Tehran’s Pollution Crisis

Optimistic figures indicate that Tehran’s air pollution has killed 107 Tehrani residents during the last month. The emergency situation in Tehran’s pollution has forced millions of its residents to stay home for days during the year, while the chairman of Tehran’s City Council believes that the crisis is the effect of a serious environmental phenomenon.

The executive director of Tehran’s biggest cemetery says that the death rate due to air pollution has increased four times in comparison to last year’s figures. But the problem is not confined to Tehran alone and exists in most major cities of Iran. Isfahan’s top official on the environment recently had issued a warning about the critical air pollution situation that is looming over that large city.

Economy specialists contend that every time government or city officials announce a high-pollution day, thus closing schools and other organizations whose members may be at health risk, the city’s businessmen loose about 1000 billion Rials a day. Some urban planning experts attribute the current catastrophic situation to the years when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the Mayor of Tehran.

Tehran’s air pollution has now turned into a very serious, dangerous and critical problem for its residents. Just last week alone, the pollution levels in Tehran were so high and dangerous that authorities were forced to close down schools, which lead to the cancellation of many public events for a few days.

Hundreds of Tehrani residents were transferred to hospitals because of the air pollution that produced heart, lungs and respiratory problems during the 5-day emergency period in the city. In this regard, the head of Tehran’s Emergency Unit said that during a 24-hour period, 283 heart and respiratory patients had been treated in the emergency unit. He added that there was an increase of 30 to 40 percent in the number of patients referred to the unit during the period.

An official in Tehran’s Medical Science University also has said that around 5 to 9 thousands Tehranis die due to air pollution every year. Political observers blame the city council officials and Tehran mayors for the critical situation that has lead to the death of hundreds of its residents during the last month. They assert that city officials have been neglecting the pollution problem while they spent large amounts of the city’s budget on election campaigning for the president which has seated many city council officials in key and high positions of Ahmadinejad’s government.

Because of the harsh and suppressive atmosphere since the new administration,
environmentalist NGOs too have been silent over the issue in recent months. Critics of independent NGOs have jumped on the bandwagon and using the pollution crises allege that these bodies had never played a successful role and thus should be controlled by the government.

In the words of many Tehranis, as the pollution crisis in Tehran grows in magnitude, they too breathe more death than oxygen with every passing day. Iranian automobile factories continue to manufacture sub-standard vehicles while government officials are focused on one crises and the other with the goal of simply holding to their positions and power.

The Mystery of the Serial Murders

The 20 days from November 19, 1998 that witnessed the murders of Dariush Foruhar, Parvaneh Foruhar, Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Puyandeh, among others, resulted in a huge wave of domestic and international disgust for the perpetrators of the murders of Iranian dissidents. So heartless and brutal were these crimes that even some authorities inside the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, not exactly known for its respect for human rights, denounced them as hideous methods for dealing with dissidents. Today, that aversion still exists, while no punishment has gone to those responsible for the murders.

After the revelation of the serial murders and on pressure from president Khatami, the Ministry of Intelligence put the responsibility of this scandal and tragedy on certain “rogue, deviant, and unauthorized colleagues of the Ministry,” as announced in its statement of early January 1999. The announcement also made reference to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible in the Ministry, who “had undoubtedly been under the influence of covert individuals and who perpetrated these crimes to fulfill foreign interests.” The statement also undertook to root out these elements and assured the Iranian nation that it would destroy the remnants of the band responsible for the deeds.

Seven years have now passed but the public feels that not only have the perpetrators and those behind the murders not been identified to the public, the remaining undercover individuals have actually returned to official positions and have been responsible for other violent policies in the country, such as the attack on Tehran University dormitory, the arrest and detention of political activists, journalists, and web bloggers. Even the assassination of Saeed Hajjarian and murder of Zahra Kazemi have been carried out by them.

Akbar Ganji who relentlessly investigated the serial murders and exposed the executioners and saved the lives of many dissidents thereof, has now been behind bars for six years. Nasser Zarafashan, the attorney for the families of the survivors of the serial killings, remains in prison since three years ago for following up the issue. And this is not to mention the many journalists and writers who have been silenced and threatened not to write again after they published some aspect of the serial murders.

And even though calls were made by political activists including Akbar Ganji for the creation of a national commission to investigate all aspects of the murders, such a group was never formed, and instead a commission was created to investigate the murders of Dariush and Parvaneh Foruhar, Mohammad Mokhtari, and Mohammad Jaafar Puyandeh only.

