Iran Unleashes Wave of Arrests of Dissidents, Analysts Say

In recent weeks, Iranian security officials have unleashed a wave of arrests across the country in an effort to neutralize the political opposition, silence critical voices and head off widespread protests when the nation marks the anniversary of the revolution on Thursday, Iran analysts inside and outside the country said.

Though the government has refrained from arresting the principal leaders of the opposition, the category of people it has pursued has grown broader over time. While a number of well-known reformists were detained shortly after the contested presidential election in June, the ranks of those imprisoned now include artists, photographers, children's rights advocates, women's rights activists, students and scores of journalists. Iran now has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world, with at least 65 in custody, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Reports have filtered out from across Iran of people being roused from their beds during midnight raids and disappearing into the penal system without an official word to family and friends, and of overcrowded jails and long stays in solitary confinement, according to human rights groups inside and outside Iran.

Though the government does not report the numbers of those arrested, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a group based in New York, calculated that in the past 2 months alone at least 1,000 people have been put in prison, many arrested under a blanket detention order issued in June that empowers the police to take anyone into custody for any reason.

"We don't believe their detention has to do with any specific acts they have committed but for the ideas and ways of thinking they represent," said Hadi Ghaemi, director of the human rights group. "By detaining them en masse, the government is spreading fear and intimidation, implementing a sort of a reign of terror, to dissuade potential protesters from coming out to the streets on Feb. 11."

Iran experts say the security sweeps reveal a concerted effort by the leadership to transform the country into a more efficient police state while extending its crackdown from those involved in the protest and reform movements to anyone calling for change.

Lately, the authorities seem to have singled out 2 groups in particular: journalists, including political and cultural reporters and editors, and women's rights activists, who have years of experience in organizing and maintaining a movement in the face of a hostile government.

Iran's leadership says it is determined to maintain control of the streets on the anniversary of the revolution, one of the most emotionally charged days in the Iranian calendar. In this smoldering political conflict, the leadership of the opposition and the government have both tried to lay claim to the revolution, with each accusing the other of straying from the path charted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iranian officials often rely on large crowds of people many of them paid by the state, the opposition charges to prove the regimes legitimacy, and on Thursday a day steeped in symbols and myths the streets are likely to be filled with those who support the state.

"Today, the most important responsibility of the people, especially the young and the influential, is their participation in defending the revolution and the Islamic system and trusting officials," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech late last month given in the northern province of Mazandaran.

The pace of arrests, which soared in the summer, picked up again at year's end after tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets around the country during the national observance of Ashura, a religious day of mourning observed by Shiite Muslims. At least 10 people were killed when government forces opened fire on unarmed protestors. But in scenes circulated around the world on the Internet, protesters were seen fighting back, chasing after government gunmen, blocking roads and burning government vehicles.

With those images clearly in mind, the government has moved aggressively to try to prevent a repeat. Experts say that the officials have reason to be nervous. Even without calls from the principal opposition leaders, enormous crowds filled the streets on Ashura. This time those leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have both issued calls to pour into the streets.

"There are signs of an exceedingly nervous security apparatus that is deeply concerned about the outcome," said Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University.

The government response has been to try to intimidate, Iran experts and opposition leaders said. That has included imposing the death penalty on 11 prisoners, and hanging 2. Another 5 death penalty cases are currently being prosecuted.

It also has included waves of arrests.

The most recent wave targeted journalists, not just those of the opposition but also reporters working for the semi-official news agencies Mehr and ISNA. The list of those arrested is a virtual "Who's Who" of Iranian journalism, among them: Akbar Montajabi, political editor of Etemad-e Melli newspaper; Ahmad Jalali-Farahani, the social affairs editor of Mehr; and Zeinab Kazemkhah, an arts and culture writer for ISNA. Other journalists, like Ahmad Zeydabadi and Masud Bastani, arrested shortly after the election, have been sentenced to long prison terms in secret court proceedings.

"The Islamic Government thinks that by such tactics it will stifle all true information, all real reporting and so will be able to flood the news with only what it wants," said Hossein Ziai, the director of Iranian Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles.

No opposition or rights group has escaped the crackdown, including the Mourning Mothers, an organization founded by women whose children were killed by government agents in the protests that broke out after the disputed presidential election in June. Every Saturday, members of the group and their supporters sit quietly near the fountains in Laleh Park in Tehran. And every Saturday, they are chased down by the police, piled into the back of police vans, and carted off to prison, according to eyewitnesses.

Last month, on one Saturday about 30 women were arrested in the park, including a woman in her 70s who suffered a broken leg when she was shoved into the van, human rights groups said. The women were held in prison for about a week before being released.

"It shows how frightened they are of their own people, when they cannot tolerate mothers who are holding a silent vigil and want accountability," said Mr. Ghaemi.

The Mourning Mothers present the government with a dual challenge. They are sympathetic figures because their children were killed; but they also are part of an organized and popular women's rights movement that has become a primary force in shaping and sustaining the political opposition. The failure of the government crackdown to silence the opposition sentiment is in part a reflection of lessons learned during the so-called "One Million Signatures Campaign for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws" which started 4 years ago.

The campaign employed a strategy that included decentralization of power which meant if a leader was arrested, the campaign continued as well as "consciousness raising" through face to face meetings and what the group's leaders called "street theater." Today, the political opposition's apparent weakness, its failure to coalescence into an organized movement, with a structure and a leader has also, as the women's movement demonstrated, turned out to make it virtually impossible to shut down. Even in the face of widespread arrests.

"I am not sure what will happen on Thursday," said Ali Ansari, of the University of St. Andrews. "Either way, it doesn't look good for the authorities."

Source: New York Times, Feb. 10, 2010