Iran on the brink of revolution?

[Smurf-Herder]

This thing is really snowballing. I dozed off and awoke to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, with some guy talking about reports of Iranian Generals being arrested for siding with the demonstrators.


IRAN: ENMITY AT TOP IS DRIVING THE REVOLUTION FROM BELOW

political maxim holds that a revolution tends to eat its young. It happened that way with France with its Great Terror; it happened in China with its Cultural Revolution and counter-strike against the Gang of Four; and there’s no need to elaborate on what happened in the Soviet Union during the late 1920s and 30s. Such a weeding-out process hasn’t happened in the history of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, though. But it seems to be occurring now.

International attention has been riveted on the popular protests in Tehran and elsewhere, along with authorities’ frantic attempts to keep the lid on the boiling-over desire for expanded civil liberties and economic opportunities. But it is the murky struggle at the top of the Iranian power structure that will likely determine the outcome of the most serious political crisis in Iran since the 1979 revolution ousted the shah.

Several indicators suggest that key members of the old guard of the Islamic Revolution are gearing up for a decisive battle among themselves. On one side there is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s paramount religious leader whose word is law. On the other are three old antagonists of the supreme leader -- Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mir Hussein Mousavi, the aggrieved presidential candidate who believes he is the rightful winner of the June 12 vote. All the men involved in this power struggle were close to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. And all played important roles in bringing down the shah. Thus, each can command wide respect within Iran’s opaque political system today.

For years, the old revolutionaries co-existed, albeit uneasily. It seems, however, that Ayatollah Khamenei’s unwavering support for presumptive president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s power grab has upset the tenuous equilibrium. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In the last 72 hours, the supreme leader’s opponents have engaged in extraordinary public actions and comments that could end up permanently altering Iran’s theocratic structure.

First, Mousavi defied Ayatollah Khamenei’s call to accept the rigged results as final, and mobilized the largest mass rally witnessed in Iran since 1979. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Then, on June 16, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri issued an unprecedented fatwa that specifically aimed to prohibit security forces from being used to crush the protests. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. On June 17, Rafsanjani got involved, reportedly announcing a special meeting of the Assembly of Experts -- the only body that constitutionally has the power to remove the supreme leader, and a body that Rafsanjani chairs. It was obvious to all that the special meeting would consider Ayatollah Khamenei’s actions before, during and after the presidential election.

The power struggle among members of the old guard now seems to have reached the point where compromise will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve, and that the loser, or losers will be forced permanently from public life. With everything at stake, the old revolutionaries are not going to be inclined to give up easily. In addition, there are highly personal and emotional factors at work: there are grudges among the combatants that go back decades. Mousavi and Ayatollah Khamenei, for example, are widely believed to mutually loathe each other. Rafsanjani and Grand Ayatollah Montazeri also have old scores that they may want to settle with the supreme leader. In Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s case, he spent over five years under house arrest on the order of the supreme leader.

Beyond the looming meeting of the Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Khamenei is facing mounting problems from within the religious establishment. Leading clerics in the Holy City of Qom are continuing to withhold support for Ahmadinejad -- a fact that is complicating his regime’s efforts to clamp down.

Elsewhere, disenchantment with Ahmadinejad is building in many corners of the tangled power structure. It may soon reach a point where these disenchanted elements may decide that Ahmadinejad must be sacrificed in order to save the Islamic Revolution. But if Ahmadinejad goes, Ayatollah Khamenei would find himself in an extremely exposed position. Many clerics and influential politicians believe Ayatollah Khamenei violated the constitution by endorsing Ahmadinejad’s supposed election victory before the official results were in.

"Powerful factions in the establishment, though evidently happy with Ahmadinejad’s past performance, are not enamored with him as a person and may decide to get rid of him if it serves their interest," a well-connected clergyman told EurasiaNet.

Pressed from the top, Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmadinejad also continue to be squeezed from below. Tens of thousands of anti-Ahmadinejad protesters took to the streets of Tehran again on June 17. Some estimates put the number of demonstrators as high as 500,000. In a tactic designed to make it more difficult for security forces to initiate a confrontation, the protesters marched largely in silence, with many wearing black to mourn the deaths of those who have died in post-election violence. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Mousavi has called for another mass rally for June 18. He billed the gathering as an opportunity for Iranians to remember "our countrymen [who] were wounded or martyred," a reference to those who have fallen in recent days.

At least eight people have died in clashes between regime opponents and security forces since June 12. The fact is that hardliner-controlled forces -- most notably the Revolutionary Guards and the affiliated Basij Militia -- have not been a major presence on the streets, although Basij militiamen have been used to ransack and terrorize university dormitories in several cities, including Tehran.

