Tehran Bazar, 14 Mordad (5 AUG)

National Public Radio – August 3, 2009

By Mike Schuster

Despite the harsh police crackdown in Tehran, Iran’s opposition movement continues to bring thousands of protesters into the streets to challenge the government.

Just last week, several thousand came out to commemorate those who have been killed since the protests erupted after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June.

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme leader formally endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term.

More protests are expected this week when Ahmadinejad is inaugurated on Wednesday.

In a matter of weeks, the opposition movement has transformed itself from a campaign for a presidential candidate to a broader movement challenging the leaders and the foundation of the Islamic republic.

Protest Has ‘Life Of Its Own’

After a lull, the protest movement appears to be gaining strength again, says Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University.

“It is precisely because the ruling elite of the Islamic republic is conscious of the snowballing effect of these demonstrations that they are cracking down on them so severely and violently. And I’m absolutely convinced that it will continue. This is no longer just in reaction to the presidential election. This has assumed a life of its own,” Dabashi says.

What the opposition movement wants is not entirely clear. The chant, “Down with the dictator,” dominates the demonstrations. But there is a certain ambiguity to that, which seems to suit protesters of different political stripes.

The sentiment could be directed against Ahmadinejad, but also at Iran’s supreme leader himself, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which would be a more profound challenge to the foundation of the Islamic republic, says Farideh Farhi, an Iranian specialist at the University of Hawaii.

“I think it has ultimately been directed at the supreme leader precisely because he has chosen to take responsibility not only for the fraud that occurred during the election, but also by threatening violence after the election and actually implementing violence after the election,” she says.

No Clear Leader

It is also not clear who is leading the opposition movement, if anyone. Ostensibly, defeated presidential candidate Mir Houssein Mousavi is its leader, but his actions have been severely restricted. He rarely appears in public and is confined to posting his views on Web sites.

Some of Iran’s prominent political figures, such as former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former President Mohammad Khatami, have attempted to set specific goals for the movement, but with little real impact, says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor of Middle East studies at Syracuse University.

“Politicians of the ilk of Rafsanjani and Khatami are trying to see if there is any middle-of-the-road type of a solution, either by calling for a referendum or by asking for the release of political prisoners. I don’t think that this is going to satisfy the citizenry any more, and it seems to me that that ship has already left the port,” he says.

It has been a season of political surprises in Iran, beginning in May, just a few weeks before Iran’s June 12 presidential election. Overnight it seemed, hundreds of thousands of people were turning out to support Mousavi, the reformist candidate. He chose green as the symbol of his campaign, and people all over Iran began wearing the color.

Violence Galvanizes Instead Of Deters

On June 13, officials announced that Ahmadinejad was re-elected president — by a seemingly improbable two-to-one margin, no less. And the green movement began its rapid transformation into an opposition, surprising everyone, Farhi says.

“Most people did not expect this kind of popular outrage. Furthermore, they did not expect this popular outrage to persist,” Farhi says.

The violent methods used to try to crush the movement further fueled the outrage. In one cell-phone video, posted on YouTube in late July, a helmeted policeman shoots at demonstrators with a rifle. A man in plainclothes also shoots at the demonstrators with a pistol. One protester falls and a half dozen come to his aid. The people making the video shout at the demonstrators, giving them directions on where to go to get away from the police.

Despite the violence, thousands are still turning out to challenge the government. They don’t number in the millions as they did back in June. But there are still many women, older people and some poorly dressed protesters to supplement the young men — largely from the educated middle class — who are taking the worst beatings.

The demands of the opposition remain vague, but that could change. Repression often breeds radicalization, which could lead to new surprises in the astounding political drama that still has Iran in its grip.

Fighting people & police in Vanak SQ–8 Mordad 88

Mosala protest July 30th 2009

The teenager disappeared June 15, when hundreds of thousands rallied in Tehran. Officials notified his mother of his death only on Saturday, despite her repeated inquiries at courts and prisons.

