As the world's attention remains focused on the uprisings in the Arab world, Iran's regime is now looking more vulnerable than in the past. Tens of thousands of Iranians protested March 1, according to unconfirmed reports, partially in response to the kidnapping and incarceration of the two leaders of the so-called Green movement and their wives.
The regime knows it has a problem; much like in the Arab world, the continuous and sporadic protests, which began Feb. 14 after more than a year, showed Iranians have overcome their fears.
Faced with the terrifying prospect of another Tahrir Square, the Iranian regime is choosing from a list of bad options. Outraged at the failure to prevent protests on February 14, 20 and March 1, a staggering number of hardliners within the government have frenetically issued calls for the execution of Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Moussavi.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who certainly is the only authority able to command the arrest of the two opposition figures, must have felt the need to silence these outspoken loyalists calling for action, particularly because more protests erupted on March 1. According to a number of observers, the government chose this time of the year, two weeks before the Iranian New Year, to arrest Moussavi and Karroubi hoping it would achieve two goals: first, the government continues to claim that large crowds on the streets are just holiday shoppers "going to buy supplies for the New Year." Second, the government hopes that by March 20, demonstrators will go back to their homes to celebrate the Iranian New Year, or Norouz.
Until the kidnapping and incarceration this past weekend of Moussavi and Karroubi and their wives, the government had kept the two opposition leaders under house arrest. However, the protests in February apparently led the regime to believe the two were somehow continuing to coordinate demonstrations, despite the fact that their internet and telephone lines had been cut.
The timing of the abductions appears to be counterproductive. The Coordination Council of the Green Path of Hope -- a group of prominent dissidents who assumed leadership of the Green Movement following the house arrests of Karroubi and Moussavi -- called for protests on March 1, and succeeded in mobilizing thousands of people in several major cities. The demonstrations, intentionally falling on Moussavi's birthday, are intended to express condemnation of the treatment of the opposition leaders.
According to BBC Persian Service, and eyewitnesses in Tehran, a large number of people appeared on the streets of the capital but faced a massive deployment of armed police and plainclothes security forces with weapons drawn. Moussavi's website, Kaleme, has asserted that the government fired into a crowd at one point, and that the level of violence seen on March 1 is "unprecedented."
Kaleme is also reporting that Karroubi and Moussavi have been moved to Heshmatiyeh Prison in Tehran, a military prison previously investigated and partially closed due to its poor conditions. As a military prison, it remains out of the jurisdiction of government oversight, and answers only to the Supreme Leader. Both Kaleme and Saham News, echoing the outrage of many Green supporters over the abductions, named Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in their headlines as responsible for directly ordering the secret detentions of the opposition leaders.
Until now, the websites avoided directly blaming Khamenei. But after the abductions of the men and their wives, the Green movement's leadership has apparently now crossed a new red line and dared to name Khamenei as being responsible for Moussavi and Karroubi's detention.
Prominent clerics are also speaking out against the regime's action. Notable dissident Grand Ayatollahs Yousef Saanei, Assad Bayat-Zanjani, and Ali-Mohammad Dastgheyb, who have been the primary clerical targets of the government since their support for protests following the disputed 2009 presidential elections, have issued statements against the detentions. Grand Ayatollah Saanei's statement condemned the abduction of Moussavi and Karroubi in no uncertain terms: "These are actions and behavior that demonstrate the failure and political weakness of the perpetrators [of the detentions] and agents [of the government] to sway public opinion."
The Grand Ayatollah's statement is accurate in that the detentions represent multiple failures on the part of the Islamic Republic's leadership to sway public opinion or head-off the renewed momentum of the Green Movement.
Unlike some Arab countries seeking to appease protesters, Iran's government is reacting with increased force. According to eyewitnesses who spoke to InsideIRAN on the condition of anonymity, Tehran resembles a "military base." The streets are filled with security forces, anticipating new rounds of protests.
Iran's Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi went on state television last week to talk about "new evidence" against the "leaders of sedition." He even accused senior advisors to Moussavi and Karroubi aides, Ardeshir Amir-Arjmand and Mojtaba Vahedi, of being operatives of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalgh Organization. In Iran, any affiliation with the MKO could carry the death penalty.
Moslehi also upped the ante by labeling Moussavi and Karroubi "counterrevolutionaries." The long-held title of "leaders of sedition" was no longer deemed to be severe enough. In Iran, counterrevolutionaries are usually executed, or at the very least, thrown into prison for a very long time. Moslehi's remarks were chosen carefully to scare Green Movement supporters abroad, specifically those involved with the Coordination Council. Fearing the government would arrest Moussavi and Karroubi, leading opposition figures outside Iran remained silent and refused to give interviews to many broadcast television networks such as BBC Persian and Voice of America. With nothing to lose following the abduction of Moussavi and Karroubi, leaders of the movement abroad have broken their silence and are asking for international pressure on the Iranian government.