Some observers have said that the plans to get rid of dissidents in the Islamic Republic began in 1988 with the murder of Dr Kazem Sami, the Minister of Health during the liberal administration of Mehdi Bazargan, the first Prime Minister after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the monarchy. Nobody assumed the responsibility for this murder, until finally a person who had been accused of the crime was said to have committed suicide in a public bathhouse.

The list of names of those who were the victims of the Ministry of Intelligence’s murders is long and perhaps even not fully known. But here are the names of some of the best known dissidents that were found dead or announced to have died.

Dr Kazem Sami, Seyed Khosrow Besharati (a religious critic), Dr Tafati and his wife, Saeed Sirjani (writer), Hossein Barazandeh, molla Mohammad Rabii (a.k.a. Mamusta Rabii, a Friday prayer leader in Kermanshah), Mamusta Faroogh Farsad (of Saghez), sheikh Mohammad Ziyai (Friday prayer leader of Bandar Abbas), Molavi Abdol-Malek Molazadeh and Molavi Jamshid-zehi (Sunni clerics in Baluchistan province), Molavi Abdol-Melk, Dr Ahmad Mirin Sayad (university professor), Kazemi (a Sunni university professor), Dr Abdolaziz Bajd (university professor in Zahedan), Ahmad Mir Alayi (writer and translator), Dibaj and Mikailian (Christian priests in Isfahan), Fakhr al-sadat Borghei, Javad Safar, Jalal Mobinzadeh, Zahra Eftekhari, Morteza Alian Najafabadi, Amir Gafoori, Saeed Mahmud Milani (Amir Gafoori’s sister’s husband), Majid Ranjbar of Mashhad is the only victim who escaped an attempt on his life, Faraj Sarekuhi (writer) is another person who escaped an attempt on his life, Dr Ahmad Tafazoli (of Tehran), Manoutchehr Sanei (an adjudant of the Shah who worked at a History institute in Tehran) and his wife (Firuzeh Salar Kalantari), Dr Gafar Hosseini (university professor and a member of the writers guild), Ibrahim Zalzadeh (publisher of Ebtekar publishing company), Abbas Navai (a former political prisoner),Hamid Hajizadeh (poet and writer from Kerman) along with his 9-year old son, Piruz Davani (political activist), Dariush (political activist) and Parvaneh Foruhar

Islamicizing Schools: A Step towards Security-based Education

With the appointment of Mahmoud Farshidi as Iran’s new Minister of Education, some hardline religious officials began talking about Islamicizing schools books. Mohsen Ghara’ati, a conservative religious preacher and television personality was among the fist to set the media stage for turning schools books more Islamic. Just a few days ago, the cleric Ghara’ati criticized the texts used in universities and high schools. He said that the content of these books are not welcome by the faithful youth, a reference to ultra-conservative youth.
Since the early days of the revolution in 1979, Ghara’ati has played different roles in the writing of religious school books. In his meetings with officials of the Cultural Revolution Council, he criticized former ministers and religious teachers for their negligence of the issue.
The new Minister of Education has asked senior religious teachers in Qom to support him in Islamizing the schools. Changing the content of school curricula appears to be another project of the new hardline-conservative government in Tehran, after the unpopular appointments of a cleric to head Tehran University.
Farshidi has recommended that a group of senior religious scholars in Qom and educational experts form a committee to meticulously review all schoolbooks. Political observers are skeptical about how many people will actually take up the call and work on the project. They also point out that the new policy could turn out to be just a pretext for purging the many government employees who while not even active in any sense, hold views that are different from those of the hardliners or religious conservatists. Iran’s government employees comprise a large number of middle class individuals who look at their job as a job, and do not get engaged in politics. Observers fear that Islamization is an excuse of the president’s men whose goal is to replace many high and middle ranking government staff with their own to ensure compliance and total obedience in the bureaucracy.
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran has witnessed two waves of Islamization in schools and universities. The first wave aimed at revolutionizing and Islamicizing the schools came a few days after the collapse of the ancient regime. The angry ideological waves of people washed away thousands of teachers from their work. The sackings were the biggest ideological and human purge in a governmental department.
Many experts have expressed their concerns over the current measures. An education expert says that the Islamization of educational institutions that began with the universities can have dangerous long term effects on the country's educational system and could deepen the existing identity crisis among Iranian youth.
Only time can tell whether the Islamization of schools will lead to Islamic and religious education of the youth. The first wave of Islamization of educational institutions showed that the result was the birth and growth of an un-Islamic generation of Iranian youth. During the last presidential elections, candidates focused more on religious freedoms rather than emphasis religious principles and values.

Islamicizing Schools: A Step towards Security-based Education