Protesting Students Abducted By Plainclothesmen In Iran

Images on social media show people holding placards bearing slogans on the 36th consecutive Friday of protests against the Islamic Republic.

“Negligence, Bullets, Execution, the Share of Baluch People In Iran," read one of the placards.

Since protests started nine months ago following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody of hijab police, regime forces have repeatedly arrested Baluch citizens in large numbers as they kept their street protests alive.

The people of Zahedan have been protesting every Friday since September 30, when security forces opened fire on civilians, killing about 90 protesters.

Meanwhile, the public relations of IRGC ground force in the region reported clashes between law enforcement and Basij forces, and what it described as bandits in Sistan-Baluchistan province.

According to the report, a Basij militiaman named Ardeshir Khatibi and two armed men were killed in the shootout.

As Sunni Muslims, Baluch citizens are both an ethnic and religious minority. Estimates of the Iranian Baluch population range from 1.5 to 2 million people. The Baluch community – along with the Kurds -- has always been among the most persecuted minorities and has the largest number of people executed in the country.

Most Baluchis are executed over drug-related charges, but activists say their trials lack due process and poverty-stricken drug mules are often executed without having proper legal representation.

The daily's managing editor Elias Hazrati, its leading columnist Abbas Abdi and former government spokesman Ali Rabiei wrote their accounts of the difficult situation facing the media in the newspaper's anniversary edition.

Hazrati, a former reformist lawmaker, wrote that he launched the paper at the end of his parliamentary career as "a media outlet for the majority of Iranians." He added that during the past 21 years he kept his promise of giving voice to both the older and younger generations of Iranian journalists. 

Etemad has been banned several times since its launch and its journalists came under pressure by the authoritarian government particularly under conservative presidents. 

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Complaining about censorship and government pressure on the press, Abdi wrote that the government presumes newspapers that reflect society's problems are portraying a disparaging image of the country. Statesmen in Iran do not know that problems will not be solved if they are not discussed by the media.

Abdi said: "Newspapers act like medical examination reports. If nobody pays attention to what they highlight, problems will lead to serious abnormal situations." He further complained that the Iranian government has never taken the newspapers seriously and this is part of the crisis of media in Iran. 

Abdi added: "The government constantly insists that newspapers should not publish "negative news" and "disparaging accounts." They don’t see that the people are living in the society and see for themselves what is going on.

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"The crisis of the media in Iran has roots in different narratives and the government's reliance on its own narrative. As long as the narratives rather than realities drive the government's policies, the media cannot have their true status," Abdi said.

According to Abdi, Etemad and a few other newspapers have refused to play the role of trumpets that voice the government's views and propaganda. The fact that this newspaper has survived for 21 years, so far is in itself a success. What makes this effort worthwhile is the daily's commitment to reflect the truth. 

Abdi was pointing out the fact that reformist newspapers in Iran are short-lived as governments have a pretty low threshold for tolerating criticism. At times, like 2001, tens of newspapers and other publications were closed down overnight without any explanation. At least one reformist newspaper, Mellat, was banned before the day it hit newsstands for the first time. 

However, Etemad and a few other relatively critical newspapers are not free of daily censorship and self-censorship, as their reporting has to somewhat accommodate the regime’s ideology and rhetoric. For example, they cannot criticize the Supreme Leader, who should be mentioned as “the esteemed Leader.”

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Meanwhile, in an article in Etemad, former government spokesman, Ali Rabiei wrote that what makes the media situation different in Iran is the negative impact “of arresting and imprisoning independent Iranian journalists." 

What Rabiei said also referred to the emigration of hundreds of Iranian journalists to other countries, including Britain and the United States where key foreign-based Iranian media operate from. 

Rabiei pointed out that the Iranian government does not allow independent media to be active in Iran and arrests and jails journalists working on investigative reporting. But the emigration of independent journalist has gradually turned into a security threat for the Iranian government.

Iranian officials on a daily basis complain about investigative reports by foreign-based media that disclose corruption and inefficiency in the government and among its officials. Nonetheless, as Rabiei observed, the government perceives even the existing toothless media as a threat. 

Hassan Mafkhami police commander in Mazandaran province on the shores of the Caspian Sea was inspecting beaches where millions of Iranians visit from the capital Tehran and other cities during the summer. Women are forbidden to bathe without cloths and should be fully cladded on the beaches.

