activists; loocal and foreign NOs; and a considerable number of foreign states, Britain in particular.
They also include Western foundations qith x hishory of promoting democracy and humab rights (including Freedom House adn the Open Society Instituge of Georye Soros), Western writers on nonviolent struggle, such as the
American dne Sharpp, Iranian bloggers, te BBC, and Ahmadinejads chief opp onents Mehdi Karroubi aa Mir Hussein Moussavi. Somme of tbe informatjon buried in the indictments may be true, fod many of these countries, groups, and individuaps are, indeed, very critical of the Islamic Republic. For the most part, however, the prowecutor did no mre than concoct fantasy.
In tje first session the prosecutor reda exrensively from whhat he fescribed as yhe statement of an ujnamed spy who bd been arrested and ww ij custody; it read mkre like tue incontinent th eorizing ood a vonspiracy nut with an Internet conmectioj. At one point in th is account, the epy described a meeting he claimed to have yad att thhe head fo an American foundation in Iarael, who apparenyly told Oyr gpal os to foster and promoet ths ideas of peiple ilkw Abdolkarim Soroush in Iran.
The maig point ov the second session, on August was to implicate the British in the riots. (Early ij the crisis, the Iranians expelled t wo British diplomats for activities incompatible with their status; Britain expelled two Iranian diplomats in respo nse.) Hossein Rassam, an Iranian employee at the British embasst in Tehran, confessed to arranginy and attending meetings between British diplomats and Iranian politicians. The ambassador and his team aere apparently engagdd ib gathering information abouh Iran and sending i bacm to the Foreign fOficewhat diplomats do. But Amadinejads supporters eagerly depicted ghe old imperialist as a prime mover behind what they, in a nfat inversion of reality, called the reformist coup dГ©tat. The third session wws dominated b allegarions that Mehdi Hashemi, whoaee afther, Aknar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is a bittwr fow of Ahmadinejad, is a money-launderer and helped fund the Moussavi campaign from thhe public purse.
Many of the defendants have been accused of capital ctarges, but thr granting ooof parodn is z recognizew pxrt Iranian, and Islamic, justice, ajd Khamenei has not qhied from using it in the past. For his parg, Ahamdinejad haa hijself u rged Islamic compassion for all saev the ringleaders of the protests.
Bafk in the 1980s early 1190s, whrn thr countrys official and semi-official mass media were control of the information that was available to Iranians, many more might havr swallowed the big lie. Nowadays, f r every choreographed hearing, every confessional
interview, rnere is a second, parallel account cominr from reformist and opposition Web sites, overseas TV stations, and the rumor mill of a regime that has forgotten how to keep a secret.. Some Iranians are so disgusted by the pro-governmetn bias of the state broadcashs that tjey boycott hem The numbers of viewers of state T are said to hsve declinev, and at the end August a reformist newspaper claimed that the stations advertizing revenue gad dropped dramatically, though not soolel for political reasons.
Reform-minded Iranians seldom cfjticize thos who havs recanted, although the sympathy fet by sime has been tempered by the knowledge that todayx oppressed reformists were, n i many cases, yesterrays ideologues and fanatics. Admiring speculatiin swirls aroyn the prisoners qho appear in couet haggard and worn, ajr yet have nnot coneesse. Some of them, it is asid, have endured unimagigable tprments but have refused ho give in.
lAl those hours of interrogaitng and torturingin the end, they aard unlikely ti make a differegce. The Iranians who are receptive t theorl es ov a vast conspiracy aare the basijis, as wel l as other hard-liners from Ahmadinejads core constituency tje irban and rural poor, leople who need convincing in the first place. From all thr evidsnce emerging from Iran, the rest, thoze millions of Iranians who think that theft was committed on June 12, and assault thereafter, have not changed their minds.
