Brutal Crackdown in Iran Targeting Key Opposition Figures, Activists, and Journalists

TEHRAN, Jun 23 (IPS) - Eleven days after Iran’s disputed Jun. 12 president election, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears determined to round up key members of the opposition, journalists and human rights activists who could play a key role in rallying public support for opposition demands.

The streets of the Iranian capital and other provincial cities Monday witnessed more violence, as protestors clashed with government security forces. Tehran’s Haft-e Tir Square was taken over by military and plain-clothes security, including Basij militiamen on motorcycles, leading to growing speculation among some analysts that a military coup is taking place inside the country.

As alleged infighting among clerics and leading political factions within Iran’s theocratic government intensifies, there now appears to be an unprecedented campaign underway to suppress opposition voices, through the arrest of leading reformist political figures, as well as scores of ordinary people who have participated in the protests.

Severe restrictions on journalists have made it nearly impossible to independently verify incidents of violence and detentions. According to official government sources, 475 people have been arrested so far. The Persian-language Zamaneh Radio, an online media outlet based in the Netherlands, has put that number far higher, at more than 800.

That number, which is based on published reports in the Iranian media, indicates that among those arrested, at least 20 belong to the campaigns of the defeated presidential candidates, former prime minister Mir Hossein Moussavi and former Parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi.

The arrests have also targeted prominent political associates of former reformist President Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005), including his former vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtai, Mostafa Tajzadeh, who oversaw elections for the Interior Ministry during Khatami’s tenure, and Saied Hajjarian, a top Khatami adviser. Hajjarian, who was paralyzed as a result of an assassination attempt in 2000, requires continuous medical attention.

Abdolah Ramezanzadeh, the former governor of Iran’s Kurdistan province, has also reportedly been detained.

In an indication of the extent of the crackdown, 18 members of the Participation Front, the leading reformist party, as well as 20 members of the Freedom Movement, a nationalist party, have also reportedly been arrested.

Beyond the capital, as many as 114 political activists in major cities, including Tabriz and Qazvin, have been picked up, as have some 100 student activists, according to reports here.

The list also includes the names of prominent human rights activists, including Alireza Hashemi, head of the country’s Teacher’s Union; Abdul-Fatah Soltani, a human rights lawyer; and Reza Tajik, a well-known independent journalist.

Keyvan Samimi, the editor of a banned weekly published by the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which is headed by human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, has also been detained.

Soltani, Tajik and Samimi serve on the Committee of Arbitrary Detention established by a number of human rights organizations to monitor the arrests and detention of political and social activists.

"Soltani and Tajik have both been very significant voices in the human rights community and their detention is certainly aimed at preventing their human rights reporting," said Hadi Ghaemi, who works with the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

"Now, with so many people in incommunicado detention, there are serious fears of torture and ill-treatment," he added.

Ebadi and her colleagues had been facing increasing pressure before the elections. Security officials raided and shut down her human rights center in December 2008.