Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, January 14, 2010

More signs of militarization in Iran

There have been other signs of the growing power and influence of the military in Iran. Here's another. This op-ed piece in The Guardian (UK) was written by Massoumeh Torfeh. She's a scholar and researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The question becomes one of "Who's in charge?" Is the Supreme Leader? the president? the ayatollahs? the military establishment?

Iran's judiciary takes a military colour

A new phase of political killings is set to begin in Iran with the trial of five demonstrators charged with being mohareb – a description for someone who fights against Islam.

Tehran's "general and revolutionary" prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, told the Iranian news agency, IRNA, that those who "set fire to vehicles and committed other crimes" could be regarded as mohareb... The usual punishment for being a mohareb in the Islamic Republic is execution...

[I]n the last week religious and political authorities have raised the bars by calling demonstrators mohareb. Two high-ranking officials, both with background in the Revolutionary Guards – the police chief, General Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam and the interior minister, General Mostafa Najjar – have called for the need to regard demonstrators as mohareb...

Proposing new laws to deal with recent "riots", the head of judiciary in Iran, Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, asked the parliament – where his brother Ali Larijani is the speaker – to co-operate. He said people are "demanding firm action" and proposed a revival of judicial police force. To create a new military dimension to the judiciary, Larijani selected as his adviser a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad-Bagher Zolghadr, who has held several security posts.

So, the stage is set in every sense for putting the demonstrators on trial, accusing them of being mofsed fel arz or mohareb, giving them five days to appeal, and then in all probability sending them for execution. More than 500 were arrested in Ashura demonstrations. Several leading opposition figures were targeted and detained over the past two weeks...