President Hassan Rouhani was elected as the moderate candidate, who promised to resolve the nuclear dispute with the West, and bring a measure of greater social and cultural freedom to Iran.

Yet mass protests triggered in December 2017 were directed at the economic policies taken by the government and represented some of the toughest domestic challenges to the Iran state in years. Furthermore, arrests of critics and dissidents continue. Sporadic crackdowns on women and youth occur. RSF has described Iran as “one of the world’s biggest prisons for journalists”. The Islamic Republic keeps a tight grip on all its media outlets and the persecution of journalists has only increased in recent months. A state announcement this year of a national security criminal investigation and asset-freezing injunction targeting 152 current and former BBC Persian staff, has led to the BBC appealing to the UN to protect the rights of its journalists and families.

Nevertheless, Rouhani’s supporters argue he must gain credibility through successful nuclear negotiations before he can bring about any domestic reforms, particularly in light of the forces in Iran anxious to demonstrate their continued strength on the world stage. While his year has been a mixed picture, some argue his mandate has always only been to ease the country’s economic pain by rolling back sanctions: greater rights and freedoms at home have never been a priority.

Chair

Azadeh Moaveni is lecturer in journalism at New York University in London, former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times and author of Lipstick Jihad and Honeymoon in Tehran. Her research focuses on how political instability impacts women, and she is writing a book about women and ISIS.

Speakers

Saeed Kamali Dehghan is a staff journalist with the Guardian. He has previously written from the Iranian capital, Tehran. He is now based in London and was named 2010 Journalist of the Year at the Foreign Press Association awards.

Richard Zaghari-Ratcliffe is husband of charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen who has been detained in Iran since 3 April 2016. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, travelled to Iran on 17 March 2016 to visit her family with her 22-month-old daughter Gabriella. On 3 April 2016, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard arrested her at the Imam Khomeini Airport as she and daughter were about to board a flight back to the UK. On 10 September 2016, it was revealed that she was sentenced to five years imprisonment “for allegedly plotting to topple the Iranian regime”.  on 7 May 2016, Richard launched an online petition urging both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Iran’s Supreme Leader to take appropriate action to secure the safe return of his wife and daughter Gabriella. Ratcliffe’s petition has been signed by over 1.5 million supporters in over 155 countries.

Kasra Naji is special correspondent for BBC Persian TV and author of Ahmedinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader.

Charlotte Phillips is a lawyer and freelance writer (The New Arab and anonymously for a national paper). She recently returned to London after spending the past 2.5 years living in Iran and completing a masters degree at the University of Tehran.  During this time she travelled widely throughout the country and in 2016 joined the 22 million Shia making the annual 82km pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala, Iraq for the observation of Arba’een. Charlotte recently defended her thesis on Iran’s water governance crisis, which is presently being turned into a book. She is also writing a second book on Iran’s popular music scene. Charlotte is currently visiting Iran and will be back just in time to discuss the local reaction to Trump’s announcement regarding the JCPOA.

“Creativity always wins out over power.”

– Srdja Popovic

To mark the release of his new book, Blueprint for Revolution: How to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other non-violent techniques to galvanise communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world, the Frontline Club hosted a conversation with Serbian author and activist Srdja Popovic chaired by Steve Crawshaw from Amnesty International.

Popovic, who consults with political activists across the world in his role as executive director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), began by underlining the motivations behind the book.

“There are many fascinating stories you learn from working with activists across the world. And one of the things you feel is the first thing in any revolution happens in your head. People imagine these revolutionaries as heroes in the Che Guevara mould… but hanging out with these people you come to realize that they are like you and me.”

Pushed by Crawshaw over whether the use of non-violent strategies worked for so-called ‘soft’ power but failed in more extreme cases, such as Russia and Syria where power has become more entrenched, Popovic referred to the phrase often repeated by local activists.

“There are always reasons why it can never happen here, (either in Syria because the state is too repressive or in the UK because people are too apathetic). And they are right. Every single context is different. Even the title of the book is cynical; there is no such thing as a blueprint for revolution. People need to dream their own country, you need creativity, you need numbers and you can’t really borrow this from somebody else… but what we are talking about is a set of tools that are the same.”

