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CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Internal Problems Worry Iranians More

Kimia Sanati

TEHRAN, Jan 20 2008 (IPS) - While Iranians have legitimate worries that their country may suffer a military attack by the United States or become a victim of more sanctions for its nuclear policies, analysts say that the real dangers in 2008 are internally generated ones.

The economy has nosedived and civil freedoms have been curtailed as never before, for the new generation of Iranians.

“Since the release of the U.S. intelligence bodies’ report (the National Intelligence Estimate), that said Iran was no longer pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, fear of a U.S. attack has subsided considerably among ordinary people. But long-term sanctions can hurt even more deeply than a short-term attack,” an economic analyst in Tehran, who asked not to be named, told IPS.

“So far, by freely spending the unprecedented oil revenues of around 60 billion US dollars annually in the past two years, the government has managed to prevent the impact of the two U.N. sanctions resolutions, passed in December 2006 and March 2007, from being clearly felt in the lives of the ordinary Iranians,” he said.

“The economy, however, has begun to clearly show signs of failure and what is called the ‘Dutch Disease’. And things are expected to get even worse as inflation hikes, mainly due to the liquidity growth rate for which the government is responsible,” he added.

According to publicly released figures, the inflation rate stands at 17 percent, but parliament’s research centre puts it at 23 percent. The economic growth rate has dropped to five percent, and during the past nine months liquidity has grown by 40 percent as reported by Tahmasb Mazaheri, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran.

The liquidity injected into the economy, in the past two years, equals all the liquidity created in the past 45 years, Mazaheri said on state TV recently.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has admitted over state-run TV that rising inflation was a problem and that his government had failed to bring it down to a single digit figure as he had promised at the time of his election in 2005.

“Ahmadinejad blamed the country’s overall economic structure and the parliament for the problems and accused his political rivals and the press for contributing to the problem by creating expectations of higher inflation and thus helping inflation rise even higher. But he did not say how he was going to remedy the problem without further estranging the electorate,” the economic analyst said.

To control inflation the government has resorted to lowering import tariffs. The market is flooded with imported goods. The country’s imports are expected to reach the 60 billion dollar mark in the current fiscal year (Mar. 21, 2007- Mar. 20, 2008), but non-oil exports, half of which consist of petro-chemical products, will only amount to around 15 billion dollars.

“The huge rise in imports will take away jobs at a rate of 100,000 for every billion dollar’s worth of imports. The growth in import levels and the effects of the sanctions are driving many industries to ruin. Hundreds of large and small industries around the nation are now on the brink of bankruptcy in addition to the ones that have already had to close down,” the analyst said.

Unemployment rates – steadily declining since 2001 – are once again on the rise and, according to the latest official figures, now close to 12 percent.

“One of the consequences of high unemployment in a country like Iran is brain-drain. Iran ranks first among the countries inflicted with brain-drain in the world. There are no official figures but together with the general economic situation and the government’s interference in all aspects of individuals’ private lives it has always encouraged more and more young university graduates to leave the country in similar situations in the past,” the economic analyst told IPS.

The deteriorating human rights situation is no incentive for young people to stay on in the country. In December 2007, for the fourth time since 2003, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution against Iran for systematically violating human rights.

“All through 2007 peaceful demonstrations of teachers, workers, women and students were confronted by police violence. Hundreds of participants in demonstrations and activists were arrested and put in prison, usually on charges of acting against national security,” a political activist in Tehran told IPS.

Newspapers, the only remaining medium for political parties to reach the population, were constantly under pressure. They were warned to keep away from items such as the nuclear issue, women’s rights, the student movement and labour protests.

In 2007 the student movement picked up momentum. “Although he claimed students were free to criticise and oppose him, students have been paying dearly for going against Ahmadinejad, like anyone who has ever criticised or opposed him. It’s not easy to keep score of the students in various universities who have got in and out of jail during this time or been suspended for their political activities,” Mohammad, a student from the Amir Kabir University of Technology, told IPS.

“The three students from our university’s Islamic Association of Students who were framed and arrested in May for offensive cartoons that appeared in campus newspapers forged with the logo of their union have been paying the highest price. They were kept in isolation for months and were tortured brutally, physically and psychologically,” he said.

A court recently acquitted the three students of any involvement in the publication of the offensive material. They have not been released from prison yet and are now being prosecuted on other charges such as accusing the student Basij militia of having set up the whole incident.

“During the past year university students who had become very disillusioned and passive during Khatami’s second term of presidency once again became quite active and broke their long silence. The leftist student movement particularly has gained huge momentum in universities all around the country and they are now a big force, hard to be ignored anymore,” the student told IPS.

“In 2007 pressure on religious minorities worsened. Even Muslim sects such as Shiite dervishes are not immune from suppression now and Bahais have come under greater pressure. Many Bahais who normally do not publicly profess their religion have been identified and a large number have been prevented from entering universities. Bahai children are intimidated and harassed in schools if they are found out,” a civil society activist told IPS.

‘’Stoning and execution of minors, too, continued as before in the past year. One man was stoned to death in Zanjan province for adultery and several women are waiting for their stoning sentences to be carried out. Courts still continue to sentence minors to death. One young man who had reached legal age was recently hanged for sexual offences committed when he had been a minor,” she said.

Iranian law enforcement forces cracked down several times in 2007 on women and men on the streets for not observing ‘hijab’ or the prescribed dress code.

“Law enforcement vans are parked in front of every shopping centre and in every other busy place, inspecting the appearance of the people. Even wearing boots is now considered a provocative and degenerate act on the part of women,’’ a women’s rights activist told IPS.

“Just a month ago, in Tehran’s busy Vali Asr square, law enforcement officers dragged a young girl wearing boots into their van to take her away. Her mother begged and begged and when she couldn’t stop them she threw herself in front of their car. The onlookers were afraid to intervene but they did the only thing they could do, they booed the officers,” she said.

By September a total of 977,000 women and men had been stopped on the streets and warned about their appearance. Nearly 40,000 of them were taken to police stations and made to sign pledges to observe the Islamic dress code in the future, and nearly 4,000 were referred to courts by the moral police, police chief Ahmadi Moghaddam said.

“I have lost any hope of better days coming. It is already more than two years and a half since we were promised by Ahmadinejad to see the oil money on our tables. It is not there and even some of what we had on our tables is gone now,” a teacher and mother of three adolescents told IPS.

“I am anxious all the time, worrying about the family’s survival in such hard times. My husband and I barely manage to earn enough to feed our children and to send them to school but that’s not all we have to worry about,” she said.

“My oldest daughter has just started studying in university in a different city. She is involved in student activities. How can I tell her to keep quiet and mind her lessons while her friends are suffering in prison. Every time the telephone rings my heart sinks,” she added.

“The two younger ones are normal youth, but we worry every time they go out. If they are arrested for the way they dress they will be photographed with numbers hanging around their necks like criminals. They may even be shown on TV like that. The humiliation will kill the kids and us. But how can I stop them when I realise they are young and need to act like the young,” she said.