Security forces arrested two Christian converts in Azarbaijan identified as Vahid Roufeh Gar and Reza Kohnamouyi. They were taken to an unknown location.
According to reports, security forces arrested these two men on July 15 after beating them. Their families still have no information about their whereabouts. (Human Rights Activists in Iran – Aug. 8, 2011)
By: Hossein Alizadeh, Former Iranian Diplomat
Translation by “Iran Briefing”:
Farsi Version
Hossein Alizadeh (46) former iran’s charge d’affairs in Helsinki, was a career diplomat in the Iranian Foreign Ministry for 22 years. In protest to Islamic Republic repressive treatment to its innocent people, he resigned form his career in September 2010 declaring his support for Iran’s Green Movement. He received a master’s degree in International Relations from the School of the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Alizadeh has published many books and articles before and after his defection. He speaks Persian, English and Arabic fluently.He has recently written an open letter to the UN Human Rights Rapporteur in iran evaluating the Islamic Republic’s refusal to allow the Rapporteur enter Iran’s territory as an evidence on horrible and wide spread violation of human rights in Iran.His contact information is: [email protected]
Introduction:
Iranian parliament, popularly known as Majlis, has recently given an overwhelming vote of confidence to Ahmadinejad’s nominees. There have been reports of changes in Ahmadinejad’s cabinet before. Some of his ministers left and resigned from their posts in the cabinet out of their own will, some were impeached by the parliament and some were sacked by Ahmadinejad himself. Those who resigned later sided with the opposition and opponents of Ahmadinejad’s government, those who were impeached by the parliament were regarded as unable to run the under-their-helm ministries’ affairs and those who were sacked by Ahmadinejad were deemed to have been lacking general and essential requirements for the position they were holding.
A cursory glance at the changes that have taken place in both Ahmadinejad’s government (resignation, impeachment and dismissal) makes one ask if Ahmadinejad is as thoughtful manager as required by the Iranian constitution. Does he possess real management abilities as emphasized by the Iranian constitution to run the country? Can such a government be called a competent one as it is defined by science of management? If not, what is the extent of the losses Iran has so far sustained due to his mismanagement?
This paper attempts to focus on the extent of instability at a ministerial level in both Ahmadinejad’s governments, and it does not go beyond that. Changes at the mid-managerial levels (banks, governor generals, government offices, etc.) and the extent of the losses that Iran has sustained need to be studied separately and more comprehensively .
The Science of Management and the Best Government since Constitutional Revolution
Ahmadinejad’s government was once lauded by the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, as being the best one Iran has ever seen since the 1905 constitutional revolution. Such a government must naturally possess competent, sustainable and exemplary management abilities. Are they really the best governments Iran has so far seen as claimed by Iran’s supreme leader? Such claims can be easily tested through the available statistics.
Management is defined as proficient and effective use of human and material resources and organizing such resources in a way which makes it possible to achieve predetermined goals.
Whatever the Islamic Republic’s goals, has Ahmadinejad left a successful record in using such resources? To answer the question, this study investigates the changes taken place at a ministerial level in Ahmadinejad’s ninth and tenth governments.
Oil Ministry with Four Ministers
The oil ministry as a body which covers more than 80% of Iran’s annual revenue is highly significant. A hasty scrutiny of what happened during this period reveals the extent of catastrophe in the oil ministry. At the beginning of the Ahmadinejad’s presidency, three of his nominees (Mahsouli, Ali Saeidlou and Mohsen Tahassoli) were not even qualified to be given vote of confidence by Iranian parliament.
It is interesting to know that it happened for the first time after the revolution that the parliament did not give vote of confidence to all the candidates introduced by the president (Ashari, Ali Ahmadi, Hashemi and Saeidlou who were respectively nominated for education, cooperation, social welfare and oil ministries failed to survive vote of confidence by the Iranian MPs). Due to the delay in introducing the oil minister, the oil ministry was left without the minister for six consecutive months, and many of the contracts were left void as a result. At the end ,Mohammad Kazemi Vaziri Hamaneh, caretaker of the oil ministry, who was known to be among the most capable managers in oil industry, was reluctantly introduced by Ahmadinejad to the parliament and was able to survive vote of confidence.
Ironically his rule over the oil ministry brought to an end in July 2007 after only one and half years, and he was sacked by Ahmadinejad due to his insistence on keeping the real identity of oil industry. Hamaneh was succeeded by Gholam Hossein Nozari who had promised to increase Iran’s crude oil production from 4.2 million barrels a day in 2007 to 4.5 million barrels a day in 2009. However, he not only didn’t succeed to meet his promise in 2009, but Iran’s oil production fell sharply while he was the oil minister.
