Iran: How Outside "Help" Can Hurt the Green Movement

Josh Shahryar writes for EA:

Today 36 members of Iran's Parliament tabled a bill ensuring that anyone designated by the courts as a "combatant" be executed within five days. The bill seeks to amend an existing law that states that anyone who "tampers" with public opinion, a clause used mainly these days to indicate calling for protests or joining them, can be designated as a combatant. Iranian protesters are being accused of treason and for attempting to stage a "velvet revolution" even when all they are demanding is the rights granted to them by the Constitution.

While observers inside and outside Iran may be baffled by the claims of such a revolution, the Iranian government has some cause. There may be no facts for a foreign-instigated regime change; however, some outsiide the country --- both "foregin" and Iranian --- may give the regime the pretext to prosecute peaceful protesters.
A current case surrounds Amir Abbas Fakhravar, a US-based Iranian student activist – who has lately been making the rounds in the Western media as one of the supposed insiders of the Green movement. I do not wish to doubt his story of how he was arrested multiple times in Iran, nor do I wish to question his credentials as a bona fide activist fighting for human rights in Iran or his status as a student leader. My concern is that the statements he is making may hurt the Green movement’s cause in Iran, spreading disinformation and ignoring key facts.

Consider his statement in 2007 to the website WorldNetDaily:

Noting 72 percent of Iranians are under 30 years of age, Fakhravar contends many young people are prepared to join the opposition. “We have the ability inside,” he said. “This is the silent army inside Iran, and we need the media to encourage them. American policy should trust us. We could do it.”

His most recent article, published in the New York Daily News, is more of the same:

Months before the 2009 presidential elections, they decided to use the mullahs’ own tactics against them – and to seize and own all of the icons of the Islamic Republic and give them a new identity….So when there was massive fraud in Ahmadinejad’s reelection, the people were ready.

The planning of all those years planted the seeds; the brutality provided the spark. The Green Movement finally gained a complete identity with powerful symbols – even with its own martyrs.

If you haven’t followed the news from Iran, these statements don’t really stand out as dangerous. But they are fuel for the inferno that the Iranian regime is stoking for the Green Movement.

Consider the 2007 assertion of "silent army" from 2007. There is little evidence to suggest that three years ago, Iranians were readying to take to the streets. On the other hand, such an assertion allows the Islamic regime to detain people for supposedly planning protests for two years. An unsupported claim can be conclusive evidence for this regime.

The second statement is even more damning. So month before the election, people were ready to take to streets. For what exactly? The protests did not start as a backlash against the oppression of the regime, but because of perceived fraud in the election. How could one know in December 2008 that the results would be manipulated and thus plan for millions to march to overthrow a regime?

In the New York Daily News article, Fakhravar gives further credence to the government’s claims of a "velvet revolution" against the regime.

What we are witnessing on the streets of Tehran and other cities is nothing short of a revolution –-- a carefully orchestrated, years-in-the-making attempt to overthrow a corrupt and repressive regime and replace it with something fundamentally more free, democratic and secular.

So, yes, there is a "velvet revolution", according to Fakhravar. As Mir Hossein Mousavi continues to hold out that this is not an overthrow of the Islamic Republic, Fakhravar claims exactly that. (The course of events may transform this movement into a revolution, but at the moment, it is a demand for reform. Wishful thinking is not going to alter that.) How can we blame the Revolutionary Guard for claiming that Iran faces "regime change" in the face of this publicity?

And so the supposed "velvet revolution" takes over the public stage. The Washington Times writes:

Amir Abbas Fakhravar, 35, a former student leader who spent several years in prison in Iran and now lives in the Washington area, said contacts are taking place on Facebook and Skype and that activists plan to create a “revolutionary council” of about 15 people inside and outside Iran to lead the “Iranian Green Revolution.”

And here’s an interview from FrontPage Magazine:

FP: So where does the leadership come from?

Fakhravar: This movement doesn’t have a leader, but things like Facebook help. We use social media to help organize events inside Iran. For instance, we are planning a demonstration in February to coincide with the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Earlier this year, I was giving a speech before Congress and I said, “Iranians don’t want a war. All we need are cell phones, cameras and computers.” Some of the Senators laughed at that. But it has happened. We are close to a cyber revolution in Iran.

The first important point is, whether the West likes it or not, Mir Hossein Mousavi and to a large extent Mehdi Karroubi are the leaders of the Green Movement. Yes, I agree completely that these men have a dirty past. I also agree that under them, it would be almost impossible to ask for a completely secular society, but too bad. That’s just what it is.

Fakhravar’s opinion does not change the fact that when Mousavi or Karroubi join the protests, they are welcomed like leaders. Neither does it change the fact that people openly chant Karroubi and Mousavi’s names during protests even when they are not present. And it does not explain green graffiti exalting Mousavi and Karroubi on Tehran’s walls.

As for a revolution by Facebook, most social networking websites are banned in Iran. Their usage inside Iran is extremely limited and only possible through the use of anti-internet filtering software. It is not realistic to expect hundreds of thousands of people to come out on the streets simply because Iranians abroad are posting information for them on websites that they cannot even access. The "Twitter Revolution" may mean that social networking media can be used by people to quickly inform each other of news, but it is not currently a tool to organise demonstrations. That is one reason why protests are planned weeks in advance.

I have no wish or desire to question Mr. Fakhravar’s credentials or his intentions, but his statements about the Green Movement are, at the least, inaccurate, and he does not seem to know or acknowledge important facts about the current situation in Iran.

While the second error can be neglected, the first will be used by the Iranian regime to persecute peaceful protesters by the Iranian regime. If people like Fakhravar really care for human rights and democracy, they would spend some time studying what is going on inside Iran and then make informed and undamaging statements.

Iranians are already facing enough peril. Let’s not make it harder on them.