Intellectuals are the new terrorists in Tehran's view
By Ahmed Rashid
My friend, the intellectual Kian Tajbakhsh, is in jail in Iran for, well, being an intellectual. He has not had access to a lawyer nor 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 US, 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 TV, 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.
Tajbaksh was arrested along with other Iranian-American intellectuals, including Haleh Esfandiari of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Esfandiari is a 67-year-old grandmother -- just the right age to set about undermining Iran. Her lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, has been denied access to her. Meanwhile, journalist Parnaz Azima is not allowed to leave Iran.
As an intellectual, Tajbakhsh cannot expect the world's celebrities to beg Iran's government for his release. Instead, he has received support from other intellectuals, such as the 3,400 members of the PEN American Center, the writers' organization that fights for freedom of expression. The 14,000 members of the American Sociological Association have also asked for his release.
You would think Tajbakhsh's record in Iran would rule out an accusation of treason. He has been a consultant to several Iranian ministries on urban planning and helped the government in major rebuilding projects after the devastating earthquake that destroyed the ancient city of Bam in 2003. Last year, he completed a three-year study of local government in Iran -- hardly the stuff of insurrection and regime change. But Tajbakhsh was also a consultant to the Soros Foundation, which, according to Ahmadinejad's government, has worked against Islam.
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Pertinent Links:
1) Intellectuals are the new terrorists in Tehran's view
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