Ghitis: Iran keeps wary eye on uprisings

Frida Ghitis writes about global affairs for The Miami Herald, where this first appeared.

The focus of attention on the pro-democracy unrest in the Middle East has shifted now to Bahrain, where security forces stormed protesters Thursday night. But the world should also keep a close eye on Iran. Iranian leaders have responded to the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere by choosing to kill even more of their opponents, according to data from human-rights organizations.

Iran's reaction to the Arab Revolt of 2011 puts the regime's fears, along with its objectives, in sharp relief.

On the surface, the Iranian government has expressed strong support for the protesters in Egypt. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the uprising an "Islamic awakening." That's clearly what Tehran would like to see emerge from the tumult. After all, the secular Arab regimes have generally opposed Iran's Islamist revolutionary ideology and its military expansion. The ferment of revolution could open the door to the kind of change that brought religious authorities to power in Tehran three decades ago.

Despite its stated support for the protesters, however, Iranian authorities quickly suppressed efforts by activists in their own country to stage rallies in support of the demonstrators in Egypt. Tehran blocked opposition websites and placed an opposition leader under house arrest. It also accelerated the pace of executions.

While the whole world was watching Egypt, Iran took advantage. Among those killed by the regime in recent days was Zahra Bahrami, a 45-year-old Dutch-Iranian woman arrested during anti-government protests in 2009. The government accused her of drug smuggling and secretly hanged her on Jan. 29. The Dutch, livid, recalled their ambassador from Tehran.

Unofficial tallies by news organizations and human rights activists show the Islamic Republic executed at least 66 people in January alone. Estimates point to some 250 executions in 2010. Iran now leads the world in the number of executions per capita.

In the last few weeks, the government has intensified repressive actions aiming to crush attempts to reignite the massive pro-democracy protests that erupted after the recent stolen election. Iranian authorities have tried to brand the pro-democracy movements shaking Arab dictatorships, claiming they represent a continuation of the revolution that brought Islamists to power in Iran 32 years ago.

But the regime's increased repression, occurring simultaneously with the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, shows that Iranian leaders know the revolt was more a protest against dictatorship than a move away from secularism. The Arab revolution may or may not produce secular democracies, but the protesters are fighting against government abuse. The demonstrators have more in common with Iranian protesters who were brutally repressed by the regime in 2009 than they do with the ideologues that created the Islamic Republic and lead it today.

From the moment the followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979, they vowed to spread their revolution across the Muslim world. Popular uprisings against secular Arab governments, which have long despised the Iranian regime, give Tehran hope that the ground will be fertile for more Islamic revolution.

So far, however, the young pro-democracy activists in the Arab world find more inspiration in the Iranian protests of 2009 than in the revolution of 1979. And the wave of executions, revealing a regime afraid of its own people, only provides more notice that the Arab revolt needs to protect itself from extremists who might hijack it.