Iran: Text of Mousavi Statement to Basiji (25 November)

Translation by Khordaad 88:

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

5th of Azar (26 November) is the anniversary of creation of "Basij of the Poor" by Imam Khomeini. This anniversary is an opportunity to have a second look at this influential institution in the history of the Islamic revolution: What was the Basij? What is it now? and what should it be? What force created the Basij, and gave it a name and recognition? What made it a hero of all the different tastes and inclinations [of different classes] in a period of the modern history of this land?

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That glorious history and great success known as Basij was not achieved through extensive budgets, and expensive weapons. It was not excellent institutionalized organization techniques that made the Basij as glorious as a tale of magnificent proportions. It was not military power that formed Basij. Instead, it was deep and pure intentions that created this high tower and nurtured role models whose names are remembered as if they were loyal friends of the prophet.

In addition, in the history of the revolution, Basij is the symbol and centerpiece of courage and persistence of our nation. Thirty years ago, Imam created "Basij of the Poor" to stand against probable military assault of superpowers. This act was the most influential step taken to prevent any such attacks. In the past three three decades, powers great and small carried the most destructive of weapons. The only thing that stopped them from assaulting our soil or made them regret their assault was that they had seen the courage of the people who were not afraid of the strength of the powerful. They had seen people who did not stop at anything to defend their rights and ideals. Basij was a window through which this aspect of our nation was displayed.

Basij was a manifestation of the union of [social] layers and different appetites among our people. When our caring father [Imam Khomeini] was planting this tree, he said: “A country that has 20 million youth, must have 20 million Basij members.” How could have this been achieved if Basij belonged to only one mode of thinking, one group or one class? What he meant by the 20 million army was the color and capacity that could represent if not all, at least a big majority of the colors that exist in our society; something like the flags of prince of martyrs, [third Imam of Shiite] that is yearly raised everywhere throughout our country, and all of our social layers even some of the religious minorities gather around it.

If Basij has turned into one of our nation’s greatest achievements, it was because of attention to such secrets. Otherwise, a name [Basij] can not by itself achieve such almost artistic relics of greatness: The art of changing normal people to an army who relies on God, the art of resisting and winning [the war] empty handed and the art of becoming the source and axis for the union and for the pride of a nation.
Today too, it’s the same story. It is not orders of labels and symbols, words and appearances, neither is it types of discourse and accents nor sentences or magic that creates such schools [Basij or purposeful togetherness] of love, and great humans. All the Basijis, whether known or nameless, who are the pride of faith and land, did not become heroes because of their words. They were tested. Of course, there is not one person in this world who is not tested with choosing right from wrong.

“Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, ‘We believe’, and that they will not be tested?"

“We did test those before them, and Allah will certainly know those who are true from those who are false”

The time has reached for the inheritors of Bagheris and Bakeris [high-ranking Revolutionary Guard military commanders killed in the Iraq-Iran War]. A new generation who are called Basijis and are in the middle of the darkest suspicions and upheaval. Is this new generation similar to those who have fought along The Commander of Faithful in the Battle of Camel [a battle that took place at Basra, Iraq in 656 between forces allied to Ali ibn Abi Talib (First Imam of Shi’ites and the Commander of the Faithful) and forces allied to Aisha (widow of Prophet Muhammad )]? Or are such similarities pointless because those who make them want Basij to be an oppressive machine to hit, capture, hurt and even kill the human beings whom their only sin is asking for justice?

Who knows the answer to such questions? What is the real identity of the institution which is currently called “Basij (Mobilization) of the Oppressed”? Is this an erratic institution that closes its eyes and breaks the arms and legs of its brothers and sisters when they are ordered to do so? Or is it an institution with the deepest insight that can distinguish the right way from wrong way in the darkest nights of upheaval. The night of upheaval is like a days for those who have doubts in their answers to these questions.

“Whenever you are faced with Fitna (Upheavals) like parts of a dark night, Quran is yours [to get refuge and find your way]”.

Hear the response of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) to all these doubts that when upheavals gets into you like parts of a dark night you have to look through Quran! Quran is an intercessor that its intercession is always accepted, and if it becomes a witness against anyone its testimony is accepted. A book that will lead to paradise anyone who considers it as a leader and will drive to hell anyone who goes against it. A book that guides to the best of ways. Quran is a book that clearly and explicitly orders us to be with the truthful.

“O you who believe, fear Allah and be with the truthful”

However, if the truthful were known, the night of upheaval would have ended. On the other hand it is clear that the truthful never lies. Those who lie in their most important political campaign are certainly not truthful. God-consciousness is not their companion and faith is not compatible with them. Haven’t you heard lies in the past months?

“O you who believe, fear Allah and be with the truthful”

What was the Basji, what will be, and what is to be done?

The Basji that the Imam wanted would not stand against the nation, but would stand behind them and with them. A Basji whose actions would go beyond political factions and its broad shoulders would protect all, a Basji that would enjoy the friendship of the people, a Basji that would be seeking people’s friendship and unity. A Basji that would overlook the differences of opinion and protect the life and liberty of the masses, that would see them all as brothers or one in creation. A Basji that would protect the privacy of people. Imam did not want the Basji as a tool of authority, but a place for people to project their own power, a place that would allow them to have a part in their own future. It was supposed to be that the actions and behavior of the Basji would be an example to the people, not to have the power of the Basji crush the people. The Basji was not supposed to be on the government payroll and was not supposed to receive bonuses for arresting people for participating in demonstrations. It is a sad day if the Basji becomes just another political party. This is not what the Imam wanted for the Basjiis. The Basji was not supposed to be an instrument to take away people’s freedom in their votes.

My Basjii brothers! What where the faults or flaws in Imam [Khomeini]’s aspirations for Basij that you have abandoned them? Why should you ruin the image created based on the efforts of those before you? You are from the people and with the people. Why do the concepts that our people favour based on their nature, cause such hatred among our Basiji friends? What is bad about freedom? Why talking about freedom causes so much disgust in the heart of some our Basiji friends as if freedom is a unforgivable sin? We know that many of our cities’ major crossroads are called freedom. Don’t we say that subjects like human rights, women rights, minorities rights, and as such are exploited by great powers to hypocritically associate themselves with these concepts and demonstrate a good face?

So why should those, who are the main and noble owners of such values and ideals, distance themselves from them? Do they want their school of thought to look detestable? Why do you ban these concepts and consider them as criteria for being non-religious? Religion is like a favourite flower bestowed upon people. Its teachings are moderate and in agreement with people ‘s nature. Don’t turn it in to a torn bush, that everyone who touches it gets harmed, like what our youth experience [nowadays] in the streets.

Thirty years ago Basij came to existence just like a flower and a blast of light. If one desires to return to that luminous original era, does that mean he has turned his back on the [Islamic] Revolution and intends to turn over the system? Isn’t it a call to justice if one requests to return to the original version of Islamic revolution? If one demands the pure Islam of Mohammad, the one that Imam [Khomeini] was its mouthpiece and referral; if one expresses distaste toward superstitious and superficiality, which is sold to people in the name of religion; if one follows all the articles of the constitution; if one asks for the loyalty to the vows made based on belief and humanity? Is it legitimate to smack such people in the streets, to torture them in the jails, to sentence them to long terms in prison? Do Islam and Koran teachings allow killing of the people who peacefully ask their rulers to be just?

“And they kill the people who asked them to be just. So warn them of a severe punishment."

What was [the essence of] Basij before and what will it turn into if it continues on the road laid for it? The force that once represented the courage of our nation is now used to terrorize Iranians? It is evident that the newest and the latest strategy adopted by the authoritarian minority is to create fear in people. They wear terrifying apparel and gather in military formations in the city streets to frighten their countrymen? They terrorize people because they themselves are terrified? Or they convict the sons of this revolution to 7 , 10 and 15 years in prison to console themselves? And they don’t realize how they are jeopardizing the national security with these short-sighted behaviors?

It is sufficient for great powers to see [our] people frightened to harass our nation. To see our people’s courage undermined and their strength and their endurance uncertain to believe their dreams of the last 30 years [against our nation] are coming true. Look at our two neighboring countries that are occupied by foreign forces. In both countries they attempted to terrify people and people were terrified. On the surface the [great] powers stepped into these countries with the promise to set them free. But they did not hide their greed in [seeing] horrified faces of people when they established places like Abu Ghraib. They told people of these two countries with outmost clarity that you are the people who were scared of Saddam and Taliban; now it is justified to be more scared of our terrorizing weaponry. Even the radical terrorists still savagely kill these people hoping they can rule them based on their fear as the bloodthirsty [dictators] did before them . The victims of the brutalities of Saddam and Taliban are still paying for their lack of courage. But our nation owes its security and peace to courage and strength shown in the last thirty years.

Now some people in the country want to take this [social] capital away from us. [Our] people are either not frightened by their displays --- which they are not and they will take away this last weapon away from them --- or they will be scared. In that case will these war toys keep this country intact?

In our contemporary history Basij was not just a name , it was a conduct that we will always need. [This is true] to the extent that if those responsible for Basij forget their duties and assignments we need to carry them out ourselves. It is a necessity, even more important than the goals of our movement , that forces us not to let anyone show greed in our fear.