That the Revolutionary Guards have yet to get actively involved indicates that the power struggle at the top is dividing the security establishment, and therefore keeping it on the sidelines of the street protests. Rumors have swirled around Tehran during the past 48 hours about the alleged arrests of Army generals and Revolutionary Guard commanders who have been suspected of siding with the anti-Ahmadinejad forces. There are also rumors of generals refusing to follow orders to deploy military units in Tehran.

Even though hardliners have not been able to deploy overwhelming force to crush the protests, they have gone to great lengths to try to stifle the protesters’ ability to communicate. In the latest move, authorities threatened users of the social-networking platform Twitter with criminal prosecutions. Despite their comprehensive cyber-warfare campaign, Ahmadinejad-aligned forces have not been able to contain the demonstrators.

The late hours of June 17 in Tehran featured a roof-top protest in which tens of thousands of city residents stood on balconies and on roofs shouting, "God is Great" and "Death to the Dictator."

For the old revolutionaries it appears that there is no going back in their internecine power struggle. The outcome of that struggle remains uncertain, but once clarity is achieved, the victor, or victors, will face a big question: will it be too late to contain the crowds and save the Islamic Republic from being swept away?

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav061709c.shtml

Iran's Ayatollah under threat?

By Farzad Agah

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared runaway winner of the presidential election last week, Iran has seen a daily wave of opposition demonstrations, police crackdowns and violence.

Not since the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew the shah has Iranian society been so rattled and divided.

According to the Iranian constitution, the Guardians of the Constitution are supposed to monitor and sign off on election results.

After the votes have been counted and the winner announced by the interior ministry, the Guardians have the responsibility to endorse the result within 10 days if there are no complaints from the defeated candidates.

The president-elect is then confirmed and later sworn in by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But last week's election did not follow these procedures.

Despite complaints by Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei, the opposition candidates, Ayatollah Khamaenei congratulated Ahmadinejad in a public speech and pointed out that he had got 14 million votes more than the first time he was elected president four years ago.

Opposition anger

The pronouncement, together with a self-congratulatory victory rally in which Ahmadinejad branded the supporters of the defeated candidates as "floating bushes", infuriated opposition supporters and they took to the streets in Tehran and other major cities.

The establishment backed by militias and special forces beat demonstrators and arrested scores of prominent opposition figures, journalists, students and lawyers.

Khamenei maintained his silence for two days before urging the opposing sides not to anger each other by making explosive comments at a private meeting of the candidates' representatives.

He asked the opposition candidates to lodge their complaints to the Guardians of the Constitution for consideration - an indirect admission that the correct procedure had not been followed following the election.

The Guardians of the Constitution later announced they would consider the complaints and admitted a partial recount of the election results may be necessary.

Observers believe the moves by the conservative Guardians of the Constitution, who are known to support Ahmadinejad, were just to calm down anti-government supporters.

Still, they have promised to meet all the defeated presidential candidates on June 20 and take all their complaints into consideration.

Many moderate clerics, some of whom are believed to be members of the powerful Assembly of Experts, have questioned the wisdom of Khamenei in hastily endorsing Ahmadinejad's "victory".

The Assembly, which selects the country's supreme leader, is chaired by Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani who is considered by many as one of the pillars of the Islamic Revolution.

He was the man behind the election of Khamenei as supreme leader soon after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni in 1989.

In theory at least, the Assembly has the constitutional right to question and even replace the supreme leader.

'Not impartial'

Some influential moderate clerics privately admit that Khamenei has not done "justice" to the presidential candidates and has not treated them with impartiality.

This behaviour, they believe, could jeopardise his position as leader since one of the main qualities required of the supreme leader is "justice".

Rafsanjani is also the chairman of the Expediency Council which is a body charged with the power to resolve differences or conflicts between parliament and the Guardians of the Constitution, but its true power lies more in its power to oversee the supreme leader.

It is a well-known fact that there is a lot of bad blood between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani whom the president accuses of corruption and aristocratic behaviour.

Ahmadinejad angered Rafsanjani when in his presidential television debate with Mousavi, he alleged that all the three opposition candidates had been put forward by Rafsanjani to defeat him.

He further accused Rafsanjani of unlawfully accumulating massive wealth over many years and putting his cronies in the way of the president.

The allegations prompted Rafsanjani to write a highly critical open letter to Khamenei, which the supreme leader ignored.

Public rift

The result has been serious public rift within the establishment and many observers believe Rafsanjani may be encouraging the ferment among supporters of the opposition presidential candidates.

