Iran Document: Karroubi Statement on 22 Bahman & The Way Forward (22 February)

From Khordaad 88:

I deeply appreciate the huge turnout on the rally for the 22nd of Bahman [11 February, the 1979 anniversary of the Islamic Revolution] despite all the security pressure and the restrained political atmosphere. The ceremonies this year were held at a time when all political factions, prominent figures, and Grand Ayatollahs had invited people to participate in the hopes of moving toward a resolution to the current crisis. Nevertheless, the brutal totalitarian forces are using state-run television, as well as official and unofficial media outlets to hijack the rallies, to present them as a show of their own supporters while unethically ignoring the brutalities and violence that occurred on the sidelines as well as the extreme security measures that were in place that day, thus offering an impression completely opposite to what had actually happened.


Those responsible for these brutalities want to use the rallies that would not have been possible without the widespread presence of the supporters of reformists and conservatives alike, to clear their record of [illegal] arrests, tortures, street killings and other crimes. They want to conceal their crimes, violence and cruelty with fallacies and misrepresentations.

This year, the police and armed forces had turned the streets of Tehran into a military base during the 22 Bahman rally. They severely attacked and silenced anyone who showed the slightest sign of nonconformity. Interestingly enough, not a single scene showing the presence of all those forces, their assaults with teargas, or their beatings was reflected in the domestic media! It seems as if their eyes were covered with a veil of [their] wrongdoings. How else could they think that they have succeeded in erasing the people’s collective memory and totally appropriating this national and religious ceremony for their own benefit, so they can continue “depriving people of their most essential rights”? This is notwithstanding the fact that were it not for the invitations of various political groups as well as the people’s [active] participation, 22 Bahman would have turned out to be an unenthusiastic rally of armed and paramilitary forces. Moreover, they would have had no opportunity for this political exploitation.

We all know that your participation in the 22 Bahman rally was not in support of the repressive policies that have taken so many political prisoners but a demonstration of your love of Iran, the Islamic Revolution, and Imam Khomeini. You good people of Iran did not attend the rally celebrating the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution to swear allegiance to those who beat people. My pious countrymen --- you know better than anyone that spilling the blood of the innocent is against your religion and your morals. Did [Imam] Ali (may peace be upon him) fill his prisons to strengthen his government? You, who have created martyrs, [cannot be] satisfied with the secrecy surrounding the crimes committed in Kahrizak, Sobhan Complex, and university dormitories, nor with the disrespect shown to senior religious figures. Your attendance on 22 Bahman is not [proof] of support for such villainy.

Regardless, those who have done their utmost to engineer the rally by utilizing hundreds of trains and buses to bring in supporters must explain why Azadi Square was so empty during the speech despite the use of so many resources and the engagement of police and armed forces. Is it possible to believe that intelligent people of Iran would not know the reason behind the presence of tens of thousands of police and armed forces? Do they think that people have been blind to the pressure being exerted by the police and plain-clothes officers who have used daggers, clubs, and pepper spray on the servants of Iran and the Islamic Republic to stop them from joining the crowd? Do they think that people have not noticed their fear and weakness?

Dear nation, your presence in the rallies of February 11 is beyond analysis unless it is looked at from the perspective of the dichotomy of the two currents organizing against one another. We have two political inclinations in our society. One is an inclination that is afraid of rights to gather in peaceful demonstrations, and rallies according to the Article 27 of the Constitution. It is this fear that motivates them to turn Tehran into a military base on the day of national rallies. This stream is the one that only tolerates its own supporters in rallies, and understands the nation as a set of groups who are advocates and supporters of its commands. It sees the rest of the people, even if the rest of the people constitute a majority, as "dirt and dust".

On the other side there is the other inclination which recognizes you regardless of your variety, colorful range of beliefs, and without favoring one gender, class, culture, or race. This is an inclination that calls people not only to attend the rallies in Azadi Square but also to sit together around the same table and share their freedom.

As such, based on the teachings of Imam Khomeini, I have two suggestions to take away the veil of ignorance that has blinded the sights of totalitarian currents. My first suggestion is that just like Imam Khomeini had asked: “The government should organize a meeting in Tehran in one of the big squares, and allow us to organize a meeting in the deserts close to Qom.” I want to ask for a permit to organize a rally based on the article 27 of the Constitution in one of the squares of Tehran so that we can see the minority and the majority.

We will provide security for the rally ourselves and guarantee that it will be conducted without any slogans directed at the regime. Once and for all, a demonstration free of threats and suppression to show the weight of each group in the society.

