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Fintan
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 Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:49 am Post subject: |
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Prof. Scott Lucas reports on
stunning developments in Iran
| Quote: | For an observer 1000s of miles away, the movement of events was dream-like. Initially, as Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s body was moved from his house to the Imam Hassan Mosque, the report were “30,000 to 40,000″ on the streets. An hour later, as the procession moved from the mosque to the Massoumeh Shrine, where Montazeri would be buried, the news came of “more than 100,000″.
Then it was hundreds of thousands. Not just claims of hundreds of thousands but the first pictures, with an aerial shot of of Qom filled with mourners and demonstrators. Then the videos, first in a trickle, soon a torrent, from Montazeri’s house, from the mosque, from the shrine, throughout the city, in Najafabad (Montazeri’s birthplace), and in other cities.....
Link |
| Quote: | Ayatollah's death stirs Iranian
opposition to bitter protests
December 22, 2009
The Iranian regime hit back viciously last night after the opposition turned the funeral of their spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, into another huge anti-government demonstration in the holy city of Qom.
Men on motorbikes attacked the car carrying Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader, back from Qom to Tehran. They smashed the back window and injured one of his aides, a reformist website reported. Hundreds of government agents halted the memorial service for Montazeri, according to a conservative website.
The assaults, which cannot be independently confirmed, came at the end of a day when the so-called Green Movement had carried its campaign to oust a regime it considers illegitimate into the heart of the country’s theological capital.
Six of Iran’s 12 leading Ayatollahs went to Montazeri’s house to pay their respects despite his repeated attacks on the regime. “Qom has been under serious security over the past six months, but today they have effectively lost control of it,” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at the University of St Andrews.
Opposition websites variously reported that tens or hundreds of thousands of mourners had poured into the city of shrines and seminaries. Photographs showed a sea of mourners packing the streets as Montazeri’s black-draped coffin inched forward on the back of a truck.
Mr Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the two defeated candidates in June’s hotly disputed presidential election, joined the mourners as they beat their chests and chanted “Dictator — Montazeri’s way will continue”, “Oppressed Montazeri is with God today”, and “Montazeri is not dead — it is the Government that is dead”.
Footage shot with mobile phones showed men and women wearing green scarves and wristbands and holding up black-bordered portraits of Montazeri.
Opposition activists were jubilant. “This has taken the Green Movement into the heart of Qom, the ‘Vatican’ of the Islamic republic. Hopefully the clerics will begin to break away from the regime,” said one.
Another said that protesters were talking of how Qom provided the first spark for the 1979 revolution against the Shah, and could do the same for President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.
Witnesses said that after yesterday’s ceremony Basij, the militia, attacked opposition supporters outside Montazeri’s home and tore down black banners. Thousands of mourners also marched in Montazeri’s hometown of Najafabad, near the city of Isfahan.
The Green Movement appears to be emboldened and gaining momentum, and this is a week of great opportunity. The sacred month of Muharram culminates on Sunday in the emotionally charged holiday of Ashura, when Shia Muslims mourn the 7thcentury martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson and the talk is of sacrifice.
The opposition is planning nationwide protests that day, and the fact that Ashura coincides with the seventh day since Montazeri’s death, an important date in the Shia mourning ritual, will give them greater impetus.
“Montazeri’s death could not have come at a worse time for the regime and it will rachet up the tensions considerably,” Dr Ansari said. “This has made an extremely fragile situation even worse for the Government and it will be scrambling to find a way to deal with it.”
Dr Ansari added that Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei was likely to replace Montazeri as the leading clerical scourge of the regime and to be even more aggressive. He has already declared the Government illegitimate and after Montazeri’s death warned that it “cannot reverse the situation in the country with terror, killing, torture and imprisonment”.
Although the regime could not prevent yesterday’s funeral, Montazeri having been a key figure in the revolution before he parted company with its hardline leaders a decade later, it did its best to contain the damage.
Opposition websites said that busloads of mourners from Tehran, Mashhad and Shiraz were stopped from reaching Qom, 80 miles south of the capital. The regime banned the few foreign reporters left in Iran from the city and imposed strict curbs on what the state-controlled domestic media could report.
State television made only passing mention of the funeral and showed no pictures. The BBC said that its Persian television service was jammed soon after Montazeri’s death. Internet connections were slowed to a crawl.
The regime ordered newspapers in Tehran not to print front-page photographs of Montazeri yesterday, or to carry condolence messages. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance also closed down one of the last surviving reformist newspapers, Andisheh No (New Thought), and warned the ILNA news agency not to report on the Green Movement.