Mohammed Khatami, the former Iranian reformist president, has also been serving in the ranks of the "green movement" of Mousavi, who together with fellow candidate Karroubi, have been calling for the annulment of the election which they believe was rigged by Ahmadinejad supporters.

All this leaves Khamenei in a very difficult situation.

He is unlikely to either accuse the opposition supporters of being mercenaries of "foreign powers" as Ahmadinejad supporters have done.

Nor is he likely to agree to their demand that the election result be cancelled or to have an impartial election fact-finding body set up.

Instead, Khamenei, who is to give a sermon after Friday prayers at Tehran University, is likely to invite both sides to unite and accept the results of the votes or risk jeopardising the Islamic revolution and state.

But Mousavi and his supporters are just as unlikely to stop their protests until they have achieved their goal.

The deep frustration and disillusionment of the mainly urban supporters of Mousavi, together with the establishment rifts now out in the open, are posing a serious threat to Khamenei's authority.

That may benefit Rafsanjani, who aspires to become the next supreme leader, and rumours abound that he is trying to muster support among some influential clerical members of the Assembly of Experts to take Khamenei to task.

This may prove difficult, however, considering that there is still the well-armed and powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard – that some say are the country's de facto rulers - to contend with.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200961923416905779.html

[Bill Cosby]

I am surprised this is continuing @ this pace..

Ebrahim Yazdi, Iran’s former foreign minister, thrown in jail (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6531509.ece)

In Iran, as in Britain, a week is a very long time in politics. Last Friday Ebrahim Yazdi, 78, was queueing in hot sunshine outside the Hosseinieh Ershad mosque in Tehran, chatting to The Times and other news organisations as he waited to vote for a new direction for his country.

Today the veteran revolutionary and former Foreign Minister languishes in the notorious Evin prison just outside the capital — one of scores of politicians, journalists and activists arrested in the past few days for the heinous crime of supporting the opposition. He was snatched from the intensive care unit of a Tehran hospital.

Mr Yazdi was a founder of the Freedom Movement, a group of intellectuals — now banned but tolerated — who opposed the Shah in the 1970s. After the revolution in 1979 he became the first Foreign Minister of the new Islamic Republic. Within a year he had resigned in protest after students stormed the US Embassy and took 52 diplomats hostage.

Last week Mr Yazdi was scathing about President Ahmadinejad’s performance during his first four-year term, particularly in foreign affairs. He said it had been “destructive”, adding: “The by-product of destruction is disaster.” He warned of attempts to rig the election, and predicted violent street protests if that happened. “Our youth can’t tolerate that kind of behaviour,” he said.
Related Links

* Cyber warriors join fight against censors

* Ultimatum to Mousavi: toe the line or else

* Same question remains: will Iran negotiate?

Multimedia

* PICTURES: Iran

Mr Yazdi was right on both counts but was unable to protect himself. At 3pm on Wednesday he was arrested while being treated at Pars hospital.

His son-in-law, Mehdi Noorbaksh, who lives in Pennsylvania, said it was hard to get any information about him because the telephone lines were down.

More arrests

— Mahsa Amrabadi, a journalist, was reportedly arrested at her home which she shares with her husband, another dissident journalist, Masoud Bastani

— Emad Bahavar, a blogger and activist involved with groups such as the Freedom Party and pro-Khatami youth organisation Group 88, is in custody

— Ali Taghipour Mohammad Shokuhi, a member of the reformist Islamic Participation Front, reportedly arrested along with fellow party members including Ali Poukhayeri, Shahin Nourbakhsh and Ashkan Mojaleli

— Mohammad Tavasoli, political director of the Freedom Movement of Iran, arrested on Tuesday

— Ahmed Zeidabadi, political analyst and journalist who has worked for the BBC’s Persian service and anti-Government site Rooz; previously jailed for 13 months in 2003. Human rights group says he is in custody

[Smurf-Herder]

This could really change everything, if there were a successful popular democratic uprising in Iran.

http://www.ncr-iran.org/

[Smurf-Herder]

'The Fear Is Gone'
Voices from Iran.

Editor's note: The following are firsthand accounts that were solicited by Journal assistant editorial features editor Bari Weiss. Some were translated from Farsi. Surnames have been omitted to protect the writers.

Don't Accept This Coup

By Kaveh from Tabriz

Ahmadinejad has taken revenge on the students of Iran during these violent days. The regime's aim is to damage universities, since they are the first base of change, movement and protest.

I live in the dorms at Tehran University. I was asleep when Basij militiamen entered my room early Monday morning, demolished everything and started beating us. A man with a long beard broke my notebook and said: "It is destroyed, this book that you were using against Islam and Ahmadinejad."

They beat students more when they saw posters of Mousavi in their rooms. And they carried big knives and guns.

