"Iran's Freedom Movement Is Not Dead"

In the first major opposition protests in two months, demonstrators marching shoulder-to-shoulder raised their hands in V-for-victory signs on main boulevards and squares throughout the capital.

Lines of police, security forces and plainclothes Basij militiamen kept the two sides apart in most cases. At times they waded into the protesters with baton charges and tear gas volleys. The demonstrators responded by throwing stones and bricks, and setting tires ablaze.

Hard-liners attacked two senior opposition leaders who joined the protests. Former pro-reform President Mohamad Khatami was shoved and jostled, gripping his black turban to keep it from being knocked off as supporters rushed in to protect him, pushing away the attackers and hustling him away.

The protests were a significant show of defiance after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei explicitly banned anti-government marches on Quds Day, an annual memorial created by Iran's Islamic Republic to show support for the Palestinians and denounce Israel. Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.

It was also a show of survival. The opposition has been hit hard by a fierce crackdown in which hundreds have been arrested since disputed June 12 presidential elections sparked Iran's worst political turmoil in decades. Friday's protests could escalate the confrontation — hard-line clerics have demanded the arrest of any opposition leaders who defy Khamenei's order and back protests on Quds Day.

In protests around Tehran and other Iranian cities, demonstrators chanted "Not Gaza, not Lebanon — our life is for Iran" in a challenge of the government's priority of supporting Palestinian militants in Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas instead of focusing on problems at home.

The Quds Day rallies, which attracted several hundred thousand people, far outnumbered the tens of thousands who turned out for the opposition — a reflection of the government's freedom to rally supporters.

Opposition supporters wearing green T-shirts and wristbands poured onto main boulevards and squares in the capital, waving green banners and balloons, and pictures of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to be the rightful winner of the election. "Death to the dictator!" they shouted.

Hundreds of thousands marched in support of Mousavi in the weeks after the June election, until police, Basij militiamen and the elite Revolutionary Guard crushed the protests, arresting hundreds. The opposition says 72 people were killed in the crackdown, though the government puts the number at 36. The last significant protest was on July 17.  (Read Full Article)

Mohammad Khatami, center, a former Iranian president, is attacked as he attends a Quds Day rally

Iran’s government has canceled a number of public gatherings over the past month, apparently fearing a renewal of the vast rallies that took place in the weeks after the election. As Jerusalem Day approached, a number of conservative figures, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the day should not become an occasion for domestic discontent. On Thursday, the Revolutionary Guard issued an especially fierce statement, declaring that all protesters would be treated as Israeli spies.

But the government appears to have treated the widespread protests with relative leniency. Although tear gas was fired at some crowds in central Tehran — it was not clear by whom — there was no renewal of the fierce crackdown that took place in June and July, when dozens of people were killed and thousands jailed.

Although the marchers celebrating Jerusalem Day generally outnumbered the protesters, there were parts of the city where the opposite was true. Often, the protesters slyly distorted the traditional rallying cries of the pro-government crowds. When the marchers chanted “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader,” protesters countered with “The blood in our veins is a gift to our nation.”

At one point thousands of protesters chanting “death to the dictator” as they walked down Valiasr Street, the broad avenue that runs across much of Tehran, collided with an equally large crowd of pro-government marchers chanting slogans against Israel, the United States, and Britain.

A tense standoff ensued. Police officers standing nearby refused to take sides, and in some cases even stepped in to break up fights. Finally, several trucks full of government supporters arrived, and the protesters began withdrawing in the direction from which they had come.

Iranian state television ignored the protests, showing thousands of marchers clad in checked Palestinian-style scarves, carrying posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Jerusalem Day, held on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan, is an important occasion for the government, which uses its support for Palestinian militants and the Lebanese Hezbollah to burnish its street support in an Arab world that is largely hostile to Iran. (Read Full Article)

Neda Agha Soltan, killed 20.06.2009, Presidential Election Protest, Tehran, IRAN

   Iran's Freedom Movement is not dead. Neda Soltani has not died in vain. What is happening in Iran goes beyond the fraudulent election. Millions of Iranians long to be free of the hard line, repressive and intolerant ideologues that control Iran today. They are tired of the millions given to terrorist Hezbollah and Hamas, money that could be spent in Iran for Iranians. They tire of the idiotic babble of Ahmadinejad. Millions of Iranians long to be Muslims in the 21st century, not the Muslims in the dark ages. Iran's Freedom movement is not dead. It is just beginning. God bless Iran.

tags: iran  iranian protest  neda soltani  war  warpearce  war on terror  politics  

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