From Yellow dog in Iran:
I was sitting on a domestic flight from Tehran when a man sat next to me, a middle aged grizzly Basiji Haj Agha, bearded, scruffy type wearing the usual uniform of the Islamic Republic's armed thuggery. At first I was very scared and was asking myself what the hell is this smelly guy sitting next to me, what have I done wrong, these guys usually have their own special seatings if not their own airplanes, but then I settled in and realized this must be just happening by chance and anyway what could I do now when the plane is about to depart and anyway I have not committed any "crime".
Before and after the plane took off I noticed the Haj Agha chit chatting on his mobile phone/walkie-talkie. The flight attendant told him to turn off the phone but the man would every two minutes pick up and say some thing in there. I opened the conversation by asking him if he was going to visit family and he said he was going to visit his factory and will be back in Tehran next day. I asked about his factory and eventually led to him mentioning that he was a Sardar (General) of the Pasdaran and dealt with narcotics smuggling, now I do not know if he was saying the truth for a fact, but he was wearing uniform and by his looks I could imagine he had no problem killing a few infidels for the day.
I started talking about the misery of addiction I see everyday on streets and how many friends and relatives I know who are suffering from addiction and that families are being torn and destroyed by drugs. He told me everyday the problem is getting worse and started laying the blame on the wealthier parts of the population that started making Cocaine fashionable and now there is a huge Crack problem across Iran, and then there is Methamphetamine known as (Shisheh) beginning to make an impact and of course heroin and opium is nothing new.
I asked him what is being done to stop the flow of drugs and fix the problem, he said nothing can be done. He explained that it happens every week that they confiscate a trailer truck filled with heroin and opium in the east of the country, typically in Zahedan where they impound the vehicle and imprison the driver and then the following week they confiscate the same trailer with the same cargo on the western border of Iran, typically Bazargan border crossing to turkey.
He was very comfortable to say that the government is accommodating the drug trade and he blamed the huge demand in Western Europe for the problem in Iran, he said the reason drugs are so cheap in Iran is that the drug traffickers are financing the transportation of the drugs to Europe, by selling parts of the shipments cheap in order to give a cut to officials or people in powerful positions who can pull strings. The Haj Agha continued to chat on his phone despite many warning from flight attendants and after we landed I said goodbye to the Haj Agha who seemed to like the conversation with me and asked for my phone number (this made me comically feel uncomfortable in many ways), of course I gave him a number where he could not reach me and when we got off the plane there were couple of other Haj Aghas waiting for him at the foot of the plane and he disapeared into the crowd.
I hope he cannot find me, I was not in my assigned seat, just as a precaution I will have a supply of Vaseline close by.Afterwards I thought hard if I should publish this post or not. I felt the impulse to do so just to open a window although limited, into the way things work in Iran, how we have regressed and how helpless the people are under a corrupt and totalitarian regime that has no aim than the hateful destruction of a nation and of families and to enrich themselves by any means.
Now Iran has the highest rate of addiction in the world, there are reports of more than twenty million addicts in Iran, HIV infection is spreading like a wild fire. I think it is about time an investigation is done of the Iranian clerical establishment and its involvement in the narcotics trafficking. It has been said that the ubiquitous Rafsanjani family and also Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi or otherwise know as the King of Khorasan are deeply involved in the drug trade, which not only includes trafficking and production in Iran, it also may very likely include production in parts of Afghanistan. Members of these drug cartels must be prosecuted and punished for crimes against humanity.
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The Sign above reads: " Don't Release the Scarecrows"; and "This is how defeat looks like ".
