[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[haleh]

Regime change needed in Iran

by Bobak Roshan
October 28, 2003

Simply put, there need to be some major changes in the government of Iran. Imagine, if you will, that a group of right wing, fanatically religious conservative leaders were in charge of all the courts, including the Supreme Court, as well as in charge of the military and education.

Imagine further that this group of people sitting on our Supreme Court could veto any law, senator or president they did not like. Imagine that 2/3 of the population is under the age of 30 and living under a theocracy. This is the situation facing the public of Iran, in which 3/4 of the population voted for a reformist president. The people in Iran are clearly unhappy with the fundamentalists.

In November, Hashem Aghajari spoke out against the established order of the Muslim Clerics in Iran, stating that Muslims should not have to go through the clerics to get to their God; they did not have to follow "like monkeys" what the clerics said. This was blasphemy, and Aghajari was sentenced to death by the Islamic judges for "insulting the prophets."

The students took the streets in massive number in support of Aghajari. These protests lasted for almost a month, causing a senior member of the judiciary to resign. It also prompted the brother of the president to admonish the clerics that if they did not listen to the students, they would face the same fate of the Shah, who was deposed. Almost 3,000 students in Tehran protested the ruling Nov. 12, chanting "death to despotism." Eventually, due to the pressure of popular dissent, the judiciary backed off the death sentence.

In July, due to frustrations over a lack of reform, thousands of students from all over the country protested against the clerics and demanded change. For a week, all over the country, a repressed voice was heard the world over. Prominent international leaders expressed their support for the students. President Bush said that the protests were "the beginning of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran."

However, they were all arrested, often without access to lawyers. Their trials were usually before a vindictive judge. The brutality of the crackdown was astonishing. An observer watching women taking off their scarves in demonstration reported to the BBC June 17, "They've been severely beaten by chains, you know, the old chains and locks they use here for motorcycles? Do you know how thick they are? I broke down in tears when I heard this." (And conservatives on UW's campus thought they had a tough time being heard ... )

Sadly enough, the government of Iran has a history of attempting to silence "blasphemers." The day this goes to print, another victim of the Islamic government will give a speech at the Orpheum. Salman Rushdie, an award-winning Indian author, wrote a book called "The Satanic Verses," referring to some disputed verses in the Koran. The Iranian fundamentalist government, in 1989, sentenced him to death and placed a $3 million price on his head for portraying the prophet Mohammed as a fallible human being and for trying to leave Islam. Both crimes are punishable by death.

History has proven time and time again that governments that draw the ire of their masses do not last. You'd think that after the Iranian Revolution that took place in the '70s to depose of the government then, the current government would heed the students' admonishments. (Ironically, it was that first revolution by students that put the current government in place.)

There is nothing legitimate about a repressive government that beats its students, stifles the voices of massive dissent and attempts to kill off those people abroad it does not agree with. Freedom of speech, religion and press are crushed by this fundamentalist government. Governments like Iran's should be, and need to be, overthrown.

John Locke stated that a government derives its power from those who are governed. If the governed no longer find the current ruler legitimate, they have a right to rid themselves of that ruler. The Iranian situation calls for such an action. The masses of that country are discontent. The population is young and unemployment is high. The reform-minded president is paralyzed by the power of the judiciary, and rather than making more jobs, the judiciary and military have embarked on nuclear ambitions that may make life all the more miserable for an impoverished people.

This is a government that needs to go.

Bobak Roshan (bigdeamon@aol.com) is a senior majoring in international relations and political science.