Iran executions quash protests, push dissent underground
Protesters sentenced to death for allegedly killing members of security forces during protests after Mahsa Amini's death, in Isfahan
Tue, January 10, 2023
By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran's hanging of protesters -- and display of their lifeless bodies suspended from cranes -- seems to have instilled enough fear to keep people off the streets after months of anti-government unrest.
The success of the crackdown on the worst political turmoil in years is likely to reinforce a view among Iran's hardline rulers that suppression of dissent is the way to keep power.
The achievement may prove shortlived, however, according analysts and experts who spoke to Reuters. They argue the resort to deadly state violence is merely pushing dissent underground, while deepening anger felt by ordinary Iranians about the clerical establishment that has ruled them for four decades.
"It has been relatively successful since the number of people on the streets has decreased," said Saeid Golkar of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, referring to the crackdown and executions.
"However, it has created a massive resentment among Iranians."
Executive Director at the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Hadi Ghaemi said the establishment's main focus was to intimidate the population into submission by any means.
"Protests have taken a different shape, but not ended. People are either in prison or they have gone underground because they are determined to find a way to keep fighting," he said.
Defying public fury and international criticism, Iran has handed down dozens of death sentences to intimidate Iranians enraged by the death of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22.
Her death in the custody of morality police in September 2022 unleashed years of pent up anger in society, over issues ranging from economic misery and discrimination against ethnic minorities to tightening social and political controls.
At least four people have been hanged since the demonstrations started, according to the judiciary, including two protesters on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the volunteer Basij militia forces.
Amnesty International said last month Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 26 others in what it called "sham trials designed to intimidate protesters".
The moves reflect what experts say is the religious leadership's consistent approach to government ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power -- a readiness to use whatever force is needed to crush dissent.
"The regime's primary strategy has always been victory through terrorizing. Suppression is the regime's only solution since it is incompetent and incapable of change or good governance," said Golkar.
ECONOMIC MISERY
Protests, which have slowed considerably since the hangings began, have been at their most intense in the Sunni-populated areas of Iran and are currently mostly limited to those regions.
And yet, the analysts said, a revolutionary spirit that managed to take root across the country during the months of protest may yet survive the security crackdown -- not least because the protesters' grievances remain unaddressed.
With deepening economic misery, largely because of U.S. sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear work, many Iranians are feeling the pain of galloping inflation and rising joblessness.
Inflation has soared to over 50%, the highest level in decades. Youth unemployment remains high with over 50% of Iranians being pushed below the poverty line, according to reports by Iran's Statistics Center.
"There is no turning point (back to the status quo), and the regime cannot go back to the era before Mahsa's death," Ghaemi said.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Tehran was banking on repression and violence as its way out of this crisis.
"This might work in the short term but ... it won’t work in the long term," Vatanka said, citing reasons such as Iran's deteriorating economy and its fearless young population who want "big political change, and they will fight for it."
There are no signs that President Ebrahim Raisi or other leaders are trying to come up with fresh policies to try and win over the public. Instead, their attention appears to be fixed on security.
The clerical leadership appears worried that exercising restraint over protesters could make them look weak among their political and paramilitary supporters, the analysts said.
Reuters could not reach officials at Raisi's office for comment.
Golkar said an additional motive for the executions was the leadership's need to satisfy core supporters in organisations like the Basij, the volunteer militia that has been instrumental at countering the spontaneous and leaderless unrest.
KHAMENEI BACKS CRACKDOWN
"The regime wants to message its supporters that it will support them by all means," Golkar said.
To send shockwaves, the authorities imposed travel bans and jail terms on several public figures from athletes to artists and rappers. A karate champion was among those executed.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday signalled the state has no intention of softening its crackdown, saying in a televised speech that those who "set fire to public places have committed treason with no doubt".
Wielding uncompromising state power has been a central theme of Raisi's career. He is under U.S. sanctions over a past that includes what the United States and activists say was his role overseeing the killings of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s.
When asked about those 1980s killings, Raisi told reporters shortly after his election in 2021 that he should be praised for defending the security of the people.
