by Damozel | In Iran, a reformist body made up of influential clerics has asked permission to hold a pro-Mousavi rally in Tehran on Saturday, during which Mousavi himself will address protesters. (PressTV.Ir) Meanwhile, Mousavi himself has called for a day of mourning for protesters killed by Iranian security forces. (Juan Cole) Mousavi has asked for a peaceful protest and for the release of pro-reform activists who have been arrested. (BBC News)
Mr Mousavi's call for further action on Thursday is in open defiance of
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is due to deliver the sermon
at Friday prayers and is expected to appeal for calm.(BBC News)
Juan Cole discusses the significance of today's protests.
Today's protesters are wearing green, which symbolizes Mousavi's
descent from the Prophet Muhammad....The repertoires of protest the reformists are
using echo those of the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution-- they are chanting
"God is Great," mourning pious fallen martyrs, etc.-- another sign that
this movement is not just alienated secularized elites....
[N]ow Mousavi's his supporters are also sporting black ribbons to indicate that they are in mourning for the fallen. Typically, the dead will be commemorated again at one month and at 40 days. In 1978 such demonstrations for those killed in previous demonstrations grew in size all through the year, till they reached an alleged million in the streets of Tehran. Since the reformists are already claiming Monday's rally was a million, you wonder where things will go from here....Reports are streaming in of the arrest of over a hundred opposition figures and of hard line militia men following protesters home and breaking into their homes to terrorize them. (Juan Cole)
[N]ow Mousavi's his supporters are also sporting black ribbons to indicate that they are in mourning for the fallen. Typically, the dead will be commemorated again at one month and at 40 days. In 1978 such demonstrations for those killed in previous demonstrations grew in size all through the year, till they reached an alleged million in the streets of Tehran. Since the reformists are already claiming Monday's rally was a million, you wonder where things will go from here....Reports are streaming in of the arrest of over a hundred opposition figures and of hard line militia men following protesters home and breaking into their homes to terrorize them. (Juan Cole)
Juan Cole explains why Obama's decision not to meddle in the situation is the right one.
If the reformers can convince most Iranians of the justice of their
cause, they will swing behind the opposition. If the hard liners can
convince the public that the reformers are nothing more than cat's paws
of a grasping, imperialist West-- i.e. that they are Ahmad Chalabis
trying to bring Iran foreign occupation so as to get power themselves--
then the reformists will be crushed. Iranians value national
independence above all, having suffered with a CIA-installed goverment
for decades in the mid-twentieth century.
The prescriptions of John McCain and Faux Cable news for muscular US diplomacy at this point are tone deaf to Iranian realities and would backfire big time, harming both the reform cause and US interests. Anyway, after the basket case to which the US Republican Party reduced Iraq, no one in the global South is likely to want them meddling in their internal affairs. (Juan Cole)
The prescriptions of John McCain and Faux Cable news for muscular US diplomacy at this point are tone deaf to Iranian realities and would backfire big time, harming both the reform cause and US interests. Anyway, after the basket case to which the US Republican Party reduced Iraq, no one in the global South is likely to want them meddling in their internal affairs. (Juan Cole)
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