I.R. Iran Targets Opposition in Raids and Arrests

TIME.com

For weeks, hard-line elements in Iran's government have been calling for the arrest of the country's opposition leaders, especially defeated presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Now it appears that the government has raised the ante. On Sept. 8, Iranian authorities raided offices connected to the two men and arrested top opposition aides.

In particular, Tehran appears to have targeted the opposition's ongoing strategy of charging the government with abusing the opposition demonstrators who were detained in the violence that followed Iran's contested presidential election in June. Security forces raided offices belonging to Karroubi — who has led the effort to collect evidence of abuse by security forces — and confiscated documents related to the charges. (See pictures of people around the world protesting Iran's election.)

The raids are a measure of just how sensitive and damaging the claims of prisoner abuse have been for the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Of all the charges leveled against his administration by opposition leaders since the election — including widespread electoral fraud and staging a coup d'état — none has been as sickly captivating to Iranians as the stories of abuse and torture that have trickled out from behind prison walls. Not only is sexual violence particularly abhorrent in conservative Iranian society, but the charges also challenge the legitimacy of the Islamic government by calling into question its foundation upon moral justice. The Islamic revolution was inspired in part by such abuse during the Shah's authoritarian rule. (Read more...)