Internal struggle continues
Ex-President Denounces Iran’s GovernmentMohammad Khatami, Iran’s former president, made a fiery speech Sunday against the government, accusing its leaders of trying to smear their enemies and purge them from public life with “fascist and totalitarian methods.”
The speech by Mr. Khatami, a leading reformist, came a day after his ally, the losing presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi, called on supporters to deepen their protest movement, in his first major statement in weeks.
Together, the two statements, posted on the Internet by opposition Web sites, made clear that opposition leaders — much like their hard-line foes — are girding supporters for a long-term battle to be waged as much through ideas and quiet social organizing as through the public protests...
The conservatives appear to be planning a broader campaign... On Saturday night, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told a group of artists and cultural professionals that Iran was embroiled in a “soft war” against internal enemies. Anyone in the field of culture must now recognize important distinctions between “friends and enemies,” “attack and defense” and “explanation and propaganda,” the ayatollah said.
His speech echoed another one Friday night by the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Muhammad Bagher-Zolghadr, who outlined the distinction between “hard war” and “soft war,” in which “the enemy is everywhere.”...
Iran’s Universities Punish Students Who Disputed Vote
Iranian universities have begun disciplining and suspending students who took part in street protests after the disputed presidential election in June, reformist Web sites reported Friday and Saturday.
The new disciplinary actions came as officials reported that a presidential panel has begun an investigation of the humanities curriculums at universities, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported. Although the panel was formed a year ago, it did not start work until after recent calls to purge universities of professors and curriculums deemed “un-Islamic,” based on the fear that the teaching of secular concepts helped fuel the political unrest following the June 12 election...
Significantly, several clerics and high-ranking officials have taken aim at Islamic Azad University, which is based in Tehran and has branches around the country. The university is largely run by the family of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful moderate and leading opponent of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...
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Labels: Iran, politics, SoftPower
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:08 AM
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Iranian Opposition Offices Are Raided
"The Iranian authorities on Monday and Tuesday raided offices connected to two senior opposition leaders in Tehran, arresting their top aides and seizing documents, Iranian news agencies and the leaders’ Web sites reported.
"The two opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hussein Moussavi, ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election, which they say was rigged by the government...
"[M]any in the opposition detected a broader purpose to the new raids than merely cutting off the prison-abuse investigations. They are widely seen as a possible prelude to the arrests of Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Moussavi — a provocative step that hard-line clerics and military commanders have been calling for lately..."
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