Montazeri, 87, died in his sleep and was buried alongside his son in the shrine of Fatemeh Masoumeh, a revered Shia figure. He was a pillar of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the designated successor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini until he began criticising Iran’s human rights record a decade later.
Since June’s election he had been one of the regime’s most potent critics, saying that Iran was no longer Islamic or a republic.
Despite restrictions on the media, tributes were paid to Montazeri. Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, said that Montazeri had “spent many years of his honourable life on the path of advancing the high goals of Islam and the Islamic revolution”.
Shirin Ebadi, the human rights activist and Nobel laureate, called Montazeri “the father of human rights in Iran”, adding: “I learnt from you that the silence of the oppressed is aiding the oppressor and that I should not remain quiet.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6964563.ece |
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Fintan
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Joined: 18 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:55 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Deaths reported amid
chaos and violence in Iran
The nephew of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi is said
to have been killed as protesters in Tehran turn an annual
Shiite Muslim holiday into a day of raucous demonstrations.
By Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim
December 27, 2009 | 7:35 a.m.
Reporting from Tehran and Beirut - The Iranian capital erupted in massive and fiery morning-to-dusk protests today as tens of thousands of demonstrators clashed with security forces on the occasion of an important Shiite Muslim holiday.
Several witnesses told The Times that Iranian security forces opened fire with live ammunition against unarmed protesters near College Bridge in in the capital. And opposition news websites reported that several protesters had been killed, including Ali Mousavi, the adult nephew of opposition figurehead Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
Reformist websites said he was shot and taken to a Tehran hospital, where his uncle and other relatives soon arrived.
The information could not be independently confirmed, and a police source denied that protesters had been killed in a comment to the pro-government Fars News Agency.
But a witness in front of City Theater in downtown Tehran said she saw a fallen man, apparently stabbed in the back, and spotted another man falling to the ground after a volley of shots was fired near Enghelab Street, which emerged as the epicenter of the day's clashes.
The reports of deaths came during a harrowing day of multiple, rolling clashes between police and Iranian protesters coinciding with an important Ashura religious commemoration as well as the significant seventh day of mourning following the death of the country's leading dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri.
Reformist websites and witnesses also reported clashes in the cities of Qom, Esfahan, Najafabad, Kashan, Shiraz, Babol and Mashhad.
Demonstrators vowed to continue the protests into the night, with reformist news websites identifying key Tehran squares for gatherings.
"There is no let-up," said Farzad, a 30-year-old who attended today's protests with his girlfriend. "We will go ahead until we topple the government."
Across the capital, witnesses described scenes of pandemonium, which were confirmed by video footage posted online. One described Tehran as a war zone, and another likened the situation to open "civil war" as increasingly bold demonstrators took on security forces, in one case stripping a member of the security forces naked before letting him go, a witness said.
Despite a heavy crackdown, the protest movement that emerged from Iran's disputed June 12 presidential election has grown increasingly daring, with those who want abolition of the Islamic Republic increasingly vocal.
Protesters had vowed for weeks to turn today's annual Ashura commemoration marking the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, into an anti-government demonstration.
The green-themed protest movement sought to meld its cry of injustice with the emotionally powerful narrative of Imam Hussein, whom Shiites believe was unjustly robbed of his throne as the leader of the faithful when he was cut down in battle by the Yazid on the fields outside Karbala, in what is now southern Iraq.
"This is a month of blood," they chanted. "Yazid will be defeated!" "We will fight, we will die, we will get our country back!" the protesters yelled out, holding ribbons of green.
Black plumes of smoke could be seen rising from downtown Tehran. Video posted online showed protesters beating pro-government militiamen as their motorcycles burned in the background. Helicopters hovered in the skies.
Protesters built fires in trash cans to ward off the effects of tear gas. Witnesses described running street battles between plainclothes and uniformed security officers and demonstrators, some throwing stones, in more than a dozen Tehran localities.
At Enghelab Square, a police car was set ablaze, and protesters set fire to motorcycles belonging to riot police in various locales.
The wail of ambulance sirens could be heard all over the city. Car horns honked on expressways as motorists created traffic jams in an effort to prevent security forces from moving freely. Drivers on nearby streets leaned on their horns and flashed "V" hand signs despite the heavy presence of police deployed around main squares. Passengers on buses could be heard chanting slogans.
"Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein!" they chanted in support of opposition figurehead Mousavi.
Around Vali Asr intersection, police fired tear-gas canisters in an attempt to disperse thousands of protesters shouting "Death to the dictator" and "Today is a day of mourning."
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Last edited by Fintan on Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:27 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Robert
Joined: 07 Feb 2006
Posts: 331
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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#CN4Iran
are they waking or not?