By Iason Athanasiadis | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the July 13, 2009 edition

Athens – In Iran, the burial Monday of 19-year-old student Sohrab Erabi has caused a fresh flood of sympathy similar to that occasioned by the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death at a protest last month was caught on video and watched by millions around the world.

In a country steeped in the martyrdom culture of Shiite Islam, some are trying to link Mr. Erabi’s death to a greater legacy. But many Iranians shy away from characterizations reminiscent of the rhetoric imposed over the past 30 years by the Islamic Republic.

“He isn’t a martyr,” writes Maryam Namazie, a human rights activist based in Britain, in an e-mail. “Many of the people killed during the recent protests are opposed to an Islamic regime and religion’s brutal role in every aspect of their lives. Neda and Sohrab represent another face of Iran, one that refuses to kneel even after 30 years of medievalism and brutality.” [Editor's note: The original version misidentified Ms. Namazie's home base.]

Erabi was reportedly killed on June 15, when a member of Iran’s ideological basiji militia opened fire on a crowd of protesters close to central Tehran’s Azadi Square, according to his aunt Farah Mohamadi, who was informed of his death by security forces.

“There’s a lot of conflicting information about his death,” she told BBC Persian. “I sense that they’re scared to say whether he died in prison or if he was hurt by gunfire at the march and bled to death later in [the] hospital.”

Without an identity card on his body, he went unrecognized for nearly a month, according to the Farsi-language blog Khasokhashak.wordpress.com.

Typically, individuals who sacrifice their lives for the sake of Islam or one of its precepts are called martyrs.

“It has to do with the idea of death for a noble cause, one which is not in vain but has rewards both in this world and after death,” says Asef Bayat, a professor of sociology and Middle East studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “It is at the same time an attempt to connect Sohrab Erabi’s death to a familiar legacy, that of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad who died in his struggle against injustice.”

An additional 190 people arrested late last week

Erabi’s mother, Parvin Fahimi, had made numerous inquiries at prisons and courts since he disappeared, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. On Saturday, she was finally called in by officials and asked to identify her son in several photographs of corpses.

“The lack of transparency and calculated delay in releasing the information about [Erabi's] unexplained death only raises anxieties about scores of others who are among the disappeared as well as those who have been held in incommunicado detention, with no contact to family members or lawyers, many for almost a month,” said the group in a statement. “An additional approximately 190 persons were arrested following the most recent demonstrations on 9 July.”

Erabi was buried on Monday in Tehran’s enormous Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, one of the largest in the world, monitored by large numbers of plainclothes security forces. Within hours, videos circulated on YouTube showing Erabi’s head-scarved mother sobbing as he was laid to rest. About 500 people attended the service and short speeches were given by Erabi’s male relatives.

“I think they told them [Erabi's male relatives] not to kick up too much of a fuss,” said Mrs. Mohamadi. “No one told me this, but you’d think that’s what happened given how quickly it ended.”

Attempt to connect Erabi to greater legacy

In Iran, at least 20 people have been killed so far in countrywide rioting protesting the June 12 presidential election that returned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power with a 63 percent share of the vote. Defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi contested the election and is refusing to relinquish his claim despite a partial recount of the votes by the Guardian Council, that found no evidence of vote-rigging.

During the 1979 Islamic revolution, dead demonstrators were dubbed martyrs, inspiring crowds of religious Iranians who felt that the ruling shah’s troops were seeking to suppress Iran’s Islamic identity. Attitudes are more muted this time, with few of the casualties being universally accepted as martyrs.

“There is a cultural divide with many not wanting to use the term because they feel the term has been overused by the government and is infused with religion,” says Hadi Ghaemi, director of the International Campaign of Human Rights in Iran. “But calling someone a martyr can also merely signify that this person did not die in vain but his death had a purpose.”