photo by CNN
Who are the Basiji? Basij (also Bassij or Baseej, Persian: بسيج), is an Islamic Republic paramilitary force that was founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in November of 1979 to provide volunteers for "human wave" defensive attacks in the Iran-Iraq War. The Basij are currently a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Basij commander Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi estimated the number of Basij personnel at 10.3 million in March 2004 and 11 million in March 2005. On 14 September 2005 he said that the Basij has more than 11 million members across the country. Russian news sources have claimed Iran has plans to make a third ground force consisting of one million basij members. However these plans have not been confirmed by Iran.[1]
Basij forces often undertake general security checks in urban areas such as setting up street inspection posts to intercept drug smuggling and potential terrorism, although the number of Basij check points dramatically decreased after the Iran-Iraq war and following the disarmament of MKO in Iraq. According to the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy and GlobalSecurity.org Basij forces also enforce Iran's Islamic codes together with other law enforcement entities. The Basij has a quasi-decentralised network with branches in almost every Iranian mosque.[1][2]
Human rights issues
The Basij have been criticised as belonging to the paramilitary forces using child soldiers because of their underage recruitment practices and for having relied extensively on "human wave" defensive attacks during the Iran-Iraq War, particularly around Basra.[1][2][3] Many were used as cannon fodder and for mine-clearing martyrdom. [2]
Following the UNHCR "tens of thousands of Basijis had been ordered to prowl about every factory, office and school to ensure that everyone adhered to the Islamic code. [...] After the summer 1992 riots Basij units were revived, rearmed and sent out into the streets to help enforce Islamic law. The Basijis are reportedly under the control of local mosques. It was further said that the Basijis set up checkpoints around the cities and stopped cars to sniff their occupant's breath for alcohol and check for women wearing make-up or travelling with a man not their close relative or husband. It was reported that the Law of Judicial Support for the Basijis, published in the Official Gazette No. 13946 of 8.10.1371 (December 1992), provided no redress against arbitrary detention by the Basijis." Iran's permanent representative to the U.N. denied these charges.[4]
Amnesty International tells that "investigations by Parliament and the National Security Council indicated that actions by Revolutionary Guard officials and Basij (Mobilization) forces, among others, precipitated the unrest and injuries following the July 1999 students demonstrations".[5]
In July 1999, Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad was shot dead in Tehran University dormitory by a member of Basij military force. The event initiated a huge demonstration.
Source: Wikipedia
Medieval and Misogynist Republic clamping down on women and minorities . And as Ahmadinejad comes under fire, Iran vows crackdown on 'inappropriately ressed women. The solution for thugs like delusional Ahmadinejad and his gang of Basiji is always to just get more control. As once was pointed out to Darth Vader in a similar context, "The more you tighten your grip, the more people will slip through your fingers."
A small caste of very rich and demonic mullahs and their cronies are reducing most of the Iranian people to abject poverty and hoplessness in a country that is immensely wealthy and a culture that loves life, poetry and art. To cover up for all this greed and corruption, religious fundamentalism is a very effective tool of ideological domination. The more Iran sinks into inequality and social injustice, the more fiery the pseudo revolutionary rhetoric of its theocratic ruling elite, and the more dogmatic and intolerant their version of Islam.
Religious fundamentalism is a wonderful tool for diverting attention from all real issues afflicting the society. But it has a limit, and that limit is set by the emergence of people's conscience and desire to get rid of all those blood-sucking parasites passing for "men of spirit".
The mullahs have callously played with old sectarian grievances in order to draw some benefit for their own shallow cause in Iraq and Lebanon. What do the Iranian Ayatollahs really stand for? At this moment for nothing more than staying in power and continuing to line their bulging pockets with the money of the Iranian people. Social inequality and poverty rates in Iran are appalling. And if you visit the wealthy neighborhoods of Northern Teheran, you will see conspicuous signs of obscene wealth in the hands of the nouveaux rich that have emerged after the demise of the late Shah.And if you move to the huge slums in Southern Teheran, you will see abject poverty and destitution. Most Iranians have benefited very little from the new theocratic dictatorship.
While a significant number of Iranians realize they have been conned, and many are wanting to leave, the Kleptocracy's core constituency, which is found among the large underclass of what by all criteria should have been a rich country, will take a very long time, if ever, to wake up to reality.Why? The short answer is: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”— upton sinclair
To elaborate on that I have to explain that first of all, they (underclass) see the IRI as their patron who will subsidize their lives forever with money, status, jobs, and many other fringe benefits. Those who belong to this group are as brutal and ruthless as their masters and they go as high within the corrupt ranks of the mullahcracy as they possibly can....the more ruthless, the higher up the ladder they move. The core constituency are the IRGC, the paramilitary basiji, and the intelligence officers in VEVAK (SAVAMA) who have a lot of power (military, financial, and organizational) and also a great deal at stake (economically and socially) if the regime is overthrown. They make up about 10 to 11% of the population of 70 millions. The rest of the population is held hostge by this brutal gang of jihadist, opportunists, criminals, torturers, and their vast network of spies in every neighborhood. These people are not going to give up or wake up anytime soon. As this Mazandarani (Caspian sea northern province) saying goes: When a Mullah gets on a donkey he will not come off it until either he dies or the donkey. The mullahs continue to miscalculate the American resolve as the former president Rafsanjani warns the hardliners of the US 'wounded tiger'.
ABF, for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran