Iran Crosses the Totalitarian Line

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright October 24, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                                

              Imposing new restrictions on 12 university social sciences, the Islamic Republic of Iran has crossed the line into toalitarianism, now restricting academic teaching and research.  Like the Maoist revolution in China, Iran’s Mullahs have adopted the same kind of thought reform and brainwashing, torturing and murdering dissidents,  intimidating average citizens with beatings, torture, arrests, detentions and possible executions.  As President Barack Obama weighs the final two years of his first term, he can’t avoid Iran’s unbridled nuclear program, incursions into the Western hemisphere and Nazi tactics now banning psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics and other social sciences.  Enriching uranium isn’t the most intolerable state-sponsored dehumanizing act but the crushing of the human mind through relentless government persecution and repression.

            Iran’s justification for oppressing academic freedom stems from its supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s attempt to control every aspect of Persian society, especially ordinary citizens’ minds.   Khamenei gets his mandate from the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei the founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.  Today’s oppression in Iran goes beyond any religious purpose but, like in Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia or Hitler’s Nazi Germany, to exercise totalitarian power over its citizens.  All protests, like the post-election protests of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, involve intimidation, beatings, persecution, arrests, detentions, torture and secret executions.  U.N. officials have watched Iran in recent years defy attempts at nuclear inspection, suppress any and all freedoms under the guise of promoting Shiite Islam and violate every principle of the U.N. charter.

            Banning study in all social sciences, including human and women’s rights, should alert U.N. officials to the unthinkable repression by the current Islamic government.  “The content of the current courses in the 12 subjects is not in harmony with religious fundamentalists and they are based on Western schools of thought,” Iranian education officials told state radio, justifying the extreme censorship.  Only the holy Quran escapes the state’s hammer, oppressing and suppressing any human rights to have access to any intellectual freedom.  U.N. Security Council members must take a serious look at what amounts to the same type of oppression witnessed in Hitler’s Third Reich.  Whatever threat Iran poses by its nuclear enrichment program, it presents a far worst threat to human freedom and dignity by censoring any and all intellectual freedoms preserved at Iran’s universities.

            When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with Venezuelan leftist President Hugo Chavez in Tehran last week, they talked of a “new world order,” essentially countering U.S. global influence.  While former President George W. Bush went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq to contain weapons of mass destruction, Ahamadinejad’s Iran poses the biggest threat to freedom of conscience and intellectual thought since Nazi Germany.  While the U.N. can do little to save the Iranian people, they can take a strong stand on Iran’s brutal crackdown.  No U.N. member in good standing can violate every principle of the U.N. charter and ignore human right without repercussions.  U.N. Security Council must urgently meet to take an unequivocal stand against Iran’s brutal crackdown on academic freedom.  If needed, Iran should be evicted from the U.N.

            Formed in the ash heap of WW II from the League of Nations, the U.N. was founded and chartered to prevent another Nazi Germany.  Iran’s current crackdown on intellectual freedom, violation of U.N. weapons’ inspections and new incursion into the Western Hemisphere crosses the line.  Obama has warned Tehran about its reckless atomic ambitions.  He must now consult with the Security Council and put Iran on notice that the world won’t tolerate Nazi-like acts on their own people.  Whatever games Iran plays with its nuclear program, they can’t get away with egregious human rights’ abuses.  U.N.’s multilateral action was designed to deal with renegade regimes going beyond the pale when it comes to human rights and dignity.  Crushing academicl freedoms at Iran’s universities crosses the line, demanding a clear and forceful U.N. Security Council response.

            Iran’s recent ban on academic freedom at its universities violates the U.N. charter, repeating the kind brutal crackdown seen in Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany.  There’s no place too far or remote to not speak out and take action against Iran’s Shiite Mullah-controlled government.  No U.N. member-state this tyrannical can live without real consequences to its continued membership.  When Ahmadinejad declared victory June 14, 2009 in a disputed election, the county erupted in protests led by his rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi.  Over the last 18 month, Iran’s mullah-based government has beaten, detained and liquidated all protesters, continuing the brutal crackdown that now threatens academic freedom.  U.N. officials must take a clear stand on Iran’s intolerabale practice of controlling academic freedom, brainwashing, intimidation, arrests and secret executions.

.About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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