Marchers shouted slogans Thursday and made victory signs in Tehran, where protests were called to commemorate 1999 clashes between students and the police. For more photos, click on image. (Photo: European Pressphoto Agency)

By Michael Slackman, published in the New York Times on July 9, 2009

CAIRO — Thousands of Iranians poured into the streets of Tehran on Thursday, clapping, chanting, almost mocking the authorities as they once again turned out in large numbers in defiance of the government’s threat to crush their protests with violence.

As tear gas canisters cracked and hissed in the middle of crowds, and baton-wielding police officers chased protesters up and down sidewalks, young people, some bloodied, ran for cover, but there was an almost festive feeling on the streets of Tehran, witnesses reported in e-mail exchanges.

A young woman, her clothing covered in blood, ran up Kargar Street, paused for a moment and said, “I am not scared, because we are in this together.”

The protesters set trash afire in the street, and shopkeepers locked their gates, then let demonstrators in to escape the wrath of the police. Hotels also served as havens, letting in protesters and locking out the authorities.

It has been almost four weeks since the polls closed and the government announced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election in a landslide.

And there have been almost four weeks of defiance, in the face of the government’s repeated, uncompromising and violent efforts to restore the status quo. The government did succeed in keeping people off the streets in the previous 11 days, leaving many to simmer on their own as political insiders and clerical heavyweights slugged it out behind the scenes.

But there was an opening to take to the streets again on Thursday in a collective show of defiance, and many protesters seized it, even though the principal opposition leaders stayed away. Mir Hussein Moussavi, who claims he won the election; another candidate, Mehdi Karroubi; and former President Mohammad Khatami have agreed to pursue their complaints through the legal system and to protest only when a permit is issued.

But the mood of the street never calmed. One witness said that had it not been for the overwhelming show of force, it appeared, tens of thousands would have turned out.

The day was supercharged from the start, with a protest called for 4 p.m. to honor the students who 10 years earlier were bloodied and jailed during a violent confrontation with the police.

Under a hot summer sun, police officers in riot gear patrolled the streets in roving bands of about 50. Then the crowds started to form, men, women and children packing the sidewalks. Traffic stopped and drivers honked or stepped from their cars in solidarity. The people chanted, “Down with the dictator,” “God is great” and “Mouss-a-vi” as they walked along Revolution Street.

“Tell the world what is happening here,” one 26-year-old engineering student said. “This is our revolution. We will not give up.”

Asked what he wanted, he said, “We want democracy.”

One witness gave this account: “The crowds are too huge to contain. Riot police running up and down Fatemi Street, beating people, barely got out of the way. The crowds just get out of their way and come back.”

Scenes like that were reported all over the city, though the main skirmishes seemed to have occurred near Tehran University and at Enghelab Square. The police shot tear gas into Laleh Park. As night fell, the scene grew more severe. The air filled with acrid smoke and soot, and police officers and Basij militia members ran along the streets.

A man in a business suit pulled out a collapsible baton and beat a person who had a camera until the baton broke. A middle-age woman ran through the crowd, her coat covered with blood stains. Protesters hurled rocks at security officers. Two men held a huge arrangement of yellow and purple flowers on green leaves, in commemoration of those killed last month and in 1999, a witness said.

But still, no matter who stopped to talk, witnesses said, there was a sense of mission and unity that seemed almost validated by the brutal government response. A 55-year-old woman on the streets in support of the marchers said: “This is Iran. We are all together.”

The security forces did not fire on protesters, witnesses said, and it was unclear how many people were injured or arrested.

Until now, the government has relied on three main tactics to try to put the turbulence of the presidential race behind it: detentions; the violent suppression of street protests; and a shifting of blame for the unrest to “meddling” foreign nations, primarily Britain and the United States, but also Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has sanctified the election, and the powerful Guardian Council has certified the results. But the opposition has continued to insist that there were widespread irregularities, rendering the vote and the results invalid. It has refused to concede, which has served to keep the conflict from fading.

Cellphone messaging was disconnected Thursday for a third consecutive day, apparently to prevent communication among protesters. The government also closed universities and declared an official holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday, ostensibly because Tehran has been shrouded in a cloud of heavy dust and pollution.

