Iran Cracks Down on Dissent

Iran has raised pressure on activists and opposition members in the past two months in an apparent move to preempt antigovernment protests, as regional uprisings gained momentum in Syria and Libya, according to activists and human-rights organizations.

The scope of the government's crackdown has broadened to include not only political activists but such groups as environmentalists and participants in social gatherings, activists say. In July and August, security forces raided environmental demonstrations, Ramadan dinner feasts, youth playing in parks and activists' private homes.

The government has arrested dozens of people, from Tehran to Tabriz in the northwest, accusing them of conspiring to overthrow the Islamic Republic's regime and of spreading information online and on social networking websites such as Facebook, human-rights groups and opposition members say.

Analysts say that Iran is tightening its grip on power mostly because of events in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran, is facing domestic and international pressure to step down.

The development in Iran underscores the mutual inspiration and reinforcement between activists in uprisings across the Arab world. Syrian youth activists, for example, say they are constantly in communication with their Iranian counterparts from the opposition Green Movement to exchange ideas and tactics.

"What is happening in the streets of Syria will surely make the Iranian regime realize that a similar struggle may resume once again in Iran and it has clearly intensified the regime's fears," said Payam Akhavan, co-founder of Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

In one case in Iran's crackdown, young men and women organized a Water Guns War in Iran on Friday with the help of a Facebook page with over 25,000 members. Police dispersed them and arrested a number of them.

Meanwhile, Kouhyar Goudarzi, 25 years old, a well-known human-rights activist who was active online, was arrested on July 31 when security forces stormed into his house at night. He hasn't reappeared and there is no official record of his whereabouts, said his lawyer, Mina Jaffari in a phone interview from Tehran.

Mr. Goudarzi's mother, Parvin Mokhtareh, was also arrested for campaigning to release her son. She is being held at the criminal ward of the women's prison in the city of Kerman.

In another case, Behnam Ganji, a 22-year-old engineering student in Tehran, committed suicide last week after he was released on bail after eight days of solitary confinement in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. He wasn't a political activist and was arrested only because of his friendship with Mr. Goudarzi, his family told the Iranian news web site Roozonline.

Mr. Ganji's friends and family said he was tortured and pressured to give false testimony against his activist friends and charged with threatening national security.

"Behnam was terrified of his own shadow when he was released," a family member told Roozonline. "What happened in prison that a happy young man would end his life?"

In the past two weeks, Iranian authorities also have attacked and arrested ethnic Azeri environmental activists from northwestern Iran after they staged peaceful demonstrations to bring attention to the falling water levels of Lake Orumieh, various media have reported.

Activists blamed the government for building 35 dams on rivers feeding the lake and carried signs that read, "Azerbaijan rise up and cry out."

In August, Iranian security forces used tear gas and batons to attack two groups demonstrating to protect the lake, in Tabriz and Orumieh, according to media reports. They arrested dozens on the streets and at a Ramadan Iftar dinner attended by environmental activists.

Iran's government has long had a tense relationship with ethnic communities who live along its borders.

Source: WSJ.com