He told law enforcement agents, “In this province and its towns if someone God forbid raises her voice, break her neck according to law and I will take responsibility for it.”

Tens of thousands of Iranian women have been defying compulsory hijab this year after nationwide protests erupted last September when Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman died in ‘morality police’ custody from severe head injuries.

Hardliners in the clerical-military regime, however, have vowed “to restore order”, saying that hijab for women is their “red line”. The conservative dominated parliament is debating a bill to further codify the hijab, including imposing hefty fines on women and denial of social services if they refuse to cover their heads.

The issue has turned into a rallying cry against the regime that regularly intervenes in the private lives of the citizens. Many regime insiders have urged caution, saying that another hijab incident can lead to renewed anti-government protests.

Police officials have vowed to install “smart cameras” on the beaches of the Caspian Sea to identify women who break the rules.

According to the popular Telegram channel of the National Student Unions Council, at about 2:30 am Thursday, Hamzeh Borzouei attacked a group of about fifty students who had begun a sit-in protest against new, stricter hijab rules and seriously injured several. 

The Telegram channel said university authorities have still not allowed the students who began their sit-in on Wednesday afternoon to leave, and campus security has prevented anyone from bringing food or water to the students. 

Students said on social media that Borzouei and other university officials made various threats against them including the threat of calling in the military to deal with them. Plainclothesmen and other security forces were already present in and outside the university in quite big numbers. 

Students also said that security claimed they blocked food delivery to prevent poisoning that they could later be blamed for if students fell ill. Students also said the besieged protesters were not allowed to use the toilettes. 

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The new rules require girls to wear a pullover headscarf with stitched front (called maghna’e in Iran) which is like a nun’s coif, completely covering the head and the neck. Failing to comply, the university has announced, would result in suspension. 

In the early 1980s wearing maghna’e became compulsory in all universities, government offices and even banks but its use gradually became obsolete in some more lenient establishments including the College of Arts. 

The hijab required in the Islamic Republic consists of a long and loose tunic in muted colors worn over trousers with a similarly plain headscarf that covers all hair and shoulders. Authorities including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei say wearing a long black veil (chador in Persian) that covers from head to toe is the ‘optimal hijab’.

In the past few years, the anti-compulsory hijab movement which took root with a social media campaign organized by US women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad in 2017, called White Wednesdays, has hugely grown. The movement has gained greater momentum since the death in custody of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 and the protests that her death sparked.

Defiance of hijab has now turned into a form of civil disobedience. Many women who have been in a tug of war with the authorities for years are now adamant to be hijab free in public. They can be seen defiantly rejecting the head scarf everywhere, from restaurants to banks and parks where previously, they could not even enter without covering their head. 

In recent months, authorities have increased pressure on students for hijab, presumably to stop the growth of the anti-compulsory hijab movement in universities across the country. 

The National Student Unions Council said in April that 435 students had been suspended or expelled in universities nationwide, where they had staged many protests and sit-ins since the beginning of the Mahsa movement last year. 

In recent months some political parties and dissidents in Iran, including the reformist Etehad-e Mellat Party and Zahra Rahnavard who has been under house arrest together with her husband Mir-Hossein Mousavi for thirteen years have demanded the abolition of the compulsory hijab laws. 

Iran's police chief, Ahmad-Reza Radan, said Thursday that President Ebrahim Raisi has approved the necessary funds to install more cameras to continue the war against hijab rebellion.

“Four special task groups have been launched to tackle the hijab norm breaking. For instance, one of them is active on virtual space to identify those who remove hijab on social media.”

Last week, Radan threatened government offices that do not deny services to unveiled women with repercussions as part of ongoing hijab enforcement.

He also vowed that police will be surveilling Caspian Sea beaches in Mazandaran and Gilan provinces with special patrols and electronic surveillance to prevent violation of hijab laws.

Threats against unveiled women have increased with the arrival of summer which has always been a season for women to ignore the strict government dress code.

In July 2022, after weeks of harsher measures on the streets, President Ebrahim Raisi ordered all government entities to strictly implement a “chastity and hijab” law.

Not long after, the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police fueled protests that spread throughout the country and have continued since September.

Since March hardliners have tried to put an end to women’s increasing defiance of the compulsory hijab and to reclaim the lost ground but to no avail.