Iranian Turmoil Continues
[Guest post by DRJ]
The protests in Iran continue with reports of 10 more deaths, while the New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran claims injured protesters have been arrested at hospitals after seeking medical treatment. According to the Campaign, the government has ordered doctors to report protest-related injuries.
The organization also reports prison communications have been cut off:
“In another development, the Campaign has learned that communications out of Tehran’s Evin prison have been cut off. Evin prison is where many of Iran’s long-term political prisoners and a number of intellectuals, opposition politicians, human rights activists and journalists detained over the past several days are incarcerated.
“Blocking contact with friends and family means that all in Evin are in a virtual state of incommunicado detention, a state that puts them at an intensified risk of torture,” Ghaemi said.”
In addition, the eldest daughter of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been arrested. Bloomberg News describes Rafsanjani as a “behind-the-scenes supporter of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.” The AP describes this as evidence of a rift among the Iranian clerics:
“State-run Press TV reported that Rafsanjani’s eldest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and four other unidentified family members were arrested late Saturday. On Sunday evening, it said the four others had been released but that Hashemi remained in detention.
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Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One of them, the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, has the power to monitor and remove the supreme leader, the country’s most powerful figure. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.The assembly has never publicly reprimanded the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Aytollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But the current crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader with protesters openly defying his orders to leave the streets.”
The article describes Rafsanjani as “deeply critical of Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign” and a leader who “has the potential to lead an internal challenge to Khamenei.”
— DRJ
Arresting the children of potential opposition leaders is part of the Robust Debate process.
Nothing we could want to condemn or stand against.
Techie (482700) — 6/21/2009 @ 11:32 amThis is either Bush’s fault, or a result of The One’s brilliant diplomacy, depending on the outcome.
JD (00531d) — 6/21/2009 @ 11:44 amThe answer is both:
AD - RtR/OS! (33c17b) — 6/21/2009 @ 11:55 amGW’s support for the Iranian people encouraged them to confront their evil task-masters; and yet,
the LiC’s Cairo speech re-enforced in the regime the determination that this Administration is a toothless-tiger,
and that any repression of democratic demands by the Iranian public would be unchallenged by The Great Satan.
Rafsanjani is not a good role model as he has made himself a millionaire through his political and religious activities since the 1979 revolution. His entire clan is deeply involved in corruption but so are most of the mullahs. Amir Tehari believes this will go on for weeks unless the Moussavi side caves in and this is unlikely.
Mike K (90939b) — 6/21/2009 @ 12:33 pmIt should be noted that women are coming to the forefront of this rebellion and taking extraordinary risks to break free of the theocratic oppression they face on a daily basis. I am so impressed and in awe of the courage. Group arrests began on Mother’s Day and they seem strengthened and emboldened with each passing day. Perhaps Rasfanjani’s daughter is seen as an unwanted and unneeded influence on the Iranian women at large.
To the iconography of revolution — the man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, young people ripping shards off the Berlin Wall — we can now add this: the red nail polish, black eyeliner and side-swept bangs of young Iranian women.
So conservative by American standards, yet revolutionary by Iranian ones: these women, who by law can do and say and expose and adorn almost nothing, are agitating for the most basic human rights in the smallest of ways. And it is these tiny acts of rebellion that the Iranian government, which has further constricted the rights of women since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, cannot abide.
Dana (8d88ef) — 6/21/2009 @ 12:49 pmNRO has a gut-wrenching posting of an Iranian opposition leader’s brief letters .
Go west my dear
Time unknown
“baba,…kojaee, kojaeey ke bebini dokhtare azizeto mikoshan..”(Daddy where are you? they are killing your dear little girl) was the sound circling in the sea of darkness. “Ely,…Ely,..Ely” Jaleh as whispering as she was spraying water on my face. We were in my car speeding away from the war zone, cars, busses, trash cans and motorbikes were on fire, stones were flying in the sky. Tear gas canisters were flying with a white trail behind them, gun shots were heard. I looked out of the car window and for the first time I had tears in my eyes. “maa gharar bood berim Azadi, pas kojaa mirim?” (we were supposed to go to Azadi, freedom, where are we going?) I muttered. “felan har jaaee begheir az injaa..” (for now anywhere but here) Hooman turned back his head towards me, dried blood on his right shoulder and with a glaze in his hazel eyes said again “for now, of course…”
Dana (8d88ef) — 6/21/2009 @ 1:18 pmDana, you are right. The story that moves me the most is from the early years of the Khomeini revolution. Two young girls were swimming in their parents’ pool, in their home behind high walls. Unfortunately, some young men who were devout followers of Khomeini, were able to see the girls in their swim suits from the top of a tall building nearby. I’ve often wondered how much effort it took for those boys to see the girls. Anyway, the girls were arrested for being a temptation to those young men even though they were in their own home and it took peeping tom skills for the men to see them. The girls were arrested and either flogged or executed. I can’t recall which.
It has always epitomized the Iranian revolution for me.
Mike K (90939b) — 6/21/2009 @ 3:02 pm