MESOP: TEHRAN THE BETTER TERRORIST ! – What Features of the Islamic Republic of Iran Are Worse Than the Islamic State?

KURDISH VOICES – THE PASEWAN

Kaveh Karimi: THE PASEWAN – 20 Jan 2016 – Many people in the West think that the security situation in Iran is good, or at least better than other countries in the Middle East. But in fact there is plenty of anti-social crime, a failed anti-drugs policy and in addition all independent political activities are banned by the government. To be perfectly clear, I do not want to say that generally the Islamic State (IS) is better than the Islamic Republic, and this is not a detailed comparison text, but I do want to say this: the most important difference between them is their historical stage of development.

One trump card for the Islamic Republic has been its involvement in proxy wars along with foreign terrorism. During the past three decades, this factor has enabled the Islamic Republic to establish a vast network of Shiite cadres from Afghanistan to Lebanon and from Azerbaijan to Yemen. In addition, they have frequently attacked Iranian opposition groups and leaders in Iraq and Europe.The IS foreign attacks are more indiscriminate across the world. If they are able to carry these out more and more, it will mean they are getting closer to establishing a Sunni copy of the Islamic Republic, which is still one of the most controversial countries in terms of its human rights violations and threat to global security. So this article is a reminder of the Islamic Republic’s crimes in the new Middle Eastern backyard, of a brutality that is not always obvious.

How does the Islamic Republic administration commit crimes that go beyond any public regulation? There are so many ways and different guises and religious banners under which human rights violations are common everyday occurrences. By contrast, the Islamic State’s crimes are more commonly reported in the global mass media and discussed by the public and they are committed shamelessly as part of the IS’s self-promotion.The Islamic Republic has two main ways of countering Iranian civil and political activists and trying to decrease their influence: character assassination in the political arena and mental war in the social arena. The first is more about targeting the opposition parties and personalities and the second is mostly used to reduce the confidence of people and discourage them from demonstrating or having any campaign against the Islamic Republic. Briefly, I refer now to six more terrible methods of the Islamic Republic.

First: Elections as mass deception

Every four years elections are held for two different levels of managing the country – the presidency and parliament. As most observers know, there is not a free selection among free candidates and this is an outward exhibition and internal effort to decrease disputes. And, most importantly, it gives false hope to Iranian oppositionists to encourage and support moderate candidates. At the end of this show, the Islamic Republic succeeds in two main objectives: first, to reduce protests and, second, securing maximum participation as the primary condition for legitimacy. I think this is the main and clearest deception of the Islamic Republic and therefore ultimately it is worse than the IS management system which is absolutely appointive without any selection by the people.

Second: External attacks

Due the Islamic Republic’s ability to make and maintain relations with Western countries, even though it is known to be behind overseas attacks and terrorism, it has greater ability to strike against its opponents anywhere. It also exploits religious activities such as ‘a day for Jerusalem on the last Friday of Ramadan month’, and the Ashura and Tasua ceremonies. The Islamic State also use their holy days as occasions to attack opponents or at least promote their ideas, but the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic advantages gives them more opportunities to dominate opponents while deceiving world public opinion, creating the impression of Iran as a relatively safe and free country in the Middle East.

Third: TV confessions

It is very common for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) to release videos of confessions by political-security prisoners and this has been a part of the Islamic Republic’s political culture since it came to power. On TV there are not only confessions by the prisoners, but also their relatives are put under pressure and mental torture to make them express regret and shame at their opposition to the regime. On the other hand, the Islamic State releases videos of brutal torture and murder, without confessions.

Fourth: Social media restrictions

We all know that nowadays social media plays a key role in the exchange of ideas, information and public enlightenment. However, despite all the international pressure for freedom of information, the Islamic Republic has focussed on applying more and more censorship. Facebook and Twitter especially are blocked and people have to use anti-filtering channels — illegal under Iran’s Islamic law — to access them. In Islamic State-controlled territories, however, there currently isn’t such blocking of networks.

Fifth: A ban on languages other than Persian

Since the end of the Second World War, the Persian language of the central and dominant ethnic group in Tehran has been the only officially allowed language, not only in education, but also in governmental and private sectors, All other languages, including Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Balochi, Gilaki and Turkmen (which all together are spoken by a majority of the population) are banned from official use. It’s also very common for the department of culture and Islamic guidance to prevent the publishing of books in ‘unofficial’ languages. Furthermore new-born babies can only be registered with Islamic and Persian names, not those of their mother tongue languages. This is not something practiced by the Islamic State which currently doesn’t ban talking, writing and publishing in different languages.

Sixth: Costly medicine

Medical errors and costly health services in the Islamic Republic are the norm. It’s well known that poor people often prefer to die in their beds rather than go to hospital because of the high costs. People lose their eyesight and become paralyzed because of unprofessional medical teams and expired medication. Additionally traffic accidents outside the cities take the lives of tens of thousands every year, especially in the most deprived areas of the country, largely because of the lack of effective accident and emergency care. By contrast, the Islamic State likes to claim in its propaganda that medicine in its hospitals and medical centers is free. www.mesop.de