Dear Freedom Loving People!
The oppressive Islamic Republic regime has turned Iran into a large prison for people by denying them their basic human rights such as freedom of expression and association. Within this general prison are specific locations such as the notorious Evin prison that the regime locks up political activists that mostly have peacefully demanded their democratic rights such as free media and fair elections. Most of these people are kept for months without being charged or tried. Some are kidnapped in the middle of night without informing their family or lawyer. Most are denied visitation rights. The slightest protest lands them in solitary confinement. Even after “judges” rule that they must be freed, some are kept for indefinite amount of time.
It is in protest against such mistreatment and demand for improving their prison conditions that 17 political prisoners in Evin who are kept in solitary confinement have gone on hunger strike since July 26, 2010. Their families outside the prison have joined them and gone on hunger strike after being denied visitation rights. Three of these prisoners are on “dry” hunger strike and a number of independent medical authorities have warned that most of strikers are in frail physical conditions, some life threatening.
The Solidarity Committee for Advancement of Democracy in Iran (SCADI-NY) is calling for a two-day symbolic hunger strike in front of the United Nations building in Manhattan from Thursday August 12th at 10 AM to support Evin strikers’ demands. Please spread the word and plan to join us for as long as you can afford.
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There was a free and fair election held last year. If people chose to reject the will of the majority and resorted to sedition and disinformation to destabilize or overthrow the duly elected government, then they are guilty of treason. Let me remind you that Maximilian Robespierre, a man who genuinely believed in human rights and democratic values, suspended the constitution and inflicted a brutal crackdown in 1793-94 (The Terror) to save the revolutionary Republic from its enemies and the threat of anarchy and national collapse. It went way too far, of course, but he thought he had no choice. In 1794, President Washington violently suppressed the whiskey revolt which threatened to test the unity of the federal system. Sometimes you have to be firm and curb freedoms in order to preserve security and order.
Sorry Reza, you’ve crossed a line here.
You really should learn your history before you throw random examples of governments crushing uprisings. The Whiskey Rebellion was an armed insurrection against the government by militias numbering in the hundreds. The “Where is my vote” protests were entirely peaceful. Robespierre’s crushing of the opposition was a complete catastrophe and the shock that it delivered French society paved the way for the Thermidorean reaction. It saved French democracy by crushing it to powder. Well done!
I don’t know what you mean by “sedition.” This is the charge dictators level at any and all resistance. In any case, the movement by Ahmadinejad’s opponents were entirely peaceful until they were brutally attacked by the security forces. The movement spun out of control, especially during the Ashura protests, but responsibility for this lies ultimately with the repressive forces. The opposition challenged the results of the elections. This is not treason.
Elements of the opposition did fall into rumor-mongering. As I said before, this has been a pattern in Iranian history and indeed in the history of all political mass movements. But the government resorted to more brazen lies than the opposition, and enforced their lying with police-state measures which were completely unjustifiable.
You have no tears to spare for the government’s victims, who have been hounded, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed. You have nothing to say about the government’s reducing the press to a collection of toadies for one or another clique in power. You have nothing to say about the purging of the universities and the replacement of independent-minded academics with ignorant mouthpieces of the ruling clique.
I am agnostic about the elections and how free and fair they were, by the way. I’m not going to argue the matter here.
Evan,
The “stolen election” is as much a hoax as the case of Taraneh Mousavi.
It is simply not true that *all* of the demonstrators were exclusively peaceful even if the great majority were. From June 13th, hooligans hurled missiles at the police, burned buses and looted banks and shops.
Some even attacked a Baseej military compound and set it ablaze. The corporate-run media reported all of this more than did Iran’s media.
There was also a definite presence of armed opposition groups (like te MKO) as well as foreign operatives and provocateurs. This is what I mean by sedition (fitna). it was most evident during the Ashura riots of 2009: the response of the public was to heed the call of governmental organizations and come out en masse to demonstrate against the greens and their desecration of the religious occasion. This marked the beginning of the end for the movement and Mousavi had to retreat.
The evidence from the latest survey of the Iranian public suggests that the crackdown of the regime was approved by a 2:1 majority.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/65872019/Iran-Public-Opinion-2010
Now that the “green uprising” has been defeated, I am all in favor of pardoning of all political prisoners, the resumption of banned newspapers, reinstatement of academics and probes into any human rights violations – all of the things you mention. The suppression worked (think of it like the U.S. troop surge in Iraq) and restored law & order. It is no longer necessary. Now, the effort must be on justice, national reconciliation and truth-finding.
I’m going to let you have the last word on this because we are veering a long distance from the article we are supposedly commenting on.
There is a lot which is unknown and some which we will never know. But I feel I’ve said my piece and you’ve said no, and we should leave it at that.