The second suggestion: while the authoritarian factions have turned the 22nd Bahman rally into a referendum to endorse their violent and anti-public policies , I propose a referendum based on the article 59 of the Constitution to solve this crisis and end the reign of the Guardian Council.

[The Council's] interfering with the rule of people in the name of supervision has even surpassed [their own definition]. It is these interventions that inhibit holding a free presidential election and forming an independent Guardian Council and parliament. In what sort of independent Parliament are members forced –--out of the fear of guardian council –-- to sign every statement against people who care for this country?

The record of the 10th Presidential election [of 2009] shows that only a referendum can free us from these difficulties. [Only] in presence of an independent Parliament will the principles related to interests of people and their fundamental rights such as freedom of press, fair trial and so on be observed. It is such a parliament, free from the rule of Guardian Council, that will clarify the weight of various political forces in the society not spending millions of dollars in government preparations and forcing a [pro-government ] atmosphere as we saw on 22 Bahman.

Iran: "It's All Over" for the Green Movement?

It is one of the most striking articles to come out of Iran in recent weeks. A journalist for a US newspaper, who has stayed behind when his colleagues have left or been expelled, sits in a kitchen with four Iranian activists:

The opposition supporters nervously smoked cigarettes in the kitchen as loud music blared from the empty living room. A student, a businessman, a writer and an artist had planned a victory party but instead were mourning their defeat.

"It's all over," said the student, a young woman in a sleek black dress. "Our only option is to leave the country."

That is the opening of Thomas Erdbrink's atmosphere piece in The Washington Post this morning, and the bleakness is unrelenting:

"It was impossible to join up with other protesters," the student at the party said as she tried to reconstruct what went wrong. "There were just too many security forces."

She took a puff from her 10th cigarette that evening. "We were all supposed to meet up at the main square where Ahmadinejad would speak. There, we would all bring out green ribbons, to show how many we were," she said.

Instead, she found small pockets of protesters in side alleys, not knowing where to go or what to do. "We ended up with a couple thousand people running from the security forces," she said. "Our movement needs new tactics, but I have no idea what we should do."

After (or before?) the encounter in the kitchen, there are the thoughts of the Iranian blogger:

"I hope they can come up with new strategies, but I have no idea what those should be," said an influential blogger who is a member of an unofficial opposition think tank made up of Web activists. He suggested turning the first anniversary of the disputed June 12 presidential election into a day of protest.

"But I guess the government would just repeat what they do normally: declare each protest illegal and flood the streets with security forces," he said.

"In the end, the street is the only place where we can show how many people we are, but few people are ready to go to prison or get hurt," he said.

During recent demonstrations, he recalled, his friends would call him from their homes and offices while he was running from the police.

"If they are not ready to sacrifice anything, why should I be?" he asked. "My personal strategy out of this mess is to apply for a visa for Canada."

After the inclusion of former journalist Abbas Abdi, "There are moments that one person should say: This is how we will do this, whether you like it or not", Erdbrink returns to the gloom of the kitchen:

At the party, there was consensus on one issue. "Just because our protest failed, that doesn't mean we have lost our anger," the student said. "We have a very simple demand: freedom. But I don't see how we can get it."

So that's that, then? With The Post headline blaring, "Iranian opposition demoralized after failed protests at revolution's anniversary", has the white flag been unfurled?

Hmm....

Erdbrink is a very good journalist, and I don't it is possible to overestimate his tenacity in trying to report from Iran when most foreign reporters have deparated the country. That tribute, however, should not stand in the way of critiquing an article which quickly jumps from being an interesting snapshot to posting a once-and-for-all declaration.

A useful start might be another look at that opening paragraph at the failed "victory party". That indicates that Erdbrink's kitchen interview took place on 22 Bahman (11 February).

That was, indeed, a depressing day for many in the Iranian opposition. But I don't think it is a wild claim to suggest that the mood might not be permanent and/or fatal to the movement. In the following nine days, there have been re-assessments and renewed declarations. There has been not only the signal of the meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi but also statements from other reformist groups and activist organisations.

Of course, it would be a jump from analysis to speculation to argue that these numerous but often scattered signs mean that the opposition has regained the momentum of Ashura (27 December). For Erdbrink, however,
all of this can be set aside on the basis of his four depressed partiers, one blogger, and one "political analyst": "The government's strategy might eventually backfire, but for the time being, it has served to justify authorities' dismissal of the opposition as a meaningless band of foreign-backed counterrevolutionary rioters."

Reporting, especially first-hand reporting, is valuable. Sweeping predictions are dangerous. Erdbrink's article is likely to race around the Internet and discussion boards today as the definition of "defeat", but another nine days from now, its declarations will likely be another footnote to this ongoing conflict.