...............................................................................
| Quote: | Quick Opinion: The fact that the regime is cracking down on people in the streets during Ashura is a clear indication that the regime has virtually completely shed its religious veneer. Clearly, they are far more concerned with keeping their own death grip on the nation (along with the associated economic benefits of being in control) than on encouraging an Islamic society.
This is a very risky calculation for the regime, because without religious, moral, or political legitimacy, the regime is more and more being seen in Iran as an occupying, alien-force, at least insofar as Iranian cultured and interests are concerned.
No matter what the outcome of today’s protests, it is very difficult to see a way out for the regime that will ever allow them to return to the status quo (as it was before the June election at least). Change is virtually inevitable now. What remains to be seen is how it will manifest, and at what cost. One thing for certain, the widespread nature of the protests (both in segments of the society and in geographic dispersion) indicates that the days of this government are numbered. |
http://www.irannewsnow.com/2009/12/live-blog-ashura/
my observations.
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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Yep. I reckon enough Iranians are awake now.
These protests are a very serious development
for the current regime. Things could get even
more ugly unless a compromise is agreed.
The unofficial death toll has now risen to nine.
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Robert
Joined: 07 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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Actually Fintan
- I was trying to temper my skyrocketing-
There's a twitter #cn4 idea for Chinese support for the the events but I'm observing this may be twitterfluff rather than a concrete(for the net)activity.
My question was:is China awakening?- which may have even wider implications.
R |
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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Government Basij forces have been
overrun in many Tehran areas today.
Here, people try to protect the surrounded
Basiji from retaliation by the crowd:
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bri
Joined: 16 Jun 2006
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Location: Capacious Creek
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by bri on Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:38 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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bri
Joined: 16 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Fintan wrote: | Prof. Scott Lucas reports on
stunning developments in Iran |
It would be informative to have Scott Lucas on again given recent developments.
Loud tonight as ever...
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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A slain protester:
People setting NIOC Basij building on fire
Freeing Protesters from a Police Van
An Iranian police officer, pictured in a white shirt,
is protected and taken away by people after being
beaten by protesters in Tehran Photograph: AP
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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Via Twitter, callers into PersianRadio from Tehran
suggested possibility of Martial Law later tonight.
Another pic from today:
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Fintan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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Late into the evening, protesters
were still in ocupation of key
central areas of Tehran:
| Quote: | Clashes outside the IRIB [Broadcasting] headquarters have spread.
Tear gas has been fired in the dark of the night and severe confrontations
between protesters and the anti-riot police have been reported.
Link |
| Quote: | Police violence has intensified as the number of protesters continues
to increase on Valiasr St and around the IRIB headquarters.
According to a Jaras News reporter, despite increased offences by the police
through tear gas and physical violence, they have not yet succeeding in
dispersing the protests. Crowds continue to light fires and chant slogans. |
| Quote: | The police have declared martial law in Najaf Abad at 21:00 local time,
following the intensification of clashes in the city, the birthplace of
Ayatollah Montazeri. People have been instructed not to leave their homes. |
| Quote: | Protesters have gathered outside Ibn Sina Hospital, following news
of the killing of Mousavi’s nephew. The crowd continues to grow, chanting
in unison in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi. No security forces have been
sighted at the scene thus far. |
| Quote: | Robert:
There's a twitter #cn4 idea for Chinese support for the the events but I'm observing this may be twitterfluff rather than a concrete(for the net)activity.
My question was:is China awakening?- which may have even wider implications.
R |
Ah, now I get'cha!
This Twitter tag: http://twitter.com/search?q=%23CN4Iran
I'm sure that democracy advocates in China
are taking heart from events in Iran, but their
support within China is no match really.
| Quote: | CN4Iran - The Chinese Inspired by the People of Iran
During today's protests in Iran, as always, Twitter saw a surge of tweets from protests in Iran giving updates on the latest developments and using Twitter for coordination purposes.
However, this time around, people in China quickly joined Iranians in spreading the word and we witnessed an outpouring of tweets in Chinese reporting on the situation. 'CN4Iran' quickly became one of the top ten trending topics on twitter.
The people of China, who like Iranians, live under an oppressive regime are standing in solidarity with freedom fighters of Iran and drawing inspiration from them; one tweet read "Today we free Tehran, tomorrow we take on Beijing". |
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curious george
Joined: 19 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Fintan wrote: | Late into the evening, protesters
were still in ocupation of key
central areas of Tehran:
| Quote: |
The people of China, who like Iranians, live under an oppressive regime are standing in solidarity with freedom fighters of Iran and drawing inspiration from them; one tweet read "Today we free Tehran, tomorrow we take on Beijing". |
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Like to see that quote as the start or a spark to an sustainable trend.
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Fintan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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