IRAN: CIVIL SOCIETY FEELS CONSERVATIVES' WRATH
Omid Memarian*
BERKELEY, California - Nearly a year has gone by since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to office, and his establishment is continuing to suppress civil society, intimidate the press and arrest activists.
Since the government's security forces violently interrupted a peaceful protest in support of women's rights in Tehran on Jun. 12, dozens of women activists have been summoned to court -- some having been interrogated for more than a week.
Nooshin Ahmadi Khorasani and Parvin Ardalan are two prominent activists who have spent more than four hours a day answering questions. Their lawyer, Nasrin Sotoodeh, told IPS that the charge is "mobilising people for illegal protests", a violation of national security laws that can carry a lengthy prison sentence.
During this month's women's rights gathering, which attracted more than 5,000 people, security forces arrested the former reformist member of parliament and student activist Ali Akbar Mosavi Khoeiniha, among more than 60 others. Though most were released within a few days, Khoeiniha is still being detained at an undisclosed location.
Just two months ago, the Iranian intelligence service, which has close ties to the president, arrested Ramin Jahanbeglou, a prominent scholar, with no clear charges filed as of yet. At the same time, the National Security Council prohibited the press from criticising Iran's foreign policy in a bid to avoid further international isolation over its nuclear programme.
Mansour Ossanlu, the director of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, has been detained since December following the union's peaceful protest. Many student group members were also summoned to the Revolutionary Court in the past week to explain their political activities. Moreover, many women and human rights groups have been repeatedly intimated and asked to report all of their activities and meetings.
In fact, activists, students, journalists, and civil society organisations have felt mounting pressure following the fall of the reformist government, and later on, the domination of the city councils, parliament and the presidency by hardliner conservatives who follow Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking clerics.
A review of the past decade's events in Iran illustrates how weary and suspicious the conservatives have become of civil society. In their view, the development and expansion of civil society networks and discourse has been an attempt by the reformists to imitate the success of the conservatives in creating revolutionary organisations, such as Basij and Sepah.
They reason that since opposition groups do not have the military might necessary to overthrow the Islamic Republic directly, they will try to bring about its demise indirectly through influencing civil society and weakening the institutional structure of the country.
That is why after the consolidation of power by conservatives, which came about through undemocratic means and the elimination of reformist candidates in the seventh parliamentary elections of February 2004 and the presidential election of June 2005, civil society actors became concerned with the impact of political developments and their own future.
Their main concern is that the current government will negatively influence the direction of -- or put to halt to -- some of the reform era liberalisations, which had invigorated journalists, intellectuals, students, women and labour groups.
Now, only a year after President Ahmadinejad's election, it is becoming apparent that the hardliners who occupy positions in essentially non-democratic institutions such as the police, the judiciary and parallel security establishments are expanding the scope of their suppression and censorship. Most likely, their efforts will accelerate and toughen in the coming months.
The hardliners cite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of Eastern European regi (END)