They also attacked the women's dormitory next door. The Supreme Leader calls us rioters, but I want to ask him: How can sleeping women in their beds be rioters? Is this the Islamic justice he believes in?

President Obama's speech was good; he says that he will support us. He also said that nations must decide the fate of their countries by themselves. I agree with him, but now we don't have any power to change the situation, so we need help and attention.

We ask the president not to accept this coup d'etat.


Marching to Freedom Square

By Alireza in Tehran

There is something in the air in Tehran these days. We remain afraid, but we also dare to speak.

I left my home in Tajrish along with my family at 3 p.m. to head to the protest on Monday. We knew that people were supposed to gather in Enghelab [Revolution] Square at 4 p.m. and march toward Azadi [Freedom] Square. From Gisha Bridge onwards, we saw people walking. Cars were blowing their horns and people were flashing the victory sign. I also saw a group of about 20 militiamen with long beards and batons on motorbikes.

My hand was hanging out of the taxi window with a little green ribbon -- the color of the reformists -- tied around my finger. One of the militiamen told me to "throw that ribbon away!" When I refused, 15 people attacked me inside the car. They beat me with their batons and tried to pull me out.

My wife and my daughter who were sitting in the back seat cried and held me tight. I also held myself tight to the chair. As they tried to shatter the car windows the driver went out and explained that he is just a taxi driver, we are just his passengers, and he hadn't done anything wrong. After about five minutes they left us alone.

Soon we joined the crowd at Enghelab Street. What I saw there was the most magnificent scene I have ever witnessed in my life. The huge numbers of people were marching hand-in-hand peacefully. There were no slogans being shouted. Hands were held up in victory signs with green ribbons. People carried placards which read: silence. Young and old, men and women, rich and poor were marching cheerfully. It was an amazing show of solidarity. I was so proud.

Enghelab Street, the widest avenue in Tehran, was full of people. Some estimated that there were one to two million people there. As we marched, we passed a police department and a Basij base. In both places, we could see fully-armed riot police and militiamen watching us from behind fences. Near Sharif University of Technology, where the students had chased away Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a few days before, Mir Hossein Mousavi (the reformist president-elect) and Mehdi Karrubi, the other reformist candidate, spoke to the people and were received with cries of praise and applause.

My family and I had put stickers on our mouths to represent the suppression of the regime. Other people carried signs. One quoted the national poet Ahmad Shamlu: "To slaughter us/why did you need to invite us/to such an elegant party." Another made fun of the government's claim that Ahmadinejad won 24 million votes: "The Miracle of the Third Millennium: 2 x 2 = 24 million." Others just read: "Where is my vote?"

When we finally arrived at Azadi Square, which can accommodate around 500,000 people, it was full. We saw smoke coming from Jenah Freeway and heard the gunshots. People were scared but continued walking forward.

Later, my sister told me that she saw four militiamen come out from a house and shoot a girl. Then they shot a young boy in his eye and the bullet came out of his ear. She said that four people were shot.

On my way home at around 2 a.m. I saw about 10 buses full of armed riot police parked on the side of the road. There were scattered militiamen in civilian clothes carrying clubs patrolling the empty streets. And in Tajrish Square I saw a boy around 16 holding a club, looking for something to attack.

At Ahmadinejad's "victory" ceremony, government buses transported all his supporters from nearby cities. There was full TV coverage of that ceremony, where fruit juice and cake were plentiful. At most, 100,000 gathered to hear his speech, including all the militiamen and soldiers.

We reformists have no radio, no newspaper, and no television. All our Internet sites are filtered, as well as social networks such as Facebook. Text messaging and mobile communication were also cut off during the demonstrations. And yet we had hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

The state-run TV station has announced that riot police will severely punish anybody that demonstrates. Ahmadinejad called the opposition a bunch of insignificant dirt who try to make the taste of victory bitter to the nation. But his remark was answered by the largest demonstrations ever.

Older people compared Monday's gathering to the demonstrations of 1979 which marked the downfall of the Shah's regime. They even said that this event was larger.

Democracy is a long way ahead. I may not be alive to see that day. With eyes full of tears in these early hours of June 16, I glorify the courage of those who have already been killed. I hope that the blood of these martyrs will make every one of us more committed to freedom, to democracy and to human rights.


[B]Women on the Front Lines[/B]

By Negin in Tehran

Friends from all over the world call my cellphone nonstop to make sure we're safe. The connection is either cut or so bad that we have to guess what the other person is saying. But the other day one call was very clear: My mother was wondering if I could help her with her computer. She recently joined Facebook and can't stand the fact that her favorite site is filtered.

