in a quick laugh about the president’s intelligence or his populist bombast. Jokes about his résumé are especially popular. Many refer to his “Ph.D. in traffic” or his letter last May to U.S. President George W. Bush, in which he proclaimed, “I am a teacher.” The jokes—and who is delivering them—tell the story of a man whose power is on the decline as Iran’s economy collapses around him. Prices for basic goods are skyrocketing, and the government is unable to cope with increasing poverty. Just last month, over 50 Iranian economists sent an open letter excoriating the president’s mismanagement of the economy. For each public gathering, his loyalists must now arrange hundreds of buses from the remotest and poorest regions of the country. The president’s rented crowds shuffle off the buses for an hour or two and then enjoy Tehran sightseeing, lunch, and dinner paid for by Ahmadinejad’s inner circle in the administration. Perhaps the best evidence of the president’s decline, though, is the single-digit support obtained by his party in last December’s administrative elections. A personal defeat for Ahmadinejad, the loss reduced his base of support to an elite minority inside the powerful, hard-line Revolutionary Guards, also known as the Pasdaran. It’s this same minority that struggles against any attempt to open Iran’s economy and political system; with their extensive oil holdings, they are unperturbed by the country’s isolation or its economic woes. But even inside the Pasdaran, one can find distinct viewpoints and conflicting interests, which is why Ahmadinejad’s political stronghold is far from secure. In fact, there are already signs that his job is in jeopardy. Tehran is rife with speculation that Ali Larijani, who is now widely seen as positioning himself for the post-Ahmadinejad era, and Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, who competed against Ahmadinejad in 2005 and is still popular with members of both conservative and reformist camps, are already working to undermine the president. The next presidential elections are scheduled for June 2009. As a pragmatic conservative and one of Iran’s most prominent politicians, Larijani in particular is likely to do well. To be sure, he is no reformist along the lines of Ahmadinejad’s charismatic predecessor, Mohammed Khatami; in fact, Larijani was happy to see the reformists swept from the political scene following Ahmadinejad’s election. And as his tenacity as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator shows, he would be no shrinking violet on the international stage. At the same time, however, Larijani fairly drips with disdain for his boss, a president he sees as devoid of skill or rational stratagem in dealing with the rest of the world. But it’s likely that Ahmadinejad’s power will decrease dramatically even before 2009. The elections for Iran’s parliament in March 2008 could represent a turning point if the majority inside the parliament shifts against him. Ahmadinejad still has a strong supporter in Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the 12-member Guardian Council that holds the political reins in Iran. The Council must clear all candidates for the presidency and parliament. But the Council itself is not monolithic, and it will be impossible to keep all the reformists and pragmatist conservatives out of the electoral race. But even if Ahmadinejad makes it through next spring, many analysts in the country are ready to bet that he won’t be reelected in 2009; the opposition is just too strong, and the economy will likely be in worse straits by that time. In fact, the only thing that could save him now is the United States. Nobody knows this better than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As his support within Iran has evaporated, he has cranked up the anti-American rhetoric, and the U.S. military has publicly accused the Pasdaran of arming insurgents in Iraq and even Afghanistan. At this point, the only way Ahmadinejad can revive his flagging fortunes is by uniting his country against an external threat. U.S. officials adamantly maintain that Washington is committed to using diplomacy to resolve the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program and its aggressive role in the region. Yet pressure is mounting in some branches of the Bush administration to take military action against Iran. That pressure should be resisted. For military action would give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exactly what he wants most: job security. Monica Maggioni is a Middle East special correspondent for Italy’s RAI TV.