In the tenth government, Nozari failed to complete his term and he was replaced by Masoud Mir Kazemi, surviving a vote of confidence by the Iranian MPs and becoming the third oil minister who took the helm of the oil ministry. Amazingly he was not able to stay in his post for more than two years and was replaced with a revolutionary guard member, brigadier general Rostam Ghasemi, who recently became Ahmadinejad’s fourth oil minister. Each of the mentioned ministers to date has been able to lead the oil ministry for two years on average, should no other change takes place in the remaining time of Ahmadinejad’ second term.
During Ahmadinejad’s six years of presidency, seven candidates have been introduced to the parliament where only four of them have been able to survive vote of confidence (Hamaneh, Nozari, Kazemi and Ghasemi). That is obvious to everyone that instability and uncertainty at a ministerial level of such a moneymaking ministry will be unmistakably followed by disorder and instability at lower levels which itself needs to be dealt with in another study.
Interestingly, only two out of the seven nominees were familiar with the oil industry, and the rest previously had nothing to do with oil and oil industry. More interesting is that three of the nominees were basically members of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) who were conspicuously favored by Ahmadinejad.
Changes in Other Ministries
Wave of changes sweeping Ahmadinejad’s government seemingly don’t come to a halt. The number of changes taking place during Ahmadinejad’s presidency well testifies to the instable management, or rather mismanagement, upon which destiny of 70 million Iranians is shaped.
Interior Ministry: Mostafa Pourmohammadi was sacked and succeeded by Ali Kordan in April 2008. The Iranian parliament impeached Kordan only six months after he was appointed as home minister on the ground that he was holding a purportedly fake PhD certificate from Oxford University. Interestingly Ahmadinejad didn’t take part in the impeachment process, calling it illegitimate and illegal. Sadegh Mahsouli was appointed as interior minister following Kordan’s impeachment by the parliament. Mahsouli was later succeeded by Najjar in the tenth government, marking another change in this ministry.
Education Ministry: In November 2007 Mahmoud Farshidi was sacked and replaced with Ali Ahmadi. Haji Babaei succeeded Ali Ahmadi in the tenth government.
Social Welfare Ministry: Parviz Kazemi was succeeded by Abdolreza Mesri, who was sacked by Ahmadinejad in the tenth government and succeeded by Sadegh Mahsouli.
Communication Ministry: Mohammad Soleimani (ninth government) was succeeded by Reza Taghipour in the tenth government.
Intelligence Ministry: Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei was sacked at the last days of the ninth government and was succeeded by Heidar Moslehi. Heidar Moslehi was forced to resign on April 17, 2011 but reinstated by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, shortly after. The incident disclosed the spiraling rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs: In the early days of 2008, Davoud Danesh Jafari resigned from his post and was succeeded by Shamseddin Hosseini who is running the ministry to date.
Foreign Ministry: Manouchehr Mottaki was sacked and succeeded by Ali Akbar Salehi in the tenth government. Leading the foreign ministry for five years and four months, Manouchehr Mottaki has the longest record of running a ministry in Ahmadinejad’s governments. Mottaki was fired on December 13, 2010 while he was on an official visit to Senegal and was informed by the president of Senegal of his dismissal. He was then unofficially and with no bodyguard sent by Senegal officials to the hotel where he was staying.
Commerce Ministry: Masoud Mir Kazemi was succeeded by Mehdi Ghazanfari in the tenth government.
Health Ministry: Kamran Bagheri Lankarani was succeeded by Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi in the tenth government. Dastjerdi is the first female minister after the revolution.
Ministry of Cooperatives: Mohammad Ardakani who was sacked in 1385 was succeeded by Mohammad Abbasi who is currently heading the ministry.
Agriculture Ministry: Mohammad Eskandari (ninth government) was succeeded by Sadegh Khalilian in the tenth government.
Justice Ministry: Gholam Hossein Elham succeeded Karimi Rad who lost his life in a car accident. Elham was replaced with Morteza Bakhtiari in the tenth government.
Ministry of Housing and Urbanization: Mohammad Saidi-Kia in the ninth government was succeeded by Ali Nik-Zad in the tenth government.
Ministry of Defense: Mohammad Mostafa Najjar was succeeded by Ahmad Vahidi in the tenth government.