She's stopped complaining that my father follows the news day and night. If they're not outside in the middle of the city, my parents are both glued to the television.

Until a few days ago most people believed that this protest was just the voice of suppressed students and youngsters. But now we know this isn't true. "No fear, no fear: We are together." This is what we heard today from millions of people from different generations in Tehran.

The number of people that participated in the demonstration surprised everyone, but what has fascinated me is their variety. At the beginning I thought this was going to be a fight between the lower class and the middle class. What I saw on Monday changed my mind completely. I saw many women, young and old, covered head-to-toe in black chadors shouting and chanting among the demonstrators and joining the young girls who were sitting on the ground in the middle of the street to stop the Basij militia from walking inside the crowd.

That image will never be wiped away from my mind. The women on the front line with their loose colorful scarves had opened their arms, ready to be killed, while others were beaten by the Basij on the side of the road.

People want to be heard and supported by the rest of the world. They were sending messages to the West with their cameras. They were calling on Obama and Sarkozy to demand that the Free World not recognize this government. I saw a few women shouting: "Now it's your turn to support democracy and human rights."

"The fear is gone. Nothing seems to be an obstacle anymore. They can filter all the Web sites and shut down the Internet, SMS service, and mobile phones, but they cannot shut our mouths." This is what I hear all the time.

Late at night everyone wants to share their experience with others. Telephones don't stop ringing. Sara, my girlfriend, called me half an hour ago. She had heard gunfire near her house and had seen bloodied people. Although she was panicked and needed to talk to someone, she hung up the phone to go onto her roof and shout. Within a few minutes I heard my neighbors shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) from their balconies as well.

I remember how sometimes I used to be irritated by the loud prayer call which starts with the same phrase, Allahu Akbar. Now this phrase has turned out to be the most beautiful one.

After a while I called back my mother to help her with her computer problem. She didn't answer. Perhaps she is on the roof too.


[B]This Government Is a Lie[/B]

By Soudeh in Tehran

I have never seen such a huge number of diverse people protesting in Iran. People are really angry and refuse to be patient. Ahmadinejad's government challenged our honor. How can we trust anything when the government perpetrates such a big lie?

They don't have pity on anyone. Some of the police cannot speak Farsi. I saw one of them beating a man as he cursed in Arabic. People say they are from Hezbollah.

These men barge into homes and threaten people by calling their families. And they are savage against peaceful demonstrators.

Hospitals are full of people injured by the Military Guard, yet the Supreme Leader of Iran called us seditious. We just want the right to a real vote.

This is the first time an American president did not interfere with Iran's situation -- and it's a good thing. In the past, U.S. support for the protestors led the Iranian government to punish the people more, accusing them of being spies for or taking money from the U.S.

But I think Obama must hear the message of the protests: Ahmadinejad's government is a lie.


[B]A Grenade Exploded At Our Door[/B]

By Shahin in Tehran

It was about 1:30 a.m. when I heard windows and doors on our street being smashed one after another. My parents had gone to sleep an hour earlier and I was surfing the Internet to see the latest reactions to Monday's demonstration of Mousavi supporters.

The people from our neighborhood who protested in the streets had already gone back home, so I was scared for them.

The smashing sound came closer and I could hear that my family's apartment door was being attacked. I was really frightened because I had heard that the people who were breaking into houses at night were the plainclothes police who support Ahmadinejad.

I was pacing around my apartment when I heard a massive explosion that woke up everybody in our apartment complex.

I rushed downstairs in the dark with my neighbors as our complex was being attacked. One of them said "Man! They exploded a grenade just few feet from me. Can you see the blood dropping from my fingers? I can barely hear anything." An old woman on the first floor said the plainclothes forces broke the front porch, knocked on some doors and left.

We learned that the sounds of windows being broken were coming from three neighboring apartment complexes and garages. My injured neighbor had gone to check the source of the sound just when the grenade exploded.

In the morning, I checked out the damage myself and took pictures of smashed cars, windows and doors. I also found some bullet casings left in front of our house. I quickly posted them on Facebook where I received lots of comments from others who had the same experience. One of them commented "Yours was just 23 cars. How about our four-story parking garage that now looks like a junkyard?!"

Mousavi's supporters wanted the crowd to stay calm and stage a peaceful demonstration, so as not to give Ahmadinejad's supporters a reason to resort to violence.

State-run TV asked everybody to gather in Vali-asr Square to protest against Mousavi's supporters who the government accused of rioting late into the night. Mousavi's supporters planned on having their second peaceful demonstration in Vali-asr square on Tuesday but cancelled it right after this TV announcement. But despite the announcement, I saw a huge crowd protesting either on foot or in their cars all the way up Vali-asr Street, Tehran's longest street. People are enraged by the lies.

