• Tehran's Radical Cabal Aims to Consolidate Rule
• Regime Change Imminent – Toward More Authoritarian State
• Constructive Engagement – Can Interests Trump Ideology?
• Iran's NGOs Warned Off Politics
• DIY Democrats Resist Foreign-Funded Approaches
• Chávez Triumph Confirms Populist Appeal …
• … But "Troubling Mix" of Authoritarianism and anti-Semitism Continues
• Energy-fuelled Authoritarian Populism on the Rise

• News in Brief
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Tehran's Radical Cabal Aims to Consolidate Rule

Iranians go to the polls today to elect the Assembly of Experts, one of the Islamic Republic's most powerful bodies, with the power to appoint and dismiss the country's Supreme Leader. While turnout is likely to be boosted by simultaneous municipal elections, the Assembly's credibility will be marred by the fact that less than a third of would-be candidates survived the initial vetting process. Few reformists and no women were deemed sufficiently conformist to stand, with the result that some constituencies will have only candidate.

But the election is an important indicator of elite factionalism, highlighting the relative strengths of the ruling fundamentalist authoritarians and rival traditionalist, conservative and reformist forces. The fundamentalist authoritarians, grouped around Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are likely to consolidate their power base rooted in what Iran expert Abbas Milani calls a "surprisingly powerfully cabal". This currently dominant faction includes the Council of Guardians, the Revolutionary Guard and other security forces, including the paramilitary Basij, and a faction of messianic clergy, personified by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, which anticipates the imminent return of the Hidden Imam, or Mahdi.

Mesbah Yazdi is standing for election to the Assembly of Experts, a superficially inconsistent move since he rejects the compatibility of Islam and democracy. "Democracy means if the people want something that is against God's will, then they should forget about God and religion," he argues. "Accepting Islam is not compatible with democracy." Aftab-e-Yazd, a Tehran daily newspaper, quoted him as asking, "Who are the majority of people who vote? A bunch of hooligans who drink vodka and are paid to vote. Whatever they say cannot become the law of the country and Islam." But Mesbah Yazdi's supporters want him in the Assembly of Experts to ensure he is well-positioned to succeed the ailing Khamenei.

Regime Change Imminent – But Toward More Authoritarian State

Trends suggest that Iran is on the verge or regime change, but not toward democratization. Ahmadinejad 's rule has seen the rise of "strongly ideological, second generation revolutionaries" and a shift in the nature of the regime from theocracy to more conventional authoritarianism. The fundamentalist authoritarians are motivated by a millenarian ideology, blending radical Islam with a quasi-marxist "existentialist creed of revolutionary violence and purification." The ruling clique is also buttressed by a populism that "finds expression in dirigiste economics and nationalist rhetoric."

Democratic forces remain fragmented, disorganized and dispirited. Contemporary Iran has "nothing close to an organized channel for the political expression of popular discontent," says analyst Karim Sadjadpour. While the reformists around former President Khatami focused on constitutional change and incremental elite-led reform, says Iran expert Vali Nasr, their authoritarian rivals "grasped the social dynamics of the 1990s [and] understood that the multitude of Iranian poor wanted not freedoms but jobs." Amid talk of adopting a Chinese model of economic restructuring, the Islamic Republic became development-oriented. Conservative groups contesting the 2004 parliamentary elections called their grouping the Developers' Coalition. Realizing that Chinese-style development was a distant prospect, says Nasr, the regime's "more astute elements …. saw a quick fix in manipulating the anger of the poor against the rich, constructing a populist platform - much like those of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia - in order to garner the votes of the poor."

A mass base of millions of Basiji, including a hard core of fanatical veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, "wielding a more fervently ideological approach to politics than their predecessors", mobilized behind Ahmadinejad, a Basij instructor during the war, in his campaign for the presidency. They have acted as the regime's shock troops, most notoriously in 1999, in Iran's version of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when they brutally put down pro-democracy student demonstrations. More recently, in February 2006, Basiji assaulted Mansour Ossanloo, the leader of the Tehran bus drivers' union. Recently released from prison on bail, Ossanloo was arrested again this month after organizing protests against bus drivers' poor working conditions.

Some insight into the ruling clique's perspectives can be gleaned from Hassan Abbasi, Ahmadinejad's chief strategic guru, and head of the Center for Security Doctrines Research, in effect the Islamic Revolutionary Guards' think-tank. Abbasi's associates call him "the Kissinger of Islam" while to the ruling elite, he is "the big strategic brain," according to a Tehran-based European diplomat. "More and more officials quote him in meetings with foreign diplomats."

"We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization," Abbasi has claimed. With France and Germany "in terminal decline", he says, "once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover." The West's military and economic power "looks formidable on paper", Abbasi argues, but governments are reluctant to use it because of their "risk-averse" electorate. "Western man today has no stomach for a fight," he says. "All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse."

Constructive Engagement – Can Interests Trump Ideology?

"One has to wonder about 'engaging' a regime whose recent domestic practices include taking a razor to the tongue of labor leader Mansour Ossanloo, whose crime was to have organized an independent union for bus drivers," notes a recent editorial. "Realists would have us believe that a country that indulges such barbarism can still be expected to act as a predictable and, under certain conditions, reliable partner in diplomacy."

Such a regime seems singularly ill-suited to the niceties of diplomatic rapprochement and realist calculation suggested by advocates of engaging Tehran. But constructive engagement need not entail appeasing and reinforcing the regime, according to analysts from Stanford's Iran Democracy Project. A process akin to the Helsinki accords could link security considerations and human rights, tying agreement on the nuclear issue to the restoration of diplomatic relations and various other incentives.

Engagement offers the best prospects for giving an "exogenous shock" to the country's democratic movement, disenchanted and demoralized by the failure of Khatami's anaemic reformism. The U.S. would need to ensure the Iranian people knew they are being offered a grand bargain, say the Stanford analysts, one that includes "badly needed economic development, foreign investment, increased employment, new educational prospects at home and abroad and more generally an end to Iran's international isolation."

Without a pronounced shift within the regime, perhaps towards the relatively pragmatic and traditionalist factions associated with Rafsanjani and Khomenei's family respectively, such a pact is unlikely to appeal to Tehran. The ultimate results of the Helsinki process are well-known. Iran's ruling fundamentalists know the history too and this cabal in particular seems disinclined to commit collective suicide. The new elite's "anti-Western sentiments, … long, bitter historical memories, [and] desire for the redress of perceived past wrongs are not merely ideological poses", says Middle East analyst Barry Rubin, but "the basis of political behavior [that] will not be stilled by appeasement."

But in rejecting the offer, the current rulers would "further undermine their already weak legitimacy", argue the Stanford analysts. "[B]lunt exposure of the mullahs' obsession with defending their own power and privilege at the expense of the public could intensify popular unrest, further divide an already splintered regime, and eventually create the conditions for regime crisis and transition to democracy."

Others are more skeptical. "As the embodiment of the Islamic Revolution, [the regime] is genetically programmed to clash" with its rivals, says Iranian exile Amir Taheri. Parallels with President Nixon's dramatic reconciliation with China are misplaced, he argues. "Precisely because it bases its legitimacy as a revolutionary power on the teachings of Islam, something it does not fully control in doctrinal terms," Taheri notes, "it cannot abandon its revolutionary pretensions as easily as did the Maoists in Beijing, who "owned" their own ideology and could alter it at will.

Iran's experience shows that "prevalence of ideology…, more than any other factor, accounts for the absence of democracy," argue Vali Nasr and Ali Gheissari. "The hold of ideology on the population at critical junctures … did much to weaken the quest for democracy." In the country's long-running conflict between state-building and democratization, Ahmedinejad's election set back the latter. But, they argue, "far from diminishing the importance of competitive politics, public debates, and elections, the conservative victory in 2005 appears to have made them all the more important to the future development of Iranian politics."

Nationalism, self-interest and collective memory of humiliation by foreign powers, shape foreign policy as much as Islamist ideology, claims Ali Ansari in Confronting Iran. Similarly, the Council on Foreign Relations' Ray Takeyh stresses a matrix of three competing elements - Islamic ideology, national interests, and factional politics - all constantly contested. The Islamic Republic betrays significant pluralism and political space with institutions, elections, and political factions each significant in setting the government's course of action, says Takeyh." Far from being a stagnant authoritarian state," he notes, "Iran's elaborate and Orwellian bureaucracy, its fiercely competitive political culture, and its singular personalities perennially jockey for influence and power," with policy determined by the interplay of institutions and actors.

The fundamentalist authoritarians' determination to restore the Islamic revolution's momentum is complicated by a contradiction embedded in its governing structure and original constitution between such unelected institutions as the Expediency Council and provisions for a popularly elected president, parliament, and municipal councils. This "perplexing duality", Takeyh suggests, reflects the legacy of 1979's revolutionary coalition of secularists, liberals, and fundamentalists, resulting in "a state that oscillates between promises of democratic modernity and retrogressive tradition."

