Month: February 2010

Pedestrian gets an e-mail from a friend at Azadi:

The greens made a stupid miscalculation to want to “take over Azadi” and this illusion was further enforced by individuals abroad [e.g., Sazegara]. State security and supporters had taken over the area, and it was impossible to have a significant impact there. I of course did not see the entire city, but the turnout of the greens felt very low.

We needed at least 400,000 to show a significant impact, and thus far, it does not feel that way. This is disastrous. The only real power the greens have had up to now is by showing their numbers on the streets. Now if with their two week campaign of terror, they’ve actually managed to get everyone to stay home, they will start putting even more pressure on activists and opposition groups … the few who are left out of prison that is.

I feel nauseated, and very scared.

Iran News Now disagrees with NIAC:

How can one say that “the government of Iran managed to keep opposition activities largly on their terms today”?

Under what basis? Hasn’t the fact that the Opposition has used non-violent protests for 8 months to counter the regime’s lies and brutality, to the point that the regime cannot stop the protests, cannot prevent the videos from being broadcast instantaneously to the world, and now has had to seemingly calibrate its brutality to the point that it is starting to try to reduce casualties, actually shown that it is the Greens that have the regime on their terms?

Think about it. The protests took place, thousands entered the streets and chanted against the regime with slogans like “Referendum! Referendum!” and “Free Political Prisoners!”, they confronted and faced the regime forces–and this time, the regime had to use so much more security presence than on past protest days–and they suffered far less casualties than on Ashura and many other bloody protest days. This means that the regime cannot stifle the voices of the people. It is being heard loud and clear, both inside Iran–even on official government channels to the behest of the regime–and outside Iran, to the world. This means the regime simply can’t stop this cycle of protests against them. They will continue to get weaker, more cracks will form in their islamo-mafioso social structures, more of their money has to get spent on paying for their vast security apparatuses, more pressure will be applied via sanctions targeting the IRGC, or the threat thereof and more Iranians, from more cities, towns and villages add their voices to the calls for freedoom and justice.

Chris was up all night keeping tabs on this critical moment in Iran. Reports of an attack on Karoubi here, as the junta brought in masses of pro-government supporters to pre-empt the protests; state TV is using Fox News-style old footage of scene in Azadi square for Ahmadi's rally – without live sound;  the square itself was wired off in advance; there are confirmed reports that Karroubi's son was arrested, and that Khatami's brother and wife were temporarily detained; Ahmadinejad's speech is videoed and twittered here; the first videos coming out of the country are here, with a new chant: "Referendum! Referendum! This is the slogan of the people." Ahmadinejad's boast that the country his junta controls has broken past a key nuclear threshhold is exposed as almost certainly a lie here; a video of desultory pro-government chants by small groups of demonstrators can be seen here.

As the day progressed, larger rallies began to turn into clashes, in Mashad and Isfahan:

1005 GMT: North Tehran is the scene of “sporadic and at times heavy” clashes, especially at Vanak Square. That is notable, since Vanak had been relatively free of clashes in demonstrations in November and December, including Ashura.

1000 GMT: Farda News is reporting that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani participated in the rally today at Enghelab and Palestine Streets.

0940 GMT: The mainstream site Mardomak is calling the security forces on Tehran’s streets “akin to a military regime”.

There's an update on the Gmail crackdown here. The basij – some looking like Hezbollah thugs – arrive on the scene here, Widespread terror of the basij can be seen in gripping videos here. Scenes of crushing army and police forces preventing any rallies in central Tehran are here. Reports of shootings here. Any members of the foreign press were forced to listen to Ahmadinejad's rants, as reported here and prevented from covering any of the protests elsewhere. The sense begins to develop that this has been a major victory for the junta, as Tehran Bureau reports:

Everyone we have spoken to so far this morning has said about the same thing: "A big anticlimax," "defeat," "An overwhelming presence from the other side. People were terrified."