Marathon, not a sprint.

Iran Document: Today's Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting (18 February)

Khordaad 88 provides an English translation of the report on Mousavi's Kalemeh website of today's meeting at Mir Hossein Mousavi's house:

Last night Mehdi Karroubi met with Mir Hossein Mousavi for two hours. They appreciated people’s peaceful demonstration on 11 February (22 Bahman) and criticized those who wanted to use the presence of different sections of the society for their political agenda.

In this meeting, they also criticized the violent extremists in Tehran and other major cities of the country who denied the peaceful demonstration of people by violent means. They made it clear that, for the first time in the last 30 years on the day of the victory of the Revolution, which belongs to every Iranian, the country witnessed a complete militarized situation and an atmosphere of fear. They criticized the attack on the symbols that are a part of the country’s flag and emphasized that this is a sign of weakness in the violent extremists in the Green presence of people.


Karroubi and Mousavi emphasised the need for the execution of all the articles of the Constitution, especially those that are related to the rights of people and are violated or ignored today.

They stressed that the informed presence of people seeking of their rights and their effort to reform the current detour in the Revolution, which has highly damaged the national interest, are very important.

At the end of the meeting Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi mentioned that they will talk to people in this regard very soon, and they will inform people of the matters and the ways to peacefully seek their rights and demands in the near-future.

Iran Analysis: The "Now What" Moment (Farhi)

Farideh Farhi writes for Inter Press Service:

After eight tumultuous months, during which attention from all sides of Iran's political spectrum as well as anxious watchers around the world focused on a series of street clashes between protesters and the government's security forces, an eerie calm has taken hold in Iran.

The government's ability to control the aesthetics of street demonstrations on the occasion of the revolution's 31st anniversary on Feb. 11 has once again confirmed the robust nature of the Iranian state, which used its long experience with government-sponsored demonstrations to stage what it now claims was a decisive "show of unity" involving "50 million" people "to bury the corpse of sedition."

Iran: Another Rethink on Green Opposition (Ansari)
Latest on Iran (18 February): Watching on Many Fronts

This is a significant development insofar as it disabuses policymakers outside Iran, as well as a large number of Iranian exiles, of the fantasy of the impending doom of the Islamic Republic or the belief that substantive change in Iran can or will come quickly.



Yet, despite the government's proclaimed unity, nothing that happened on Feb. 11 suggests that the fundamental cleavages that have rocked Iran in the past few months have been overcome. Indeed, the only message of Feb. 11 is that, by spending a tremendous amount of resources and energy on security, arrests and mobilisation, the government can control the crowds.

Reports from a variety of participants suggest that many supporters of the opposition that has come to be known as the Green Movement did come out, but simply did not know what to do or how to make their presence felt in the streets. In addition, the regime's deployment of abundant numbers of security personnel ensured that anyone who did make his or her presence known was swiftly pulled out of the crowd, led away or arrested.

In other words, the security and intelligence organisations managed the stage so effectively that, despite the attendance of more than 400 foreign journalists and photographers, the presence of the government's supporters
dominated the coverage. This was achieved not only by the massive security presence, but also by limiting the movement of foreign journalists; restricting - and, at times, even preventing - access to the Internet and cellular communications networks; the pre-emptive arrest of suspected protest organisers; and preventing the participation of recognised Green leaders, notably Mir Hussein Mousavi and his spouse Zahra Rahnavard, Mehdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami, through intimidation and pre-meditated mob attacks. The fact that, unlike the protests during Ashura on Dec. 27, no one was killed last week added to the impressiveness of the government's efficiency in controlling the streets, a striking contrast to the eight months that followed the disputed June elections.

But managing the stage and controlling the crowds on any given day are not the same as actually resolving the problems and grievances that have repeatedly brought protesters into the streets. Unless some of these are addressed, the Iranian state will remain on edge, vigilant, and engaged in a permanent crackdown that will effectively undermine the country's economic and regional ambitions.

The fact that some Green Movement activists may now be less inclined to use official holidays to mount their protests - or even be pushed underground --- will make dissent less predictable and thus significantly more difficult to control without the expenditure of even more state resources for the purposes of repression.

It is this dilemma that the Iranian leaders must address in the coming months. Even if it is accepted that the Green Movement is disheartened and the government "victorious," the country's multi-voiced and faction-ridden leadership cannot simply walk away from the events of the past eight months and avoid the "what now" question.