Ministry of Road and Transportation: Mohammad Rahmati (in the ninth government) was succeeded by Hamid Behbahani (ninth and tenth government). Hamid Behbahani was then impeached by the Iranian parliament during January 2011. He didn’t take part in his impeachment session because, as Ahmad Tavakoli later revealed, Ahmadinejad had ordered him not to do so.
Ministry of Mines and Industry: Alireza Tahmasebi resigned from his post and was succeeded by Ali Akbar Mehrabian who is currently running the ministry’s affairs.
Ministry of Science, Research and Technology: Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi was succeeded by Kamran Daneshjoo in the tenth government.
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance: Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi, who was abruptly sacked by Ahmadinejad in the last days of the ninth government, was succeeded by Mohammad Hosseini in the tenth government. On July 26, 2005 the news over Harandi’s dismissal was published by the media. His dismissal came after he urged the president to obey the supreme leader’s order and not to appoint Esfandiar Rahim Mashaee as first vice president. Saffar Harandi was reinstated again by Ahmadinejad because his dismissal would require the entire government to get a vote of confidence by the parliament according to the Article 136 of the constitution. However Saffar Harandi reacted to his reappointment, saying he would no longer consider himself as minister of culture and Islamic guidance.
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Mohammad Jahromi was fired and succeeded by Abdolreza Sheikholeslami in the tenth government.
Ministry of Energy: Parviz Fattah was succeeded by Majid Namjoo in the tenth government.
First Vice President: Parviz Davoudi was sacked and succeeded by Esfandiar Rahim Mashaee whose appointment was met with firm opposition by the supreme leader. The supreme leader wrote a letter to Ahmadinejad asking him not to appoint Mashaee as first vice president. But the supreme leader’s call was ignored by Ahmadinejad till it was made known to the public. News over Ahmadinejad’s disobedience infuriated the cabinet ministers and ultimately led to the dismissal of Saffar Harandi and Mohsen Ejei who had harshly criticized Ahmadinejad for not complying with the supreme leader’s order. Mashaee was forced to resign under heavy pressure from the conservatives and was succeeded by Mohammad Reza Rahimi.
Statistical Investigation on Changes in Ahmadinejad’s Ninth and Tenth Governments
A: Number of Ministers in Each Ministry
Oil Ministry: 4 ministers
Interior Ministry: 4 ministers
Education Ministry: 3 ministers
Social Welfare Ministry: 3 ministers
Ministry of Information and Communication Technology: 2 ministers
Intelligence Ministry: 2 ministers
Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs: 2 ministers
Foreign Ministry: 2 ministers
Ministry of Commerce: 2 ministers
Health Ministry: 2 ministers
Ministry of Cooperatives: 2 ministers
Agriculture Ministry: 2 ministers
Justice Ministry: 2 ministers
Ministry of Housing and Urbanization: 2 ministers
Ministry of Defense: 2 ministers
Ministry of Road and Transportation: 2 ministers
Ministry of Mines and Industry: 2 ministers
Ministry of Science, Research and Technology: 2 ministers
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance: 2 ministers
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: 2 ministers
Ministry of Energy: 2 ministers
First Vice President: 3 vice presidents
B: the Number of changes (ministers and vice presidents) during 6 years of Ahmadinejad presidency is as below:
Sacked Ministers: 27
Resigned Ministers: 2 (Davoud Danesh Jafari, minister of finance and economic affairs, and Alireza Tahmasebi, minister of industry and mines)
Impeached Ministers: 2 (Ali Kordan and Hamid Behbahani)
NOTES:
During the 6 years of Ahmadinejad’s presidency, no ministry was left untouched, and the only one who has remained intact in both Ahmadinejad’s governments is Ahmadinejad himself. Although changing the cabinet ministers is a commonplace practice in every country, 31 changes at the ministerial level during 6 years indicate the extent of mismanagement.
Ironically 27 of the ministers were fired by Ahmadinejad himself, and in some cases, like the dismissal of Mottaki and Ejei, they became highly contentious.
A comparison between Ahmadineja’s cabinets and those of his predecessors will provide a better picture of what I have so far discussed,
Number of changes during 8 years of Khatami’s presidency: 14
Number of changes during 8 years of Rafsanjani’s presidency: 11
Number of changes in the governments of Mir Hossein Mousavi: 16
Conclusion
The only conclusion which can be drawn from what we have so far discussed is that the supreme leader’s claim in calling the Ahmadinejad’s governments the best ones Iran has ever seen since the constitutional revolution is a hollow one. How can a government with such contentious changes be called the best one since the constitutional revolution? The scale of corruption in Ahmadinejad’s government has even angered the parliament. Had it not been for the interference and unwavering support of the supreme leader, Iranian parliament would have impeached not only many of cabinet ministers but the president himself. Apart from statistics concerning the low economic growth rate, and increases in unemployment, likewise there must be all-out study on all aspects of Ahmadinejad’s governance, so that we may have a clearer picture of the losses Iran has sustained so far.
