Word: militiaization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...capital's only skate park is a rare refuge for some of the country's restless and burgeoning youths, allowing them to congregate without being harassed by the feared Basij militia. Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rule and particularly since the disputed June 12 election, when thousands of angry teens and 20-somethings took to the streets, the religious police have cracked down on this sort of rebellious youth culture, driving it further underground. "These artists are at the same level as those in the West, but they're working under the most incredible pressures," explains an Iranian electro-music...
...Just a few years ago, five young men in a room in Sierra Leone would have meant trouble. It was men in their teens and their 20s - but also, tragically, children even younger - who made up the Revolutionary United Front, a ragtag armed militia supported by Liberia's President Charles Taylor (now on trial for war crimes at the Hague) that devastated the country during an 11-year civil war that ended in 2002. Everywhere they went they left a calling card of chopped-off limbs, raped women and senseless bloodshed. Tens of thousands were killed and a third...
...last four years of repressive rule under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been jarring, following, as they did, eight years of social reforms under Mohammed Khatami. The Basij militia turned into the country's religious police, patrolling the streets at night to catch those returning from private house parties, where drugs, alcohol, dancing and Western music - forbidden under Islamic law - could be found. Such harassment, including jail time and hefty fines, has become a part of daily life. The Basij also stepped up enforcement of the ban against dating, the restrictions on public dress (berating women for letting their hijab reveal...
...also use its aid as leverage to ensure that the government opens up democratic space for Zimbabweans. A specific roadmap must be developed demanding that the government deliver rule of law, freedom of the media and a new people-driven constitution with an enforceable bill of rights. Mugabe's militia units must be dismantled, and a new independent electoral commission...
...militia, which emerged during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s as a religious youth group that sent its members to sacrifice themselves by clearing land mines, has now become Iran's Big Brother, mafia, and neighborhood hooligans all rolled into one. During the street protests, they barged through the crowd Mad Max-style, brandishing wooden batons. Now they are playing more of an intelligence-gathering role, and consequently they have become much harder to detect. In recent weeks, many have shaved their telltale beards and shed their secondhand clothes; one group of Basiji recently spotted in north Tehran wore...