Iran Feature: How the Civil Rights Movement Challenged the Regime...And Then Made A Mistake (Boroumand)

As one thinks back over the breathtaking events that rocked Iran during the middle of this year, one cannot but recognize that there are mistakes which change the course of history. No doubt the decision of the Iranian civil-rights movement to involve itself in the 2009 elections will count as such a mistake. For if it is true that they failed to help the lesser evil win—and some of them are now paying dearly for this failure—it is no less true that they were instrumental in thwarting the Islamic Republic’s plot to usurp popular legitimacy.

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The Latest from Iran (28 September): Rumbling On

2010 GMT: Rumour of Day. We have listened for days as chatter spread about the killings last week of two Tehran doctors,  Abdolreza Sudbakhsh and Gholamreza Sarabi, by gunmen on motorcycles. 

Iran officials said Dr. Sarabi was killed in revenge over a botched medical case while there were no comments about the case of Dr. Sudbakhsh.

Now Rah-e-Sabz has offered a political link in the case of Dr. Sudbakhsh, who was one of the physicians responsible for inmate health at the Kahrizak detention center, where post-election protesters were abused and killed.

The website claimed that Dr. Sudbakhsh had been ordered by Iranian security officials to give false diagnoses regarding Kahrizak detainees. For example, Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of the campaign manager of conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, was initially said to have died from meningitis. Later it was established --- and confirmed in a parliamentary report --- that he died from beatings at Kahrizak.

We're still cautious but the story has now spread to the pages of The New York Times.

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