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Vigilantes join the fray
By Kathleen Knox
PRAGUE - Sometimes they
arrive on motorbikes, sometimes in cars and vans. They
wield clubs and chains, or occasionally guns. These
groups of young men have become a common sight on the
streets of Tehran this week, beating demonstrators
protesting against the country's leaders.
They
belong to Ansar-i Hizbullah, a plainclothes, volunteer
Islamic militia that suppresses dissent and upholds
strict codes of behavior. They perhaps don't meet the
strict definition of vigilantes - really a group that
takes the law into its own hands without any authority
other than its own.
But if Ansar are taking
orders, it's not entirely clear from whom. The militants
pledge loyalty to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khameini, and they're believed to have ties to senior
clerics.
Ali Ansari, director of Durham
University's Center for Iranian Studies in England,
said, "The major source of trouble are the Islamic
vigilantes around the Ansar-i Hizbullah, the 'helpers of
the party of God'. And these are the real thugs; they're
hired like mafia groups. An ayatollah has his gang of
them and they go around with Kalashnikovs and sticks and
beat people up."
It was Ansar-i Hizbullah
militants who stormed a university dormitory during
student unrest three years ago, a raid that left one
student dead. They don't just pop up to quell protests -
they also enforce strict codes of behavior, protecting
what they see as Islamic values. And they are accused of
more sinister activities too.
Kenneth Katzman, a
Middle East expert at the US Congress Research Service,
said, "They've done their own independent activity
cracking down on Western-style parties, people who are
not following the Islamic customs in their private life
in terms of parties, dinner parties, little illicit
shops that sell goods that are maybe not Islamic, [like]
tapes, movies - they've been known to storm these type
of things and raid them, even going after women who are
not dressing what they consider to be properly. They
have done a lot of different things, but putting down
protests is certainly one of them. They've also been
accused of doing assassinations and various physical
intimidation of regime opponents."
Ansar-i
Hizbullah are thought to number only several thousand, a
hardline fringe group that is distinct from - but
possibly overlaps with - the much bigger Basij volunteer
militia. While they don't appear to be short of funds,
it is unclear who is financing their activities.
And if they have their uses, Durham's Ansari
said that they also pose a risk to the authorities. "One
of the big problems is that the Ansar, their strategy is
to provoke trouble. They want to go about beating up
people, harassing people in order to create a sense of
anarchy because then they think they can create a state
of emergency. But the authorities actually don't want
that, they want to keep things manageable. I think there
are so many people in the establishment like [former
president Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani and others who
also understand or recognize the danger in provoking a
mass street protest, because if you provoke one you may
actually provoke a revolutionary situation," Ansari
said. He said that's why Khameini has called on the
Ansar not to intervene in the protests.
Police
have also detained some militants, and in some places
have been preventing them from attacking protesters. A
student association affiliated with the Basij has also
distanced itself from them.
Copyright (c)
2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
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