VIOLENCE CONTINUE IN KHOOZESTAN UNABATED
AHVAZ (IRAN) 31 Dec. (IPS) Violent clashes continued in several cities of the Iranian oil-rich province of Khoozestan Tuesday, with some officials on the government side blaming the Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) and "rogue elements" for the turbulences.
Violence erupted after the conservatives-controlled Judiciary in the province ordered the security forces to close down sprawling shops distributing video tapes and cassettes, popular dances and music in Arabic, the dominant language among local populations in this south-western region bordering with Iraq.
Sources said at least 300 people, most of them young ones, have been detained during street fight with the police and plainclothes men that some believe are Iraqis on the payroll of the Iran-based Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI).
"Closing down clubs, shops selling video cassettes, music and dance and removing satellite antennas does not need to send in a whole army", complained Mr. Jasem Shadidzadeh, a reformist lawmaker from Ahvaz, who confirmed that most of the detainees are young boys and girls aged between 12 to 18.
Eyewitnesses said demonstrations are getting more and more political, as the local population, among the poorest of Iranians in this richest region of the nation feeling discriminations, humiliation and insults from the non-Arabs, who form the majority of the blue-collar workers.
"Clashes broke out after the judiciary in Khuzestan province ordered the police, without coordinating with the Khuzestan governor's office and the intelligence ministry, to shut down centres producing and distributing CDs in Ahvaz," Shadidzadeh told colleagues and journalists in the Majles.
Eyewitnesses said the heaviest of the clashes took place in Koot Abdollah, where local people blocked major roads, set fire to banks and buses belonging to the administration while chanting slogans against senior officials and the Islamic Republic, comparing it with the Taleban in Asfghanistan.
"The worst clashes have happened in the cities of Ahwaz, Khoram-Shahr and Koot-Abdollah, where youth reacted to brutal attacks from the regime's forces, using, in some places guns, Cocktail Molotov and stones", the Los Angeles-based Iranian Student’s Coordination Committee for Democracy reported.
"Security forces resorted to violence and used tear gas to stop people, mostly young students. Three hundred students ranging in age from 12 to 18 have been arrested and seven schools have been closed", Mr. Shahidzadeh further reported about the situation in his constituency.
"For about a week, Ahvaz city has been tense. One bank has been burned down and the road from Khorramshahr to Ahvaz has been blocked for two days," he added, accusing the leader-controlled Judiciary of seeking to spark a crisis as a pretext for declaring a state of emergency".
But Local chief prosecutor Amir Abbas Sohrab Beig was also quoted last week as warning that the operation was only the beginning of a major clampdown, which would also target underground alcohol producers and distributors. The raids were also aimed at houses using satellite dishes bringing them hundreds of foreign radio and television channels.
The Iranian authorities have banned owning satellite antenna following the multiplication of Iranian owned and operated radio and television stations beaming anti-regime programmes and popular dances and music onto Iran. ENDS KHOOZESTAN VIOLENCEG