Iranian activists fear US 'help' could spur crackdown

The United States is struggling with Iran's fundamentalist government on two fronts. While US diplomats are negotiating with other members of the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Tehran, Washington has allocated $75 million to inspire "regime change." The money is to be spent on empowering civil society, providing supplemental requests, broadcasting into Iran, promoting democracy, offering scholarships and fellowships, and enhancing communication. But Iranian civil society activists who asked to remain unidentified told IPS they believe this policy will just intensify the Islamic republic's repressive approach toward non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and will be used as an excuse to crack down on their activities. Just last week, agents from Iran's intelligence agency arrested Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent scholar, at Tehran's airport. "He had relations with foreigners," said Intelligence Minister Moseni Ejeyee. Fars news agency, which is closely connected to the country's security forces, asserted later that Jahanbegloo was recruited by the US government in 2001 while he was a researcher for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Under the new State Department funding, the NED would be in charge of working with Iranian NGOs. Jahanbegloo's arrest serves as a worrisome harbinger of a new wave of intimidation against Iranian civil society, professionals and intellectuals who simply have connections outside Iran. Iran's new government perceives civil society groups as a tool for Washington to bring about a non-violent "color revolution," similar to those which occurred in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004. Consequently, the Iranian government has used many different strategies to control NGOs, by increasing the risks of accepting any foreign funding and inspiring fear among civil society activists to derail any serious changes inside the country. Just a few weeks before the US State Department announcement that it was stepping up its democracy promotion efforts, Iran's interior minister declared that the government has been preparing a long list of NGOs that are pursuing regime change. "They are supported by foreign countries and international organizations," said an Interior Ministry spokesman. "They have a comprehensive plan to strictly control these NGOs." Since this hard-line approach was adopted at the start of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency last August, the Iranian government has stopped supporting NGOs and charities that received funding from Mohammad Khatami's reformist government (1997-2005), totaling more than a million dollars in 2003. The Ahmadinejad administration has also asked many NGOs to return their low-rent offices, which were donated by municipalities and other governmental bodies. While Ahmadinejad was Tehran's mayor, he terminated many of the mutual contracts with new NGOs that were mostly established during the reform period of Khatami's administration. Moreover, during the last several years, some influential civil society activists have been summoned and interrogated about their activities and connections to countries outside Iran. Many were labeled by conservatives as "tools for foreigners"–especially the United States, which has been called the "Great Satan" by Ahmadinejad's mentor, Ayatollah Khoemini. Interestingly, during the same time, governmental bodies have accelerated their support for religious organizations. Even during Khatami's two terms, modern and progressive legislation to regulate NGOs' activities was turned into a restrictive bylaw for some intelligence service members among the ministers. According to one of the law's articles, for an NGO to obtain any funding from foreign entities, three ministries must approve it: the Ministry of Intelligence, Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. NGOs have to send any proposals and information to these departments and wait for three months to receive an answer. Obviously, it is impossible to get funds while all three of these bodies are under the conservatives' control. Iranian officials also fear that US aid will be funneled through European charities that have offices in Tehran. As a result, foundations from Germany, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland and others, which have contracts with some local NGOs, are increasingly facing strict governmental monitoring. "Foreign countries use NGOs as a cover for espionage among Iranian society," objected Saeed Abutalib, an Iranian conservative member of Parliament, citing community development projects by the oil giant Shell in central Iran. In recent years, two European organizations closed their offices because they did not acknowledge governmental orders, including the British-based Ockenden International. In 2004, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's Middle East director traveled to Tehran and met with conservatives, who rejected his plan to open an office in Tehran. Over the last few months, the Ministry of Interior and Tehran's Office of the Prosecutor General have summoned many NGO members to give explanations about their activities, financial resources and even their contacts with foreign institutes. They are obliged to send regular reports on their meetings and connections with foreigners. Given the conservatives' paranoia about a Western cultural invasion, Washington's statement of support for NGOs and civil society activities has made it very hard for local NGOs to maintain their relationships with foreign entities. Some of them have canceled their projects in order to avoid being negatively affected by officials' conspiracy-oriented mindset. Writing in the popular Roozonline, Ahmad Zeidabadi, a prominent Iranian journalist, notes that even "during the period when the US was not providing any financial support to opposition groups inside Iran, powerful and influential Iranian officials unheedingly charged that Iranian reformers were receiving 'bags of US dollars' from the United States." "Political activists and journalists were pressured in prisons to 'confess' about the receipt of such monies. Now that the US government is openly talking about providing money to Iranian dissidents and opposition groups, these officials can openly and blatantly make accusations against any critical voice of being supported and financed by the US government, thus making it even easier for the government to suppress them with little resistance or concern." The arrest of Jahanbeglou is a serious wake-up call for academic and civil society activists. Everybody within the country understands that arresting high-profile academic figures is intended to inspire fear among civil society activists and academics not to have any connections with foreigners or their resources. The conservative body of the fundamentalist regime has used similar tactics with journalists and internet bloggers. Human rights activists in Iran believe that Jahanbeglou's detention could be the start of a renewed campaign to suppress the secular part of civil society and modern NGOs, which are well-connected to the outside world.