What democracy is about

Andrew Sullivan asks an excellent question:

Why isn't this on the front pages?

As it turns out, it isn't even on the front pages of two major newspapers in Iran, the Iran Daily, a government run periodical, and the Tehran Times, the leading English-language Iranian daily newspaper. The failure to publicize it in the government paper is obvious. Non-governmental papers may be self-censoring due to the government crackdown on independent media in Iran, as of late.

Luckily, there are a few Iranian papers, of those I consulted, the Iran Press Service and Payvand News of Iran that are giving this crackdown on students the front page coverage it deserves.

But Andrew is right. Anyone willing to commerate those June 9, 1999 student protests against the Iranian government and its clampdowns on free expression and harsh treatment of its citizens deserves front page coverage.

From the Iran Press Service:

"On 9 July 1999, the government of the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, on strict orders from Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, attacked with unprecedented violence thousands of Iranian students who, backed by the people, were protesting for five consecutive days the brutality of security forces during a night raid on students dormitories against some 200 to 300 students denouncing the closure of 'Salam', a popular newspaper for being the only independent voice among the media.

At the night, the plainclothes men had smashed students rooms, beaten them, burned some of them with cigarettes, and threw one of them from the window of the third floor.

Police, backed by the basij militias, anti-riot units and plainclothes men from the Intelligence and Interior ministries battled with students for several hours, made hundreds of arrests and ended the protest movement in blood.

The event became also the final divorce between Mr. Khatami and the students who, in 1997 presidential elections, were, along with women and the youngsters had played a major role in the surprise victory of Mr. Khatami, then an obscure, middle rank clergyman promising some freedom and democracy.

The Monday 9 July 2007 attack on the students at both Amir Kabir University and the Office of the student’s Alumni is part of a bigger crackdown undertaken by the 'military-security government' of Mr. Amadi Nezhad against all his opponents, including scholars, economists, intellectuals and the press.

The government dismisses such charges, saying it allows free speech. Nevertheless, officials have spoken of a so-called 'soft revolution,' a perceived U.S. effort to use intellectuals and others to undermine the Islamic Republic's system of government.

Last week, the General Prosecutor of Tehran and the Islamic Revolution tribunals ordered the closure of Ham Mihan (compatriot), a pro-reform newspaper that had reappeared in May after an absence of seven years under the ownership of Mr. Qolamhoseyn Karbaschi, a former Mayor of Tehran.

'When we say a creeping coup in the press, it means a person is moving within a framework of an action to overthrow (the system)", Mr. Saffar-Harandi, a former deputy Editor at the hard line daily 'Keyhan' had said, adding: 'When we say coup, it does not mean that some people in a garrison prepare an attack. It means people who are trying to destabilize the regime, the Government'.

In a new wave of crackdown, the independent media was accused of waging a 'creeping coup' against the Government.

Earlier, the same Minister, a close friend of Mr. Hoseyn Shari’atmadari, the Editor of Keyhan and an advisor to both the Leader and the President had accused the independent and pro-reform press like Ham Mihan, Sharq or E’temad Melli (National Confidence), of playing he 'cards of the enemy by waging a soft attack. (against the Government). The flag bearer of this attack is the media'.

Mr. Saffar Harrandi was echoing other accusations by the President’s advisors for the press.

'Creeping coup' was used by Mr. Mehdi Kalhor, one of the several such advisors, adding that 'some newspapers inside the country are propagating ideas of the enemies. They are the front runners, the platoons of the enemies' cultural assault on our Islamic values and sacred system. They are in a creeping coup against the Government'."

That is what democracy is about. It's not about supporting reformist governments or conservative governments or any ideology. It is about supporting freedom from repression. And that doesn't have anything to do with ideology and everything to do with challenging it, no matter who does it.

This is what democracy is about. More people need to be paying attention.

Love,
Ben