Ghaemi said the main officials pushing for the executions today were deeply involved in the 1980s killings of prisoners.
"But this is not the 1980s when they carried all those crimes in darkness," he said. "Everything they do gets on social media and attracts huge international attention."
(Writing by Parisa HafeziEditing by Michael Georgy, William Maclean)
Protesters sentenced to death for allegedly killing members of security forces during protests after Mahsa Amini's death, in Isfahan
Tue, January 10, 2023
By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran's hanging of protesters -- and display of their lifeless bodies suspended from cranes -- seems to have instilled enough fear to keep people off the streets after months of anti-government unrest.
The success of the crackdown on the worst political turmoil in years is likely to reinforce a view among Iran's hardline rulers that suppression of dissent is the way to keep power.
The achievement may prove shortlived, however, according analysts and experts who spoke to Reuters. They argue the resort to deadly state violence is merely pushing dissent underground, while deepening anger felt by ordinary Iranians about the clerical establishment that has ruled them for four decades.
"It has been relatively successful since the number of people on the streets has decreased," said Saeid Golkar of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, referring to the crackdown and executions.
"However, it has created a massive resentment among Iranians."
Executive Director at the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Hadi Ghaemi said the establishment's main focus was to intimidate the population into submission by any means.
"Protests have taken a different shape, but not ended. People are either in prison or they have gone underground because they are determined to find a way to keep fighting," he said.
Defying public fury and international criticism, Iran has handed down dozens of death sentences to intimidate Iranians enraged by the death of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22.
Her death in the custody of morality police in September 2022 unleashed years of pent up anger in society, over issues ranging from economic misery and discrimination against ethnic minorities to tightening social and political controls.
At least four people have been hanged since the demonstrations started, according to the judiciary, including two protesters on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the volunteer Basij militia forces.
Amnesty International said last month Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 26 others in what it called "sham trials designed to intimidate protesters".
The moves reflect what experts say is the religious leadership's consistent approach to government ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power -- a readiness to use whatever force is needed to crush dissent.
"The regime's primary strategy has always been victory through terrorizing. Suppression is the regime's only solution since it is incompetent and incapable of change or good governance," said Golkar.
ECONOMIC MISERY
Protests, which have slowed considerably since the hangings began, have been at their most intense in the Sunni-populated areas of Iran and are currently mostly limited to those regions.
And yet, the analysts said, a revolutionary spirit that managed to take root across the country during the months of protest may yet survive the security crackdown -- not least because the protesters' grievances remain unaddressed.
With deepening economic misery, largely because of U.S. sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear work, many Iranians are feeling the pain of galloping inflation and rising joblessness.
Inflation has soared to over 50%, the highest level in decades. Youth unemployment remains high with over 50% of Iranians being pushed below the poverty line, according to reports by Iran's Statistics Center.
"There is no turning point (back to the status quo), and the regime cannot go back to the era before Mahsa's death," Ghaemi said.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Tehran was banking on repression and violence as its way out of this crisis.
"This might work in the short term but ... it won’t work in the long term," Vatanka said, citing reasons such as Iran's deteriorating economy and its fearless young population who want "big political change, and they will fight for it."
There are no signs that President Ebrahim Raisi or other leaders are trying to come up with fresh policies to try and win over the public. Instead, their attention appears to be fixed on security.
The clerical leadership appears worried that exercising restraint over protesters could make them look weak among their political and paramilitary supporters, the analysts said.
Reuters could not reach officials at Raisi's office for comment.
Golkar said an additional motive for the executions was the leadership's need to satisfy core supporters in organisations like the Basij, the volunteer militia that has been instrumental at countering the spontaneous and leaderless unrest.
KHAMENEI BACKS CRACKDOWN
"The regime wants to message its supporters that it will support them by all means," Golkar said.
To send shockwaves, the authorities imposed travel bans and jail terms on several public figures from athletes to artists and rappers. A karate champion was among those executed.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday signalled the state has no intention of softening its crackdown, saying in a televised speech that those who "set fire to public places have committed treason with no doubt".