Popovic countered claims of internationalising activism, often levelled at organisations such as CANVAS and used by governments to re-define national non-violent protests, by re-asserting that all these struggles must be indigenous but that each can learn from a basic tool-kit. Most importantly, Popovic cited the most common failures of a revolution – the inability to follow up a successful revolution with a vocabulary of democratic transition.

From experiencing the disunity of the opposition in Serbia under Milosevic right through to the disparate opposition groups in Syria, Popovic emphasised the need for organisation, planning and discipline within political protest movements, claiming that despite the popular perception that revolutions are spontaneous acts, “there are in the end only two types of non-violent revolution: the spontaneous and the successful. You can’t have both.”

Charting the evolution of protests during the Arab Spring from non-violent to violence, Popovic stressed the need to objectively look at previous revolutions to determine the most effective strategy.

“Out of 323 struggles in the last century, 52% of non-violent struggles were effective as opposed to 26% of violent struggles. Simply speaking you want to go back to Sun Tzu who said that if you want to win a war you need to put your strong points against your opponent’s weak points.”

From Tienanmen to the protests in Tahrir Square, the most successful revolutions build from small victories, in what he termed ‘dilemma actions’ – doing something everybody can do – picking the battles that you can win and recognising the moment when momentum turns in a movement.

“The easiest way to imagine this type of struggle is as a video game which works on multiple levels. Non-violent struggle is like stairs and the problem is that we only see the goal of ‘game over’. Like going to the theatre and only seeing the last act we do not see what has preceded it.”

Specifically analysing the problems of Occupy, Popovic criticised the movements’ inability to articulate clear objectives and translate public anger into hope. Secondly, the problem lay in the decision making process that Occupy adopted, in “the thought that somehow getting organised would harm the cause of their struggle”. Thirdly was a question of branding. By terming the movement Occupy you made a movement out of a tactic and limited it to a small group of people who already think the same. Instead, Popovic suggested that by terming the protest the 99% it becomes an inclusive social inequality movement.

When asked about the tendency or desire to define a protest as a binary Good vs. Evil struggle, Popovic said that “too often people get excited about demonizing the person, political party or system as the centre of evil and build their own reality around it.” Instead, what he learned and what he tries to teach groups is to think in a different way.

“The main difference between violent and non-violent struggle is in the direction. In violent struggle you push, whether you are throwing stones or sending in tanks, in non-violent struggle you pull. If you want to pull people out of the system you can’t convert someone you are trying to kill.”

From his own experience in Serbia where the tactic of protesting police barricades shifted from howls of dissent to giving them cakes and flowers, Popovic concluded by discussing how and why humour works as a fundamental strategy for non-violent protest: through attracting participation in activism by increasing the ‘cool factor’ of protests, through the intentionally teasing authorities through mockery and by utilising humour as a fear breaker.

“If you get back to the idea of the video game and you look at the status quo force in society, these are either fear or apathy. Whereas if you look at game-changing factors it is enthusiasm, social mobilisation and commitment and so if you see one going up and the other going down you can predict and affect the outcome.”

On Thursday 18th April at the Frontline Club, authors Irina Prokhorova and Oliver Bullough talked about their experiences of Russia which have informed the research and writing of their two very different books.

Prokhorova’s book 1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point charts the missing year after 1989 when the Soviet empire fell apart and before 1991 when the Soviet Union was formerly dissolved.

“The close study of this period showed that all genesis of new life, just grew out of 1990. With its best achievements and worst [ . . . ] my idea was to show [ . . . ] this point of growth, the potential of the society of which probably we still don’t know enough.”

Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize winner and most recently author of Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56 , who was chairing the event, said that it felt that on reading the book one of the most notable points was how teachers were inspired to be creative with their curriculums. Prokhorova responded:

“I expected to find it but I was amazed how many things have been created at that time [ . . . ] we always underestimate the creativity of our own society [. . . . ] Somehow started in this period the whole basis of new life was created.”

Irina Prokhorova

While Prokhorova‘s book charts the lives of both ordinary and elite Russians at the fall of communism through interviews and documents of the time, Bullough‘s book, The Last Man in Russia and the Struggle to Save a Dying Nation, follows the story of an Orthodox Priest named Father Dmitry who throughout the sixties tried to combat the alcoholism that was commonplace throughout Russia. Bullough said:

“He attempted, in a small way because he was one man and this is a very large country, to create an alternative community in which people could trust each other [ . . . ] His theory was – and I think he was right – that the nature of a totalitarian society is that it can only survive by breaking down the bonds of trust between individuals.”