What we have discussed here doesn’t necessarily mean that nothing wrong had been happening before Ahmadinejad. But it is rather a call on the supreme leader of Iran to review his position and his claim in describing Ahmadinejad’s governments the best ones since constitutional revolution to date.
Iranian snipers have been deployed in Syria as part of an increasingly brutal crackdown on protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, according to a former member of the regime’s secret police.
The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, crossed the border into Turkey last week after being ordered to shoot to kill, bringing with him sickening details of increasingly desperate measures to end five months of demonstrations. He said he had beaten prisoners and fired on protesters in Damascus. At times during the past two months he was aware of Iranian troops – confirmed by senior officers – alongside his team in the Syrian capital.
“We knew they were from Iran because we were not allowed to speak to them and they were kept well away from us,” he told The Daily Telegraph in Yayladagi, the nearest town to the refugee camp where he now lives. “When we had operated with the Syrian army we would always mix with them and chat.” His account confirms other reports that Syria has turned to its closest ally for help in putting down the protests directed at the Assad family’s 41 years in power.
The ferocity of government operations has shocked international observers.
Tanks and snipers have been deployed to quell protests across the country during the holy month of Ramadan, even as the US and Arab states have called on Mr Assad to end the violence.
So far more than 1,700 people have reportedly been killed.
On Monday Syrian forces shelled residential districts in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia for a third straight day. At least 29 civilians, including a two-year-old girl have been killed, according to rights groups.
Spokesmen for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said a Palestinian refugee camp near the town had been shelled from the sea, emptying it of half its 10,000 residents. The organisation called on President Assad to stop the attack.
The bloodshed has forced thousands of people to cross the border from Syria into Turkey.
Among them last week was a 25-year-old officer with the Mukhabarat secret police, who described how officers were increasingly unhappy at being ordered to kill unarmed protesters.
“They were all feeling like me. They were all afraid like me but knew they would be killed if they left or if they refused orders,” he said.
Instead they tried to aim their shots in the air.
He also described bringing protesters – some as young as 13 – into police stations where they were beaten for the entertainment of senior officers.
The worst episode, he said, came in July when the secret police snatched nine women believed to be married to opposition leaders.
“The Mukhabarat stripped them and then made them walk through the streets,” he said. “It was just to make their husbands turn themselves in. Two days later they did.”
Now he faces an uncertain future. No one else in the refugee camp knows that he was once one of the men ordered to fire on protesters but he also knows that he faces death as a deserter if he were to return to Syria.
Iran and its close regional ally, the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah, are growing increasingly concerned at President Assad’s isolation and are doing all they can to bolster him as the Arab world starts to withdraw its support.
On Sunday, a senior religious figure, Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, issued a statement saying: “It is the duty of all Muslims to help stabilise Syria against the destructive plots of America and Israel.”
In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Sahandej Sholeh Sadi, wife of university professor, lawyer, and former Member of the Iranian Parliament Ghassem Sholeh Sadi talked about her husband’s new charges and his physical condition in prison. Expressing concern about her husband’s health conditions, Sahandej Sadi said that despite statements by the prison infirmary physician, Mr. Sadi has not yet been transferred outside the prison for examination. “My request is that they review the cases of the prisoners and if the Special UN Rapporteur comes to Iran, that he is able to visit with political prisoners and their families and ask about their requests and see about their conditions,” she told the Campaign.
“After five months, I was able to visit him in person last week. His entire body was covered in red spots and he was not feeling well at all. He said that he has developed shingles. Also, his left hand is almost completely paralyzed. He suffered a spinal injury in prison in 2002, and the paralysis in his left hand is a result of that problem. He needs to be seen by a neurologist, but despite the Evin Prison infirmary physician’s orders, he is not allowed to be sent outside for an examination,” said Sahandej Sholeh Sadi.
Ghassem Sholeh Sadi was arrested on 3 April at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport while returning from the city of Shiraz. He was previously arrested in 2002 for writing a critical letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, and served 36 days in detention. He is currently at Evin Prison, serving his 2.5-year prison term. According to his wife, Sholeh Sadi is serving time for two cases, one of which was the 1.5-year prison sentence from 2002 which was already overruled by then Head of the Judiciary, Hashemi Shahroudi, on the grounds that the sentence was neither legal nor based on Sharia. When he was sentenced to a year in prison and ten years’ ban on his legal profession in March, he was informed that he would be serving a total of 2.5 years in prison for both cases.
