Word: savak
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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After 25 years of autocratic and often oppressive rule, during which he sought to make his feudal nation a modern society, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi began taking tentative steps toward political liberalization in 1976. He reined in Iran's notorious security police agency, SAVAK, eased censorship, and encouraged more open political debate. The reforms stilled some criticism by the country's intellectuals and student dissidents. But the changes also gave new life to opponents of the regime who now pose one of the gravest threats to the Shah's rule in the past 15 years. This year...
...campaign focused world attention upon political thuggery, torture, repression?and there were reverberations. The Pinochet regime in Chile belatedly sought to polish its discreditable image by announcing that it was disbanding the country's notorious secret police agency, DINA. In Iran, the Shah's hated secret police organization, SAVAK, eased up somewhat on political dissidents. In the Eastern bloc, the human rights campaign produced mixed results, with a few gains for dissidents, but in some countries an even more repressive climate...
...human rights issue was conspicuously missing from the official agenda. Partly as a result of documented charges by both Amnesty International and the International Red Cross that Iran's secret police organization, SAVAK, had systematically persecuted dissidents, the Shah has moved to liberalize his regime. He has operated largely through Jamshid Amouzegar, 54, his tough OPEC oil negotiator, whom he named Premier last August. Amouzegar, nicknamed the "$12 Million Man" after he was kidnaped at the OPEC meeting in Vienna in 1975, and subsequently ransomed for $12.5 million, has ordered an end to press censorship and initiated a number...
Goyette has described the master plan for RSKU as one of the most comprehensive and beautiful designs for a university he has ever seen. But when the complex is completed, the Shah will no doubt station SAVAK agents in very classroom to monitor discussions, as he has in every Iranian classroom. No matter how educationally innovative and aesthetically pleasing the university turns out to be, Harvard can have very little to be proud...
...commitment that has drawn severe criticism from segments of the Harvard community. Critics label RSKU as direct support for one of the world's most repressive regimes. It is reliably reported that agents of the Shah of Iran's secret police, SAVAK, are present in most college classrooms in the country, taking careful note of students who dare to criticize the conventional texts. Keenan says he believes the reports are true about SAVAK's infiltration of Iranian universities, but thinks it may be possible to avoid this lack of academic freedom at RSKU. The new university will be located...