The next few weeks will be extremely important. There is a demonstration scheduled for every Tuesday, and the response amongst Green supporters to these rallies has proven positive thus far. It remains to be seen if the escalation of the violence and intensity of the protests will continue in the weeks ahead and how this will define both the actions of the Green Movement and the government.
Geneive Abdo is the editor of insideIRAN.org. Arash Aramesh and Shayan Ghajar are writers and researchers for the website.
http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/darius-kadivar/finally-getting-it-right-shirin-ebadi-says-i-dont-believe-islamic-declaration-hu
Mohammad Marandi
"Iran is not Libya," says Tehran University English Literature assistant professor
Both CNN and News Hour provided a platform for IRI propaganda via Marandi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVZxhES3t_w&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xQAMpV4C84&feature=player_embedded
"What is further outrageous in this whole equation is that notwithstanding its abuses of foreign media, and its total ban of major foreign media’s presence in Iran, IRI officials routinely appear on the same foreign media outlets to push their views. Ahmadinejad gets interviewed by every major network every September when he arrives in the U.S. for the UN General Assembly, and IRI’s representatives appear on CNN and AL-Jazeera to push its agenda and its point of view. This is patently unfair to the Iranian people.
Here’s what I propose: let’s tell the world’s media to immediately end all interactions with IRI officials until they allow unrestricted access to foreign journalists inside Iran. This means no interviews, no appearances and not even quotes from any IRI official until the IRI allows full access to foreign journalists to travel to Iran and to report from them without any restrictions.
The IRI only understands tit-for-tat and language of consequence. The only way that it will agree to do anything resembling the right thing is for it to be threatened with some sort of a consequence. And it is also very propaganda oriented. Ahmadinejad basks in the joy every time he is interviewed by Larry King and the like. Taking that opportunity away from them will have some effect.""
The latest shameful interview was with with this entity Marandi who has a dual citizenship, Iran and the US. More on that later.
I would say, banning western media is working better for anti-regime folks. Why do you complain?
http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/onlyiran/tell-world-media-boycott-iri-and-its-officials
One other factor makes me to realize that their struggles has been the most EFFECTIVE one in this regard. The mullahs & their supporters have been attacking this movement in the whole past 32 years and they keep saying that they have no support and... I mean if that was true, they must have been a "forgotten" movement! Just like many other political GROUPS which mullah khomeini had destroyed. They are still there and they are still showing that the struggle against the mullahs never ends until their DOWNFALL.
So if that makes a supporter of any movement which is in the business of getting rid of the criminal mullahs, then let it be so.
I find your openness for the main issues (the struggle for freedom against the mullahs and all other dictators), is respectable and helpful. That is to say that all of us who do this are the friends of our
I have heard of peak oil. We are right in the middle of a global peak oil with 75% global reserves siting under Persian Gulf, another 5% sitting under Caspian sea, and 5% under venezuela, and rest of the world accounts for 15% doing 65% of global production. When you finished doing your math, you'll notice that in 10 to 15 years, Persian Gulf will account for 90%+ of the remaining oil. Whoever controls it, controls the world.
Posted: March 3, 2011 01:49 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index .The Collapse of the Old Oil Order: How the Petroleum Age Will End
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-t-klare/middle-east-oil-economy_b_830932.html
In response to a request from the Council for the Coordination of the Green Path of Hope (the Council), an opposition body, thousands of Iranians filled the streets of Tehran and other major cities on March 1 to protest the house arrest of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Security forces, including riot police and basij militias, outnumbered demonstrators in many parts of Tehran and attacked them with teargas, batons, and gunshot pellets. Witnesses have told Human Rights Watch that most of the security forces attacks appeared to be efforts to prevent crowds from forming and chanting slogans. Dozens were arrested, the witnesses said. The Council has supported calls by youth groups on Facebook for two more protests, on March 8 and March 15....
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/03/03/iran-end-violence-against-protesters
Int.'l Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
03-Mar-2011
http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2011/03/disappearance-concern-torture/
"In any event, what is clear is that the pathological obsession of both U.S. neoconservatives and their Israeli counterparts [with the Green Movement] is turning them into bizarre cheerleaders for a movement fundamentally opposed to them."
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/irans_bizarro_green_movement
Iran hasn't started a war in 250 years, why would they attack the rest of the world?
No photographs to substantiate these allegations, no named "eyewitnesses" to validate them and no reports in other media outlets that corroborate these claims.
Nothing beyond what may simply be the fruit of a CIA operative's imagination.
You must be aware that getting substantiated news out of Iran is nearly impossible. So BBC and Aljazeera and other news agencies who also report news based on eye witnesses are wrong to report them?
and so you have to live somewhere to be supportive of anything. Even though you have no idea where Hasan lives. So, no one can say the Government in Germany is here to stay if they don't live in Germany. If you say that you better be ready to pack up your bags and go there, according to John's logic or lack of.
http://www.radiofarda.com/content/f7_khavand_iv_over_iranian_poverty_threshold/2326906.html
"Free Iran very soon from foreign intervention." That's much better.