Hundreds of thousands march in Tehran

GVF, If there’s one unmistakable conclusion that one can draw from the pro-opposition rallies on Monday 14 February, it is this: Iran’s Green Movement is alive, and is here to stay.

In various cities across the country, Iranians responded to calls by the leaders of the Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, and came out in great numbers to remind both friend and foe, that in the past year or so, their movement had been experiencing a mere state of hibernation, and nothing more.

Although an accurate estimation of the size of the protests is no easy task, based on the reports and video footages from inside the country, we can now state with great certainty that the demonstrations were far greater than the Jerusalem Day protests in September 2009 as well as the Ashura protests on 27 December 2009, considered by many to be the Green Movement's last significant street presence following the 2009 presidential election.

Already, the opposition website Tahavolesabz has reported on divisions emerging between military leaders and soldiers under their command, arguing that “with an increase in the people’s presence, soldiers prefer to disobey their superiors’ orders.” There is also a growing rift between the plain-clothed militia associated with the Basij and Iran’s police force which now prefer to avoid provoking their fellow Iranians and beating them up in the streets. However, the case is still different with regards to the Basij, as Monday’s events demonstrated once again.

Across the capital, teargas, wielded batons and live ammunition were used to disperse protesters who had gathered in support of the recent uprisings in the Arab world. They chanted "death to the dictator", “Mubarak, Ben Ali, It’s the turn of Seyed Ali [Khamenei]”, “Political prisoners must be freed”, “Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon; Tunisia and Egypt and Iran”, “Freedom, freedom, freedom”, “Whether in Cairo or in Tehran, death to oppressors.”

Hundreds were arrested, at least three received bullet wounds and two were killed including an art student from the Kurdish city of Paveh, Sane Zhale (صانع ژاله). The authorities, the main culprits behind the Sunni Kurd’s death, are now claiming that he was a member of the Basij who was murdered by the “hypocrites,” [1] a term generally used to refer to the terrorist Mujahedin Khalgh Organisation or PMOI. Tomorrow, the Iranian regime will attempt to claim this Iranian martyr as its own, by holding an official funeral for Sane.

Demonstrators made their presence felt in the Tehran's main squares and cross-sections, including Vali-Asr, Vanak, Tohid, Eskandari, Enghelab, Imam Hossein and Azadi.

But the protests were by no means limited to Tehran, as Iranians from all walks of life, gathered in other cities such as Kermanshah, Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Najaf-Abad and Khomeini Shahr.

The authorities spared no effort in stifling the voice of the Iranian people. Since early in the morning, Green Movement websites such as the Green Voice of Freedom, Kaleme and Jaras were under severe DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, which meant that for a good part of the day, the GVF website was also inaccessible to internet users around the world.

In addition, phone lines in central Tehran, the focal points of the protests, were out of service. Unlike the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, the Iranian authorities had made sure no foreign reporter or photographer would be allowed tell the tales of the Iranian people's bravery.

Following the start of the protests, the response of the regime’s propaganda machine was slow, predictable, desperate and at times, even silly. The semi-official Fars News Agency and Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi said that the “few” protesters were all “agents” and “spies” of the “Zionists,” the United States, “western intelligence” and the terrorist group the MKO (PMOI).

While on a state visit to Tehran, Turkish President Abdullah Gul used a joint news conference with Ahmadinejad on Monday to call on the region’s governments to listen to the demands of their people. "My view is that what is happening should in no way be regarded as a surprise. In this age of communication, in an age where everybody is aware of each other, the demands and desires of the people are very realistic," Gul said, in response to a question about the state of Middle East affairs.

"We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations' demands, the people themselves take action to achieve their demands."

Gul need not have spelled out which “heads of countries” he was referring to. For his autocratic hosts, the protests that coincided with the visit were embarrassing enough.

On 27 December 2009, we marched onto the streets, once more hoping to demand our most basic rights: freedom, justice, democracy and human rights. Our peaceful march was turned bloody by a pack of hoodlums and goons who seem to be calling all the shots in Iran at the moment.

More than a year since that day—415 days to be precise—went by without any major street protests. The so-called “Iran experts,” pundits and naysayers quickly rushed to tell us about the “death” of a movement.

Yet yesterday’s events were a stark reminder that streets protests are not the only means by which the Green Movement will choose to express itself. The movement’s social networks, its rich social capital, and its sophisticated system of communication are still fully intact and have expanded rapidly. A new phase in our struggle has surely begun.

Alive, is what we are.