http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=186993&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
Activists in Iran under increased pressure: group
Publish Date: Tuesday,27 November, 2007, at 02:44 AM Doha Time
TEHRAN: The government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has
stepped up a crackdown on students, unionists and teachers in the past months,
Nobel winner Shirin Ebadi's rights group said yesterday.
"We are pained to say that the ninth government has further tightened the
space for political, unionist, press and student activists despite its populist
slogans," the group said in its latest report.
Ahmadinejad - whose government is the ninth elected since the Islamic
revolution in 1979 - has made the implementation of "justice" in Iran one of
his core policies.
But Ebadi's Centre for the Defenders of Human Rights said there had been
a noticeable increase in pressure on student activists, unionists and teachers
in the period between June and September.
"The student movement this summer experienced one of its hardest
periods," it said.
Along with many arrests, prominent university professors have been sacked
for "alternative thinking" and hundreds of students have been banned from
studying for "political or ideological reasons".
Students have staged several protests at universities in Tehran over the
jailing of three of their colleagues for the publication of images deemed
offensive to Islam in four student publications.
It said that 80 head teachers and their deputies in the cities of Tehran,
Hamedan, Kermanshah and Eslamshahr had been sacked as their schools had been
linked to teacher protests.
Hundreds of teachers in Iran had staged protests earlier this year over
their working conditions, under which they receive a basic wage of between $200
and $300 a month.
"The crackdown on political activists intensified in summer and the
number of detainees increased," the report added.
The report comes after Ahmadinejad raised the tone against his political
opponents, threatening to expose as "traitors" critics who were pressuring the
government in the nuclear standoff with the West.
The group also expressed concern over the situation of members of the
Bahai minority, saying they were banned from working in photography, taxi
driving, hotel management, food and publishing.
"Although 1,100 young followers of ideological minorities took part in
the university entrance exam, 800 did not receive their results and only 220
got the results," it added.
"Practically most of them were deprived of higher education."
The Centre for the Defenders of Human Rights is a small group of rights
lawyers led by Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
The rights group blamed the government for inflation that was hurting the
poor most. Ahmadinejad secured votes of many of the country's poorest in the
2005 presidential election by vowing to share out Iran's oil wealth fairly.
"The heavy burden of the rising prices, especially in the housing market,
has taken a remarkable number of people under the poverty line and deprived
them from having the minimum (standard for a) dignified life," it said. -
Agencies
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