Free Republic

It is time for the West to learn to say the names of Iran's democrats. On Sunday bloody street battles in cities across Iran exposed the regime's brutality for all the world to see. On Monday, the government restarted one of the darker arts it has mastered: grabbing its democrats and stuffing them in a hole. Among the dissidents arrested was veteran democratic activist Heshmat Tabarzadi. On December 17, Mr. Tabarzadi wrote in an op-ed article on these pages that "If the government continues to opt for violence, there very well may be another revolution in Iran. One side has...

A tendency within the Islamic Republic of Iran is to use misleading shortened versions of the names of Islamic organizations and personalities in order to sanitize and reactivate certain discredited entities. Heshmatallah Tabarzadi was one of the main leaders for the"Office of Strengthening the Unity of the University and theTheological Seminary" (OSUUTS), nowadays simply referred to as the"Office of Strengthening Unity". Prior to Khamenei's tenure as the "SupremeLeader" and the "Guardian Scholar" during the late 80s, college students did not have the right to form political groups. Khamenei declared that students should partake in political activities and allowed them to...