Oliver Bullough and Anne Applebaum

“So many of the dissidents, Marchenko or Sakharov…they are authentic heroes. Cast iron, 100% astonishingly brave, wonderful people and when you read about them it is inspirational. Father Dmitry is as it turns out not quite like that. In a totalitarian society heroes are a vanishing small minority; most people have to compromise. For whatever reasons, to get ahead, to get married or to get a job or to get a drink – to get anything. And once you compromise it’s difficult to stop. That is why I wanted to write about him.”

Prokhorova added:

“They have to compromise to save their lives and their loved ones.”

In contrast to Prokhorova‘s optimistic view of society flourishing throughout 1990 and hopefully into the future, Bullough offered a different opinion:

“The protests against Putin are a sign of a growing society and people are beginning to trust each other in a way that they weren’t before [. . . . ] However, the damage that has been done by vodka is so awe-inspiring. The UN estimates that the population by the middle of the century will be 116 million – it’s currently 143million. That’s a drop of about the population of Canada.”

Prokhorova added later on:

“Liberating yourself from the most horrific regime is a very painful process. You have to do quite a lot of things: psychologically, intellectually, practically. It’s very difficult to create this social fabric, I can assure you, for 20 years I’ve been trying to do it. The whole idea of survival was an individual thing [. . . . ] You have to teach people and you have to teach yourself too. We need a span of time.”

To which Bullough voiced his concern:

“There is a risk that people will become disillusioned and leave. This is something that the Soviet Union didn’t have – that it was very difficult to leave [. . . . ] The book does end in a relatively upbeat way. I’m encouraged that the new Soviet generation is much more socially active than I think I realised.”

Listen to Irina Prokhorova on how the Russian government should approach society in the future:

Watch the full discussion here:

The defense plans to appeal the verdict in higher instances till the European Court of Human Rights. International community has strongly condemned the case as political one and Amnesty International has already adopted the bloggers as "prisoners of conscience."

Emin Milli, 30, and Adnan Hajizade, 26, were assaulted and beaten while dining in a downtown Baku restaurant and then detained for hooliganism on early July this year.

Note: this piece was posted with a back date

However, the new government in Baku fell – various narratives talk of it as either a coup, or a national salvation. Hikmat Hajizade was dismissed from his post and recalled home. And then, it happened in Baku, when the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan was assaulted and severely beaten while walking in the street of its capital – somewhere in downtown in 1993.

Now, after sixteen years, history is repeating itself once again: this time it is Hikmat Hajizade’s son Adnan who was assaulted and severely beaten together with his friend Emin Milli while dining in a downtown restaurant. Yet, what ended for Hikmat Hajizade with injuries and possibly, bitter pains, has ended for Adnan with additional two-month pretrial detention and plus, a hooliganism charge promising up to 5 years in jail. Not an adequate perspective for a University of Richmond alumnus and BP employee, and a pioneer of video-blogging in Azerbaijan. Neither for his friend, Emin Milli – former country director of Friedrich Ebert Foundation and former Council of Europe consultant.

Back in 1993, when Hikmat Hajizade was assaulted and beaten, the country was embroiled in a bitter chaos, partly a fault of incompetency of the government once he represented. Baku’s major street fights and last armed uprising were to be subdued two years later – I still recall those bullet sounds in my neighbourhood. Now, the country enjoys a stability and oil revenues have created some sense of prosperity – however, the state of freedoms seems to change in a worse direction – sixteen years ago, a father would be beaten, but now, a son is not only beaten, but is also jailed and can face an endarkening prison sentence.

Democratic activism is a long tradition in Hajizade family, as well as the state of being assaulted and beaten for their activities – the only new element here is the fact that Adnan Hajizade now is being tried for both. Below – is the interview of Adnan Hajizade’s father to RFE/RL Azeri service, with English subtitles.

Living in an increasingly restricted society, failed by traditional media and broadcasting tightly controlled by the government, Internet users in Azerbaijan have embraced new media and social networking sites like Facebook as last refuge. Their usage of these online tools for communication and networking, mobilizing and news sharing, as well as advocacy and activism has resulted in what one blogger has effectively called Republic of Facebook .

