On Sunday morning in Tehran, Newsweek's Maziar Bahari was detained
without charge by Iranian authorities and has not been heard from since.
Mr. Bahari is a Canadian citizen and a renowned journalist and
filmmaker, who has been living in and covering Iran for the past decade.
Newsweek strongly condemns this unwarranted detention, and calls upon
the Iranian government to release him immediately.

Mr. Bahari's coverage of Iran, for Newsweek and other outlets, has
always been fair and nuanced, and has given full weight to all sides of
the issues. He has always worked well with different administrations in
Tehran, including the current one. There are unconfirmed reports that
several journalists have been detained today; the seizure of innocent
journalists is a violation of the right to a free press in Iran.

Newsweek asks that world governments use whatever influence they have
with the government in Tehran to make clear that this detention is
unwarranted and unacceptable, and to demand Mr. Bahari's release.

When we see the kinds of images that have been coming out of Iran over the past two weeks, we tend to think back to 1989 and Eastern Europe. Then, when people took to the streets and challenged their governments, those seemingly stable regimes proved to be hollow and quickly collapsed. What emerged was liberal democracy. Could Iran yet undergo its own velvet revolution?

It's possible but unlikely. While the regime's legitimacy has cracked -- a fatal wound in the long run -- for now it will probably be able to use its guns and money to consolidate power. And it has plenty of both. Remember, the price of oil was less than $20 a barrel back in 1989. It is $69 now. More important, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has pointed out, 1989 was highly unusual. As a historical precedent, it has not proved a useful guide to other antidictatorial movements.

Continue »