Wielding uncompromising state power has been a central theme of Raisi's career. He is under U.S. sanctions over a past that includes what the United States and activists say was his role overseeing the killings of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s.
When asked about those 1980s killings, Raisi told reporters shortly after his election in 2021 that he should be praised for defending the security of the people.
Ghaemi said the main officials pushing for the executions today were deeply involved in the 1980s killings of prisoners.
"But this is not the 1980s when they carried all those crimes in darkness," he said. "Everything they do gets on social media and attracts huge international attention."
(Writing by Parisa HafeziEditing by Michael Georgy, William Maclean)
Iran Is Using Facial Recognition to Enforce Modesty Laws
Mack DeGeurin
Tue, January 10, 2023
People gather in protest against the death of Mahsa Amini along the streets on September 19, 2022 in Tehran, Iran.
When the Iranian government announced last month it would move to disband its so-called “morality police” following weeks of historic anti-authoritrain protests, dissidents in the country and abroad saw the concession as a potential turning point for women’s rights. Among its compromises, government officials said they would consider loosening the country’s strict obligatory hijab laws, which have been in place since 1979. However, while accounts of police prying people from city streets for refusing to wear head coverings appear to have dwindled, some advocates fear those same dress-code-defying defectors are instead being targeted by facial recognition systems and penalized afterwards.
“Many people haven’t been arrested in the streets,” Sarzamineh told Wired. “They were arrested at their homes one or two days later.”
University of Oxford researcher Mahsa Alimardani discussed the possibility of facial recognition being used to enforce Iran’s hijab laws in a recent interview with Wired. Alimardani recounted reports of women in Iran who claim to have received mail citations for violating the law without warning or any face-to-face interaction with law enforcement. Those descriptions matched up with first hand accounts from Iranian expat Sarzamineh Shadi, who told the magazine she was aware of multiple women who received citations for flouting hijab rules during protests days after the actual protest occurred.
Iran’s theocratic government has been engaged in a brutal crackdown against protesters following the September death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini who was detained by the country’s morality police for not wearing a hijab while visiting Tehran and died in police custody. The ensuing nationwide protests have reportedly resulted in more than 19,000 arrests and left at least 300 people dead. And while those dissidents have already won major concessions, broadened efforts by protestors calling for real regime change are squaring off with an advanced state surveillance system years in the making.
Though it’s difficult to confirm the exact methods used to identify individuals on a case-by-case basis, Iranian officials have said they are using facial recognition to enforce its hijab laws. Last September, The Guardian cited an interview with Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, the Secretary of Iran’s Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, where the official said the government intended to use surveillance technology in public spaces.
Those detection efforts are made possible in the first place thanks to a seven-year-old government ID system in the country that requires face scans and other biometric identifier. Speaking with Wired, Alimardani said the same database system used to create the country’s national ID cards could simultaneously be used by officials to identify presumed hijab law violators or others considered to have run afoul with the regime.
The Iranian government’s surveillance vision extends far beyond facial recognition too. Since at least 2016, officials have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to create its own internal intranet separated from the world-wide-web and rely solely on Iranian server farms. That effort follows in the footsteps of similar isolated internet systems in China and, more recently, Russia. In the meantime, Iranian officials have repeatedly intervened to shut down access to global internet communications platforms, including during the most recent protests.
Iran sentences former president's daughter to a five-year prison term
FILE PHOTO: Faezeh Rafsanjani, daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaks to a journalist as she attends a reformist campaign for upcoming parliamentary election, in Tehran
Tue, January 10, 2023
DUBAI (Reuters) - The activist daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sentenced to five years in prison, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
The lawyer did not give detail of the charges against Faezeh Hashemi. But Tehran's public prosecutor indicted Hashemi last year on charges of "propaganda against the system", according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.
State media in September reported she had been arrested for "inciting riots" in Tehran during protests triggered by the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody.
The demonstrations have posed one of the biggest challenges to Iran's clerical rulers since the 1979 revolution.
"Following the arrest of Ms. Faezeh Hashemi, she was sentenced to five years in prison but the sentence is not final," defence lawyer Neda Shams wrote on her Twitter account.
