IranWire: The Organization for the Mobilization of the Oppressed
NB: Are some of India's leaders planning something similar? A prominent private militia to replace several functions of the police; mass membership drives etc - are all these steps toward a 'patriotic' home guard, internal 'moral' police, military duty for youth etc? The militarisation of civil society is a step toward tyranny. Whether you see this or not is your choice. Some call it 'civilisational renewal'. Incidentally, Italian fascism in the 1920's and 30's also saw itself as 'civilisational renewal'. DS
The Basij was established on November 26, 1979. A year later, the Islamic
Consultative Assembly (Majlis) formally recognized the organization as part of
its mission to fulfill Ayatollah Khomeini’s wish to have an army of 20 million
soldiers. The cabinet passed the
bill to make the Basij a governmental organization on April 30, 1980. According
to the bill, “the National Organization of Basij is under the
supervision of the commander in chief of the Armed Forces and is a subsidiary
of the Ministry of Interior.” Also, the bill assigned the writing of the
statute of the Basij to the Administrative and Recruitment Organization, which
was then ratified by the cabinet.
The Revolutionary
Council ratified and finalized the statute of the Basij on July 10, 1980. The
Supreme Leader was in charge of appointing the commander of the organization
and the policy-making was assigned to the Supreme Council of Defense. A few
months later, on February 18, 1981, the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis)
representatives voted to incorporate the Basij into the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC). Since then, the IRGC has been in charge of the Basij’s
decision-making process.
As a subunit of the
IRGC, the Basij began its operations in recruitment, training and transporting
fighters to the front during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. At the same time, the
Basij introduced two new subunits - the resistance groups and the resistance
bases of Basij -which spread their influence all over the country, from small
towns to big cities. Some of the Basij’s other activities during those years
included helping the police to guard the safety and security of cities and
helping security agencies to suppress various local riots and protests.
When the statute of
the IRGC was finalized on September 6, 1982, the Basij gained its own
organizational structure as a complete subunit of the IRGC. The statute devotes
an entire chapter to the Basij, which introduces its mission statement as,
“enabling law-abiding citizens who are loyal to the constitution and our
revolutionary values to be able to defend the country and the Islamic Republic
system, and also help other fellow citizens in case of natural disasters.”
Based on this definition, the Basij was permitted to educate the citizens
politically and ideologically as well as giving them “limited” military
training. No definition for limited training was given in the statute.
It was
at this point that the Basij, in addition to fighting in the combat zones of
the Iran-Iraq War, began expanding all over the country and setting up its
resistance bases in every city. Also, it began to work with the Ministry of
Education to introduce military training courses for high school students.
After the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, this cooperation grew and the Basij
had presence in universities and even launched financial and economic
operations... read more:
https://iranwire.com/en/features/5744see also
Tehran closes 547 restaurants for breaking 'Islamic principles’