Eye-witness accounts of brutal attacks on the increasingly few protestors on the streets – assaulted with chains, cables, batons and gas – here. The junta seems to have been able to keep any big crowds from assembling by brute force, although the full picture is at this point unknowable. A physical assault on Moussavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, is reported by Robert Mackey here.

I want to thank Chris for his night-shift of extraordinary work. The three of us will keep as much information as we can find coming.

Please pray for the great and courageous people of Iran.

Ackerman:

[Ahmadinejad's] speech might as well have been drafted by western intelligence agencies. Not only does it fail to strike a sufficiently threatening tone, it brings the major western powers that much closer to their goal of placing new multilateral economic sanctions on the Iranian government and security apparatus. That effort has already begun to get under way — Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled abroad this week urging allied governments to support a new sanctions regime. Eyes now turn to the United Nations Security Council, where Amb. Susan Rice will see what she can get in terms of a sanctions package.

Robert Mackey is live-blogging:

My colleague Nazla Fathi writes that authorities have arrested at least 100 protesters in the city of Mashad, the opposition Web site Jaras reported. The site also reports that 20 people were arrested in the city of Shiraz. According to large numbers of Basij militia members were deployed in both cities ahead of the anniversary. She also notes that a report on the opposition Web site Kaleme said that Basijis attacked Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, at a rally on Thursday, punching her and beating her with batons. The site also reported that the militia members surrounded Mr. Moussavi, a former prime minister, and prevented him from marching along the same route he had taken during the celebration in previous years.

(Video via Enduring America)

Arms Control Wonk flagged this WaPo analysis a few days ago:

Once the uranium is enriched above 20 percent, it is considered highly enriched uranium. The uranium would need to be enriched further, to 60 percent and then to 90 percent, before it could be used for a weapon. “The last two steps are not that big a deal,” [David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington] said. They could be accomplished, he said, at a relatively small facility within months.

ACW parses today's news and the WaPo reports today that Iran's nuclear program has encountered various technical set backs. Earlier skepticism of Ahmadi's statement here.

NIAC:

It’s still very early to be drawing conclusions from today’s events, as people are still out in the streets.  But one thing I’m struck by is just how much the government has been in control today.  Sure, they chartered busses and lured tens of thousands to the official government rally with free food, but they have also managed to keep the opposition activities largely on their terms today. 

The government’s strategy is to depict the protesters as a small group of rioting thugs, burning trash cans and disrupting order for their own radical, “foreign-backed” agenda.  Toward that end, they have been very effective at keeping the demonstrations today dispersed and nervous — less of the “million man march” and more like Seattle WTO protesters.  Above all else, the ruling elites know the danger of big crowds: strength in numbers takes over and individuals no longer feel like they will be held accountable for their actions, thus their demands get more radical and their tactics more extreme; this forces a harsher backlash from security forces, possibly including using lethal force.  And then that’s the ball-game.  That’s exactly what happened in 1979, and Khamenei learned that lesson well enough that he’ll do his utmost not to repeat it. 

So today’s events (like previous ones) have seen security forces disrupt crowds before they can coalesce into a large group, arresting numerous individuals as a way of controlling the crowds before they get out of the police’s hands.

The Guardian's live-blog has a translation of an eyewitness account:

I was in Sadeghiyeh and though people were not holding up any symbols, I think most of them were against the regime because they wouldn't respond to the official chants from the loudspeakers.

The security forces attacked the crowd violently, with cables, batons, and gas. Where I was, I can say that the 22 Bahman celebrations did not take place. I saw a small gathering of regime supporters and even they were dispersed by the police.

The people were beaten and I even saw some seriously injured individuals. That's what happens when you're attacked with chains. But no shots were fired.

From Tehran Bureau:

Everyone we have spoken to so far this morning has said about the same thing: “A big anticlimax,” “defeat,” “An overwhelming presence from the other side. People were terrified.”

(Image: Pro-government demonstrators via Global Voices)