As an optimistic young Iranian who voted in all the presidential elections since 1997, I feel strongly that all those who voted for anyone but Ahmadinejad were insulted badly. I believe some in the ruling elite have come to realize that supporting Ahmadinejad was not worth an uprising in every city.

I hope that the Guardian Council can fix this through a recount or void the whole rigged election.

[B]
It's Like an Invasion[/B]

By Setareh in Tehran

In the past few days, I've participated in several rallies. During all of the protests, plainclothes militiamen would enter the crowds and manipulate people into dispersing by telling them that if they stayed the security forces would shoot them.

All satellite signals have been jammed, SMS texting has been cut off since election day, and land lines have been disrupted. Though it takes about 20 minutes to download Yahoo's Web site in Tehran, in other cities the Internet has been completely shut down.

The regime is also using psychological warfare to keep people in their homes, calling protestors "hooligans" and constantly warning parents to keep their sons and daughters inside so they don't get killed.

But we are nonviolent. It is the Basij who attack protestors and set cars on fire. They do this so that the security forces have a pretext for using harsher tactics on the demonstrators. The security forces have knives, body armor, tasers and mace. It's as though Iran is under invasion by a foreign government. They have killed many university students in the past few days.

[I]Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A15[/I]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124537040666029677.html#printMode

[Bill Cosby]

Shots fired during Iran protest

Amateur video from Iran posted on the internet shows a man who was shot in the leg during a demonstration that followed the country's disputed election results. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8110399.stm)

[Smurf-Herder]

The Seven-Point Manifesto of the Iranian Resistance

Their demands include no less than the resignation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This widely-circulated document has been translated by PJM's Ardeshir Arian.

The following document, known as the Seven Point Manifesto, calling for the resignation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, has hit the streets of Iran. Hundreds of thousands of copies have already been circulated throughout the country.

A copy was sent from Tehran to filmmaker and activist Ardeshir Arian, who has translated it for Pajamas Media:

The Seven Point Manifesto calls for:

1.Stripping Ayatollah Khamanei of his Supreme Leadership position because of his unfairness. Fairness is a requirement of a Supreme Leader.

2. Stripping Ahmadinejad of the presidency, due to his unlawful act of maintaining the position illegally.

3.Transferring temporary Supreme Leadership position to Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazery until the formation of a committee to reevaluate and adjust Iran’s constitution.

4. Recognizing Mir Hossein Mousavi as the rightfully elected president of the people.

5. Formation of a new government by President Mousavi and preparation for the implementation of new constitutional amendments.

6. Unconditional release of all political prisoners regardless of ideaology or party platform.

7. Dissolution of all organizations - both secret and public - designed for the oppression of the Iranian people, such as the Gasht Ershad (Iranian morality police).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5859384


Lots of Iranian protest videos:


http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=iran+protests

We need to support the Iranian people in every way possible. Tomorrow is a big day. Another huge demonstration, with the Supreme Leader threatening bloodshed for those participating. Not only Iran's future, but the future of the middle east and indirectly the entire world are at the crossroads.

[Bill Cosby]

Wow............. They are not playing around.... Ayatollah Khamanei out....

I guess secularism may have a place again in Persia.......lol

[Smurf-Herder]

Wow............. They are not playing around.... Ayatollah Khamanei out....

I guess secularism may have a place again in Persia.......lol

I think the most highly educated people in the muslim world finally had it with living in a Theocratic police state that hangs people for being gay and stones women for adultery.

Khamanei was considered a light-weight, who is now in league with the more radical faction of the IRGC and the Basij, which are allied with Ahmadinejad. Even elements of the IRGC think they've gone too far.

Report: Members of Iranian Revolutionary Guard arrested for joining 'people's movement'

According to Cyrus News Agency (CNA) in Iran, at least 16 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly attempting to join the "people's movement." Protests, riots and violence broke out in several cities in Iran on Saturday night following an election which many in Iran and the world say was fraudulent.

"These commanders have been in contact with members of the Iranian army to join the people's movement. Three of the commanders are veterans of Iran-Iraq war. They have been moved to an undisclosed location in East Tehran," said the Washington Times which quotes the CNA in Iran.

The protesters on Saturday were supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a candidate in the recent election. Mousavi accuses the Iranian government of "appalling" fraud after it reported that the nation's current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had been expected to receive less than 50% of the vote and have to face Mousavi in a runoff election, received 62%.

