Taken from the SSP website
By an Iranian exile in Scotland – 22nd June 2009
Iran is experiencing the most significant popular uprising since the1979 revolution.
The angry people came to streets after the 10th presidential election result was announced on 13th June. Two weeks of colourful street festivals, where young people were exceptionally allowed to let off steam dance and chant Ahmadinejad bye bye
ended up in bloodshed.
Fraudulent elections are not new in Iran, but the recent colossal “polls engineering” has astonished even the most pessimist observers. While millions of change supporting youth prepared themselves to celebrate a landslide victory over Ahmadinejad, Iran’s ministry of interior declared him as the winner, having two times more votes over his main rival, Moussavi.
Three candidates could get the official approval to compete with Ahmadinejad. Amongst them Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi were considered as reformists and the third one was a former commander of the revolutionary guard.
Moussavi, an architect and the ex-prime minister in the 80′s , entered into the contest after twenty years of political silence. He was strongly supported by many reformists, such as ex-president Khatami and Rafsanjani, the powerful head of the “Council of Expediency”. Moussavi, known for his clean economic record and his efficient management of the wartime economy, could specially gain a massive support among all the strata of the society, and turn out to be the first chance of winning the election.
He openly criticized Ahmadinejad’s term as wasting of oil revenues, unjustified social repressions and confrontational foreign policy.
Both reformist candidates pledged to relieve social repressions and limit censorship, curb 24 percent inflation, and rebuild foreign relation with the West.
On the other hand, Ahmadinejad, who is strongly backed by the revolutionary guard (RG) defended his achievement on earth and the sky
and claimed that he had revived the dignity
of the Islamic regime by taking the aggressive stance towards the West.
The televised debates between candidates, a new phenomenon in Iran’s narrow political scene, broke many taboos and exposed a long-lasting power struggle at the top between the Supreme Leader, and his so-called barrack party
on one hand and the moderate
Rafsanjani on the other.
Rasanjani’s wealthy men have financed Moussavi’s massive campaign. Ahmadinejad condemned all his precedent governments, including Rafsanjani’s, for cowardice and corruption. The others openly called Ahmadinejad an extravagant liar
.
While reformists did not pose major critiques of Iran’s nuclear program, one noticeable shift from previous elections was that social movement’s demands found more vocal voice within the reformist agenda.
Both reformists published their charters
of Human Right, pledging to sign the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and to relax state censorship and suppression, and to give more rights to ethnic and religious minorities.
Karrubi, a former head of the Parliament, backed by an important student organisation and more radical figures of reformist intellectuals, even went so far to ask for revising the regime’s Constitution. This was an ostensible breach from the official discourse, since the constitution was regarded as the most sacred asset of the revolution.
These debates raised hope among young people desperate for change.
The growing consensus to participate in the election eventually marginalised the opposition political parties, notably leftist in exile, who pointed to so-called reformist government of Khatami’s presidency as a proof of impossibility of reform from inside the regime.
The leftists called for their traditional policy of boycotting the so-called
elections.
The turn out to the polls however was estimated to be over 85% which is a record since Khatami’s election in 1997. The reformists observers of the polls claimed that they got 30 million votes out of the 42 million polls. Based on these, Moussavi declared his victory at the night of vote counting, while complaining about widespread manipulations and bias
.
However, at the night of 12th June the ministry of interior turned the tables and declared Ahmadinejad as the new president, obtaining an improbable 24 million votes, two times more than Moussavi.
The two reformist candidates called the result as dangerous charade
and imaginary and absurd
. People soon called the move a political coup by the Supreme Leader in order to keep the “barrack party” (i.e the Revolutionary Guard and its militia Basij
) in power.
Thousands of people who invested their hopes for change in Moussavi and Karrubi, immediately came streets shouting Down with dictator
and Moussavi, take back my vote for me
. On the same night, the regime’s Basij, well equipped with all the light weaponry but in plain cloths, attacked university dormitories in major cities, beating and injuring hundreds of students, while there are unconfirmed reports of 5 being killed in the attack to Tehran University dormitory.
In a national-wide demonstration on Tuesday, which was banned by the ministry of interior, hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out. Moussavi and Karrubi came to the crowd and stressed that they will not surrender.
The riot police and notorious Basij dispersed protesters using electric batons, pepper sprays, tear gas and, in some instances, shooting at the people. At least 8 people where killed and dozens injured in Tehran. They suppressed people more brutally outside the capital. The supreme leader who was the first to congratulate Ahmadinejad took one step back and vaguely ordered to review the results. However, people are highly suspicious that this was just a trick to calm down the people.
On 19th June, when some were still hopeful that these widespread protests would soften the ruling hardliners, the supreme leader declared threateningly at the Friday Prayer that the loser
should respect the law
otherwise they are responsible for the human suffering in the street clashes.
This final word of the ultimate authority was regarded as showing the green light to security forces to escalate hostilities. Angry people who were not frightened by the threats came to streets on the day after, which turned out to be the most hideous day since the disputed election.
In Tehran, alone at least 19 people were shot dead by Basij agents and hundreds injured, among them the tragic death scene of young girl called Neda who has now become iconic. She had came with his father to participate in peaceful protest but get shot in the heart, her last seconds were filmed by a pedestrian, spread virally on Internet and shocked the world.
In response to these brutalities, a national strike is been called as we go to press. The call for national strike first announced by an officially banned leftist group called Sacrifice of the People
. Local workers strikes in objection to the rigged election have already been held at some instances, notably in the country’s main car manufacturing complex, Iran Khodro.
At present, all the reformist websites are blocked, mobile communications are restricted and almost all of the foreign correspondents, even the BBC reporters which was traditionally among the most gentle
ones, have been asked to quit the country.
To circumvent censorship people have extensively used creative ways, for example they widely use social networks like Facebook and Twitter to organise themselves and to let the external world to know what is happening in the country. On the other hand, a series of distributed Internet attacks by Iranian diaspora brought down some of the regime’s official websites.
Almost all of the reformist leaders, critics, prominent journalists, student activists, and ordinary protesters are being jailed.
Even aged reformist figures in their 80′s where not immune to the mass-arrests. Dr. Yazdi, for example, an 80 year old ex-foreign minister , has been taken to jail straight form the hospital bed, where he was being treated for cancer. Moussavi and Karrubi are still free and continue reclaiming for re-election. Perhaps because the ruling class fears that their arrest will put more oil into people’s fire.
Outside the country, Iranians are mostly surprised by the election results, and shocked by the regime’s brutalities, are protesting at Iranian embassies and urging Iranian leaders to respect their votes – Moussavi’s average vote outside the country, where it were closely observed and thus difficult to forge, was over 80%.
So not surprisingly almost all expatriates are urging their respective governments to not legitimise Ahmadinjad as Iran’s president and many are asking to cut all ties with the mullahs’ regime.
Given the lack of any established resistance organisation and regarding the iron-fist policy of the government the future of the movement remains to be seen.
Something that seems clear is that the political cost of the election for the regime was huge and particularly the legitimacy lost by of the supreme leader was irreversible. It is rather soon to say that history is repeating but I think it would be fair to say that Iran have definitely entered into a new political era.
The unsettling fact is that the ruling class have shown that they are not worried about the death tolls, as far as their power is at the stake.
