by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook
Today on the anniversary of the 1999 Iranian protests of the murders of Iranian students at Tehran University, renewed protests of the June 12 election are revived on the streets of Iran. After warnings from the government that any uprising prompted by the 1999 anniversary would be met with "crushing response," Iranians took to the street anyway.
Tehran University(photo from December 2007 protest)
After 11 days of agitated calm, thousands of protesters massed in central Tehran at about 5 p.m. on Thursday evening, Tehran time. Police used batons and tear gas against the protesters. While the protest started peacefully:
...the effort to halt the protest quickly turned violent. A middle-age woman ran through the crowd, her coat covered with blood stains. Trash fires burned, cloaking the streets in black smoke, as protesters lobbed rocks at security forces. Two men held a huge floral arrangement of yellow and purple flowers on green leaves aloft through the smoke in commemoration of those killed in the last month and 1999, a witness said.
“Tell the world what is happening here,” one 26-year old engineering student demonstrator said. “This is our revolution. We will not give up.”
Asked what he wanted, he said: “We want democracy.”For the most part, all journalism and communication has been shut down:
Cellphone messaging was down Thursday for a third straight day, apparently to prevent communication between protesters, while the government closed universities and declared an official holiday Tuesday and Wednesday, ostensibly because Tehran has been shrouded in a heavy dust and pollution cloud, The A.P. said.Atlas Shrugs has insight about today's uprising and its connections to the 1999 uprising. See how the return of a former prisoner is making a difference in Iran today. Read it here.
What are we to think of the past 11 days of agitated calm? Via Hot Air, Michael Ladeen reports on July 8th, a day before today's protests:
Meanwhile, horribly maimed bodies have been showing up all over the country. Some of the gouging of the bodies seems to have been done to remove all evidence of bullet holes, but whatever the “explanation,” the bloody savagery is well documented.
If you want some detail about the horrors inside Iranian hospitals, have a look at Le Figaro’s account.
Ladeen talks about the days of quiet:Over the objections of medical staff, bodies from the demonstrations were quickly moved elsewhere. “We believe they were transferred to the Baqiatollah military hospital or some other undisclosed location”, notes the doctor. Then, under the pretext of “organ donation”, all traces of bullets were removed from the bodies. “The parents were force to accept this if they wanted to retrieve the body for burial”.
And yet, the protest goes on. For the past three days, a general strike has been in effect, with significant results. Indeed, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei preemptively admitted defeat when government offices and factories were shut down in the name of a religious observance. But the strikers only expanded the range of their actions, notably by shutting down electrical grids in several cities, including parts of Tehran. Great swathes of the nation were plunged into darkness. This sort of thing is likely to continue, whatever happens on the 9th.And on the free world and supporting tyrants:
...the so-called Western world, which apparently cannot even bring itself to punish the regime for violating all rules of civilized behavior. Obama, following his familiar pattern of allying himself with the tyrants rather than the democrats, doesn’t want new sanctions. I suppose he’s still hoping that the tyranny will prevail, and then he can make a wonderful deal with Khamenei pere. Or fils, as the case may be.Read Ladeen's post for sharp insight and see how London's confiscation of $1 billion+ of Iranian money has affected the core of the murderous regime.
The following video is not the best quality but it certainly gives the spirit of the protest.
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