Cyrus also reports that on Wednesday, the Iranian military arrested at least 500 other protesters, activists, students and journalists among one well-known Middle Eastern reporter Saeed Leylaz. They are accused of "decapitating" the Iranian government and the recent elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected. According to guardian.co.uk, many of those arrested were affiliated with the revolution in Iran in 1979.

On Tuesday, the Guardian Council of Iran has announced it is willing to recount contentious votes from Friday's presidential elections. The top legislative body said votes would be recounted in regions where other losing candidates contest the results, but the Council says they have no plans to annul the election.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Report:_Members_of_Iranian_Revolutionary_Guard_arr ested_for_joining_'people's_movement'?curid=128055

[Cat slave]

Wow! You gotta admire those people with spines and the guts to get out
there and take their country back. Wouldnt a domino effect be great over
there? Creeping democracy...we could take a page from that book. I think
too many have forgotten what we are supposed to have over here.

[Bill Cosby]

Wow! You gotta admire those people with spines and the guts to get out
there and take their country back. Wouldnt a domino effect be great over
there? Creeping democracy...we could take a page from that book. I think
too many have forgotten what we are supposed to have over here.

Yea & they would be doing inspite of, not as a result of a damn thing the usa has done....................... GO figure....

[Cat slave]

And that makes those people in the streets just that much more admirable and
brave! Who would have thought there was anything in Iran to admire? When
I heard the word "Iran" all I could see was that nut case but there is a whole
country of brave patriots risking their lives for freedom, or their concept of
it. Its all relevant isnt it?

[bluejunk44]

I'm surprised they came out with such a response. At the very least they could have pretended to recount. It's like they want to be replaced.

[Smurf-Herder]

Saturday 8:30 am ............

Total news clampdown, except for what little is coming out in twitters and Internet. Foreign reporters have to get permission for each report they send out. Iranian TV said protests were cancelled - but Mousavi facebook says don't believe it. Iranian government people pretending to be fellow dissenters, discouraging going to the demonstrations by twitter. Supporters are being told to pull simm cards from their cell phones, because they are being tracked.

Thousands coming into Tehran from nearby towns in small groups. Hundreds of heavily armed police and militia blocking entrance to the two squares designated rally points. At least one report of tear gas being used. Everyone is trying to get organized, old women, whole families, etc. But police and militia beat them to the rally points by a few hours.

CNN appears to be as up-to-the-minute as possible.

[Bill Cosby]

Robert Fisk: The dead of Iran are mourned – but the fight goes on (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/robert-fisk/robert-fisk-the-dead-of-iran-are-mourned-ndash-but-the-fight-goes-on-14345989.html)

"President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and the quotation marks are becoming ever more appropriate in Iran today – is in real trouble.

There are now three separate official inquiries into his supposed election victory and the violence which followed, while conservative Iranian MPs fought each other with their fists at a private meeting behind the assembly chamber, after Ahmadinejad's members objected to an official's reference to the "dignity" with which the opposition leader, Mirhossein Mousavi, answered parliamentary questions. Those close to the man who still believes he is the President of Iran say that he is himself deeply troubled – even traumatised – by the massive demonstrations against him across the country.

Tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters marched in black through the streets of central Tehran yesterday evening, in an emotional demonstration of mourning – the second in two days – for the post-election dead. In a city symbolised by its brutal traffic and decibel records, they walked in total silence for three miles, holding banners and posters lamenting the killings in Azadi Square and Tehran University and in other Iranian cities. And they had no doubts about the political – and physical – risks they were taking.

A chemical engineer walking at the centre of the huge black trail thought for several seconds when I asked him what happens next. "Nobody knows but we think of this all the time," he at last replied. "We cannot stop now. If we stop now, they will eat us. The best is for the United Nations or some international organisations to monitor another election." Upon such illusions is disaster built.

But the same man's wife had a humour that almost belonged to the vast black crowd yesterday. She was a commercial lawyer but had studied psychology. "If we let go now, we are going to face someone like Pinochet – and our dictators here are not even up-to-date dictators," she told me without a trace of a smile. "My psychological training is very useful. Ahmadinejad has a classic psychosis problem. He lies a lot and he's hallucinatory and the problem is, he thinks he's related to someone up there!" And here, the lady pointed upwards in the general direction of heaven. But no jokes about religion. These marchers were chanting the Muslim "salavat" prayer, giving greetings to the Prophet Mohamed and his family.

And just as well. For this morning, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is to lead Friday prayers at Tehran University – the same campus upon which seven young men were shot dead by pro-Ahmadinejad Basiji militiamen on Sunday night – and Mousavi is promising to bring his own supporters, wearing black arm-bands of mourning for the dead, to demonstrate their loyalty to Khamenei himself. Ahmadinejad's acolytes have been claiming that the opposition is trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic as well as Khamenei, a dangerous slander in any revolution here but a particularly incendiary one today.

