Pot. Kettle. Black. (essay)

On 28 August 2011, the AP (via reporter Nada Bakri) reported that Iran had finally broken its silence over the now five month long protests in Syria.

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's Foreign Minister, said, "The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen or other countries. The people of these nations have legitimate demands, and the governments should answer these demands as soon as possible."

Even the Arab League is getting involved. The League's delegates in Cairo released a statement saying that they have "asked the secretary-general of the Arab League to carry out an urgent mission to Damascus and transmit the Arab initiative to resolve the crisis to the Syrian leadership."

Let's take a look at the crisis, particularly the demands of the Syrian people. They are listed in no particular order, and are phrased in very general cases, as many groups with overlapping motivations are part of the Syrian component of the Arab Spring.

• Free elections, and an end to the one-party system
• Freedom of expression and communication
• Improvements to human rights, particularly for women and minorities, and an end of arbitrary abuses
• End of the emergency rule that has been in effect since 1963, and the dissolution of secret courts

These are very broad strokes indeed, but it should be very apparent that Syria has been run much the same as most other countries in the region have: A bureaucratic dictatorship with a token constitution and extreme abuses of so-called "states of emergency", and a healthy dose of kleptocracy.

The human rights abuses in particular have drawn wide criticism for years, with Human Rights Watch reporting in 2010 that there had been zero improvement in the ten years since the current ruler, Bashar al-Assad, had come to power.

Those with a grounding in the region will notice how many of those points are in common with the sporadic but long-running wave of protests in Iran, which recently peaked with this year's so called Day of Rage in February.

Starting with the 2009 elections in Iran, there have been widespread protests against electoral fraud and human rights abuses - arbitrary imprisonment and torture - resulting in the arrests of hundreds of opposition organizers, reformist politicians, local and foreign journalists, and the mobilization of the militia for what can only be described as targeted pillaging of opposition homes, hospitals, and student dormitories.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are widespread reports that those who were arbitrarily arrested are being tortured, allegations the rebuttal to which has been a simple "No we aren't" and outright refusal to prove that those who have been detained are even alive. Indeed, investigations and admissions by Iranian Parliament and the Iranian Chief of Police revealed that torture, rape, and murder of prisoners was happening with official sanction.

Estimates and in some cases even official records put the number of executions and extrajudicial killings of political prisoners at over 45,000 in the last 30 years. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch put it at two per day for 2011 so far.

The government of Iran has not hesitated to crush even peaceful protests with military and paramilitary force. Particular, but not in any way uncommon, events include the 1999 student riots in which a small, peaceful protests against the forced closure of a reformist newspaper were met with 400 paramilitary vigilantes, as well as the armed militia response to a celebration of International Women's Day. Both events resulted in hundreds of arrests and significant casualties.

As for free communication, censorship is so brutal and widespread that even Al-Jazeera has directly and bluntly announced that "some of the newspapers have been given notices to change their editorials or their main headlines." The BBC has stated in several instances that BBC Persian broadcasts, both terrestrial and satellite-based, have been jammed by the Iranian government to prevent the broadcasts from being received within Iran's borders. A BBC official referred to it directly as electronic warfare.

As for secret courts? The actual power in the country is vested directly in the Guardian Council, a religious court appointed directly by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah, currently Ali Khameni. The parliament and President are ceremonial figureheads and act in an advisory role to the Ayatollah and the Guardian Council. That's right, they rig elections even for completely powerless, token positions in the false-front government.

Oh, and let's not forget that Iran sent snipers to Syria to help the Syrian secret police during riots.

Let's check the current score:

It's quite obvious that what we have here is a classic case of what is called in the vernacular, "ten pounds of bullshit in a five pound bag." Or, as the cripplingly terse might say, "Iran. Syria. Pot. Kettle. Black."

Selected References:

Syria:
Human Rights Watch on Syria
Reuters coverage of pro-Democracy rally
NY Daily coverage
Emergency Law repealed
Telegraph coverage of Iranian snipers
World Corruption Index

Iran:
Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, Shirin Abadi. ISBN 978-1400064700
Coverage of the Iranian announcement
Asian Center for Human Rights special report, UNHCR
Amnesty International, Iran
Al Jazeera on Iranian censorship
Wall Street Journal on Basij involvement
UPI on opposition persecution