Iran Cracks Down on Dissidents
Despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claims that reformists are free to speak their mind in Iran, students who protested against his visit to their university this spring are being quietly arrested.
Reformists have been increasingly targeted during Ahmadinejad's regime. Within the President's circle, there is growing concern that reformists will exploit US-Iran tensions, using them as a catalyst for revolt.
Teachers, feminists, union leaders, journalists, students and Iranian-Americans are being targeted and increasingly arrested over the past six months. While most have been freed, they have often spent weeks or months behind bars with no outside contact and no recourse to the courts.
Iran's ruling party is slowly but steadily eating away at the rights of its citizens. Books are being censored, newspaper editors told what to write, university activities abolished. Seems like the "new" regime has turned into the "old," and that Ahmadinejad's promises of freedom are as hollow as those of his predecessors.
At least eight of Amir Kabir University's leading reformists have been arrested since May, according to their lawyers and activists inside and outside Iran. Hundred more have been rounded up and questioned. Read the full article here.
Reformists have been increasingly targeted during Ahmadinejad's regime. Within the President's circle, there is growing concern that reformists will exploit US-Iran tensions, using them as a catalyst for revolt.
Teachers, feminists, union leaders, journalists, students and Iranian-Americans are being targeted and increasingly arrested over the past six months. While most have been freed, they have often spent weeks or months behind bars with no outside contact and no recourse to the courts.
"The new government has increased pressures on the nation -- students, laborers, intellectuals," said Ebrahim Yazdi, foreign minister after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution and now leader of the banned but tolerated Freedom Movement of Iran. "When laborers stage protest rallies, the government, instead of talking to them, takes them to jail. Women are jailed just for collecting signatures in support of women's rights."
Iran's ruling party is slowly but steadily eating away at the rights of its citizens. Books are being censored, newspaper editors told what to write, university activities abolished. Seems like the "new" regime has turned into the "old," and that Ahmadinejad's promises of freedom are as hollow as those of his predecessors.
Labels: dissidents, Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, students
