Pundits In Iran Urge Regime To Listen To People, Shun Extremism
Four months into anti-regime unrest in Iran, politicians, sociologists and economists are still trying to make sense of what is going on and where Iran is headed.
Four months into anti-regime unrest in Iran, politicians, sociologists and economists are still trying to make sense of what is going on and where Iran is headed.
Iranian sociologist Taghi Azad Armaki told Etemad Online on December 18 that Iranians want the Islamic Republic to change its views and rhetoric. At the same time, the regime's official project is all about its survival.
Armaki added that regime insiders' exit strategy from the current crisis is merely eliminating all of its critics and those who protest against its performance. They call the critics "traitors" and label protesters as "rioters".
The political system is too old and outdated, the sociologist argued. It is clear that a new society has emerged which is pluralist, has many different demands and criticizes the outdated system. But the Islamic Republic wishes to change this new society and force it to become compatible with the old system. This is what has created the current political crisis.
Armaki believes that the new society does not accept this and naturally, the government's policy is likely to lead to an impasse. "The new generation of Iranians wants a civil society, civil rights, government accountability, as well as economic progress and welfare, but all government policies are only meant to ensure its survival.
Meanwhile, former Roads Minister Ahmad Khorram, a reformist figure, believes that the current crisis is the outcome of concentrating all political and economic powers in the hands of one political faction (hardliners). Khorram told Rouydad24 that concentration of power leads to misery and Iranians do not deserve all the problems they are facing.
Khorram added that even officials have said that the public's trust in the government has been declining. This, he said, plunges the society into despair and will lead to violence, which is certainly not a cure for the Iranian society's problems.
Based on some research, trust in the government has dropped from 98 percent to around 20 percent since the inception of the Islamic Republic, he said. This is mainly because the government is against civil society and civil institutions such as NGOs, political parties and so on.
In another development, the former chief of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh in an interview criticized the government for trying to solve its problems with protesters unilaterally, in an extremist way and by shedding blood. He added that some of the individuals who pour gasoline on the fire of protests are the members of the extremist group Hojjatiyeh. He reiterated that this group's policies can never solve the country's problems. They easily talk about execution and promote it as a remedy for Iran's current problems. He was probably referring to individuals such as hardliner lawmaker Mostafa Mirsalim who has said detained protesters should be executed within five to ten days.
Falahatpisheh said the members of the extremist group have crept into the government. The group has always been a hardliner proponent of compulsory hijab and confiscation of assets belonging to religious minorities such as the Baha’is since the 1970s. Falahatpisheh said that opposition to blue jeans is part of the group's teachings. He explained that after the 1979 revolution, the Islamic government has been trying to isolate this group but currently they have become powerful again.
Falahatpisheh added that this group has been taking the lead in nearly all the attacks on foreign embassies in Iran.
A current member of parliament’s national security and foreign policy, Jalil Rahimabadi has also criticized the government for not listening to the people. He reiterated that no political system will be weakened by accepting people's demands. Rahimabadi pointed out that some elements in the government wrongly believe that if they accept some of the demands of the protesters, this will lead to further unrest. "I think it is wrong to believe that listening to protesters means a retreat on the part of the government."
For over three decades Ekbatanis, as they like to call themselves, have hosted one of Tehran’s biggest Charshanbe Suri bonfirenight festivals in late March. The police and the Basij militia of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), who consider the festival a pagan tradition, always cracked down on the merry-making boys and girls, who often flauted the hijab rules too, playing loud music and dancing in the leafy spaces between the buildings.
These days it is slogans against the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the clerical regime that resound every night in the large spaces between the tall blocks instead of the sound of music and handmade firecrackers. They often light bonfires now and chant around it.
Every night Basij militiamen and officers of various intelligence and security forces in plainclothes often attack groups of around 100 chanting young people who march around the apartment blocks.
People chanting and government forces firing in Ekbatan on Dec. 20, 2020
Regime forces use tear gas, shoot pellets at protesters and the windows of the apartments from where people chant “Death to Khamenei” and “Down with the Dictator” every night, and make arrests both outside and inside the buildings.
A few weeks ago, they shot at people’s windows indiscriminately, rampaged the entrance lobbies in several blocks, broke the windows, and destroyed the lobby furniture and intercoms to give the residents a lesson.
The ever-present Basij have four bases within the five square kilometer complex which has 15,500 apartments and a population of around 45,000. The neighborhood is very popular with professionals, artists and other educated groups with a sense of community unmatched elsewhere in the city.
The residents of Ekbatan began chanting from their windows at nine pm Tuesday night, the second day of a three-day protest and strike action while Basijis, plainclothesmen, and vigilantes roamed between the 23 massive blocks and fired rounds into the air.
