Word: sazegara
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...were founded in the first year of the Islamic republic in 1979, following a decree by Iran's first Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. "From the start, the Sepah was about building a popular army, one that had the duty to protect the Islamic republic from within," explains Moshen Sazegara, a founder of the Revolutionary Guards who later fell out with the regime and currently resides and works as a journalist...
...These past weeks," Sazegara estimates, "the state has used about 12,000 such plainclothes forces in addition to another 28,000 official police and Sepah forces to control the dissent...
...Sazegara sees the possibility for division. "Many of the commanders in the Sepah have children who are in their 20s and who have joined the recent protests," he told TIME. Since Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, the Supreme Leader swapped out most wartime commanders in the Sepah, replacing them, in Sazegara's words, "with a bunch...
Former Sepah founder Sazegara concurs, adding that many of the plainclothes men controlling the streets and meting out excessive violence to protesters are "intelligence personnel of the Sepah, some of them even with military degrees, but showing up in plainclothes to take on the appearance of the Basij...
...powers. That appeals to militant students, who have chanted "Death to Khamenei!" in street protests. Reform strategists say they may turn next year's presidential election into a referendum on the Supreme Leader's powers by asking voters to cast blank votes to signify dissatisfaction. Former Khomeini aide Mohsen Sazegara was imprisoned for 114 days this year after penning an essay that challenged Khomeini's doctrine stipulating the right of an Islamic jurist--currently Khamenei--to absolute rule. "I was hopeful we could reform the regime," he told TIME. "But now I believe that with this constitution, we cannot achieve...