Each Persian year, the Iran Times editorial staff identifies the biggest newsmakers among Iranians inside and outside Iran, based on their impact on the news whether for good or ill.
For the just-concluding year of 1389, the editors selected from within Iran the leaders of the Green opposition and their wives.
The opposition appeared to have been crushed when it was unable to mount any significant street protests after the December 27, 2009, protests on the religious holiday of Ashura. But the opposition didn’t die. Despite the inability to mount protests and street actions, the opposition refused to dissolve and scatter and remained a thorn in the side of the state.
The Musavis and the Karrubis continued to speak out throughout the year, with the Internet becoming their main route of communications with their followers and the world at large.
It isn’t clear how much of an active administrative role the four have had in the opposition and to what degree they might be mainly inspirational figures with other people doing the bulk of the work.
The government doesn’t seem to know that either. It continues to arrest opposition figures almost every day. And it continues to free opposition figures almost every day. There is a bit of a revolving door aspect to the regime’s efforts to shut down the opposition through the use of incarceration.
But the regime is clearly fearful that the Musavis and Karrubis are a major factor in the opposition, even if it is only inspirational. The government proved that in mid-February when it confined the four and prevented them from having any communication with the outside world, including even with their own children.
As runner-up, the Iran Times named Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, the woman who was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery. In an unusual decision, her son decided to go public with her case. Woman activists around the globe mobilized to express disgust with the way Ashtiani was being treated.
The case has proven to be an immense embarrassment for the government. In the face of the international uproar, the Judiciary has suspended the stoning sentence. But then it began talking about hanging Ashtiani instead for her purported role in the murder of her husband. The Judiciary only came up with the murder charge after the stoning sentence became an embarrassment and five years after her husband’s death. It appears the regime is eager to execute her chiefly for the crime of becoming a pain the neck for the regime.
The government has managed to limit world news coverage of the case in recent months. After arresting Ashtiani’s son and lawyer, there have been no further developments in the case. In other words, there has been no news to report. But the world is so sensitized to the case that, if it the Judiciary does decided to hang Ashtiani, an explosive reaction can be expected.
From within the expatriate community, the Iran Times named Shahram Amiri as Newsmaker of the Year.
Amiri is no longer an expatriate, however. He returned to Iran last July and has since disappeared completely. It isn’t known if he is imprisoned or even if he is still alive.
Amiri, a nuclear scientist, defected to the United States early in 2009—although Iran later insisted he had been kidnaped by the United States while on hajj in Saudi Arabia. The United States said nothing about the defection. Amiri was reportedly attracted to defect by an open American offer of large payments to any nuclear scientist who would leave Iran.
After months in debriefing during which he reportedly told US intelligence everything he knew about Iran’s nuclear program, he was given a new identity and sent off to be a graduate student in Arizona. Something happened then. He apparently got homesick, began to have doubts about defecting and abandoning his wife and son.
He posted two videos on YouTube, one saying he was being held captive in Arizona and the other saying he was studying in the United States and would return to Iran. Eventually, he told US intelligence he wanted to go home. He was driven to the Iranian mission in Washington and dropped off. The next day he flew back to Iran, made one public appearance, and disappeared.
The Islamic Republic told a different story. It said Amiri contacted Iran after being kidnaped and became an Iranian intelligence agent, gathering much information on how the CIA operates. It said he eventually escaped his captors and made his way to the Iranian mission in Washington, D.C. However, even the chief of the Iranian mission was quoted on state television as saying that American agents escorted Amiri to the diplomatic mission.
As for the secret information Amiri conveyed, news agencies in Iran quoted only one thing—the Virginia license plate numbers of two vehicles used by the CIA (although one of those plate numbers had one too many digits for a Virginia plate).
US officials laughed at that report. They said Amiri was by no means the first defector to get homesick and go home and for that reason defectors are never allowed into the inner sanctums of the CIA.
As runner-up newsmaker in the Diaspora, the Iran Times named Ali Reza Pahlavi, the youngest son of the late Shah, who committed suicide in January.
The suicide stunned the Iranian-American community, including those who never favored the monarchy. Ali Reza was the second of the Shah’s four children to take his own life. Overnight, his passing became iconic of the emotional strain facing all those who are forced to become expatriates and can never return to their homeland.