The opposition suspects that Khamenei will try to restore order by telling Mousavi and his people that they have been allowed their massive demonstrations and that, despite "unfortunate incidents" – that wonderful autocratic cliché has actually just been used by parliament Speaker Ali Larijani – this was a generous and democratic act by the government. But, Khamenei is expected to say, enough is enough. Any groups disturbing the peace this weekend will be regarded as counter-revolutionaries and dealt with "according to the law" (a favourite Khamenei expression).

If so, Mousavi and his advisers – they include former president Mohammad Khatami as well as Mousavi's election ally, Mehdi Karroubi – will have to behave with immense sensitivity if they are not to be trapped into silence by such a warning. Their problem is almost intractable. If they continue the protest marches, they can be accused of breaking the law – and the waning strength of the marches no longer brings the people of Tehran on to their balconies and rooftops – but if they bring the protests to an end, the Basiji and the cops become kings of the street.

Indeed, the arrest of the Islamic Republic's first foreign minister, Ibrahim Yazdi – he was taken, quite literally, from the bed of his Tehran hospital where he is suffering from prostate cancer – shows just how high the level of suspicion is amid the heights of the Islamic Republic. No one has managed to suggest a sane reason why a man who worked alongside the founder of the Islamic regime, Ayatollah Khomeini himself, should suddenly disappear before our eyes. Yazdi had urged Iranians to boycott the presidential poll four years ago – the election that brought Ahmadinejad to power – but was urging all Iranians to vote last week.

If anyone needed proof of the government's state of indecision, they had only to look at yesterday's Tehran newspapers. Suddenly, the mass demonstrations were acknowledged in full. A whole front page of photographs showed Wednesday afternoon's Mousavi rally. Ahmadinejad had said at the weekend that his opponents were mere "layers of dust" – an unwise as well as a childish remark – but across one photograph, demonstrators can be seen carrying a banner which reads: "The layers of dust are making history."

Other papers showed Iran's top six football stars playing South Korea in Seoul with Mousavi's campaign green ribbons tried to their wrists. They complied with instructions to take them off for the second half of the match – which was broadcast live across Iran and which turned out to be a draw. Even Mousavi's website is no longer blocked. We may ask what all this means. But so does all of Iran.

It was clear, however, even before the right-wing MPs turned to fisticuffs, that the authorities simply did not know how to handle this unprecedented revolt – not revolution – by so many millions of Iranians. With a more intelligent, thoughtful, less arrogant man in power, it might be possible to look for a political compromise, perhaps some tinkering with the constitution to create a vice-presidency (not that Mousavi would accept it) or even recreate the post of prime minister which was held by Mousavi himself during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

But who wants to work with Ahmadinejad? His efforts to improve the lot of the millions of Iranian poor – their existence, of course, is a blight upon the moral reputation of any republic which controls so much oil wealth – have been genuine and well received. His meretricious doubts about the Jewish Holocaust, his foolish rhetoric about Israel, his constant comparison of the Iranian election to a football match, are of no interest to them. But Mousavi can scarcely work with such an unpredictable, unstable figure.

Ahmadinejad's colleagues have been claiming that the vandalisation of property, including the destruction of computers at Tehran University – an act with absolutely no intelligent explanation – was committed by "traitors", but the government's own investigative committee is now saying that plain-clothed agents were involved.

It all leaves "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a very lonely man.

[disrupter]

Empathizing with these people as people is probably a good thing.

Trying to horn in on their struggle before we know unknown facts or have been clearly invited to act or intervene is mostly for a bunch of arrogant right wing cats who are trying to piss all over these other people's movement, like marking it as 'their' territory.

This is THEIR movement, this is their guts standing up to a repressive regime. THEY are admirable, much more than i would say of current day Americans.

Empathize with the actual Iranian people or shut your presumptive mouths.

What they come up with [or not] may not be anything we would want or like, but if it is what they want & it seems to work without violating other nation states then we should hope for the best for them.

Certainly we don't want to see people hurt without any likelihood of progress.

We should not love the drama more than we prize actual progress.

If we were brilliant as a species no violence would be necessary. We aren't.

[disrupter]

It is strange, sometimes it is the fuzzy headed notion, unclear but deeply felt that drives people on. Sort of the mystic mission into an unknown but hopeful future. We don't know what it will be like when we get there, but we are pretty sure it is/feels better.

I find i feel a way first, & only later craft the articulated argument to better explain it. [possibly suggesting some degree of 'rationalizing' going on as well as organizing empirc facts.]

Sort of the raw state before it congeals or crystalizes?