But neither the announced holiday nor the murky air seemed to thin the crowds.

Many people thrust their hands into the air, making the V-sign for victory. The crowds remained mostly peaceful, a witness said, even as they watched, and sometimes tried to stop, police officers and militia members beating unarmed men and women. Many women were on the street, as they have been throughout the crisis.

A crowd chanted, “Please stop,” and chased two Basij members away.

The streets burned with garbage fires. Tear gas settled all around. And on one street, thousands of people pushed on, proclaiming their solidarity and defiance.

“We don’t want war,” said one 27-year-old man in a black shirt. “We just want freedoms.”

Reporting was contributed by Nazila Fathi from Toronto, and independent observers from Tehran.

Related:

Photo Slideshow of protests by the New York Times.

The Lede, New York Times Newsblog, capturing and narrating the events of July 9, 2009.

]]> http://www.peacewithiran.com/iran-protesters-take-to-streets-despite-threats/feed/ 0 http://www.peacewithiran.com/women-at-the-forefront-of-popular-defiance-in-iran/ http://www.peacewithiran.com/women-at-the-forefront-of-popular-defiance-in-iran/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:19:12 +0000 admin2 http://www.peacewithiran.com/?p=298 IRAN:  Women at Forefront of Popular Defiance

By Sara Farhang

Iran is home to one of the most vibrant women’s movements in the region. (Photo credit: faramarz/flickr/creative commons)

TEHRAN, Jun 25, 2009 (IPS) – When tens of thousands of protesters braved the ongoing government crackdown to gather in Tehran’s Baharestan Square in front of the Parliament building Wednesday in response to a call by supporters of Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, they were met with some of the harshest violence seen since Iran’s post-election turmoil erupted nearly two weeks ago.

“All of a sudden some 500 people with clubs… came out of [a nearby mosque], and they poured into the streets and they started beating everyone,” an unidentified woman told CNN, describing the scene as a “massacre”.

“They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood, and her husband who was watching the scene, he just fainted,” the witness said.

Indeed, despite the heavy use of force to disperse crowds and recent violence that has left hundreds injured and dead, women were present in high numbers at the square, as they have been throughout the crisis.

“I am so proud of Iranian women who show up for these protests,” a female protester told IPS, confirming that women at the scene were targeted by security forces and were beaten violently with batons.

In fact, the presence of women at these protests has garnered much attention by surprised international observers. A recent video released on the internet captured the death of 27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot down by a Basij sniper as she exited a car on her way to a protest.

The murder of this young woman has incited anger and sympathy in Iran and internationally. Other women have reportedly been killed and injured in recent clashes with security officials and many have been arrested.

“I believe that women show up for these protests because they feel cheated and they want answers. They participated in the elections and were faced with fraud. They want their voices to be heard,” says one 25-year-old woman who has attended most of the protests in the past two weeks.

“Their presence at these protests is a testament to the increased awareness of Iranian women,” she adds.

In fact, at more than 60 percent, Iranian female university students outnumber their male counterparts. Iranian women are present in all aspects of social and professional life, as entrepreneurs, engineers, medical doctors, university professors and lawyers. Iran is home to one of the most vibrant women’s movements in the region, dating back at least a century.

In recent years, women’s rights activists have been working toward equal status under Iranian law, which is based on conservative interpretations of Sharia law, and as such accords a second-class status to women.

Nearly three years ago, Iranian women’s rights activists launched the One Million Signatures Campaign to demand changes in discriminatory laws in the civil and penal codes.

The campaign seeks equality for women in marriage, right to divorce, custody of children, an increase in the age of criminal responsibility, and an end to polygamy among other changes. It seeks to collect one million signatures in support of a petition addressed to the Iranian parliament.

Activists use a face-to-face approach to educate and raise awareness among Iranian citizens. According to the site of the campaign, however, over 50 of its staff members have been arrested, or charged with national security crimes.

