Iran VII: Night Raids

Beginning on or around June 22, Basij paramilitary forces began conducting "night raids" against private residential properties across Iran, Human Rights Watch reports in a news release entitled "Iran: Night Raids Terrorize Civilians."

The raids have two apparent objectives. First, the raids have aimed to disrupt nighttime rooftop protests:

"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."

The reports later clarifies by adding, "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." Both the nighttime rooftop protests and their featured chant of "God is Great" were iconic features of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in which the current regime took power.

Like other acts of protest repression, the nighttime raids have deployed violent tactics. According to an eyewitness:

"In my neighborhood, downtown Tehran, there were protesters who escaped into people's homes when the Basijis chased them. The Basijis who were chasing them then knocked harshly on the doors. The residents were too afraid to open the doors. Then the Basijis sprayed a mark on the door with spray paint. A few minutes later, they came back and attacked the marked houses, breaking down the doors and entering them. They beat the owners, and broke the windows in the house and of their cars."

Others witnesses to such raids report Basij forces have used armed force, "firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of ‘Allahu Akbar' [God is great] is coming from."

Second, evidence indicates the raids have aimed to limit domestic access to foreign news sources:

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.

An eyewitness account:

"Five policemen knocked on the door of our apartment building. People went to open the door and asked them what they wanted. The police said they wanted to come and destroy the satellite dishes on the rooftop. The landlord asked them if they had any permission documents to do this. The policemen replied that there was no need for any documents because the stairs and the rooftops aren't private property; they are common (shared) property. Then they threatened the landlord, ‘If you want us to go get permission documents, we'll come back later with them, but then we will also search the apartments as well.' They were trying to intimidate the landlord, so he let them in. Then they went to the rooftop and threw the dishes into the street. The landlord told me they behaved so harshly with him there was no room to complain."