The country, after all, remains the same as before Feb. 11. Iran's political system, with its bickering elites, remains as dysfunctional as ever. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration is still perceived as incompetent even by many of its conservative backers at a time when the government faces the dual challenge of embarking upon what it calls the "economic surgery" of reforming the country's unwieldy subsidy system and thwarting growing foreign pressures to curb the country's nuclear programme.

To be sure, facing simultaneous economic and external challenges is nothing new for the Iranian leadership. During the Iran-Iraq War, the government did precisely that by relying on the post-revolutionary spirit of sacrifice and unity in the face of extreme adversity.

But, as pointed out by the conservative editor of Ayandenews, Fouad Sadeghi, the still-unaddressed internal divisions have turned Iran's dual challenge into a triple one, making overcoming the first two unlikely, if not impossible, without addressing the third.

It must be considered a sign of the raw nerve this conundrum struck that Sadeghi, whose brother was killed in the Iran-Iraq War and who was himself  an active member of Basij militia while studying at the highly politicised Amir Kabir Technical University in the 1990s, was arrested on the very eve of the anniversary celebration, soon after publishing his commentary.

Read rest of article....

Iran: Another Rethink on Green Opposition (Ansari)

Nazenin Ansari writes for Open Democracy:

For the first time in thirty-one years, Iranians across the world and across the political spectrum welcomed the anniversary of the Islamic revolution in 1979 as an opportunity to assert their sovereignty. The result may not have been what most of them wished for, but their expectation was justified in one respect: 11 February 2010 has indeed turned out to be a defining moment for the Islamic Republic and the “green movement”, as well as for the international community.

The manner in which the regime enforced control and the huge cost of its operation confirm that it recognises its failure to command genuine popular support. But the greens too now recognise the limits of their capacity, not least that their dependence on domestic communication-networks to mobilise their supporters makes them vulnerable. As a result they understand that it is time to refocus their efforts: to propose more defined ideas, to articulate ultimate goals, to refine tactics, and to establish other (non-internet-based) means of communication.



In the approach to 11 February, green voices in Iran campaigned hard with the intention of bringing millions of their supporters onto the streets. Some even announced plans to storm the dreaded Evin prison to free political prisoners, and to seize the state’s broadcasting facilities. Their allies abroad disrupted official Iranian engagements and organised demonstrations in major capital cities. The most fervent greens had such high expectations that they genuinely believed that the final victory was in sight.

But while the green movement had been raising its hopes, the Tehran regime was making its plans. It implemented a dual strategy based on incentives and concessions mixed with increased repression and brutality. The results were pitiless but effective. The state’s security forces paralysed the greens’ own plans through mass-arrests of political and civil-society activists and journalists; they summarily executed two young students (but refrained from further executions); sought to divide the opposition, including by allowing some voices of dissent limited access to the media; declared a five-day holiday both to entice Tehran residents to leave town and prepare to transport core supporters and state employees to the official rally; and launched a cyber-war to cut their opponents’ access to the net and independent news-channels.

This stringent approach extended to the day itself. Thousands of security personnel - including masked and plainclothed special units from the Revolutionary Guards - were deployed on the streets; around 300,000 people (the regime’s core supporters among them) were bused to the most strategic points in Tehran and the cordoned-off area where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to speak. The dissident analyst Mohsen Sazegara estimates that the regime spent around $300 million to mount the entire operation. It was martial-law in all but name.

Even then, the opposition managed to launch protests in Tehran and several cities around the country - albeit they fell well short of its stated plans. This suggests that the greens may have reached the limit of their present operational capacity. At the same time, the general disillusion and frustration that generated the movement remains; the state’s economic policies are chaotic; and there are bitter enmities within the ruling elite.

Abroad, a number of leading states have become more vocal in supporting the campaign for rights and freedom in Iran and condemning the regime’s behaviour. The discussions over a new round of United Nations Security Council sanctions, linked to concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme and intentions, are gathering pace. Iranian activists argue that sanctions should be targeted quite precisely at the pockets of the regime and its cronies, and should impose such measures as freezing foreign assets and bank-accounts and imposing travel restrictions.

Some activists go further by demanding that sanctions should be extended to western companies and banks that do business with Iran; among them, technology companies (such as Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson) whose products can be used for surveillance and censorship. These Iranians struggling for change are in desperate need of sophisticated technical assistance of their own in order to operate and protect their communications.

The various groups that compose the green movement are entering a period of stocktaking and reappraisal. The international community seems ready to prove to Iran’s people that it can play the role of a sincere and constructive partner. The Tehran regime continues to regard its own citizens’ aspirations as an existential threat. This is still an emergency.