Tag Archives: basij

Acting on orders from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to counter the “soft war” launched by Iran's enemies after last year's disputed presidential election, the Basij militia have beefed up their ideological indoctrination of schoolchildren. Brigadier General Mohammad-Saleh Jokar, who heads the Students Basij, told the Mehr news agency last week that in the last six months, 6,000 “resistance centers” have been established in elementary schools in order to fully prepare children for joining Basij units when they transfer to middle schools at the age of 12. The idea of expanding Basij activities was first announced last November, when Jokar told Mehr that “schoolchildren are more susceptible at a young age than at any other time in their lives…and we want to promote and instill into elementary schoolchildren the ideas of the revolution and Basij.” added by: crystalman