CAIRO: Human Rights Watch on Friday demanded that the Iranian government end night raids that have destroyed property in private homes and left civilians injured in the attempt to end nightly protest chants. According to the New York-based rights group, the paramilitary Basij have also confiscated satellite dishes from private residences in order to prevent foreign news broadcast from being viewed. “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, HRW's Middle East director. “Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individuals homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants.” Iranians have been heading to their rooftops every evening since the protests began on June 12 and chant “God is Great” and other slogans, much to the chagrin of the Iranian government and their security apparatus. In the HRW statement released to media on Friday evening, on Tehran resident told the rights organization that his only form of protests remaining is to shout slogans from his rooftop at night. But he told HRW researchers that the Basiji attacked his neighborhood. “On June 22, while we were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar' from the rooftops … 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,” the man begins, “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 … and they had destroyed their doors and destroyed cars in the street.” HRW documented a number of other situations where private citizens have been attacked at night inside their homes. Whitson argued that this is simly another attempt to restrict freedom of speech and media. “After clamping down on the local media and expelling foreign correspondents, Iran's security forces are now trying to shut down people's access to foreign news. Clearly they don't want their own citizens to know what is actually happening inside Iran today,” she said. The rights group called on Tehran to guarantee and ensure that those people whose property has been destroyed by these nightly raids are properly compensated. The Basiji is a volunteer force created by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 in order to push the Islamic Revolution. It is made up of both men and women and is techincally under the control of the country's infamous Revolutionary Guard. There are branches throughout the country, including inside schools, universities, mosques and government offices. BM