By Mahan Abedin
The continuing unrest in Syria presents Iran with multiple challenges straddling the strategic, political and ideological spheres. While officially Iran is committed to the survival of the Syrian regime, the perceived gravity of the situation has led an increasing number of former Iranian diplomats and academics to voice concern over the Islamic Republic’s failure to hedge its bets in Syria.
The fear – expressed in its most extreme form – is that the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad may lead to the collapse of the Iranian-Syrian strategic alliance, thus undermining the “resistance axis” in the region.
While these fears are exaggerated, nonetheless there is a widespread feeling in the country that the lack of nuance in Iran’s position – and specifically the absence of any contact with Syrian opposition groups – is not configured to protect Iran’s interests in what is by all accounts a highly significant political and strategic moment in the region.
Nevertheless, the Iranian government is confident that the Syrian regime can weather the storm, and that the situation is being deliberately exaggerated by Western media and intelligence services, who hope to extract strategic concessions from Assad further down the road.
Iran is also concerned by regional reactions to the crisis, especially by the pro-active Turkish position, which from an Iranian point of view is exploiting a putative humanitarian crisis to expand Turkish influence in the region. The real fear is not so much centered on Turkish influence (which is viewed as relatively benign) but that Turkey is working at the behest of Washington and key European states to re-align Syria away from Iran.
The strategic alliance
The Iranian-Syrian strategic alliance is the oldest, strongest and most resilient in the modern Middle East. Its origins date back to the early 1980s at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, when Syria was the only Arab state to openly side with the Islamic Republic. The alliance was cemented by the emergence of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, which Iran and Syria jointly sponsored, albeit for different reasons.
To the Iranians, Hezbollah represents foremost an ideological investment and a thorn in the eyes of Israel, whereas the Syrians look upon Hezbollah foremost as a reliable asset and leverage in the Lebanese political scene.
Most analysts describe the Iranian-Syrian alliance as one centered on strategic opportunity and needs, pointing towards Syria’s decades-old rivalry with Iraq and the two countries’ enthusiasm to exploit Lebanon’s perennially unstable politics for strategic gain against Israel.
This characterization is accurate but it fails to take stock of the less opportunistic – indeed less strategic – elements of the alliance. Ideology is one important component of the alliance. Iran may be an Islamic state and Syria an avowedly secular one committed to the ideals of Ba’athist pan-Arabism (which some in Iran perceive as politically distasteful), but the two countries are united by the Arab world’s and to a lesser extent Turkey’s distaste for Shi’ite Islam.
The dominant Alawite sect in Syria (who make up 12% of the population) – alongside the Alevis of Turkey (who comprise 20% of the population) – belong to a folk tradition of Shi’ism that is markedly different to the scholastic religion of the Twelver Shi’ites, who form the majority in Iraq and Iran.
Orthodox Sunnis on the whole regard Twelver Shi’ism as a legitimate (albeit eccentric) form of Islam, but they are universally adamant that the Alawites and Alevis, owing to their esoteric beliefs and their estrangement from the devotional aspects of the Islamic faith, fall well outside the religious boundaries of Islam. Many devout Twelver Shi’ites share this perception and regard the Alawites and the Alevis as essentially non-Muslim.
However, owing to political considerations the late Imam Musa Sadr (the Lebanese cleric who mobilized Lebanon’s downtrodden Shi’ite community in the 1970s) allegedly issued a fatwa, declaring the Alawites to be an intrinsic part of the diverse global Islamic family.
This political position was seized on with great enthusiasm by the rulers of the newly-founded Islamic Republic of Iran who were anxious to cultivate a reliable ideological ally in the face of region-wide Sunni Arab hostility. Consequently, there is a widespread perception in official Iranian circles that the Syrian regime is politically Shi’ite, even though in stark contrast to their Iranian counterparts, Syrian officials have no time for Islamic rituals and mannerisms.
All things considered, the alliance with Syria is a critical component of Iran’s regional foreign policy. It is partly through Syria that Iran has developed Hezbollah into a regional strategic force and brought the Islamic republic and its potent political culture right on Israel’s door steps. Moreover, less dramatically, Syria’s relative estrangement from the Arab world facilitates Iranian political and ideological penetration of the Arab street and helps to contain and offset hostile Saudi maneuvering.
An Islamic awakening?