Below are the excerpts and the summary of his blog post reproduced by the kind permission of the author.

Published in a start-up blog titled Bakrabo4iy , the post starts with a short retreat to the Soviet times:

In the USSR, the people were discussing politics in kitchen, sitting on white greased stools. Trusted friends would gather in the evenings and would have freethinking conversations. Without anxiety and fear that someone can spy on them, ideas of communism would be criticized harshly.

In Azerbaijan, everything is virtual and ironic nowadays. It is Facebook that plays the role of underground kitchen. The social networking site created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 to connect young people and transformed into something like global Classmates all over the world, it has become almost the last bastion of freedom in Azerbaijan.

Then the writer gives a description of internet users in Azerbaijan dividing them into two loose groups. The first group, according to the post, consists of the majority with low educational level and poor Internet skills, who use those skills to meet mostly their material and physical desires. Then, there follows a description of the minority:

The second group of people in Azerbaijan is traditionally supposed to be abnormal. These unique smart guys and gals can be met only in Facebook. The majority of them know several languages and almost all speak English. All of them have higher education. Many studied abroad. They are liberals, democrats, intellectuals, cosmopolitans and objectivists.

The activities of this minority in Facebook are jokingly labeled ‘hooliganism’ by the author in an apparent hint to the ‘hooliganism’ charges that the arrested bloggers are indicted of.

What today happens in Facebook can be compared only to the Matrix. As if you live in a fine and fluffy world where opposition may revolt from time to time. And you do not pay any attention to them. It was always like that, and thus, it is sound and reasonable. So was always, it is self-evident.

But then you enter Facebook and see that quite affluent and successful people talk about those acute problems, which you already knew about, but could not accept their existence – all of these were beneath the fog for you. As if Morpheus has called you, appointed a meeting and gave a pill. Take it if you want to learn the truth, don’t take if you don’t. A choice is yours.

And here comes the Republic of Facebook:

Facebook is the non-existing Republic of Crimea of Vasily Aksyonov – the great writer had created an utopian republic not grasped by the red army and moving on his own way of development.

However, it is not correct to consider Facebook as a political hobby group. Facebook is an avant-garde, non-conformism, objectivism, talent, tolerance and the most important – honesty.

Jacobin Club of the pacifists.

However, in judiciary practice, such defendants usually get released on bail or end with a house arrest. According to law expert Erkin Gadirli, two months of pre-trial detention is the maximum period that a law-breacher can receive, and this type of detention is usually conditioned with disturbing criminal past of detainees, their liaisons inside and outside of the prison, as well as degree of their dangerousness, possibility of their escape, degree of graveness of the crime, etc. Surely, with no criminal records or behaviour, Emin and Adnan recieved the harshest verdict possible.

Even visiting German Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid, Günter Nooke was not allowed to attend the trial. The Chairman of Sabail District Court Justice Gulzar Rzayeva refused to let in Günter Nooke or anybody else by pointing out that the trial is held behind closed doors in accordance with Azerbaijani laws. While around 150 supporters of Emin and Adnan, as well as residents of neighborhood, international and local NGO representatives, foreign diplomats and Mr. Nooke waited outside at the tightly closed door of the court house, the court sentenced both activists to two months of detention in presence of indicted and their lawyers, but refusing to listen to witnesses and bringing in the ‘victims’ of the alleged hooliganism act.

During these two months while Emin and Adnan are in detention, the investigation has to be concluded and their case brought before the judge. If the investigation is not concluded, their detention period can be extended for additional two months. While detained, they won’t be able to receive any guests, instead of their lawyers. They will be held in a new detention center in a town of Kurdokhani, a small town in an hour’s drive from Baku.

Emin Milli is one of prominent civil society activists in Azerbaijan and helped to forge a powerful but flexible Alumni Network (AN) – an incredible pre-Facebook era social network and strong mobilization force for country’s youth.  Four days ago, on 4th July, Emin was a speaker in a Heinrich Böll Foundation roundtable dedicated to a democratization process in Azerbaijan, where he strongly criticized the Azerbaijani government for its anti-democratic practices.

