Callow Youth with Whips
Since the end of the war with Iraq, recruits have been drawn to the Guards for several reasons. Many are devoted to the Islamic Revolution and want to defend it. Others need the food and housing that the service provides. Still others, who are not competitive in other occupations, can find employment there, even in menial roles. The less able might monitor roads and traffic. Although most Basij members do not wear uniforms, they are readily identifiable. The men have short hair, wear camouflage jackets, and openly carry batons, clubs, and chains. In their green minivans, they wait outside shopping malls, plazas, parks, cafes, and sporting venues. They flog and pound young people for showing affection in public. According to a high school student, “The Basij are everywhere. . . . In the streets, in the newspapers, on television.”
As in other large organizations, the Basij has its colorful personalities and noisemakers, one of whom is Hamide Reza Ahmad Abadi. Part comic, part stoic, part iconic, Abadi patrols Tehran’s mosques during Friday-afternoon prayers. He claims to chant “Death to America” in his dreams. His performance is animated by wild gesticulations, and he helps stage-manage weekly political rallies. He once claimed to have worked at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, explaining, “I used to hand over and receive the accused,” but he denied any participation in beatings or killing dissidents: “These are allies; these are all fabricated.”
Women in Service
Women employed by the German SS, Soviet NKVD, and Iranian Basij could be every bit as pitiless as their male counterparts, serving with blinkered authoritarian zeal and, at times, sadism. This was certainly the case in Germany. SS women were not marginal sociopaths but part of the social fabric of the time. They rarely showed a nurturing instinct toward those they considered enemies of the state or racial inferiors. Women guards used prisoners for target practice. Some randomly tortured female prisoners, kicking and beating them to death. In popular culture, women in Soviet intelligence are often portrayed as seductive, high-cheekboned beauties who purloin secrets or entrap men. In some cases, this was accurate. But some served as guards in the vast Soviet concentration camp system, performing clerical work at interrogation centers. Others were commissars and could have people executed smoothly and quickly. Full accounts of the cruelty perpetrated by NKVD or KGB women are not as readily available as those of their Nazi counterparts because there were no Soviet war crimes trials comparable to those that took place in Nuremberg in 1946.
Women also find opportunities within the Basij. Women Basij can be ruthless. They walk the streets, often in packs, and beat women they judge to be dressed or behaving immodestly. They break up mixed-gender parties and arrest those who secretly drink alcohol. Girls are put in special punishment rooms where they are whipped. Some of the brutality is captured on social media, including a 2018 video footage of a woman Basiji slamming a young woman to the ground because her hijab was loose. In another incident, a woman Basiji slapped her victim in the face and wrestled with her as the assailed woman pleaded repeatedly, “Let me go, let me go.” Despite their subordinate position, women Basij can be hard-line, as evidenced by Minu Aslani, leader of the Women’s Basij, who tenaciously fights efforts to promote gender equality, which she sees as a Western concept that isolates women. In her words, “it is against human nature . . . the main identity of a Muslim woman is centered on her role as a mother.” For reasons that remain unclear, Aslani recommends that at least one day each month, women and girls should “not grant their love and affection to their families.”
Mission and Structure
As noted above, Basij personnel are classified by status: Regular Members, Active Members, and Special Members. They are also organized into seven main organizations: the General Basij, the Pupil Basij, the Student Basij, the University Basij, the Public Service Basij, the Tribal Basij, and the Construction Basij. There are also smaller units, such as the Labor Basij and the Guild Basij, which specialize by occupation. Occasionally, groups are formed and later merged into other units. One was the Poor Basij Organization, formed in 1979 to consolidate solidarity for the revolution among the poor. The Basij recruitment process is supervised by local clergy. Towns that are particularly fertile recruiting grounds tend to be small and have a highly religious population.
General Basij
The General Basij is organized into brigades, battalions, and subordinate structures. In 1993, the Ashura Brigade was created as an anti-riot force. Ashura units are paramilitary.50 All members of the battalions are trained to use light arms and rifles and to participate in military and paramilitary exercises. The Imam Hussein Brigades comprise Basij veterans who collaborate closely with other elements of the Guards, namely the Guards’ ground forces. The Imam Ali Brigades address security threats. In addition to the paramilitary organizations, the Basij has specialized branches. The Basij of the Guilds represents trade organizations.
The Labor Basij is the Guards’ arm responsible for monitoring labor organizations, unions, and syndicates. The Student Basij serves as a substitute for independent student organizations. The Basij is organized regionally and is deployed to areas in cities designated as “resistance areas.” Each resistance area is divided into resistance zones, each zone into resistance bases, and each base into several groups. Smaller towns and villages have Basij “resistance cells.” Sometimes the Basij will team up with local police. For example, during the popular uprisings of July 1999 and June 2009, the Guards were deployed alongside the National Police Force, which has four local special-unit brigades, and the MOIS operatives.