It is precisely because of Syria’s critical importance to regional Iranian policy that in recent weeks more and more former Iranian officials and academics have begun to speak out against the lack of complexity and nuance in Iran’s policy vis-a-vis the perceived deteriorating situation inside Syria.
The site for the expression of this dissent is Iranian Diplomacy, an extremely well-networked and well-informed analytical website that is ostensibly run by foreign policy “experts”. In reality it is managed by a network of former and retiring diplomats and their friends in the universities who appear to be politically aligned to the reformist factions in the Islamic Republic. Although firmly anchored in the official Iranian world view, Iranian Diplomacy nonetheless offers serious and at times scathing criticism of official policy.
Regarding the disturbances in Syria, Iranian Diplomacy dissented from the official line early on by highlighting the use of excessive force by Syrian security forces and by drawing attention to some of the legitimate demands of the Syrian opposition. Writing for the website, Tehran University Professor Ali Bigdeli delivered a scathing critique of official policy by drawing a comparison to Turkey’s “smarter” approach towards the putative political crisis in Syria. According to Bigdeli, the unrest in Syria has emboldened Turkey to escalate its involvement in Arab affairs with a view to assuming leadership of the Arab world.
The putative political crisis in Syria has enabled academics like Bigdeli, who write from a nationalistic point of view, to question the very existence of the deep alliance between Iran and Syria. These academics draw attention to the Syrian regime’s Arab nationalist ideology, and by extension Syria’s strong support for Arab causes, including Arab countries’ territorial claims on Iran.
For example, Syria supports the United Arab Emirates’ territorial claims on the Iranian islands of Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunb in the Persian Gulf, an ideological position which sits uneasily next to Syria’s alliance with the Islamic Republic.
Writing for the same website, former Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Edrissi, alludes to Assad’s growing problems but discounts the likelihood of the Iranian-Syrian alliance collapsing, even in the event of regime change in Syria.
According to Edrissi, owing to Syria’s profound enmity with Israel, the former will have to rely on ”resistance” groups (and by extension Iran) in order to offset Israeli pressure. Edrissi also claims that Lebanese Hezbollah is revising its attitude towards the situation in Syria by requesting Assad to treat the issue of political reform more seriously.
Edrissi’s comments may be viewed as a reflection of the views of certain senior Iranian officials who want the Islamic Republic to publicly urge Assad to go down the route of political reform and reconciliation with his less vociferous opponents.
It is fair to say that a growing number of Iranian officials are concerned that Iran’s unequivocal support for Assad and the ruling clique in Damascus is tarnishing the Islamic Republic’s image in the Arab world. Indeed, Iran risks coming across as hypocritical and a practitioner of double standards (precisely the same charge that the Islamic Republic levels at its Western opponents) by praising the revolutionary movements in countries like Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, while adopting a markedly different view on Syria.
The Islamic Republic has characterized the region-wide protests that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and which have since convulsed much of the Middle East and North Africa as an “Islamic Awakening” but have pointedly omitted Syria from this putative region-wide Islamic revolutionary movement. It appears that there is a growing recognition in ruling circles in Tehran that this posture is unsustainable, particularly if internal and external pressure continues to mount against Assad.
But to what extent has Iran practically committed itself to the survival of the Syrian regime? According to the United States government, the Islamic Republic has provided material support to Syrian security and intelligence forces and actively aided the suppression of the protests in Syrian cities. But talking to Asia Times Online, Iranian intelligence sources flatly deny these allegations and dismiss them as part of Washington’s psychological warfare against the Islamic Republic.
Indeed, talking to Iranian officials it appears that there is deep unease about the methods employed by the Syrian security forces which have allegedly killed up to 2,000 people since protests and violence erupted in March. In private, Iranian officials draw a comparison to how professionally Iranian security forces responded to widespread rioting and disorder in the wake of the disputed presidential elections of June 2009.
They claim (with some justification) that the disorder was quelled with minimum loss of life.
Talking to Asia Times Online, Iranian intelligence sources deny that Iran has “exported” riot control or any other security-related expertise which could be used against the Syrian people. These sources refer to the profound differences in political culture and a lack of political will in Tehran to interfere directly in Syrian affairs. But Iranian intelligence sources admit that they have lent support to their Syrian counterparts in the field of psychological warfare and information management.
Talking exclusively to Asia Times Online, Iranian intelligence sources claim that they have provided “material” and “decisive” support to their Syrian counterparts on ways to defeat the intelligence-gathering and propaganda operations of Western intelligence services. They claim that Western intelligence, in particular American, French, British and German services, are co-ordinating extensive intelligence-gathering and psychological warfare operations against Syria, from the Lebanese capital Beirut.
