An Incomplete Picture of Iran’s Latest Crackdown is Enough to Justify UN Intervention

Thanks to the tireless efforts to human rights activists and opposition-linked intelligence networks, the world has acquired at least a partial image of the circumstances surrounding Iran’s latest popular uprising. One of the clearest impressions from this information is that the clerical regime’s crackdown on dissent is perhaps even more severe than anything Iranians have experienced over the past three decades.

At least 1000 of the protesters arereported to be killed and of these, the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has managed to identify the names of 380 killed and pictures of 118 killed in dozen cities.4,000 have been woundedand 12,000 arrested.

The opposition group has also been working to keep tabs on the authorities’ broader tactics, which include house raids that have led to the arrest of suspected protestors as young as 12 years old.

The Iranian judiciary has issued public threats regarding the possibility of capital punishment for participants in this latest uprising. And the existing death toll underscores the fact that this cannot be dismissed as a hollow threat. Neither can the international community underestimate how indiscriminate the regime’s killings might turn out to be.

In 1988, according to Amnesty International, a staggering 30,000 political prisoners were killed in the space of just a few months. And as an audio recording from that time confirmed when it was leaked in 2016, the victims included pregnant women and young teenagers. The mass executions were carried out as part of an effort to suppress the threat posed to the mullahs’ regime by an organized, democratic Resistance movement. As such, according to Amnesty International,members and associates of the MEK constituted the overwhelming majority of the victims.

In a sense, the key organizers of recent protests could be said to be associates of this same group. And contrary to a historical preoccupation with downplaying the post-1988 strength of the Resistance, Iranian officials appear all too willing to acknowledge portray arrestees in this way. As he did in the midst of a previous uprising in January 2018, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blamed the current unrest on the organizing efforts of the MEK.

In reality, it may be difficult to see any clear boundary between this group and the countless Iranian citizens who endorse its pro-democracy platform. In a recent press conference, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary for the regime’s Supreme National Security Council, said, “These people were connected to governments and the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) … I believe 34 MEK members have been arrested so far. A vast network of individuals, operating not under the MEK’s name, but pursuing their line and modus operandi were also identified.” Rasht Friday prayer leader Rassoul Fallahati also stated “We know you are the children of the executed MEK in the years past.”

Tehran’s willingness to name-check its arch enemy should set off alarm bells throughout the international community. Iran failed to decisively suppress the MEK in 1988, and it has failed to prevent the organization from gaining in membership and organizational power during the subsequent three decades. Now, the MEK stands at the head of a protest movement that could very well turn out to be a new, democratic revolution. And there is every reason to believe the regime will use any means necessary to prevent it from gaining more influence on the Iranian society.

In fact, there is every reason to believe that the regime has already set out on this mission. If the latest casualty figures don’t point to this conclusion, then it is imperative for international observers to consider that those figures are doubtlessly incomplete. Not only does the persistence of the unrest point to the certainty of more killings, but the existing figures only represent the information that activists were able to smuggle out of the country in the midst of what may be the largest and most sophisticated shutdown of the internet in world history.

There are presumably a number of reasons for Tehran to go to such lengths in cutting off communication. The internet blackout also prevents populations both inside Iran and throughout the world from seeing exactly how much progress the protest movement has made.

The most immediately significant — and alarming — reason for shutting off the internet is that it ostensibly limits foreign scrutiny of Iran’s human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent. The concern is more pressing since some 12,000 protesters have been arrested. The scope of the crackdown is so pervasive that according to some reports, the ruling theocracy has turned some elementary schools into make-shift prisons and detention centers.

If the mullahs come away from this with the impression that they are effectively concealing the extent of their crimes, there can be little question that they will green light more.

Fortunately, there are fairly simple steps that world powers and human rights groups can take to prevent this from happening. In the first place, the United Nations Security Council should follow the advice of Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)by convening a special session to discuss the current protests and issuing a statement making it clear that the violent repression of legitimate dissent will not be tolerated. The UN should immediately dispatch a fact-finding mission to Iran.

Beyond that, anyone who supports the cause of Middle Eastern democracy should push for providing the Iranian people with circumvention tools and other means of communicating and acquiring information. It has long been said that knowledge is power. And in the age of online communication, reliable and up-to-date access to information could be the most vital tool for protecting the Iranian people from the repressive power of the state.

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Harvard-educated, Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a world-renowned business strategist and advisor, a leading Iranian-American political scientist, president of the International American Council on the Middle East, and best-selling author. He serves on the advisory board of Harvard International Review.

Dr. Rafizadeh is frequently invited to brief governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as speak, as a featured speaker, at security, business, diplomatic, and social events. He has been recipient of several fellowships and scholarships including from Oxford University, Annenberg, University of California Santa Barbara, Fulbright program, to name a few.

He is regularly quoted and invited to speak on national and international outlets including CNN, BBC World TV and Radio, ABC, Aljazeera English, Fox News, CTV, RT, CCTV America, Skynews, CTV, and France 24 International, to name a few. . He analyses have appeared on academic and non-academic publications including New York Times International, Los Angeles Times, CNN, Fareed Zakaria GPS, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, The Nation, The National. Aljazeera, The Daily Beast, The Nation, Jerusalem Post, The Economic Times, USA Today Yale Journal of International Affairs, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and Harvard International Review. He is a board member of several significant and influential international and governmental institutions, and he is native speaker of several of languages including Persian and Arabic. He also speaks Dari, and can converse in French, Hebrew. More at Harvard. And You can learn more about Dr. Rafizadeh on here.