The enduring legacy of Muhammad Khatami's reform movement, Takeyh asserts, has been to preclude Iran becoming a rigid authoritarian state. Demands for representation, rule of law, accountability and equality, have "transformed the average Iranian from a passive observer of clerical politics into an active agent of change." The current consolidation of fundamentalist rule obscures long term trends towards democratic transition, not least the demographic and political pressure of a "sophisticated and youthful populace [that] can be neither appeased by cosmetic concessions nor silenced by threats of coercion." But while Iran's young opposition is potentially an "invaluable asset for bringing democracy to Iran," the prevailing culture of dissent and resistance is largely social and recreational.

Iran's NGOs Warned Off Politics

Hostility to externally-induced regime change and the conviction that Iran's democratic transition must come on its own terms, and at its own pace is a widely-shared position among Iran's democrats and their international supporters. "We don't want intervention," says leading dissident Akbar Ganji. "We don't want anything from governments. We are looking to the NGOs." Foreign-based intellectuals, media and NGOs should draw attention to human rights abuses and provide moral support.

Unfortunately, the ruling clique also appreciates the political potential of civil society mobilization. Hardline interior minister Mustafa Pourmohammadi, the notorious figure behind 1998's serial murders of dissidents, recently announced that Iran's non-governmental organizations will be more closely monitored. "NGOs are not for political activism," he insisted. "Whoever wants to do political activism should apply for a permit to form a party." The government would countenance charitable NGOs but "not reward ingratitude and subversiveness," Pourmohammadi warned.

Regulations passed by Khatami's reformist government had allowed NGOs to "take on a new role in advancing public causes," according to an analysis from the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. But they failed to establish clear criteria upon which NGO accreditation would be approved or rejected, with the result that "the threat that NGO applications will be decided in an arbitrary manner remains."

Such fears are borne out by the current regime's restrictive bias in applying the regulations. "Over the past three months some 120 NGOs have received a permit to operate, except they all belong to the same tendency," complained former reformist minister Ashraf Boroujerdi, bemoaning the fact that "applications of the organizations who do not share the opinions of the political rulers have been ignored." Nor has hostility toward NGOs stop Ahmadinejad from committing some US$3.5 million – a 10-fold increase - to a civic group associated with his guru, the fanatical Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

DIY Democrats Resist Foreign-Funded Approaches

"We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others," said the French philosopher Pascal, an insight appreciated by Ramin Jahanbegloo and other Iranian democrats eager to stress that their struggle must be locally-driven. Facing a regime eager to portray dissidents as foreign agents, they emphasize the undesirability of direct external funding. In particular, the country's democrats insist that funds for promoting democracy and empowering civil society should be channeled through academic institutions, with full transparency and accountability, with a view to nurturing political culture within the country. Funding with the express purpose of regime change is counter-productive and provides a pretext for the authorities to portray Iranian activists as US agents.

The challenge is to find a middle way between efforts to "give some oxygen to Iran's embattled reformist movement" and being overly interventionist, says the Madrid-based FRIDE think-tank. The Dutch government has set aside 15 million euros for independent broadcasting to Iran, while the UK has made Iran a priority under its Global Opportunities Fund.

One internal obstacle to democratization, however, is the division between the gradualist or timid reformers around Khatami and radical reformists, associated with Ganji, such as Ayatollah Montazeri, Mohsen Sazgara and prominent student, NGO and labor groups. The main problem with Khatami's reformists, says Ganji, is that they want to work within the current constitutional framework under which "transition to democracy is impossible."

Iran's democrats remain implacably opposed to military forms of externally-induced regime change, as advocated by would-be supporters overseas. "If they think that through military action democracy can be achieved, they are moving on the wrong path," says Abdollah Momeni of the Office for Fostering Unity, Iran's leading student group. "Military action against a country would dry up the democratic blossoms." Under the present regime, elections are "parodies", says Momeni, but he believes they can nevertheless strengthen civil society by allowing political currents to "express the kinds of things that they cannot say at other times".

Similarly, some external commentators have advocated undermining the regime by fomenting unrest within Iran's ethnic tinderbox. Since Ahmadinejad's election as president in 2005, there has been violent unrest amongst Turks in the northwest, Baluchis in the southeast, Arabs in the southwest, and Kurds in the mountains bordering Iraq and Turkey. Persians are only a slim majority of Iran's population and while disparate minority groups have long complained of oppression by Tehran, "rarely have so many snapped back at the government so furiously over so short a time." But former industry minister and political prisoner Mohsen Sazegara rejects the use of secession as a political weapon. "We not only need to promote democracy amongst … the various regions of Iran," he says, but emphasize federal rule through regional parliaments and elective governorships.

Chávez Triumph Confirms Populist Appeal …

The rise of the new demagogues got another boost recently with the re-election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A late groundswell of support for opposition candidate Manuel Rosales was not enough to overcome the considerable advantages of incumbency. Electoral watchdog criticized as "totally disproportionate" a pro-Chávez state advertising and media campaign. Chávez enjoyed a 22 to 1 ratio of airtime against Rosales on Venezuela's five national television stations. A leaked video showed energy minister Rafael Ramirez warning state oil company employees that any who failed to support Chávez's "red revolution" would be sacked.

Sumate had also warned of irregularities and highlighted a pro-government bias by government agencies. Electoral authorities rejected an independent audit of the voter register despite opposition concerns about a 45 percent increase in the number of registered voters from 2003 to 2006. One poll showed that 59% of Venezuelans, including nearly half of Chávez's supporters, believed voters could suffer retaliation if they vote against the regime. They had grounds for concern. Thousands of citizens who signed a 2004 petition for a national referendum on Chávez's rule in 2004 have since been placed on the Maisanta list, and been dismissed from government jobs or denied access to public services.

Chávez's electronic database of oppositionists has since grown, says writer Ana Julia Jatar. The state tax collection agency now asks retailers to register customers' ID, address and other personal data. "Today, the government can cross these databases and know everything about each of the 15 million registered voters. If you are an oppositionist and buy an expensive watch, they can send you tax inspectors right away."

Chávez now plans to revise the constitution to end term limits and allow him to stay in power while his allies are planning a new constitutional "architecture" that would enhance the legal standing of presidential decrees.

Legislative approval of such a revision is considered a foregone conclusion because Chávista loyalists occupy all of the 165 seats in Congress. Chávez's critics say he has weakened democratic institutions by taking control of the judiciary, Congress and the military, leaving little room for dissent, and fostering a populist, plebiscitarian democracy.

While some polls gave Chávez a huge lead, another sampling indicated that undecided voters would veer to Rosales at a ratio of 2 to 1, suggesting a tighter contest. Belying the Chávista authorities' public bravado, it seems the regime also feared the result would be closer. Shortly before the poll, government workers received a "seasonal bonus" worth three months' salary.

"Although Chávez remains personally popular, there are a lot of soft spots in his regime," says Michael Shifter, an analyst with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, citing crime, corruption and the "international gallivanting" surrounding Chávez's abortive bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.

The unified front presented by the opposition and the high degree of mobilization behind the Rosales candidacy are plus points for the opposition. But the result also challenges the opposition's preconception that Chávez lacked a genuine mass base and confirms the need to cultivate a broader base of its own. "For the last two and a half years too much of the opposition has seen too little reason to change its message, to rethink what we said or how we said it in order to court support from a broader set of people," said one opposition blogger. "After all, the thinking went, we were already the majority!" But, with last week's result, "that entire mode of thinking became unsustainable."

… But "Troubling Mix" of Authoritarianism and anti-Semitism Continues

The election is likely to accelerate the marginalization of moderates by hardliners, as Chávez seeks to consolidate his diverse coalition into a disciplined vanguard party. The country's democrats now fear the Chávista victory will prompt further restrictions on civil liberties, including freedom of association. Under a draft International Co-operation Law, currently before Congress, the president's office will assume control of foreign funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and impose new controls. Carl Meacham, of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee professional staff, used a recent visit to Caracas to express concern that the law will further limit the free expression of civil society.

Indeed, during the campaign, Chávez announced a post-election "counter-attack" against his critics and threatened that opposition candidate Rosales "could end up in jail" if the opposition alleged electoral fraud. Since the election, he has also threatened to close the country's major private broadcasters.

Rosales highlighted Chávez's alliances with Cuba, Syria, Iran and North Korea, telling Spanish newspaper ABC that the policy was pushing Venezuela "closer to extremism, terrorism, dictatorship and tyranny." The regime's authoritarianism has generated international criticism from across the political spectrum. Chávez "exercises power with a club or a bag of money, blackmail and seduction," says Peru's left-wing President Alan Garcia. "He seeks to tear people down," says US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicolas Burns, in contrast to other Latin American states like President Lula's Brazil which aspire to "build up, increase trade and investment, [and] reach out to the private sector."

But the regime's petro-populism has not proved to be contagious. Rather than signaling the resurgence of radical populism, the Venezuela poll is only the latest in a series of recent elections there are "two lefts in Latin America - one which is pluralistic, civilized and respectful of the rules of the game, both domestically and internationally (as in Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil), one which is messianic, improvisational and heedless of institutional restraints." Others suggest that socialism and populism are conceptually inadequate for differentiating Latin America's "multiple lefts"?

"We are not a military dictatorship, Cuba-style, of course," says the independent socialist and former guerrilla Teodoro Petkoff. Democracy and liberty are "beaten down and distorted by authoritarianism, autocracy, and militarism," Petkoff told the Madrid-based ABC newspaper, but not lost, as the close-run election campaign confirmed. However, "there are no institutional controls, no accountability and no control over or checks and balances of the executive," says Petkoff, editor of the TalCual newspaper and an adviser to Rosales. In the absence of such constraints, he fears Chávez will "push forward his project to control society via a form of totalitarianism."

Similarly a new report from the Anti-Defamation League identifies a "troubling mix of anti-Semitism and support for radical Islam" fostered by the Chávez regime. Chávez's anti-Israeli statements, support for terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and collusion with radical Islamic leaders like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are having a "spillover effect" in Venezuelan society, with anti-Israel demonstrations, anti-Jewish graffiti and other displays of anti-Semitism becoming "dangerously commonplace".

Despite such ominous trends, including the continuing incarceration of political prisoners, Chávez continues to enjoy the sympathy of Western observers attracted by his anti-US posturing and apparently pro-poor policies. But, as a convincing demolition of Chávista myths notes, "the claim that his is the first government to address the needs of the poor is quite simply a falsification of history." Lamenting that such myths are still swallowed by many in the West, Venezuelan author Ana Julia Atar argues that her fellow liberals, having "established a legacy of opposing right-wing, authoritarian regimes throughout Latin America, … should not stain that legacy by embracing the authoritarian Chávez."

Energy-fuelled Authoritarian Populism on the Rise

It is no coincidence that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the first to congratulate Hugo Chávez on his Venezuelan counterpart's electoral victory last week. Nor is it accidental that both governments are committed to curbing civil society by imposing further constraints on NGOs and independent labor unions. The two regimes typify the potency of authoritarian populism, subsidized by high oil prices and legitimized by elections which, while ostensibly free and fair in themselves, are the culmination of a process in which extensive powers of patronage, institutional bias and outright repression effectively eliminate prospects for a change of government. "That Chávez controls key institutions in Venezuela and has benefited from an oil bonanza in recent years also helps a lot," said Michael Shifter, of Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue.

As in much of the Middle East and, increasingly, Russia and Central Asia, oil-based economies generate a "strong tendency toward authoritarianism and institutional decay", not least because high oil revenues provide strong incentives to hold onto power, generate resources for patronage and, with state control of resources, reduce the relative power and independence of civil society and the private sector. More ominously, such regimes appear to be forming an authoritarian axis, through multilateral associations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. With Russia, Iran, and the Central Asian "'stans" holding more than 50% of the world's proven natural gas reserves, this has led to fears of the authoritarians enhancing their international leverage through a Gas OPEC within the SCO.

An indication of their new-found power came recently when it took a US-UK veto to stop Kazakhstan assuming the chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. "How can you have a president that has never held an election that met OSCE standards?" asked Human Rights Watch.

Currently an observer, Iran is pursuing full membership of the SCO, a move that seems perverse given that the SCO constitution demands that members oppose "terrorism, separatism, and extremism in all their manifestations". But, using the ideological cover of its charter's declared "respect for states' sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and the sanctity of borders, nonaggression, noninterference in internal affairs," the SCO is emerging as both counterweight and alternative paradigm to "Western" models of democracy and development. Russia's President Vladimir Putin recently conceded as much. "It's simply that after the collapse of the bipolar world, there was a real need for the emergence of centers of influence and power," he said of the SCO.

IN BRIEF

Rights group urges release of Singapore democracy activist

Democracy and human rights groups have called on Singaporean authorities to free democracy activist Chee Soon Juan, imprisoned on charges of speaking in public without a permit. Politicians and activists have demanded Chee's transfer from a prison ward in Singapore's Changi General Hospital to ensure he receives appropriate medical care, and that he be released home to recuperate.

Call for UN to Investigate North Korean Gulag, Rights Abuses

The threat posed by North Korea's new-found nuclear capacity should not distract from the need to confront the regime over its egregious human rights violations, according to an important new study. Failure to Protect: A Call for the U.N. Security Council to Act in North Korea argues that the UN Security Council has "independent justification for intervening in North Korea either because of the government's failure in its responsibility to protect or because North Korea is a nontraditional threat to the peace." The report, prepared by the law firm DLA Piper US LLP in cooperation with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, was commissioned by former dissident and Czech president Vaclav Havel, Kjell Magne Bondevik, former prime minister of Norway, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel. They insisted that the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, engage North Korea on human rights, at a UN meeting sponsored by the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the UN.

The report, which was also launched at meetings in South Korea and London, invokes the UN's "responsibility to protect" doctrine, according to which each state has responsibility to protect its own citizens from the most severe human rights abuses. The authors call for immediate action by the U.N. Security Council to address the regime's crimes against humanity. Pyongyang has allowed as many as 1 million of its citizens to die of starvation, says the report, and over 37 percent of children remain chronically malnourished.

Some 200,000 political prisoners are held in the most brutal conditions and at least 400,000 are estimated to have died in the Korean gulag over the last 30 years. "Not only are real or imagined dissenters imprisoned," note Havel, Bondevik and Wiesel, "but so are their relatives, including the elderly and children, under a guilt-by-association system instituted by North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung."

A webcast of the UN event is available as an archived broadcast.

Zimbabwe: Unions, NGOs Repressed

More than 60 protesters, some carrying babies, were recently arrested and another 40 were assaulted by police in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo. Activists had gathered for a peaceful march to mark the launch of a People's Charter on political and economic rights, and Activism Against Gender Violence.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) announced that it will sue the government for US$5.3 million for the assault and torture of several union members arrested during a demonstration in September. The violent repression of civil society groups in Zimbabwe has intensified, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report.

"I was really shocked and taken back by what I saw," said Reginald Machaba Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network and a medical doctor who initially examined the trade unionists. "The injuries showed that they were trying to protect themselves; they were trying to protect their heads, using their raised arms."

China Persecutes Exiled Activist's Family

Chinese officials approached Rebiya Kadeer's relatives in China a few weeks ago and told them to convey the message that if Kadeer, an exiled dissident, was elected to lead the World Uighur Congress at its forthcoming Munich meeting, her family would suffer the consequences. When she was elected WUC president the Chinese authorities were brutally prompt, sentencing one of her sons to seven years' jail and fining another. Police beat a third son so badly beaten that he had to be hospitalized.

Kadeer, nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, was a successful businesswoman before her campaign for Uighur minority rights prompted Beijing to jail her on trumped-up charges of "leaking state secrets" in 2000. She moved to the US after being freed in 2005 and continues to campaign on behalf of the eight million Uighurs living in the Xinjiang region.

Solidarity Center Appoints New Head

Ellie Larson, former international affairs director at the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) of the Communications Workers of America, is the new Executive Director of the Solidarity Center. The Solidarity Center is a non-profit, global organization focused on building independent and democratic trade unions, advancing worker rights and promoting broad-based, sustainable economic development. The center is supported by the AFL-CIO, the US Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and other donors.

RESOURCES

• The latest issue of the Journal of Democracy contains the usual plethora of delights and diversions for thinking democrats. The full text of articles on Populism, Socialism, and Democratic Institutions in Latin America and Constitutional Courts: A Primer for Decision Makers is available online www.journalofdemocracy.org here. For more information, visit the Journal of Democracy online or e-mail jod@ned.org.



• North Korean refugees in China acute vulnerabilities, ranging from insecure legal and personal status to fears of deportation, and difficulties in securing livelihoods. Interviews with more than 1,300 North Korean refugees in China expose the terror and deprivation they fled and the precariousness of their underground existence in China. The interviews are part of a new report released today by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, The North Korean Refugee Crisis: Human Rights and International Response.



• Discussions of global governance, the precarious condition of Afghan democracy and Iraqi testimonies from the Saddam era are featured in the latest issue of the online journal, Democratiya, described by political writer Paul Berman as "the liveliest and most stimulating new intellectual journal on political themes in the English-speaking world.



• Arab regimes have traditionally curbed freedom of expression and they have used the war on terror as a "ready made excuse" to impose more restrictions, says a new report funded by funded by the Norwegian Human Rights Fund. On the other hand, the internet has provided an opportunity for Arab users to communicate with each other and globally, creating an "electronic unity" through forums and interactive websites, according to Implacable Adversaries: Arab Governments and the Internet. Similar experiences of oppressive regimes has facilitated the exchange of good practice, as when Egypt’s Kefaya (Enough) movement was followed by similar mobilizations in Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia.



• The latest issue of the monthly Chechen Society Today has been released. The Russian-language publication is a joint project of Prague Watchdog and the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. The journal aims is to strengthen Chechen civil society, promote independent media in Chechnya, and provide objective information to Chechens living in Russia and Europe.

OPPORTUNITIES

2007 Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies invites policymakers and activists from countries undergoing political, economic, and social transitions to participate in its third annual Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development program. The 2007 program will be held from July 30 - August 17, 2007 at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

The Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program (SSFDD) is a three-week executive education program that is run annually on the Stanford campus by an interdisciplinary team of leading Stanford faculty. The program brings together a group of approximately 30 civic, political, and economic leaders from transitioning countries. Stanford Summer Fellows are former prime ministers and presidential advisers, senators and attorneys general, journalists and civic activists, academics and members of the international development community. Since the program was introduced in 2005, we have typically received more than 800 applications each year.

This program is aimed at early to mid-career policymakers, academics, and leaders of civil society organizations (such as representatives of trade unions, nongovernmental organizations, the media, business and professional associations) who will play important roles in their country's democratic, economic, and social development. We anticipate recruiting a group of 30 individuals dedicated to democracy and development promotion within their home countries (particularly in, but not limited to, the regions of the Middle East, Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and other parts of the former Soviet Union).

Successful applicants will be proficient in spoken and written English and will have academic and practical credentials necessary to benefit fully from the course and actively contribute to programmatic discussions. The ideal course participant will have extraordinary motivation, at least three to five years of experience in a relevant field of democratic development, and a keen interest in learning and sharing knowledge and experiences in transforming his or her country.

Applications must be received by January 15, 2007. Learn more about the program, past participants and curriculum, and to apply.

National Democratic Institute - Various Vacancies
The National Democratic Institute has a range of current opportunities, including the following international vacancies: Colombia: Resident Director; Democratic Republic of Congo: Resident Director; Indonesia: Resident Senior Program Manager; Iraq: Resident Senior Reporting and Program Officer; Iraq: Senior Program Manager, Civic Organizing and Advocacy Specialist; Pakistan: Senior Program Manager; Russia: Resident Director; Serbia: Resident Director; Sudan: Resident Director of Operations; Ukraine: Resident Director; Yemen: Senior Program Manager for Political Parties. Washington-based vacancies include Legislative/Parliamentary Strengthening Advisors: Governance; Program Assistant: Latin America and the Caribbean; Program Officer: Asia; Program Officer: Eurasia; Program Officer: Middle East and North Africa; Senior Program Manager: Southern and East Africa; Senior Program Officer: Central and West Africa. Interested applicants can apply now using NDI's on-line resume tool. Refer to the exact position title in the cover letter, which should be pasted in the same entry field as the resume.

International Republican Institute - Various Vacancies
The International Republican Institute has a range of current opportunities, including the following international vacancies: Resident Assistant Program Officer, China; Resident Country Director, Cambodia; Resident Political Party and Public Advocacy Specialists, Iraq; Resident Program/Administrative Officer, Russia; Resident Program Director, West Bank/Gaza; Resident Program Officer, Afghanistan; and Resident Program Officer, Campaigns and Elections Expert, Morocco. Washington-based vacancies include: Program Officer, Iraq; Program Assistant, Africa; Program Assistant, Eurasia; and Program Assistant, Europe. Click on the links to read the job description for positions. Please e-mail your resume to personnel@iri.org and reference the specific opportunity you are interested in. IRI does not accept unsolicited resumes.

World Movement for Democracy Internship
The World Movement for Democracy seeks an intern for the 2007 Spring Semester. The World Movement for Democracy is an effort to strengthen democracy around the world by promoting coordination among non-governmental groups and other democracy activists. The World Movement's goal is to build a global "network of networks" of democrats, including activists, practitioners, academics, policy makers, and funders, who have come together to cooperate in the promotion of democracy.

The internship position is a quarterly unpaid internship with possible renewal. The incumbent will help with the global networking activities of the World Movement for Democracy. Work will include researching democracy networks around the world, helping to maintain the participant database, assisting with preparation of the monthly electronic newsletter Democracy News, and helping staff with other tasks. Applicants should be interested in issues of democracy and international affairs and have excellent research, writing, and computer skills. Time commitment: 3-5 days per week or less from mid-January to mid-May. Benefits: Internships are unpaid, although a small stipend to cover local travel and other small expenses is provided. Academic credit can be offered with prior arrangement of your school. Interns are welcome to attend NED events open to staff. Applicants should send a resume and cover letter as soon as possible to World Movement for Democracy, National Endowment for Democracy, 1025 F Street, NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20004 (Fax) 202-378-9889 or email to world@ned.org (no phone calls please).

Program Assistant for Europe and Eurasia, National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a congressionally funded, private, nonprofit grant-making organization, seeks a Program Assistant for its Europe and Eurasia section. The position is based in Washington, DC. Duties: The Program Assistant will provide administrative support to the Europe and Eurasia Program staff. For more information please see www.ned.org. To Apply: Eurasia Program Assistant Search Email (preferred; specify position title in the subject line): jobs@ned.org Mail: National Endowment for Democracy 1025 F Street, NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20004 Fax: 202-378-9407. No phone calls please.

Program Coordinator, African Women's Leadership Project, Club of Madrid.
The successful candidate will coordinate the development of all Club of Madrid) actions related to the African Women's Leadership Project, with activities in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and a third country in the region to be determined. Location: Madrid, Spain. Several trips to the three target countries. Duration: February 2007-July 2008 (18 months). For additional information on, please go to www.clubmadrid.org Send your CV with a brief letter explaining your motivations for this job to clubmadrid@clubmadrid.org before December 15, 2006, indicating in the subject line "AWLP Project Coordinator."

Freedom House, Project Director--Amman, Jordan
Freedom House, founded in 1941, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes an engaged U.S. foreign policy; evaluates human rights conditions; sponsors public education campaigns; facilitates training and other assistance to promote democracy and free market reforms; and provides support for the rule of law, free media and effective local governance, seeks a Project Director for its Tawasol: Together Achieving Women's Advancement in Services, Opportunities and Legal Rights project in Jordan, a project of the RIGHTS Program. The RIGHTS Program is a global project in which Freedom House leads a Consortium of organizations to address rule of law reform and human rights promotion and protection. Please submit resume and cover letter with salary history to: Mr. Jeffrey Mosser, Director of Human Resources, 1301 Connecticut Ave., NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC, 20036 202-296-5101 (fax) E-mail: humanresources@freedomhouse.org

Freedom House - Employment Opportunities
Applicants are also currently being sought for the following positions in the US: Program Officer, Iran--Washington, D.C.; Senior Programs Manager, Africa--Washington, D.C.; Network Administrator Assistant--Washington, D.C.; Senior Program Officer for Development--Washington, D.C.; Program Assistant, Cuba Programs -- Washington, D.C.; Program Officer, Cuba Programs -- Washington, D.C.; and Program Officer/ Senior Program Officer, American Committee for Peace in the Caucuses (ACPC) -- Washington, D.C . Overseas opportunities include: Reforming Family Law Program Officer--Bahrain and Kuwait; Program Director, Freedom House Programs in the Former Soviet Union; and Project Director--Amman, Jordan. Internship Opportunities: Research/Administrative -- New York; Finance/Accounting--Washington, D.C.; and Iran Program--Washington, D.C.

Chief of Party/ Voter Education Specialist, Morocco (Rabat) IFES-democracy at large
IFES is an international, nonprofit organization that supports the building of democratic societies. IFES is currently seeking a Chief of Party/ Voter Education Specialist for a project which will support the engagement of civil society in Morocco's 2007 parliamentary election process. The objective will be to better assure representation of the broad majority of the Moroccan people through their engagement in the electoral process.

Applications will only be accepted online. To apply visit the IFES careers website and click on the link for Chief of Party, Morocco.

EVENTS

Morocco at the Crossroads: Achievements and Challenges, Tuesday, December 19, 2006, 12:30pm - 2:30pm. World Bank J Building- J1-050, 701 18th St. NW (corner of 18th St. and Pennsylvania Ave).
Chaired by Nejib Ayachi, co-founder and President of the Maghreb Center. Presentations by Marina Ottaway, Director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Theodore Ahlers, Director of the Maghreb Department at the World Bank. Jon B. Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Jon B. Alterman is director and senior fellow of the CSIS Middle East Program. Loubna Skalli Hana, School of International Service, the American University. Comments by: H.E. Ambassador Aziz Mekouar, ambassador of Morocco to the United States.