A post-Ba’athist order?
Despite growing realization in Tehran that the country’s rhetorical posture towards the events in Syria is unsustainable, by the same token there is widespread confidence that Assad will weather this storm, albeit by emerging weaker in the long term.
The Iranians provide a multitude of reasons why Syria will survive, the most immediate of which are the resilience of the Syrian regime (and the ferocity of its security establishment) and the divided nature of the Syrian opposition, the majority of whom hail from a Sunni Islamist pedigree. But deep down Iranian officials believe that Assad will survive because owing to his foreign policy posture and his impeccable anti-Zionist credentials, his regime is somehow more ”connected” to the deepest aspirations of his people, indeed the people of the region as a whole.
This essentially ideological assessment complements Iran’s strategic reading of the so-called Arab Spring as an “Islamic Awakening”, and one whose long-term geopolitical consequences will strengthen Iran’s position at the expense of the United States and Israel.
But outside the confines of officialdom, while most independent Iranian experts and observers may share the general assessment that Assad will probably survive, they are beginning to worry aloud about the consequences should the Syrian regime either be overthrown or become emasculated by its increasingly emboldened enemies.
The cause for the greatest worry is a lack of complexity in Iran’s policy and the near total absence of any outreach to Syrian opposition groups. It is noteworthy that the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most hostile to Iran in the Arab world.
It is entirely conceivable that any diminution of Alawite political power in Syria (let alone the downfall of Assad and the ruling clique) will re-orient Syria towards the Sunni Arab political order at the expense of Iran. Under this scenario, even if the Iranian-Syrian alliance endures in one form or another, the Islamic Republic’s position on the eastern banks of the Mediterranean Sea will become increasingly vulnerable.
HRANA News Agency – After the Amnesty and Clemency Commission rejected Abdolreza Ghanbari’s plea for reprieve, his case has been referred to the Revolutionary Court’s Enforcement Unit tasked to carry out the verdict.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Abdolreza Ghanbari is a high school teacher in Varamin County and holds a PhD degree in Literature and Persian language.He was arrested on December 27, 2009 during Ashura protests and charged with participating in and videotaping the demonstrations and sending the videos to opposition groups.
After his arrest, Abdolreza Ghanbari was denied the right to legal counsel and was not informed of his basic rights. On January 30, 2010, after a month and few days following the events of Ashura protests, he was tried, found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death by Judge Salavati who presided over the Revolutionary Court, Branch 15.
According to legal proceedings, the death penalty verdict then had to be sent to the Supreme Court.Instead, the case was referred to the Provincial Appeals Court, Branch 36, where Judge Zargar presided over the trial and upheld the death sentence.
It has been over a year since Abdolreza Ghanbari’s wife sent a letter to the Amnesty and Clemency Commission to ask for reprieve. Since the clemency request for Abdolreza Ghanbari has been turned down, the death penalty verdict has been sent to the Revolutionary Court’s Enforcement Unit to be carried out.
In the last two weeks, particularly after the start of Ramadan, prison guards and members of IRGC have intensified their brutal attacks to the prisoners in Ward 6 of Gohardasht Prison in the city of Karaj, Democracy and Human Rights Activists in Iran, August 12.
The guards and IRGC members batter the prisoners while they attack their cells, take away their personal belongings such as food they have bought from the prison store, their telephone cards which they use in order to contact their families, their handicrafts which they produce and sell to earn a living, their floor coverings and curtains which they have bought with their own money from the prison store.
The guards also destroy some of the items they can’t take away. The attacks, ordered and supervised by Mohammad Mardani, the head of prison and his deputy, Khadem, and the prison’s security head and infamous torturer, Farajinejad, at times occur in the middle of night.
The above-mentioned individuals also smuggle narcotics into the prison and pass them on to prison mafias to sell to other prisoners. They have made astronomical revenues through selling drugs to prisoners.
On the other hand, the prisoners have been deprived of family visits for over a year.
Human Rights House of Iran – Nasrin Sotoudeh has announced to the prison officials that she will no longer attend visitations with her family in protest of their treatment last week when they were visiting her.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, lawyer and political prisoner announced to judicial authorities and the head of Evin prison, that in protest of her husband, sister and children’s treatment during their visit last week that resulted in their arrest for a few hours, from now on she will refrain from coming to visitations.
