I. Background

The Rise of Civil Society in the Khatami Era

Iran’s civil society was a direct beneficiary of the policies instituted during the reformist administration of former President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). The country witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of independent newspapers and journals, intensified activity by labor groups and professional associations, and an increase in the number of registered (and unregistered) NGOs, including human rights groups. This opening was facilitated by a simultaneous rise in the number of Iranian internet users, particularly bloggers, which allowed NGO activists to reach out to partners across the country and abroad.[1]

Khatami’s government and his reformist allies in the parliament and civil society soon came into conflict with forces associated with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These institutions, which include the Guardian Council,the judiciary, and influential elements within Iran’s military, security and intelligence apparatuses, launched a fierce counter-offensive against reformists and prominent civil society actors.[2]

Factions loyal to Supreme Leader Khamenei also introduced greater restrictions on pro-reform newspapers and publications. The attacks on freedom of the press were primarily led by judicial authorities like Saeed Mortazavi, initially a judge in Tehran’s Press Court and later prosecutor general of Tehran, who ordered the closure of dozens of newspapers and dailies.[3] Editors of banned papers frequently applied for permits from the authorities under a new name, continuing the cycle. Mortazavi also prosecuted journalists and bloggers, and was later implicated in the deaths of one journalist and several protesters following the disputed 2009 presidential election.[4]

Despite the counterattack by conservative factions, at the end of Khatami’s presidency in 2005 there were 6,914 registered NGOs, an unprecedented number.[5] Khatami’s government actively promoted the development of civil society and the formation and activities of NGOs. On July 29, 2004, as a step towards institutionalizing NGOs and facilitating their functioning, the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) submitted to the government draft executive regulations regarding the establishment and activities of NGOs. The government ratified these in July 2005.[6]

Prior to ratification of the executive regulations, NGOs were required to secure permits from either the Ministry of Interior or local government offices.[7]The new regulations created a three-tiered supervisory board made up of government officials and NGO representatives to review applications for permits.[8]

Article 1 of the regulations established councils on the municipal, provincial, and national levels to oversee and facilitate the formation of NGOs.[9]Members of the municipal-level councils include the mayor, a representative from the city council, and a representative from the NGO community.[10]Members on the provincial level include the governor, a representative from the provincial council, and an NGO representative.[11] On the national level, the council is made up of a deputy from the Ministry of Interior, a representative from the High Council of Provincial Representatives, and a representative of NGOs selected by the organizations themselves.[12] The regulations also established a process for appealing decisions by the supervisory board when NGO applications were rejected.[13]

Among NGOs established during the reform period were organizations dedicated to promoting civil and human rights inside the country. The most well-known was the Center for Human Rights Defenders, founded by Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and several other prominent lawyers in 2002. [14] That same year Dr. Sohrab Razzaghi, a law and political science professor at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran, founded the Iranian Civil Society Organizations Training and Research Center (ICTRC) to provide capacity-building support for civil society organizations, promote greater access to information, and raise public awareness regarding the situation of human rights in Iran. [15] A year later, in 2003, journalist and rights activist Emad Baghi, a prominent writer and rights activist, launched the Association to Defend Prisoners’ Rights. [16]

During the first year or so of Ahmadinejad’s presidency, several additional prominent civil society and rights groups came into existence. The One Million Signatures Campaign launched a grassroots effort to promote broad awareness on women’s rights issues and collect signatures on petitions to reform gender-biased laws. The Committee of Human Rights Reporters and Human Rights Activists in Iran began their activities a year earlier in 2005. [17]

However, conservative factions were relentless in their efforts to undermine such reforms.  Forces loyal to Supreme Leader Khamenei increased the pressure against President Khatami’s reform movement on multiple fronts. They attempted to impeach several of his cabinet ministers. Security forces arrested, and the judiciary tried and convicted, several prominent reformist allies of Khatami such as former Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri, former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, and reformist cleric Mohsen Kadivar. When those attempts failed to intimidate the reformists, Khamanei loyalists intervened to block the passage of pro-reform policies and legislations.[18]

During Khatami’s second term in office, and the conservatives gradually began to gain the ascendancy in their political struggle with the reformists. Ahead of the 2004 parliamentary elections, the Guardian Council disqualified an unprecedented 3,600 candidates, many of them reformists. Approximately 87 sitting parliament members were among those disqualified.[19]More than 100 members resigned in protest.[20] It was now clear that the reform movement had been checked.