Still, their demands were echoed in the presidential campaigns, when three of the contesting candidates addressed the need to change discriminatory laws against women as part of their platforms.

The first to address this issue was Mehdi Karroubi, who promised to submit bills to parliament intent on reforming laws which discriminate against women. He also committed to appointing women as ministers.

Many women’s rights activists along with human rights and student rights activists voted for Karroubi because of the progressive stance he took on human and civil rights.

Following Karroubi’s announcement, Moussavi issued a comprehensive programme on women as part of his election platform, in which he also committed to reforming discriminatory laws against women.

Mohsen Rezaie, the conservative presidential candidate, also took a position on women and committed to working for women’s equality in society, which is a bold commitment coming from a conservative candidate.

While President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made no campaign promises or even references to women’s rights, his advisor on women’s issues, Zohreh Tabibzadeh, who heads the Centre for Women and Families, appeared for two press conferences, a rare event indeed for a woman who has kept the press at arm’s length for the duration of her tenure as the head of the agency responsible for devising programmes addressing the needs of women.

Tabibzadeh used both opportunities to attack women’s rights activists in general and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, who supports women’s equality, in particular. At her second press conference, Tabibzadeh responded angrily to a question posed by a reformist reporter from Etemad daily by saying “those who want to change the laws on women should vote for a reformist candidate.”

In fact, Tabibzadeh’s stance is reflective of policies adopted during the presidency of Ahmadinejad which have worked to relegate women to their homes and promote their roles as wives and mothers.

Ahmadinejad’s presidency ushered in a period of severe restrictions on women, including the re-establishment of morality police, who arrest women on the street for their lack of adherence to Islamic dress; the adoption of quotas limiting the entrance of female students to university and policies forcing women to attend universities in their hometowns; and a highly contested bill dubbed the “Family Support Act” which eased restrictions on polygamy.

Women’s rights activists opposed this bill. Their march on the Parliament was successful in pushing MPs to reconsider and overturn provisions easing restrictions on polygamy.

According to one women’s rights activist, “women were highly active and present in the campaigns of the two reformist candidates as well as in campaign events and rallies. This signifies that women are willing to work toward the election of candidates who take their demands for equality and freedom seriously.”

Their presence at the protests following the elections, according to this activist, “is a further sign that women know what is at risk – the right to self-determination – and women are willing to pay the price for a better future for themselves and their children.”

While many young women turn out for protests, the presence of older women at these events is also easily observable. One woman in her fifties explained that the main reason she attends protests is to “lend support to the younger generation and to try to prevent any violence targeted at them.”

She went on to describe how she was beaten at one protest when she physically intervened and tried to stop the assault of a young man by security agents.

Along these lines, a group of women calling themselves “The Mourning Mothers” issued a call for peaceful protests at Laleh Park at 7:00 on Saturdays, near the area where Neda was killed on Saturday, Jun. 20.

The statement reads: “Based on what sin have you murdered our children? Why have you forced all mothers into mourning?”

The mothers have demanded an end to violence, the prosecution of those who have committed violence, and the release of over 800 persons arrested over the past two weeks.

It seems that with this new call to action, women will continue to have an active presence in the protests, which have taken on new dimensions objecting not only to election fraud but to violent suppression of peaceful dissent.

Ramin Jahanbegloo – published in Dissent Magazine on June 20, 2009

WITH THE refusal of Iran’s political establishment to re-run the elections, more repression and violence seems inevitable. However, what we are witnessing since the first demonstrations against the results of the presidential elections might very well be considered as a major nonviolent movement in a Gandhian style. There is already an evident similarity between the civil disobedience movement in today’s Iran and successful nonviolent movements led by Gandhi in India in the 1920-1940s and Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States in the 1950-1960s.

Gandhi adopted his methodology of satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time in South Africa, calling on his fellow Indians to defy the new law and suffer the punishments for doing so, rather than resist it through violent means. As for Martin Luther King Jr., he started his nonviolent movement by calling on all black citizens to stop riding the buses in Montgomery until the laws were changed. The protest marked the beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States.