In 2012, Faezeh Hashemi was sentenced to jail and banned from political activities for “anti state propaganda” dating back to the 2009 disputed presidential election.
Her father died in 2017.
Former president Rafsanjani’s pragmatic policies of economic liberalisation and better relations with the West attracted fierce supporters and equally fierce critics during his life. He was one of the founders of the Islamic Republic.
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Iran regime divided on how to tackle protests: analysts
Ian Timberlake
Sat, January 7, 2023
Iran's Islamic clerical regime is divided in its response to months of unprecedented protests, wavering between repression and what it views as conciliatory gestures trying to quell the discontent, analysts say.
"The conflicting messages we are getting from the Iranian regime suggest an internal debate on how to deal with ongoing protests," said Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver.
"In most authoritarian regimes, there are hawks and doves" who disagree on how repressive the state should be during crises, he said.
The granting of retrials to several death-row protesters, and the release from detention of prominent dissidents, are signs that some seek to take a softer approach.
But a reminder of the hardline tack came Saturday when Iran executed two men for killing a paramilitary member during protest-related unrest.
Demonstrations began after the September 16 death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, 22. She had been arrested by morality police who enforce a strict dress code which requires women to wear a scarf-like covering over their hair and neck.
The protests have escalated into calls for an end to the Islamic regime, posing the biggest challenge for the clerics since the 1979 revolution deposed the shah.
Authorities have responded with deadly violence that has left hundreds dead.
Thousands have been arrested and 14 detainees sentenced to hang, many for killing or attacking security force members, according to the judiciary.
- 'Experimenting' -
The Supreme Court has upheld some of the death sentences and a total of four men have now been executed. The judiciary has also announced retrials for six of the 14.
This reflects a "political calculus", said US-based Iran expert Mehrzad Boroujerdi, co-author of "Post-Revolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook".
"They know that mass executions will bring more people into the streets and further agitate them. On the other hand, they want to send a signal that they are not reticent to execute protesters so that people are intimidated."
In what analysts see as another attempt to calm the situation, two prominent dissidents arrested early during the protests, Majid Tavakoli and Hossein Ronaghi, were freed weeks later. Ronaghi had been on a hunger strike.
The regime is using "everything from pressure release valves to long prison terms and executions. They are experimenting with these as they struggle to formulate a more clearly articulated policy," Boroujerdi said.
Anoush Ehteshami, director of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the UK's Durham University, said the retrials partly reflected mounting foreign and domestic pressure.
"But also within the regime there is division about how to handle this," Ehteshami said, with hardliners on one side and others who see executions as further encouraging resistance.
Retrials and the release of dissidents are "measures of appeasement... to try and throw a bone" to the protesters, he added.
While such measures may appear insignificant, from the perspective of a "securitised, beleaguered regime... they think they are being magnanimous and responding to public pressure".
- Survival -
Celebrities have also been detained, but often for far shorter periods. Star actor Taraneh Alidoosti was freed on bail Wednesday after being held for almost three weeks over her support for the protests, her lawyer said.
Some analysts see this hold-and-release strategy as intimidation but it is also, according to Hashemi, part of the regime "testing the waters, seeing what the reaction is".
The "leniency" sometimes displayed by authorities "is an attempt to prevent further factionalism within the security establishment" as some of its members are alienated by the deadly bloodshed, said Afshin Shahi, associate professor in Middle Eastern studies at Keele University in the UK.
The regime "doesn't seem to have a clear strategy" in response to public anger, he added.
Despite some releases, other prominent figures have spent months in prison. These include longtime activist Arash Sadeghi and the two Iranian journalists who helped expose Amini's case.
In early December, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said the morality police had "been abolished". But no one else has confirmed this.
The announcement reflects the internal debate and shows that "at least one section of the ruling regime" favours a less brutal way of enforcing the female dress code, said Hashemi.
According to Ehteshami, some in authority "are now beginning to talk about a compromise", though it is too early to know what that would be.
But "in broad terms I don't think they have what the people want", which is wholesale change, the details of which have not been defined, he said.
The regime, however, has historically shown an ability to "make concessions when it has to", according to Hashemi.