Targeting of Civil Society Activists During Ahmadinejad’s First Term

The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president signaled the entry of the new populist conservative force, voted in with the support of Revolutionary Guards and the Basij and with the blessing of Khamenei and his allies. [21] Ahmadinejad’s cabinet members included individuals who were believed to be responsible for serious rights abuses, including the serial murders of dissidents in 1998, the closure of newspapers, and attacks against NGOs. [22]

Under Ahmadinejad’s first term as president, the attitude of the government shifted from tolerance and cautious encouragement of NGOs and grassroots movements to suspicion and hostility. The government increasingly applied a “security framework” to its approach to NGOs, often accusing them of being “tools of foreign agendas.” The councils established to approve and regulate NGOs now suppressed the work of activists by denying permits to NGOs to operate, often refusing to provide written explanations for rejecting applications as required by law.[23]

An example of the government’s increasingly hostile attitude toward civil society was its crackdown against the One Million Signatures Campaign. In 2006, after security forces attacked men and women gathered in Tehran to protest discriminatory gender-biased laws, women’s rights activists launched a campaign to oppose discriminatory laws that govern marriage and inheritance, compensation for bodily injury or death, and a woman's right to pass on her nationality to her children. Campaign members initiated a website and held regular workshops in Tehran and other cities in order to educate the public about legal challenges facing women and girls in the country.

Within months of the campaign’s launch, security forces began arresting volunteers who were out in the streets collecting signatures.[24]

Under Iranian law, the courts have the authority to decide whether a registered organization should be closed down.[25] In 2006, Ahmadinejad’s government introduced a draft NGO law intended to further restrict the activities of NGOs. Although this draft has been shelved by the parliament and not yet become law, it demonstrated the hostility of Ahmadinejad’s government to civil society, and there is concern that the new (and more conservative) parliament elected in February 2012 will take it up again. Organizations affected would range from human rights, environmental, and women’s organizations, through charities and organizations for the disabled, to employers’ and professional associations.[26] The bill would establish a Supreme Committee Supervising NGO Activities, chaired by the Ministry of Interior and including representatives from the Ministry of Intelligence, the police, the Basij, the Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the Foreign Ministry, and only a single person representing NGO interests. The committee would be able to issue and revoke all NGO registration permits and have ultimate authority over the composition of their boards of directors.[27]

On March 15, 2007, officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and Iran’s revolutionary courts, operating with a court order, closed down three NGOs: the ICTRC, the Rahi Legal Center (run by rights lawyer Shadi Sadr), and the Non-Governmental Organizations Training Center (managed by civil society and women’s rights activist Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh).  Revolutionary courts later convicted all three on charges related to national security.[28]

In December 2008 security and intelligence officials shut down Shirin Ebadi’s Center for the Defense of Human Rights without producing a court order. They alleged the center was carrying out illegal activities that endangered national security. Since the closure, the center’s members have been harassed and some convicted and imprisoned. [29]

Crackdown on Protest and Civil Society after the June 2009 Election

During the lead-up to the June 12, 2009 election large demonstrations and rallies for reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi led many to believe that Ahmadinejad might be defeated.   However on June 13, 2009, Iran’s Ministry of Interior announced that President Ahmadinejad had won the election with 62.6 percent of the popular vote. In response hundreds of thousands of Iranians filled the streets of Tehran and other major cities to protest peacefully against what they believed to be fraudulent election results.

Iranian authorities, initially taken by surprise, quickly declared the protests illegal. When hundreds of thousands of Iranians continued to take to the streets security forces responded with brute force. Anti-riot police, aided by intelligence agents as well as plainclothes and uniformed Basij paramilitary forces beat, arrested, and detained thousands. Excessive force, including the use of live ammunition against unarmed and for the most part non-violent protesters, led to the deaths of several dozen protesters between June and December 2009.[30]

Some protesters lost their lives not in street clashes but in detention facilities, where security forces subjected them to torture and ill-treatment, in some cases including rape and sexual assault.  At least five detainees died due to abuses sustained at Kahrizak detention center outside of Tehran.[31] Five students were killed when plainclothes and uniformed security forces carried out a nighttime raid on dorms at Tehran University on June 14, 2009.[32]

Despite widespread repression in the weeks following the election, peaceful protest demonstrations continued. During the fall and winter of 2009, government forces attacked peaceful protestors in response to major demonstrations such as those held on November 4 (the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the US embassy), December 7 (National Student Day), and in conjunction with the Shia religious holiday of Ashura on December 27. These attacks by security forces and Basij killed at least eight and injured many more.[33]

The government also continued to harass and intimidate activists, including individuals who worked for Mousavi or Karroubi’s campaigns, journalists, and human rights defenders, subjecting more than 100 to trials that were in part televised and did not meet international fair trial standards, and convicting others solely for exercising their right to peaceful dissent.[34]

The nature and size of the crackdown dramatically reduced the space for civil society and independent or critical voices in Iran. Activists, dissidents, and critics of the government faced a stark choice: risk arrest, detention, and conviction, or leave. Many chose the latter option. According the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of new Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey and several other countries has steadily increased since the government’s ferocious response to the post-election protest led to a new wave of emigration.[35]