According to Kaleme website, Sotoudeh in a letter to the country’s Head of the Judiciary and the Head of the Prison Prosecutor’s office has announced that because last week the most frightful court in Iran illegally detained her family for several hours, holding her two young children hostage, she prefers to from now on not come to visitations, in order to prevent her children from being harmed.
She also said in her letter, “During the past year my family has been penalized too and an example is my husband’s files. Therefore in protest of my family’s desecration, their punishment, and our having to do visitations with security and intelligence officers present, resulting in my children’s harm and suffering, I will no longer go to visitations with them until my family’s honor is restored and the phones in the women’s ward are connected again, considering this is every prisoner’s legal right.”
On Sunday August 7, 2011, while Nasrin’s husband, sister, and children were at a cabin visit with her, prison officials used the excuse of demanding to inspect their notebook and illegally detained the entire family and held them for almost 5 hours.
This incident continued until 5pm that day, while Nasrn’s children Mehvareh and Nima observed the conflict between prison officials against their father and aunt. They were held the entire time hungry and tired in the meeting hall of the courthouse. This was the first time in the past 11months of her mother’s incarceration, that 11-year-old Mahvareh wasn’t able to refrain from shedding tears in her mother’s presence. Finally after obtaining a warrant and inspecting the family’s personal items, Nasrin’s family was released.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, human rights lawyer has spent almost one year now without being granted any furlough from prison. During this time she has only been allowed 20 minute weekly cabin visits while visiting her young children. In the past her husband Reza Khandan who has never engaged in political activities was arrested because of his inquiries into the status of his wife. He was detained for a night and released after paying bail. Nasrin Sotoudeh, lawyer and human rights activist has been sentenced to 11 years behind bars.
These arrests took place at the Ministry of Information located on Roodaki Road. Those arrested are Yeganeh Agahi, Miten Haghiri, Matin Janemian, Parisa Moghadas, and Sarvash Bayani.
According to the Human Rights House of Iran (RAHANA) these 5 activists had also been arrested earlier on August 4, 2011. At the time of that arrest they were engaged in social and health activities, showing the disadvantages of cigarettes using artistic creativity.
Plainclothes officers apprehended all 5 of them and took them away and subjected them to interrogations after holding them behind bars. They were later released on bail with a summons to show up at the Isfahan Intelligent Office on August 6, 2011.
After they went to that location per their summons, all 5 were arrested and transferred to the Baharestan Revolutionary Court. Their families have been told the reason for their arrest is “propaganda against the regime”. The officials added that the court session for these 5 activists would take place soon.
According to Kaleme website, attending doctors have disclosed that if Momeni would have been taken to a medical facility earlier, they could have halted the furthering of his ear wound and prevented Momeni from loosing his hearing. But now it is too late.
After many months, Abdollah Momeni’s wife has finally been able to see her husband. At first the security agents prevented his wife from getting anywhere near him in the hospital even to say hello to him.
A few months ago Abdollah Momeni wrote a letter to the regime leader describing a small part of the torture and ugly abuse inflicted on prisoners while being interrogated during their temporary detention. He spoke of his “severe torture to obtain false confessions during the show trials and the complete lack of judicial independence during his trial.”
11 months after writing his letter to the regime leader, Momeni who is sAccording to Kaleme website, attending doctors have disclosed that if Momeni would have been taken to a medical facility earlier, they could have halted the furthering of his ear wound and prevented Momeni from loosing his hearing. But now it is too late.
After many months, Abdollah Momeni’s wife has finally been able to see her husband. At first the security agents prevented his wife from getting anywhere near him in the hospital even to say hello to him.
A few months ago Abdollah Momeni wrote a letter to the regime leader describing a small part of the torture and ugly abuse inflicted on prisoners while being interrogated during their temporary detention. He spoke of his “severe torture to obtain false confessions during the show trials and the complete lack of judicial independence during his trial.”
11 months after writing his letter to the regime leader, Momeni who is spending his sentence behind bars in Ward 350 of Evin prison was summoned to the prison court with new charges filed against him.
After being published, Aabdollah Momeni’s letter was hailed by public opinion as one of the most important documents chronicling the mistreatment of political prisoners, particularly prisoners of the Green Movement, cognizant of the illegal behavior of the security and interrogating agents.
pending his sentence behind bars in Ward 350 of Evin prison was summoned to the prison court with new charges filed against him.
After being published, Aabdollah Momeni’s letter was hailed by public opinion as one of the most important documents chronicling the mistreatment of political prisoners, particularly prisoners of the Green Movement, cognizant of the illegal behavior of the security and interrogating agents.
