Fears Grow As Turkey Deports Iranian Dissidents
The Turkish government is facing criticism for its treatment of Iranian dissidents seeking political asylum in this country.
The Turkish government is facing criticism for its treatment of Iranian dissidents seeking political asylum in this country.
The recent arrest of Mohammad Lahmi, a former airline pilot and a cleric who fled from Iran in 2022, has highlighted the growing apprehension among activists.
His prosecution and arrest is said to have stemmed from a business dispute involving influential businessmen closely linked to the Revolutionary Guards.
Lahmi had sought refuge in Turkey to escape persecution by the Iranian regime, but even while residing in Turkey, he continued to criticize the Iranian government through his social media platform.
Activists argue that since the Iranian regime provided political support to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government following a failed coup in 2016, Turkey's willingness to shelter Iranian dissidents has diminished. This has led to an increase in deportations back to Iran, where dissidents fear for their safety and well-being.
In December 2019, two Iranian protesters, Mohammad Rajabi, 25, and Saeed Tamjidi, 27, faced a high-profile case when they were arrested and deported to Iran. Turkish police handed them over to Iranian authorities, leading to their transfer to Evin prison.
Despite their death sentences being rejected in appeal courts, they were imprisoned for several years, along with another protester, following several months of detention.
Adding to the growing concern, reports have emerged of another Iranian political activist, Shahriar Baratinia, being deported from Turkey to Iran on Thursday.
Baratinia, a former political prisoner who had been residing in Turkey without a residence permit, faces potential danger upon his return to Iran, according to human rights website Hirman.
Human rights groups are closely monitoring the situation, calling on Turkey to reconsider its approach towards Iranian dissidents.
Reani said in the video that the regime cannot survive because its foundations are rotten and have been devoured by termites. He added that “the elite have left the country’s administrative system,” echoing others who have pointed out how the hardliners have put incompetent people in critical government position.
Renani, an economist and an outspoken critic of the Iranian political system has warned several times about the collapse of the regime following the nationwide protests in the fall of 2022 and 2023, which posed the most serious threat to the regime since its inception in 1979.
Earlier, when the government reached out to him to help draft the country’s 7th Development Plan, he refused to cooperate and said that Iran’s economy was beyond rescue.
Renani argued in his latest video that you cannot solve the country’s problems using the same school of thought that created the problems in the first place. He added: “This political system has created several crises for the country with its underlying principles. So, it cannot resolve those crises using the same principles.”
He reiterated that the Islamic Republic has already crossed the point when it would have been possible to solve systemic problems. Now the regime needs big decisions. So, it cannot survive with this style of management and the way its leaders steer the country.”
“It cannot survive unless it makes big decisions, changes the rails on which it is moving, goes about a paradigm shift and starts a revolution from the top,” said Renani. “The regime needs to bring about changes that the people say, this was what we wanted.”
There won’t be a quiet social revolution in Iran. If there is ever another revolution, it is likely to be an urban revolution,” he said, explaining that “Urban revolutions happen like a sudden strike that knocks out the establishment.”
Using an analogy from soccer, Renani likened protests since 2018 including the 2022 uprising as “preparatory games.” The real revolution he argued would a different ball game.
The outspoken critic had warned Khamenei in a letter he published on social media in February that “the Islamic Republic is in the final stage of its downfall.” In the same letter, Renani also warned Khamenei that “a revolution in Iran is inevitable under these circumstances.”
In July, Hossein Valeh, a sociologist who can be considered a regime insider, had also warned the government that the gap between the people and the government that gave rise to the 2022 uprising still exist and have widened further.
Valeh stated in an interview with Roiuydad24: "When the government is perceived as a stranger, the society cannot tolerate its shortcomings." He explained that the reason for this is that the government has never tried enough to be all-inclusive. "The government has widened the gap between itself and the nation instead of trying to fill it."
Following the government’s renewed crackdown on women who defy the compulsory hijab, sociologist Ahmad Bokharaei warned that polarity created by the government and restrictions it imposes on its citizens can eventually lead to social upheavals and even armed clashes.
In an unexplainable move, the cafes have been branded centers of 'nightlife' in a bid to stop people from gathering and crack down on social activities, ordered by the Provincial Chastity and Hijab Headquarters, though they play no music, and have to close before midnight.
However, as women are increasingly going out without the mandatory headscarf, the regime is doing its utmost to crack down on all social activity to punish the masses as it continues to lose its hijab war against an increasingly rebellious public.
So vast is the crackdown on citizens, social media users have reported unofficial curfews in other parts of Iran, including streetlights in the capital, Tehran, being turned off from 8pm, raising concerns about public safety during the evening hours. Additionally, some cafes in Tehran have been compelled to close before 8pm, and only a handful of restaurants remain open at night.
According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, the municipality of Mashhad initiated the plan to close the outdoor space of cafes and restaurants from August 1. Out of the 270 affected units scattered across various districts in Mashhad, at least 110 have already closed their outdoor areas.
The Chief Justice of Khorasan, back in July, clarified that the Prosecutor's Office was not responsible for sealing the spaces in front of these facilities. It remains uncertain whether these provincial bodies have the legal authority to enforce such approvals.
The move has faced mass criticism, with many expressing concerns about its impact on businesses and the daily lives of the city's residents, and not least, yet more hypocrisy that the rules apply differently to the regime's insiders to those ordinary citizens trying to live their lives. The crackdown comes while elites from the regime continue to have parties around the country both indoors and outdoors, as well as reveling in foreign countries.
Meanwhile, Hasan Amirian, the head of the Mashhad Restaurants Association, revealed on Thursday that during peak hours, around noon, the electricity supply of 80% of restaurants in Mashhad is being cut off, exacerbating the challenges faced by restaurant owners.
This recent crackdown on nightlife is not an isolated incident. In May, the Tehran municipality unilaterally demolished eight cafes in the Ekbatan town market in western Tehran without prior notification. Reports suggested that the demolition was a response to protests by residents during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, aiming to deter further dissent.
The resistance to night activities in the Islamic Republic is not a new phenomenon. Authorities have consistently opposed the nightlife culture for ordinary Iranians, deeming it incongruent with religious values and detrimental to citizens' well-being. Javan, a newspaper affiliated with the IRGC, has recently written about the “psychological damage caused by nightlife”, citing religious guidelines as a basis for their opposition.
As the regime continues to push its propaganda, its psychologists quoted by Javan argue that nightlife “adversely affects citizens' mental health by deviating from what God has decided for us and asked us to do.” Pro-regime sociologists have also commented, asserting that nightlife conflicts with the societal working patterns and have implicitly called for shops to close at 7.30pm. Some even propose limiting television broadcasting of engaging programs beyond 9pm to encourage earlier sleeping habits as the regime bid to control the public begins to spill into people's homes and private lives.