Adnan Haji-zadeh is one of the founders of OL! Youth Movement, a liberal entity that declares the principles of modernity, non-violence and tolerance. Adnan himself is a pioneer of video-blogging in Azerbaijan and is famous for his video reportages covering problems and challenges of youth and posted in Youtube.

Baku based Institute of Reporters’ Freedom and Safety has called Emin and Adnan’s arrest ‘politically motivated’. Visiting Deputy Secretary of U.S. State Department, James Steinberg has told RFE/RL Azeri Service that they keep this issue under constant attention, while Günter Nooke warned that this incident ‘can create a scandal beyond the borders of Azerbaijan’ and ‘damage her image’.
 

Yesterday, on 9 July, representatives of civil society and youth groups, as well as political parties have held a ‘protest forum’ to both inform the society about the incident and coordinate activities aimed at release of Emin and Adnan. While attending it, I found it characterized with ‘overcrowded hall, furious speakers, plenty of civil society and party leaders, foreign press [and] no local TVs’. Indeed, opened with an angry tirade by forum chair and veteran human rights activist Leyla Yunus, the ‘protest forum’ went through fierce discussions and bitter accusation of all responsible for this incident.

Participants decided to sign an open appeal to the President of Azerbaijan to help release Emin and Adnan, while Leyla Yunus herself sent an open letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs (temporary link).

The German ambassador talked about irony of the incident –on 10 July, the German Human Rights Commissioner was due to visit Azerbaijan and it was scheduled that Emin Milli would be his interpreter. However, as the forum managed to learn from informed sources, on 10 July, Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada were to stand trial for ‘hooliganism’ charges at Sabayel District Court of Baku.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has started to tell their own version. Ministry spokesman Sadig Gyozalov has disclosed the names of the ‘sportsmen’ who have "been beaten" by  the activists and acknowledged that they were detained and afterwards released. They are Babek Huseynov (b.1983) and Vusal Mammadov (b.1984), both from Karabakh refugees. Asked why they were released, Gyozalov has answered that if it is needed, they will also be detained. however, ‘the case was opened not per persons, but per fact, and the perpetrators were Emin Abdullayev and Adnan Hajizada‘ cites him local news website.

Moreover, in his response to Radio Azadliq, Gyozalov has claimed that the incident was ordinary hooliganism. ‘It should not be politicized’. And what follows afterwards is an astonishing and extraordinary story:

These 5-6 people were sitting in the restaurant and making noise, thus breaching the rules. Those two people – Huseynov and Mammadov – tried to calm them down, called them to obey the rules. ‘Any other person, including me, who has a conscience, would do the same. This is the root of the conflict. These people [Emin and Adnan] have beaten those people [Huseynov and Mammadov], injured them. This is an act of hooliganism happening on everyday basis‘.

According to witnesses, two suspicious ‘sportsmen’ entered the restaurant, approached Emin and started to beat him while ‘telling’ him that he ‘criticizes the government too much’. When Adnan tried to help Emin, he was also attacked and beaten. According to Radio Azadliq, Emin received several injuries and cut in his leg while Adnan’s nose was broken.

After being severely beaten, Emin and Adnan applied for police assistance and medical expertise, and the police also detained the perpetrators. However, with a surprise turn, both perpetrators were released, and instead, Emin and Adnan were declared main suspects in ‘hooliganism’ act. Refused to meet their lawyer and relatives, both of them were detained for a period of up to 48 hours with a possible investigation and trial afterward. Moreover, they were transferred to Khatayi District Temporary Detention Center handcuffed.

Emin Milli is one of the prominent civil society activists and helped to forge a powerful but flexible Alumni Network (AN). An incredible pre-Facebook era social network and strong mobilization force for country’s youth was both a framework into which almost whole youth activities could be fit, and a ‘primary chaos’, particles of which then evolved into various youth organizations and movements of Azerbaijan. Four days ago, on 4th July, Emin was a speaker in a Heinrich Böll Foundation roundtable dedicated to a democratization process in Azerbaijan, where he criticized the Azerbaijani government strongly.

Adnan Haji-zadeh is one of the founders of OL! Youth Movement, a liberal entity that declares the principles of modernity, non-violence and tolerance. Adnan himself is a pioneer of video-blogging in Azerbaijan and is famous for his video reportages covering problems and challenges of youth and posted in Youtube.