Iran Continues Crackdown Against Dissenters

The Iranian regime continues to lash out against its opponents, branding them terrorists and trying to cast blame for the violence on the West and the US in particular.

“Some Western countries are supporting this sort of activities. This is intervention in our internal affairs. We strongly condemn it,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “In this regard, the British ambassador will be summoned today.”The British government said its ambassador to Iran, Simon Gass, would respond “robustly” to any criticism and would reiterate calls for Iran to respect the rights of its citizens.

The conservative speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Larijani, rebuked American and British officials for their “disgraceful comments” about the demonstrations, according to the state-run PressTV. The criticisms of Iran’s action were “disgustingly vivid that they clarify where this movement stands when it comes to destroying religious and revolutionary values,” he said.

The regime arrested Dr. Noushin Ebadi, sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work for human rights in Iran.

Shirin Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her human-rights efforts in Iran, told the The Associated Press in a phone interview from London that she called her sister Monday, and that she was being punished because of the conversation.

"She was warned not to contact me," she said. "She is detained for the sake of me. She was neither politically active nor had a role in any rally."

Noushin Ebadi, a medical professor in Tehran, was arrested at her home by four intelligence agents late Monday and sent to prison, according to a statement issued by the Nobel laureate.

"It's necessary to point out that in the past two months she had been summoned several times to the Intelligence Ministry, who told her to persuade me to give up my human rights activities," the statement said. "She has been arrested solely because of my activities in human rights. ... Our country at the moment needs more than anything peace and quiet in the shadow of respect for law and any kind of behavior that goes above the law will have negative repercussions."

The opposition Web site Greenroad reported a series of additional arrests, among them Mousavi's brother-in-law, Shapour Kazemi, and Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a journalist who frequently criticizes the government. Others included the son of a prominent ayatollah, a reporter for the semi-official ILNA news agency, and several activists. Mousavi's nephew was among those killed this week.

Ahmadinejad and the mullahs keep trying to cast the demonstrations as the work of a few instigators, but each time they crack down against the demonstrators, it lays bare the fact that this is a regime that stole the election between Ahmadinejad and Mirhussein Mousavi and that many consider Ahmadinejad as illegitimate.

Demonstrators continue protesting against the regime outside Iran, including in Paris, Brussels, and Berlin.

However, locating video or photos of demonstrations and the situation inside Iran is proving to be difficult because Iran continues to limit the flow of information out of the country so that it can try to eliminate the opposition and its sources of power; the distribution of information and photos that would rally people against the regime.