Since the Leader of the Islamic Republic called this year the Year of Unity, attacks on ‎dissidents and critics across the board has been on the rise over the last few months. And ‎so it becomes more and more difficult to understand the meaning of the unity that is in ‎mind and who is in charge of bringing it about.‎

From a most optimistic perspective, it appears that the government of Mahmoud ‎Ahmadinejad’s understanding of the Leader has called unity is that everybody should be ‎forced to think like “us”. So all critics should be silenced, dissidents imprisoned, human ‎rights activists detained and civil society activists put under pressure so that the unity of ‎the “insiders” takes place and no other voice is heard from the nation. This is what the ‎government’s interpretation has so far brought on to Iranian society.‎

In other words, a year that was supposed to witness the unity of all political and social ‎movements in the country while the government was supposed to create the conditions ‎for greater tolerance among these groups, the new harshness that has emerged has in fact ‎made life much more difficult for dissidents and those who interpret the laws differently.‎

It is noteworthy that in view of the growing threat that the country has been subjected to ‎over the last few years, and which is picking up even greater momentum these days, the ‎unity of domestic movements and forces can be useful in diffusing and confronting the ‎current threats and conditions. But the actions and policies of the different sectors of the ‎government such as the confrontation of the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of ‎Intelligence with civil society groups (i.e. the arrests of Sohrab Zaraghi and Emaddedin ‎Baghi, and most recently Maryam Hosseinkhah), or the issuance of illogical and ‎indefensible judgments (e.g. stoning, imprisonment and flogging of Delaram Ali), ‎detaining students for months (e.g. the three students from Amir Kabir University), and ‎tens of other similar acts demonstrate the very different interpretation that the ‎government has of the idea of unity.‎

And at exactly the time that the country more ever before needs to speak with one voice ‎which has been achieved through domestic dialog with the various existing views, only ‎one voice leaves Iran. And this voice has no good message and represents only one ‎section of the Iranian political spectrum which has access to power and authority, while ‎other voices are silenced or prevented from being heard.‎

The results of such oppression and silencing of dissidents and other views is that when ‎the annual meeting of the press gathers in Iran to elect the best critical newspaper, ‎Keyhan and Resalat (led by Shariatmadari and Anbarloo respectively) receive the most ‎accomplished awards [both newspapers and its editors are known right wing writers]. No ‎other event could have so easily demonstrated the results of the monolithic drive of the ‎government. So it is Keyhan newspaper, which has been the leader in manipulating ‎security dossiers and writing fictitious stories about many civil society activists and ‎political players that receives the outstanding award for being the most critical media ‎because of its minor criticism in the division of the booty by those in power. In short, ‎when the government perceives Keyhan to be a critic, then all other voices should think ‎twice about themselves and life around them.‎

This unusual interpretation of unity that government officials have and on which they act ‎upon, is not confined to the term unity. Other aspects of life in Iran such as its national ‎security, the conditions of the region, the situation at the national level, freedom of ‎association, human rights, inflation, bringing money to the table (as promised by the ‎President during his presidential campaigns), all take a different meaning than what the ‎people know and have. So gradually, the language that the authorities use becomes less ‎and less comprehensible to the ordinary folk. ‎

God help us and this government.‎