"People forget that this regime has survived for 44 years because it can be very intelligent, very clever, very Machiavellian in terms of what it has to do to survive," he said.
it/jkb/lg/leg
Ian Timberlake
Sat, January 7, 2023
Iran's Islamic clerical regime is divided in its response to months of unprecedented protests, wavering between repression and what it views as conciliatory gestures trying to quell the discontent, analysts say.
"The conflicting messages we are getting from the Iranian regime suggest an internal debate on how to deal with ongoing protests," said Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver.
"In most authoritarian regimes, there are hawks and doves" who disagree on how repressive the state should be during crises, he said.
The granting of retrials to several death-row protesters, and the release from detention of prominent dissidents, are signs that some seek to take a softer approach.
But a reminder of the hardline tack came Saturday when Iran executed two men for killing a paramilitary member during protest-related unrest.
Demonstrations began after the September 16 death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, 22. She had been arrested by morality police who enforce a strict dress code which requires women to wear a scarf-like covering over their hair and neck.
The protests have escalated into calls for an end to the Islamic regime, posing the biggest challenge for the clerics since the 1979 revolution deposed the shah.
Authorities have responded with deadly violence that has left hundreds dead.
Thousands have been arrested and 14 detainees sentenced to hang, many for killing or attacking security force members, according to the judiciary.
- 'Experimenting' -
The Supreme Court has upheld some of the death sentences and a total of four men have now been executed. The judiciary has also announced retrials for six of the 14.
This reflects a "political calculus", said US-based Iran expert Mehrzad Boroujerdi, co-author of "Post-Revolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook".
"They know that mass executions will bring more people into the streets and further agitate them. On the other hand, they want to send a signal that they are not reticent to execute protesters so that people are intimidated."
In what analysts see as another attempt to calm the situation, two prominent dissidents arrested early during the protests, Majid Tavakoli and Hossein Ronaghi, were freed weeks later. Ronaghi had been on a hunger strike.
The regime is using "everything from pressure release valves to long prison terms and executions. They are experimenting with these as they struggle to formulate a more clearly articulated policy," Boroujerdi said.
Anoush Ehteshami, director of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the UK's Durham University, said the retrials partly reflected mounting foreign and domestic pressure.
"But also within the regime there is division about how to handle this," Ehteshami said, with hardliners on one side and others who see executions as further encouraging resistance.
Retrials and the release of dissidents are "measures of appeasement... to try and throw a bone" to the protesters, he added.
While such measures may appear insignificant, from the perspective of a "securitised, beleaguered regime... they think they are being magnanimous and responding to public pressure".
- Survival -
Celebrities have also been detained, but often for far shorter periods. Star actor Taraneh Alidoosti was freed on bail Wednesday after being held for almost three weeks over her support for the protests, her lawyer said.
Some analysts see this hold-and-release strategy as intimidation but it is also, according to Hashemi, part of the regime "testing the waters, seeing what the reaction is".
The "leniency" sometimes displayed by authorities "is an attempt to prevent further factionalism within the security establishment" as some of its members are alienated by the deadly bloodshed, said Afshin Shahi, associate professor in Middle Eastern studies at Keele University in the UK.
The regime "doesn't seem to have a clear strategy" in response to public anger, he added.
Despite some releases, other prominent figures have spent months in prison. These include longtime activist Arash Sadeghi and the two Iranian journalists who helped expose Amini's case.
In early December, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said the morality police had "been abolished". But no one else has confirmed this.
The announcement reflects the internal debate and shows that "at least one section of the ruling regime" favours a less brutal way of enforcing the female dress code, said Hashemi.
According to Ehteshami, some in authority "are now beginning to talk about a compromise", though it is too early to know what that would be.
But "in broad terms I don't think they have what the people want", which is wholesale change, the details of which have not been defined, he said.
The regime, however, has historically shown an ability to "make concessions when it has to", according to Hashemi.
"People forget that this regime has survived for 44 years because it can be very intelligent, very clever, very Machiavellian in terms of what it has to do to survive," he said.
it/jkb/lg/leg