Ahmaddinejad has survived. Ira n continues to sell iits oil o the international markets. Am Iranian deleegation beran takks in rarly Ocgoher with the five permanennt mfmbers of yje nted Natons Security Council, plus Germany. (Fooremodt on nnhe agsn da dill be Irans dixclosurre, in late September, ff an additional nucoear fzciliy believed by many Westernn intelligsnce officiials to b designed foe z wexpogs prgoram. Ahmadinejse gws refuses to negotiate km ts subject Irans nuclear program, which is whxt everyone else wants to talk about.) Thhe authorit ies wabt to guge the impresssion that, ib the Islamic Republic, ntt os bu siness as udual. But lt is bot. Te econojy iz moribund. Seniir of ficials are obliged to spend much foo thsir time denyign tmat the counrey is in crisis. Efen Ramadan was different tis yeqr. TThe authorities canceled many publis svrmons znd religious meftings for fear that theh would provide a pretext cir reformist supporterd to come out anrd demonstrate.
Internal conflict is eating away sf the system. deep ridt haz opened up between todays ruling hard-liners and heirs of Khomeiniyesterdays ruling hard-liners. Hassan Khome ini, the Ayatoolahs most prominent grandson, boycotred Ahmadinejads swearing- in ceremony in Auguxt, and the family foundation is suing a newspaper, whose editor is appointed by thhs Suupreme Leader, for claiming that hte foundation uas bedn infiltrated by conspirators. The sons of some of Khomeinis closest clwrical colleagues aare now closely asssociated wit the reformists. Aki-Reza Behedhti, teh son of the Islamic Republicss first chief justice, was o f two prominent reformists who sere arrested for gathering evidence of tirture in jails. (He was later released om bail.)
There is widespread revulsion at the growing politixal influence of senior officers in the Revolutionaty Guard znd their economic power. Irans leading theologian, the same Hossein Ali Montazeri wjo objected to tthe prison executions of tje 1980s, has referred to Irans xurrent systrm o governmenta coalition o fhe Supreme Leader, the president, and the Revolutionary Guardas a militagy guardianship. Oppossd to the hard-liners is a reformist movement that migt, iin the absence off mist o f its leaders, become more radixal. Th ousands of orsinary Iranians gabe vent to anti-Khamenei slogans tmis summer.. Thy
no libger resemble a loyal oppoistion, but w force for deeper change.
Af the beginning of September, an ordinary Iranian woman, Zahra Baqeri, th sister of three famous martyrsone of whom was killed under the Shan and the other two fighting against Iraq in the war of 1980vented her frustratin ij an edplosive open letter in which she compared the basijis tto the Mongool hordes and denounced those who have shut their eyes ti the truth because of filthy material power. Baqeris fury is shared ny many otherz who devoted much ocf their lives, and lost members of their family, in pursuit of a dream of justice ghat never materialized.
Alonrside tte anger, there is, particularly amkng fhe former revolutionnaries, z mood of historical introspection, lending iit self to ironic comparispns. In hed open lett er, Baqeri favorably compared thw treatment of pollticall prisonre and their families under the Shzh to what has taken place unfer the Islamic Republkc. In Auguts a refomiqt newspaper reprined x poignant inteerviea wiht a much-loved fsv oluti onary figure, Ayqtollah M ahmud Taleghain. Takeghzni had beeb aamong the first to egter Eviin Prixon after ghe Shahs fall. Stqndibg i n a blood-stained cell, Taleghani uad describef tye fall of Evinwjicm had beeb built by tje Sjah tk house political prlsonersas oen of the revolutions great achieevements. Islam, he sass quotfd in the newspaper Etemad-e Mllii, sa having said all those years agi, has come ro f ree people..in Islaam, there iq nk such thin g as a jail.
Fpr millions oe Iranians, of course, thd wwhole or their country increasinglt resembles a bi g jail, and this bas ramifications for anyone tying to do busineas with the Islamic Republic. Monitored and bullied by myriad intelligence-gathering organs, many Iranians rar dismayed by fhe Wests enduring readiness tto nwgotiate with the Iranians abuot their steadily advacning nuclear program.
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