“Tonight, they arrested many, especially women. Then plainclothesmen began shouting obscenities and threats against people chanting from windows. We are now hiding in one of the neighbors’ apartments waiting for them to go,” the addmin of Shahrak-e Ekbatan Twitter and other social media accounts said in a direct message Tuesday night.
The youth of Ekbatan use Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram to regularly update each other with footage of the window chanting and protests, report clashes with Basij militia and arrests, and share detailed descriptions of plainclothes agents patroling to gather intelligence on protesters and residents who offer them shelter when they need to hide. When the internet is down, they drop fliers in houses or put them up on notice boards and under wind shields of cars.
Tuesday, Basiji’s shouting threats and firing their guns in Ekbatan
The admin wanted to be quoted by the name Aida, in honor of Dr Aida Rostami whose battered body was handed over to her family with broken arms and stitched eyelids to cover an emptied eye socket. This was less than twenty hours after she last contacted her family from Ekbtan where she was apparently arrested.
Wounded protesters often avoid going to hospitals for treatment for the fear of being reported to the security forces and ending up in prison. “Dr. Rostami was a member of a group of volunteers who treated injured protesters at their homes in various areas,” Aida said, adding that so far over 200 have been arrested in Ekbatan and around 50 are still in custody.
Last week, police and security forces took nine people accused of killing a young Basiji named Arman Aliverdi in Ekbatan from prison to the neighborhood to reconstruct the crime scene.
A video circulating on social media at the time showed Aliverdi bleeding from the face and head while a protester kicked him. He later died in hospital. Authorities claim protesters also stabbed him.
“The crime scene reconstruction happened last week but the judiciary said that the reconstruction had happened yesterday [Monday] to cast a shadow on this week’s protests and strikes,” Aida says.
Aida also says Aliverdi was not killed by the Ekbatani protesters who, she admits, stripped his top and beat him with their fists and kicked him. “But he was not stabbed by our guys,” she says. “Before him a few other Basijis who attacked us were also stripped and kicked to give them a lesson. They were sent back to their friends [without too many injuries]. We are not brutes, we never attempted to kill anyone,” she insists.
All 183 members of the Council from four major parties said they will sponsor 183 prisoners including those sentenced to death for their participation in the current wave of antigovernment protests in Iran, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
With their symbolic move, members from the ÖVP, SPÖ, Greens and NEOS want to draw international attention to the prisoners, as they explained at a press conference in Vienna on Tuesday. The right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria FPÖ did not take on sponsorships, therefore 31 MPs from the Federal Council – the upper house -- stepped in to come up with 183 members.
After the National Council unanimously condemned the execution of detained protesters, the four parties announced that they “have to give the application more weight" and take further steps, explained the foreign policy spokesman for the ÖVP Reinhold Lopatka.
Harald Troch from the SPÖ said that the action is primarily meant to stop the wave of executions. He praised the parliament for condemning the Iranian regime for the brutal crackdown on demonstrators but criticized the federal government for its lack of a policy on the activities of the Austrian embassy in Tehran. He also recalled the dual Austrian-Iranian citizen Kamran Ghaderi, who has been imprisoned in Iran for years, and called on the Foreign Ministry to work towards his prompt release.
"International attention means protection for prisoners, that's the most effective means," Green Club chairwoman Sigrid Maurer said in explaining the action. "The barbarism of the Iranian regime" is unacceptable, and the mandataries regularly demand information about the whereabouts of the detainees. Maurer himself has taken on the sponsorship of the journalist Niloofar Hamedi, who was arrested for reporting the death of Mahsa Amini.
Helmut Brandstätter from the NEOS is the godfather of the Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who faces death over trumped-up charges of "war against God" and "corruption on earth” because he reportedly asked people to participate in the protests. Both allegations can result in a death sentence. Brandstätter says, "There is only one chance to save his life, that's international pressure.”
Earlier in the month, several members of the German parliament (Bundestag) announced their political sponsorship of Iranian political prisoners, most of whom are in danger of imminent execution on bogus charges.
Ye-One Rhie, a member of the Bundestag who has undertaken political sponsorship of the imprisoned dissident rapper said in a series of tweets that she has written to the Iranian ambassador, the EU special representative for human rights, the council of Europe commissioner for human rights, and the high commissioner for human rights about Toomaj’s case and expressed her great concerns for his well-being.
The number of German MPs taking political sponsorship of Iranian protesters is growing. Carmen Wegge has declared herself the sponsor of Armita Abbasi, a young woman of 20, who was missing since her arrest on October 10 before being taken to a hospital in Karaj on October 18 by security forces with multiple injuries including internal bleeding and evidence of repeated rape.
Political sponsorship (politische patenshaften in German) is a way for parliamentarians to select a specific political detainee and use their political weight to campaign for the prisoner’s freedom. This is mainly done by addressing the ambassador and the relevant government and international institutions dealing with human rights.