Sunday, December 27, 2009

Not Your Mother's Student Movement



It's not even a student movement anymore. It's a force of nature. Watch this old lady lead a group of people in chanting anti-regime slogans on a bus in Tehran yesterday:



Today is the big day. It is 7 days after Montazeri's death, so it is an official day of mourning. It is also the biggest holiday of the year (Ashura) for Shia Muslims, and the protests which are to take place have been planned for weeks, unlike the spontaneous ones which erupted last week. People have also been protesting late into the night the last two days.

You can see in the above video all the Basijis moving in. They have been brutal these last two days, and that's just toward Khatami and the memory of Montazeri, whose house they vandalized yesterday.

As far as their treatment of the people, a group showed up on the 22nd to protest the hangings of some young men and ended up beating back regime forces to save them. (Warning: graphic.)



Basiji forces killed a protester in the ensuing melée:



The Washington Times is calling the situation "Iran's Perfect Storm." This should get very interesting pretty soon.

I will be keeping tabs when I can tomorrow.

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