What is most important in Iran is that the massive outpouring of anti-Ahmadinejad sentiments in Iran is so far doubtlessly nonviolent and peaceful. Chief among the slogans of the demonstrators have been the re-run of the elections and the condemnation of violence. Iranian society is in the midst of an epoch-making renaissance in its political culture and discourse. This transformation in political values, norms, symbols, and everyday codes of behavior is most evident in the peaceful and nonviolent action of all those who have been protesting to pursue allegations of election fraud within the limits of the Iranian constitutional framework.

Many in the past week have walked silently and lit black candles. Others have worn green wristbands or ribbons and carried flowers. Gandhi chose a spinning wheel as a symbol of his idea of non-violence. A spinning wheel represented two different messages: It was the main instrument to protest against India’s growing industrialism and it was also a symbol of resistance to the British-made clothes that had replaced the Indian hand-made clothes. As for Martin Luther King, he turned to the symbol of the “American Dream” as a hope of equity and social justice for every member of the American society. Today, Mousavi has become the symbol of nonviolent protest in Iran, but the true hero of the Iranian civic movement is the emerging republican model of nonviolent resistance and non-ideological politics that provide the clearest guideline and vision for Iran’s gradual transition to an open society.

Post-revolutionary Iran has experienced the failure of two major political paradigms in the last thirty years: revolutionary leftism and ideological Islam. They each failed in practice as well as in theory, and the Iranian people no longer trust the groups associated with them. It is evident that nonviolent action is the new paradigm that is attempting to define itself distinctly and overcome the intellectual and political weaknesses of its predecessors. There is common agreement among the demonstrators and civil activists that the main contradiction in contemporary Iran is the one between authoritarian violence and democratic nonviolence.

Though this nonviolent paradigm is still in the making, it can nonetheless be characterized as both “post-ideological.” This is due to the fact that the protest movement in Iran is nonviolent and civil in its methods of creating social change while also seeking an ethical dimension to Iranian politics. This judgment implies that Iranian civil society is ready to make a distinction between two kinds of approach: searching for truth and solidarity versus lying and using violence. In the days and weeks ahead, we will have to wait and see how this dialectic between the powerless nonviolent truth-seekers and powerful lie-makers and users of violence will work itself out. As such, the fact that the elections have or have not been rigged is now a secondary issue. What is now at stake is to challenge the illegitimacy of violence in Iran. Gandhi once said: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” The change we are witnessing in Iran is the change in the younger generation of Iranians. Iranian youth have shown the world that they have enough maturity and tolerance to spark nonviolent change in Iran.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is a well-known Iranian-Canadian philosopher. Presently a Professor of Political Science and a Research Fellow in the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto, he is the author of twenty books in English, French, and Persian, including Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (Peter Halban, 1992), Gandhi: Aux Sources de la Nonviolence ( Felin, 1999), Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity (Lexington Books, 2004), and most recently The Spirit of India (Penguin 2008).

On June, 28, 2009, Masoud Pezeshkian, a member of Iran’s parliament spoke out against violence and torture.  (Video is in Farsi with English in closed captions.)

Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian speaks against government actions in Majlis by using Imam Ali as the example. Imam Ali is the son in law of Prophet Mohammad and is considered the role model of Iranian citizens. His birthday is celebrated as father’s day in Iran. Dr. Pezeshkian in his speech uses Imam Ali’s letter to Malek Ashtar that specifically tells him what he should not do just because he is in position of power exactly what the government of Iran has been doing these past few days.

Despite the continuation of uncertainty, and the heavy presence of anti-riot police on the streets of Tehran and other major cities, all the correspondence from the country shows that the general mood is improving. Somehow people have crossed the threshold of fear. But the main reason is that although large demonstrations are not allowed anymore, other events indicate that this protest is far from over.  I hope this window brings you some of the reasons for this interpretation.

First Image of the Day

Hot from Iran, a photo of one of the most dangerous supporters of Mr. Mousavi.

