New York – Iran’s paramilitary Basij are carrying out brutal nighttime raids, destroying property in private homes and beating civilians in an attempt to stop nightly protest chants of Allahu Akbar – God is Great.

Human Rights Watch also said the Iranian authorities are confiscating satellite dishes from private homes to prevent citizens from seeing foreign news.

“While most of the world’s attention is focused on the beatings in the streets of Iran during the day, the Basijis are carrying out brutal raids on people’s apartments during the night,” said Sarah Leah Whitson,Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants.”

Since the onset of protests against the disputed presidential election results on June 12, 2009, residents throughout Tehran and in other cities in Iran have carried out nightly rooftop protest chants of “God is Great” (Allahu Akbar) and other similar slogans.

The nighttime shouting of such slogans at designated hours is a powerful form of protest in Iran, as it was one of the emblematic forms of protests during the Iranian revolution 30 years ago, which toppled the ruling Pahlavi monarchy and led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic.Opposition leaders had asked their supporters to chant these slogans as a form of peaceful protest.

With the increasingly severe crackdown on the current street protests in Iran appearing to make large-scale daytime protests impossible, the nightly chanting has become one of the few remaining forms of mass public protests against the disputed results of the June 12 presidential election, the organization said.

A middle-aged resident from Vanak neighborhood gave Human Rights Watch an overview of his participation each day in the protests. He explained that by June 22, virtually the only form of protest still available to him was to shout slogans from his rooftop at night. But then the Basiji came to attack his neighborhood.

“On June 22, while we wereshouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ from the rooftops, the only form of protests we couldstill undertake, the Basiji entered our neighborhood and started firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of ‘Allahu Akbar’ is coming from. I didn’t see any rounds hitting our buildings. Shortly thereafter, my cousin arrived at our apartment. He was very shaken. The Basijis had entered their house in Yousef Abad neighborhood,and they had destroyed their doors and destroyed cars in the street.

“There are many things happening that aren’t being reported [in the media]. In every neighborhood of Tehran, people are talking about how the Basijis and other security services are coming into their houses and are terrorizing people for shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ from the rooftops, and for congregating.”

A second witness, a woman from the affluent Velenjakneighborhood in northern Tehran, gave a similar account of Basiji attacks inher neighborhood on the night of June 23:

“Last night [June 23], the Basijis entered our neighborhood to intimidate those who were shouting ‘AllahuAkbar’ from their rooftops. They started kicking down doors, and when they couldn’t succeed, they would climb over the garden walls and open the interior doors. When they entered the homes, they beat the residents. The neighbors took to cursing the Basijis and throwing stones at them to divert them from beating the residents, but then the Basijis attacked those neighbors’ houses and tried to enter them.”

Security agents are also forcing residents in Tehran to take down their satellite dishes, which allow them to view foreign media, one of the few sources of uncensored information in the face of the severe government restrictions on domestic media in Iran.

According to a reliable source in Tehran, on June 24, uniformed police officers forced residents in the Niavaran and Dorous neighborhoods of Tehran to take down their satellite receiving dishes, and returned later to confiscate many of the satellite dishes.

In addition to placing severe restrictions on access to internet-based news providers, Iran is also trying to jam the signals of foreign news media that broadcast into Iran.

Human Rights Watch called upon the authorities to ensurethat everyone whose property had been destroyed by security forces receivedcompensation in full.

Posted by News Editor on Jun 28 2009. Filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry