Iranian protests: Beware of the informal, 30,000-member Basij Force!

The notorious, informal over 30,000- member Islamic Basij Resistance Force is said to be very active to quell the current protests. Many of its volunteers are believed to be deployed in plain clothes throughout Iran.

Reports are Iranians from all walks of life are continuing their protests beginning with the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Iranian morality police. In the brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime to quell the ongoing protests, at least 185 people have lost their lives. Yet thousands of youths, mostly in their 20s, are still demonstrating against the mandatory hijab and other restrictions. The protesters are very moving towards calling for the fall of the hardcore Shiite Islamic Republic itself.

Will the ongoing protests change the political scene in Iran for better? Observers say it would be hard to forecast anything at this stage. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi have directed security forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to crack down against the protesters without any leniency. Besides, the current radical Islamist regime in Tehran has, over the years, invented certain new tools to survive in power.

The previous authoritarian Shah regime was dependent upon only its over 5000-member Savak secret police (1957-1979) to quell any protest against its order. The current dispensation in Tehran has had not only its Ministry of Intelligence, the successor of the Savak, but also informal radical Shiite Islamic gangs inside and outside the country to aid the security forces in their crackdowns.

The notorious, informal over 30,000- member Islamic Basij Resistance Force is said to be very active to quell the current protests. Many of its volunteers are believed to be deployed in plain clothes throughout Iran, in its universities, schools, government offices, and ordinary jobs, for the purpose.

Needless to say, the Basij is a volunteer paramilitary organization. It has been linked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). After overthrowing the King Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, then leader of the upsurge Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini vowed to create an Islamic government that would spread its ideology throughout the Middle East and the world, through any means necessary.

Initially, the Basij was engaged in assisting the Revolutionary Guards and the Revolutionary Committees to secure law and order in highly-populated areas. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, the Basij troops were deployed alongside the regular Iranian military. Afterwards, the Basij got ample funding from the Islamic government and turned into a policing tool to spy and crackdown against Iranian workers, teachers, and students who said anything negative about the regime or violated Islamic law.

In 1999, under the orders of the IRGC, the Basij were deployed to put down anti-government student protests in Tehran. After the 2009 election and the rise of the Green Movement, the Basij were critical in suppressing those who questioned the election results.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

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