Video of June 24 Protester (viewer discretion recommended)

Fear of Torture to Extract Confession

Yesterday, I wrote about widespread detentions. “About the arrests, I am sure that this is leading towards tortured confessions” writes an anonymous e-mailer from Iran. He goes on to say, his journalist friend of 24 years who won a medal of valor
for journalism and his wife, are among the arrested. He ends by saying “It pains me to think what they must be going through.” We know that all but four of the professors arrested yesterday, have already been released. Let us hope the writer’s friends will be too.

The Doctor who tried to save Neda’s Life Speaks

The doctor who tried to save an Iranian protester as she bled to death on a street in Tehran has told the BBC of her final moments.  Read the BBC article.

Significant Developments in Iran

Issue No. 1 of the underground version of Kalemeh Sabz, Mr. Mousavi’s banned paper came out.

The Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s New Statement

A new and strong statement issued by Grand Ayatollah Montazeri condemns the government’s brutal assault on peaceful protesters and urges them to apologize to the people of Iran and respond to their legitimate grievances concerning this election.

In an interview with “Saniyeh News” in Iran, the Secretary General of Society of Qum Seminary Professors openly and strongly condemned the behavior of the government toward the protesters.

More Backpaddling by the Iranian Ministry of Education

According to a news announced by Mr. Mousavi’s Persian news sight Kalemeh, the Iranian Ministry of Interior has informed him that he can hold peaceful rallies if he applies for them a week in advance. While this is another attempt to buy time, it contradicts the earlier total ban and indicates confusion within the ministry.

Iranian Members of the Parliament Refrain from Attending Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Party

Only 105 out of 290 members of the Iranian Parliament attended Mr. Ahmadinejad’s “victory” party. Mr. Haddad Adel, the Supreme Leader’s son-in-law was among them.

More Support for the Protesters. A Game Changer?

According to a statement just  released in Paris by NPA (The New Anti-capitalist Party of France) and translated from French by Andrew Feffer of Union College Iranian auto and bus workers are planning a strike. This could be a crucial game changer for the Iranian reformists. Here is a quote from the statement:

“The bus workers union has declared solidarity, stating that as long as the principles of freedom of assembly and of open elections are not enforced, all discussion of social freedom and workers rights are nothing but a farce.  The workers of Iran Khodro, the main auto manufacturer in the country (with sixty thousand employees), have started a strike movement, adding wage increases and the right to strike to the demands currently being made on the street.”

Echoes of the Iranian Protests heard in Dhaka, Bangladesh

A bright and caring student sends this image from Dhaka:

Iranians living in Dhaka and Sachetan Nagarik form a human chain at Shahbagh in the city yesterday demanding true democracy in Iran. Photo: STAR

Human chain formed by Iranians in Dhaka and Sachetan Nagarik, published by The Daily Star on June 25, 2009.

More on the Exact Nature of the Election Fraud

My economist friend E. – quoting the University of St. Andrews/Chatham House study – suggests that the election fraud was perpetrated more clumsily than one would think.

It now appears, he goes on to explain that:

a.  Aggregative (macro) data were cooked up by high officials of the Ministry of Interior and announced to the nation quickly.

b.  Then officials at the Ministry were ordered to manufacture micro data (at the voting booth/box level) to conform to the macro/aggregative data.  This explains why there was about a week’s delay between the announcement of macro and then micro data.

The Alaei Brothers

“This week marks a sad milestone in the lives of Drs. Kamiar and Arash Alaei, internationally renowned HIV/AIDS physicians” writes an Iranian friend. “For the past year they have been imprisoned in the notorious section 209 of Evin prison.” Their crime? Practicing public health diplomacy. In the heat of the current events in Iran, let us not forget the Alaei brothers.  You can help by writing to Serah Kalloch, Director, Physicians for Human Rights at web@phrusa.org.

This is not about Class or Age

Good Night,
F.

This post was submitted by an Iranian friend currently in Iran who has requested to remain anonymous.