When Stalinism thrives in Tehran (Lebanon Daily Star)

[oberliner]

My friend, the intellectual Kian Tajbakhsh, is in jail in Iran for, well, being an intellectual. He has had no access to a lawyer or to any visitors since being jailed for espionage and undermining the state. In short, if you live in Iran nowadays, intellectuals are the new terrorists.

As in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, purveyors of ideas, information, and emotions are the enemy in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, especially if the people espousing such ideas happen to work for a foreign organization. And, thanks to Iran's example, that trend is proliferating across the Muslim world.

Tajbakhsh, an internationally respected scholar, social scientist, urban planner, and dual citizen of Iran and the United States, has languished in Tehran's Evin Prison - notorious for its documented cases of torture and detainee abuse - since May 11.

I was shocked last week to see him on Iranian television, pale and wan, giving the kind of faked confession that would have made Soviet prosecutors blush. Soft spoken, mild mannered, thoughtful, and with a wonderful sense of humor, Tajbakhsh is portrayed by the Iranian government as a ravenous wolf ready to devour the regime.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=84114

[David__77]

1. Actually the Iranian mullahs killed all the "Stalinists."

The Iranian regime systematically killed every communist they could get their hands on. Communists have been among the staunchest opponents of the Islamic republic. I don't think it's appropriate to ascribe communism to the religious fascist state.

[The Stranger]

2. I think any enemy that can be manufactured serves the purpose.

You are exactly right regarding the Islamic regime's aversion to Communism, but until recently, Iran had a very outspoken and powerful opposition. But the media refuses to allow access to real Iranian people, only to the racist caricatures that sell so well.

[oberliner]

4. Any thoughts on Kian Tajbakhsh? nt

[The Stranger]

5. Any thoughts about the hundreds held by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay --

oh, and tortured?

[oberliner]

6. Torture should stop, detainees should have trials

Seriously, though, do you have any thoughts on the article?

Here's some more info from an Iranian blogger:

http://jadi.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2007/5/24/2972797.html

[High Plains]

3. The fact that the US is doing public covert operations...

...to try to topple the regime makes it that much easier for the Iranian government to do this sort of thing. They may be paranoid, but the US IS after them.