Portraying Critical Activists as Mentally Ill: A New Tactic of the Repressive Apparatus

Seyyed Hashem Khashtar, a prominent figure among teachers and civil activists in the country, has been forcibly hospitalized in the psychiatric ward of Ibn Sina Hospital in Mashhad by security forces! His wife, Ms. Sedigheh Malakifard, has stated that judicial authorities in Mashhad claim they did not issue a judicial order for this action. Additionally, according to Ms. Malakifard's report, inquiries from the Intelligence Department, the police, and the Revolutionary Guards' information protection in Mashhad have gone unanswered. In fact, none of the judicial, law enforcement, or security institutions have accepted responsibility for this strange and illegal action so far. Khashtar, according to his close associates, has had no psychological or physical problems, and his health is now seriously endangered by this unconventional action. The investigation into Khashtar's background sheds light on the reasons for this incident. He is one of the teachers who has been active in pursuing protests regarding the dire economic and professional conditions of teachers in recent years. He has concluded that addressing the various demands of teachers, which have accumulated over four decades without satisfactory responses, requires extensive changes in the political and governance arena. He has spent some time in prison and has struggled with multiple restrictions. However, the pressures have not hindered his resolve and determination to continue his protest and struggle. Khashtar has boldly addressed the leadership of the Islamic Republic, identifying the institution of Velayat-e Faqih and particularly the actions of Ayatollah Khomeini and Seyyed Ali Khamenei as the main causes of the country's miserable situation and the various problems faced by the people. Another notable aspect of Khashtar's activities is his special emphasis on the necessity of respecting citizens' rights for all segments of society and ensuring that all political and ideological tendencies enjoy fundamental freedoms. He has also recently stated that the leadership and management of struggles during the transitional period must be centered around domestic forces. It now seems that his critical activities have provoked the anger and dissatisfaction of security forces to the point where, for the first time in the history of repressive activities in the Islamic Republic, a healthy individual has been sent to a psychiatric hospital to portray him as having behavioral and personality disorders. This unpleasant and severe response, which aims to wear Khashtar down, pursues a higher goal. It seeks to increase the costs of teachers' protest actions and particularly to keep them from expanding their professional protests into social and political spheres, as desired by the security apparatus and especially the measures of its radical layers, in order to create deterrence against the impact of teachers' protest actions and their civil disobedience. Speculation about how accurate such calculations are, or whether they are suffering from short-sightedness and ignoring long-term negative consequences as in the past, is currently impossible and requires the passage of time. However, monitoring the conditions shows that the teachers' protest movement has come close to the level of an organized social movement and is not dependent on any specific individual. In fact, the context that has led teachers to lean towards protest actions is the widespread professional and livelihood problems that have made it impossible for them to endure the current situation. The government's inability to meet their needs, and most importantly, the widespread atmosphere of distrust, has created significant barriers to buying time and persuading teachers to give the authorities a chance and postpone the continuation of protests to the future. Among social groups and civil society forces in Iran, teachers hold a special position. Their sphere of action and the consequences of their demands, whether desired or unintended, do not remain limited to the teachers' community but directly affect the student population and their families. Currently, more than 13 million students are studying at various levels of preschool, primary school, high school, and pre-university in the country. The total number of educational spaces in the country is about 92,000 schools, with 58% in rural areas and 42% in cities. The total number of teachers and school staff is also approximately 1 million and 14 thousand. This volume of human resources, which encompasses nearly 20% of the country's population, has a high potential for creating political and social transformations, especially since the level of awareness and access to intellectual discussions and works of elites is also high in this community. Another noteworthy point is the significant participation of students in street protests after the December 2017 protests, which has been almost unprecedented since the early years of the revolution. These realities make the security apparatus's concerns about the increasing dissatisfaction in the teachers' community and their readiness to shape targeted protests and create social pressure for change understandable. However, protests are still within the professional domain, and although there is high intra-group awareness, actions have not yet reached the level of organized and effective continuity. Therefore, security institutions are trying to prevent the teachers' protest movement from evolving into a powerful organized protest movement by imposing material and reputational costs, including dismissals, character assassination, imprisonment, and so on. However, irrational measures such as forcibly hospitalizing a healthy individual in a psychiatric hospital carry high, uncalculated risks that could yield counterproductive results. This action also reflects the deadlock of the government's hardline approaches to intimidate and silence protesting teachers. If summons to security institutions, imprisonment, and threats were effective, it is unlikely that Hashem Khashtar would have been sent to a psychiatric hospital to face the risk of harassment from severely mentally ill patients. Therefore, this action, which is unlikely to lead to any positive outcome, should be seen more as a result of the repressive apparatus's desperation, which has resorted to a high-risk retaliatory reaction instead of a calculated move. It is still unclear at what level this decision was made within the country's security forces and whether it was arbitrary or not. However, regardless, in addition to doubts about its effectiveness, the shameful perspective inherent in it towards mentally ill patients and the exploitation of their conditions will remain a dark mark in the record of the regime's security apparatus.