July 9, 2009 – Protests in Iran

Today marked the 10th anniversary of the violent suppression of student protests at Teheran University in 1999 against the closing of opposition newspapers and the arrests of reporters and editors. Several people were killed and hundreds injured and arrested that day and in the riots in the days after.

Today, opponents of the Ahmedinejad regime again took to the streets to commemorate that event and renew their call for greater freedom. The protesters are mainly students and the people one would see on the street any day of the week; old men, housewives, workers, small businessmen. They live in a society where they have already been warned of dire consequences for their peaceful protests. The videos that have come out show people marching and chanting. There is little violence on the part of the protesters both today’s protests and in the aftermath of the recent election. And yet, to quell these demonstrations, the regime has used dogs, clubs, and guns. It has also been reported that many of the Basiji, the paramilitaries most responsible for the violence, do not speak Farsi. The police have fared better in public opinion, but not much.

In The Guardian, a doctor working in a large hospital in Teheran paints a dark picture. While the official death toll from the recent protests is listed at 20, the doctor’s hospital had recorded 38 riot related deaths, while a colleague at another hospital nearby reported 10. The Basiji have been confiscating the identification cards of the dead and wounded. Medical staff are under pressure to hide the casualties, and one doctor committed suicide. Many of the victims had multiple gunshot wounds and the downward trajectory path through their bodies indicates that the shooters would probably have been at an elevated location such as rooftops. this was premeditated state terrorism.

Video on the web shows thousands of protesters today. Not nearly the numbers seen in the recent demonstrations, but with the threats by the government of the most severe consequences, this is not a surprise. Dozens of known activists have been arrested in the past week to prevent the movement from growing, and cell phones and computers are being confiscated to examine call and e mail histories.Government agents are searching Facebook and Twitter to identify their opponents. The opposition has grown from the supporters of Mousavi to include a broader spectrum of Iran’s population more concerned with the direction of the government.

In response, the government has undertaken an Orwellian propaganda campaign to both crush dissent and promote their version of the truth. The aforementioned doctor wrote something about the state of government pervasiveness and control that must be repeated.

” Whoever you are in Iran and whatever you do, it is easy to doubt yourself. Many of us who witnessed this state aggression watch Iranian news and listen to the authorities and start to question what we saw. The bias is so great you begin to feel isolated, question what you have witnessed. At night, the Basiji swept the riot zones and cleared away evidence. They want us to think nothing happened. They want us to be blind.”

This same philosophy of government holds true today in many countries, including the United States and Britain. Whether in Teheran, or London, or Tegucigalpa, or Washington, we must hold our leaders to account for the truth and for the defense of basic human rights. In the meantime, watered down statements by the G-8 leaders guarantee the killings and oppression will continue until the unlikely event Iranians rise up against their dictator. Far more likely in this world of prevarication and appeasement, the jackboots will do their best to crush the human spirit. We are seeing the flowering of Islamofascism. Soon will come the uniforms and rallies once again unless we give both moral and concrete support to the basic human dignity of the least among us.