June 30, 2009
Thanks to hundreds of mobile phone and digital camera pictures and videos, the world can see what's going on in the streets of Iranian major cities. The atrocities of riot police, plain clothes thugs, and basij (militia under the supervision of the elite Revolutionary Guard) are seen by millions of people all over the world. Now, what we are witnessing here is shared with millions of our fellow human beings across the globe. The beatings, the tear gas, the bullets shot into the crowd are not the things that just we suffer from on the streets of Tehran; they are wounding the souls of hundreds of thousands on this planet we share. The tragic death of our young ones, the blood stained bodies of young men and women, the shattered skull of our men and most of all, the eyes of Neda Agha Soltan whose death filled many eyes and hearts with bitter tears, are engraved forever on the memory of all people all through the world.
An election was held two weeks ago in my country. We—exhausted from the failures of President Ahmadinejad in the economy (double-digit inflation and skyrocketing prices, vast unemployment, lack of investment in production, huge amount of imports), his bold rhetoric against the world, the repressive policies of his administration in jailing tens of university students and intellectuals—tried to change the direction of the country for the better by urging our compatriots to go to the ballot boxes and cast their votes for one of the reformist candidates, either Mr Musavi or Mr Karrubi. Our fiery discussions with people in despair, angry with the system or frustrated by their previous participation in elections or those who never had voted in any election before, went on and on in every imaginable corner of the country: on the shared taxis, on the streets, in subways, in parties, in schools and in work places. We tried to emblazen the fire of hope in the hearts of millions to stop them sulking with their legitimate right of electing their president and sometimes even begged them to vote. We succeeded; long lines formed in front of the polling stations full of people who had voted just a few times before. Some white headed people were voting for the first time. We had succeeded in bringing the silent vote to the scene and that guaranteed our victory. The days before the election we were not sure that the reformist candidate would win on the first round. On election day everybody was sure that absolute triumph would be gained on the historical Friday of 22 khordad, 12 June. The whole country, all of us who had toiled for weeks to convince the people, were getting prepared for a national jubilee the day after.
The official time of closing the stations was announced as 6 pm. Because of the flood of people it was extended to 10. In many stations all over the country there were shortages of ballots. In the afternoon bad news began to come in. In some polling stations they had closed the doors heedless to hundreds waiting for their turn to cast their votes and when the people didn't leave the place, the riot police were called in. In some stations the representatives of reformist candidates were absent. In some, they were even kicked out of the stations. The night before the short messaging system was shut down; the connections between reformist candidates and their observers in polling stations were practically cut. Something bad and anxious was filling the air. We began to worry; what's happening?
At the same time hundreds of thousands of us were monitoring the website of the Interior Ministry- the official body in charge of the election. We also checked the websites of right wingers, IRNA the official news agency and Fars News the unofficial website of the Revolutionary Guard; Before the official closing hour of the polling stations, a shocking title emerged on the website of the national news agency: Ahmadinejad won the election with an absolute majority! We couldn't believe our eyes. We thought of it as a joke, as psychological warfare. With our hearts pounding in our mouths we witnessed the nasty game unfolding before our eyes. The national news agency began to shoot fake numbers on their website. Ahmadinejad was far ahead of the main reformist candidate, Mr Musavi. The gap between two candidates was kept the same up to noon the day after. When dawn showed itself to us, our unslept eyes knew a real darkness was going to dominate over the country. We all knew it was not just a rigged election; we witnessed a coup détat emerging in front of our stunned eyes.
In the morning we rushed to the streets. We went to the building of the Interior Ministry. The place was very close to the locale of the main election campaign office of MirHossein Musavi. By noon, the shock freezing everybody and keeping them at home began to melt; thousands joined us and after that, the story began which millions know about now and are witnessing on their TV screens; the riot police, the tear gas, the beatings, the threats, the shootings.
The discussion between two groups of Islamic interpretations on governance, the role of the clergy and the people in the power structure of the country dates back long years ago to the first years after the 1979 Revolution. The dominating attitude which the Islamic Republic of Iran was based on belonged to Ayatollah Khomeini. According to him: "(The system) is Islamic Republic, not one word less than it and not one word more than it." According to this interpretation, although giving a very important role to the clerics, the legitimacy of the system comes from the people and their votes. That's why since the Revolution, despite all the undemocratic circumstances prevailing in the country, elections and voting have been very fundamental values. Close to the election, the whole propaganda system of the country tries to attract more and more people to the ballot boxes. Turnout in the elections has been an issue to which the Iranian government has always been very sensitive.
The other voice getting more and more power especially after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini belongs to some clerics like Mesbah Yazdi in Qom, who instead of the Republic, believes in Islamic Government. To them, the value and the role of the leader and grand ayatollahs is not the same as the ordinary people. That's why they don't believe in ballot boxes and the western style of election or any kind of elections. Ayatollah Jannati, the speaker of the hardline Guardian Council, Ayatollah Yazdi, another prominent member of that Council and a few of other clerics prefer a pyramidal system with a leader on top—Valiye Faqih—and millions of others grouped as Ommat, obeying and following the orders of the leader.
The recent coup is a clear attempt to terminate the republicanism of the system and impose the traditional ultra right interpretation of the government. In a recent video shared on the internet we hear Ahmadinejad speaking to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi in Qom, giving him good news of "operational" activities, the last phase of their ideas.
The widespread rumors of riggings were heard everywhere months before the election. We who encouraged the people to a vast participation were trying to have a counter attack. Our efforts were to guarantee the reformists' triumph by huge numbers of the people voting for Musavi.
