EIRAN DEPLOYS GUARDS TO CRUSH REBELLION
london — Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have deployed forces to three provinces to put down an eruption of anti-government unrest, their commander said on Wednesday, after six days of protests that have left 21 people dead.
Thousands of Iranians took part in pro-government rallies in several cities on Wednesday in a state-sponsored show of force aimed at countering unrest posing the most sustained challenge to the Islamic Republic’s clerical elite in almost a decade.
Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, called on the international community to speak out on the unfolding protests in Iran, saying the US would seek emergency UN talks on the situation.
“The people of Iran are crying out for freedom,” Haley said at a news conference. “All freedom-loving people must stand with their cause.”
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief urged Iran to rein in security forces to avoid further violence and respect the right of protesters to freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said more than 20 had been killed and hundreds arrested across Iran in the past week. He called for “thorough, independent and impartial investigations of all acts of violence”. —
The people of Iran are crying out for freedom. The freedoms that are enshrined in the UN charter are under attack in Iran.
Nearly nine years ago, the upheaval was stunning. Massive crowds marched through the streets of Iran’s capital and other cities demanding change in the first major unrest to shake the rule of hardline clerics over the country since they came to power in 1979.
Here’s a look at the differences between 2009 and now that could give hints on what happens next.
Who’s protesting
In 2009, the demonstrations swelled to throngs of hundreds of thousands on some days and were focused in Iran’s main cities and provincial capitals, including Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan and Shiraz.
In contrast, the past days’ fury has burst out mainly in mid-size cities and towns. The protests have been smaller — it’s hard to get credible numbers, but they seem to each be in the hundreds or, at most, several thousand — but they have swiftly erupted in far more places than more than eight years ago.
The first protest, sparked by a rise in egg and poultry prices, broke out in Mashhad, a city in the east that is considered a stronghold for conservatives. But the unrest quickly spread across dozens of towns throughout the country. These sorts of mid-sized communities in the provinces have suffered heavily from the poor economy, with large proportions of young people unemployed and mired in despair over the future.
Rejecting the system
The protests may be rooted in anger over the economy and corruption, but protesters quickly started chanting slogans directly against Khamenei and denouncing the republic itself — not just a call for reforms, but an open and outright rejection of the ruling system.
This is a dramatic shift from 2009. Protesters then had major demands — they wanted Ahmadinejad’s re-election overturned, reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi installed as president, greater social freedoms and an end to the security forces’ tight oppression. But their demands largely stayed in the framework of existing politics. Some voices called for Khamenei’s removal, but they were limited; the Green Movement’s leaders went out of their way to say they weren’t aiming to bring down the system, whether out of pragmatism or true faith in the potential for the “republic” part of “Islamic Republic”.
Now videos show some protesters chanting, “Death to the dictator” and calling for the end of the nearly 40-year-old Islamic Republic. That reflects how many now see families of prominent cl eric politicians and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a corrupt economic elite, monopolising business, hoarding wealth and leaving ordinary people with no place in the economy.
That presents a dangerous development for Iran’s rulers. The protests have revealed a hidden vein of sentiment — and not just among a “Westernised” urban elite — that has lost hope for clerical rule and openly wants to toss the whole thing out.
Leadership
The Green Movement of 2009 was firmly rooted in the reformist political movement, symbolized by former president Mohammed Khatami, the would-be president Mousavi and other prominent politicians
Nikki Haley
who advocated greater margins of freedom and opening to the West. That gave the protests a base and organisation able to mobilise massive numbers. It also gave protesters a defined set of demands — or to look at it from another angle, limited their ambitions.
So far no clear leadership has emerged for “Protests Everywhere”. Even opposition activists in Tehran are unsure who are involved. Still, the marches — with videos showing crowds of largely young men and women — have proven persistent and organised. Supporters on social media say that shows the breadth of support for a leaderless popular movement.
Reformers and hard-liners
In 2009, hard-liners were in firm control. Ahmadinejad’s policies and abrasive manner galvanised opposition — even part of the clerical establishment was against him — giving a wide base of support for protests.
Now the constituency that would be expected to join marches is more uncertain.
A relative moderate, Hassan Rouhani, is president, brought into office by the votes of reformists. Many of those voters now feel his nuclear deal with the West has failed to bring economic benefits he promised.
If large numbers decide there is no hope in the system and turn to the streets, it could push the protests into the scale of 2009. But many may hesitate, calculating that an uprising will plunge Iran into the unknown and that trying for gains under Rouhani is safer. The ferocity of the 2009 crackdown traumatized the opposition. The state showed it was prepared to unleash lethal force, arrests and torture; many activists were relentlessly harassed and persecuted for years afterward. That makes many wary of street protests again.
Rouhani has so far advocated a softer hand, saying Iranians have a right to protest. Reform politicians are calling for changes in economic policy to defuse the unrest. But ultimately, as in 2009, it will be Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard that decide — and if they sense the unrest is growing out of control, they could unleash a brutal and bloody response.
Twitter then — Telegram, Whatsapp now
When Neda Agha Soltan was shot to death during one of the 2009 protests in Tehran, the 26-year-old woman became an icon of the uprising. Video of her wrenching last moments circulated widely on Twitter and other social media. It was a cycle that fed the protests: Young men and women were killed, then their images inspired others to join.
That was when the Social Media Age was just being born. Twitter had only been launched three years earlier. Facebook was only a bit older. At the time, fewer than 1 million Iranians had smart phones.
Now the reach has been exponentially magnified. Today, an estimated 48 million Iranians have smart phones, more than half the population. Social media apps have flourished — besides Instagram, the messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp are wildly popular. They are also encrypted, giving a degree of protection from state surveillance and providing a major organising tool and a space for images and videos to circulate.
Still, 2009 in Iran and the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings also showed the limits of social media; organisation and imagery in the virtual realm don’t always translate into effectiveness on the ground.
International scene
US President Donald Trump is an unpredictable new factor. Trump has dismissed what he portrayed as a weak response by then-president Barack Obama to the 2009 protests. Critics contend Obama should have thrown the US weight behind the uprising in an effort to bring down the Iranian government.
But Trump faces the same question Obama did: how much effect can the United States really have on the ground? Too close an association with the US and with Trump could discredit the protests in the eyes of some Iranians. So far, the rhetoric from the administration has mirrored Obama’s — both demanding Iran allow free expression and warning that “the world is watching”. —
Donald Trump US President such respect for the people of iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United states at the appropriate time! iran’s enemies are using money, weapons, politics and spies to create problems for the islamic system, the islamic republic and the islamic revolution Ali Khamenei Iran supreme leader