By these rigged results we are sure that the system is trying to suppress every opposition voice in order to unfold the longed-for project of Islamic government. If the supreme leader, Ahmadinejad and the circle around them just were seeking a triumph in the election, the results could be twisted in a more reasonable way and with a smaller gap between the incumbent president and his reformist rival. Now, when they are so bold as to say that Ahamdinejad has won almost 65% of the votes followed by 33% of the votes won by Musavi, they are actually bullying the whole nation and the millions who voted for the reformist candidate. The message of these fake results is: "The votes don't count! That's WE who decide whatever we want and you have to obey."
Right after the coup, the detentions began. On the streets, they tried to suppress any opposing voice. They arrested hundreds of intellectuals, university professors and students, the members of Musavi's campaign and many of the political activists. The detentions usually have been so harsh. They broke into the house of Mr Ramzanzade, the speaker of ex-president Mohammad Khatami and hit him on the head with the butt of a revolver. Or they beat Mohammad Reza Jalaee Pour, one of the prominent reformist journalists while searching his house to find his son (who was arrested later in the airport) and imprisoned him in his car all during the attack. The police confiscated whatever documents, papers, computers found at his house. They have arrested even Saeed Hajjarian, the political advisor to ex president Khatami. Mr Hajjarian survived a bullet shot into his head when he was the member of city council during Mr Khatami's presidency; he is paralyzed and cannot walk or talk without help, daily physiotherapy and a long list of pills. The pressures on Musavi are getting stronger hour by hour. The tone against him in Kayhan daily—nicknamed as the 'artillery of the right wingers'—is getting harsher day by day. Musavi is not only threatened to be arrested, but also all the responsibility for the riots and unrest and even for the people who are killed by the riot police and basij are put on him. They have arrested all the people working for his website Kalameh; the detaineess are taken to an unknown place. We have received worrying news that some of the most prominent reformists detained right after the coup are under heavy physical pressures to confess that they have been paid by western governments to urge riots or to plan a subversive plot.
Something which neither the coup makers nor we predicted was the resistance. Talking to a basij member on Saturday, June 13, the day after the Coup, he told me that Musavi's supporters are a bunch of sissies who would flee to their homes as soon as they heard a yell. That didn't happen. On the same day that the young Basiji said that to me, hundreds of young ones flooded to the streets. Then, the foreign media journalists still were working in the country. At night, millions saw pictures of clashes and beatings. The harsh scenes of young ones being beaten by batons and sticks hurt many all over the world. The day after the number of those joining the previous groups increased. On the following midnight, the plain clothes and the basij attacked Tehran dormitories, a constant and long lasting boiling source of protest to injustice. The attackers burst into the dorms, injured hundreds of students and killed some. They set to fire whatever they saw, stabbed and clubbed the students and even threw some students from the fourth floor of the dorm.
The day after, on June 15 we planned to rally; Mr Musavi had called for it. Since morning, the state run TV was announcing every five minutes that the rally was illegal and was considered a violation of the law despite the explicit wording of the Constitution which gives the right of unarmed rallying if it is not against Islam. The worrisome news about the attack on the dormitories the night before added to that all. We heard that the police had gotten permission to shoot into the crowd. Many of us said the last words to our dear ones and rushed to Enqelab Square. Minute by minute the crowd increased. Walking across a pedestrian bridge over Enqelab Square I didn't believe my eyes: the people were rushing to the square from all the streets leading to the place. A historical event unfolded before our surprised eyes. In the rally we picked a new tactic: silence. We even didn't chant slogans. The people walked in long compact lines without uttering a word. The noise of the footsteps and the roar of the silence were hair-raising. At night we like millions of our fellow human beings watched the amazing scenes on TV screens; we were more than a million.
The climax of the movement was last Saturday, June 19. The day before, at the Friday prayer we were all ears listening to Khamenei's khutbas threatening everybody with bloodshed. He compared our movement to the color revolutions of Eastern Europe and tried to affect the audience by crying at the end of the sermon. On Saturday, the police didn't let us gather in Enqelab Square but the angry crowd dispersed to all the streets around the region, turning another page of the movement. Clashes with the police, vigilantes, and the Revolutionary Guards went on for hours. We all took part in them. And they carried out many beatings. On the same afternoon, Neda Agha Soltan died in front of millions of eyes all across the planet.
This is a coup attempt to terminate the 30 year old project of republicanism in Iran. The coup planners and executers have come to the scene fully and fiercely. The sermons of Khamenei on June 19 and the threatening statements of the Revolutionary Guard leave no doubt as to the intention of the regime to smash any opponents' voice. The plot didn't go according to plan. The resistance of the people even at the price of blood and the firm fortitude of Musavi and Karrubi and all the unarrested reformists were unexpected. The five day moratorium of the Guardian Council on June 23rd which surely would have loved to approve the whole charade of rigged election and put the last nail on the coffin of Republic shows a pause in the plans. The situation is complex. The right wingers have left no space to retreat. They have lost all their legitimacy. Thousands of riots police swarming on the streets reveal the fear of the rulers. The people's demonstrations are lessened, but the rage and the persistency of them is alive. The number of the people defiant to the regime is increasing. The majority of the people are saying a loud No to the minority ruling the country using weapons and fear. If the uprising could be suppressed today, it would emblazen very soon; it would be a burning and strong flame beneath the ashes.
The writer lives and works in Tehran, but must remain anonymous for security reasons.