And we should know, there is no color beyond black. [Creating] fear is their last effort. Your opponents made a mistake and used what they had as the last resort against your peaceful strength. The true solutions to their [quandaries] are yourselves. The day you ask your opponents: “are the colorful flags you carry in the support of implementing the full constitution?” and they answered yes, welcome them. That day we will all be Green.

Mir Hossein Mousavi

The Latest from Iran (25 November): Larijani Talks Tough

2030 GMT: El Baradei's Clues. Want to know the state of the nuclear talks with Iran? The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammad El Baradei, offers all the necessary hints in an interview with Reuters.

1. Iran's "swap" proposal, exchanging 20% enriched uranium for Iranian 3.5% stock inside the country, is not acceptable. "They are ready to put material under IAEA control on an (Iranian) island in the Persian Gulf. But the whole idea as I explained to them, to defuse this crisis, is to take the material out of Iran. I do not think (Iran's counter-proposal) will work as far as the West is concerned."

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To back his line, El Baradei is playing up uncertainty over the state of Iran's nuclear plans, pivoting on the controversy over the second enrichment plant at Fordoo: "You cannot really use it for civilian purposes. It's too small to produce fuel for a civilian reactor." So while the IAEA has "no indication that there are other undeclared facilities in Iran" or "any information that such facilities exist", Fordoo's existence raises questions about a wider Iranian programme --- questions that El Baradei can use (or create) to push back the "swap" initiative.

Iranian state media has already reacted: "IAEA fails to address Iran nuclear swap concerns". But this pretty much puts an end to Tehran's offer: if El Baradei won't back it, then it's almost certain none of the "5+1" powers will be offering any support.

2. But the talks are still very much alive, resting on a "third-party enrichment" arrangement. The plan would be one in which the IAEA would "take custody and control of the material. We've offered also to have the material in Turkey, a country which has the trust of all the parties.... I am open (to Iranian amendments) if they have any additional guarantees that do not involve keeping the material in Iran."

3. So, for now, El Baradei does not see a move to aggressive sanctions: UN resolutions are mainly "expressions of frustration".

Summary? Ball's in your court, President Ahmadinejad (and Supreme Leader Khamenei). Don't knock it back --- take a modified "third-party enrichment" offer and everyone will be happy.

1955 GMT: The Khatami and Mousavi Statements. Former President Mohammad Khatami has also issued a statement for Basiji week. He used the occasion to criticise both the specific oppression of dissenters --- "These days, honest and truthful people are being oppressed and worse than that all these are being done in the name of Islam and the revolution" --- and the general mismanagement of the Government --- "An unbiased view is that all areas of industry, agriculture, foreign affairs and different managements are in bad shape and all indexes have decline and the country has fallen behind." He continued to emphasise the hope for "a change in the country’s atmosphere" through an adherence to the Constitution".

And to summarise the Mousavi statement (see 1610 GMT): "What shaped Basij in the beginning of the revolution was pure ideas not weapons and military power that raised it to high statures....The goal of Imam Khomeini in creating Basij was to include all or at least a significant majority of the public by not belonging to a particular idea."

Now, however, the Basij "take orders with closed eyes and break tthe arms and legs of their religious brothers and sisters". They need to recognise that those who use lies as "their main political tactic...Following these people is not the righteous path."

At the end of the statement, Mousavi seizes the nationalist mantle and turns the charge of "foreign intervention" against the regime: If terrorising people succeeds, "the country will fall into the hands of foreign invaders".

1905 GMT: Here is Why There Won't Be Tough Sanctions. "The Chinese refiner Sinopec has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company to invest $6.5 billion for building oil refineries in Iran. It is predicted that the two sides will close the deal in the next two months."

1850 GMT: Iranians' Civil Rights Violated (outside Iran). Forgive me for finding this story ironic as wel as serious: "An Iranian NGO (non-government organisation RahPouyan-e-DadGostar) is in the process of logging a legal complaint against the US over its violation of the rights of Iranian detainees."

Without dwelling on the case of Kian Tajbakhsh, the Iranian-American recently jailed for 15 years after a televised "confession" over his supposed role in velvet revolution, I'll note the possible significance that several of the 11 Iranians listed in the report have been connected to possible Israeli and/or US plots to abduct individuals connected with Iran's nuclear programme.

1840 GMT: A month after Iran's Ministry of Education announced a plan to permanently assign a member of the clergy to each school to “fulfill the cultural needs” of students, a religious official has stated that management of Iranian public schools is being transferred to seminaries. Ali Zolelm, the head of the Council of Cooperation between Ministry of Education and the seminaries, saying that seminars have already taken over school management in several provinces and the city of Qom.

1740 GMT: Larijani Keeps Up the Pressure. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, speaking in Tehran, has launched another assault on Iran's nuclear talks with the US, claiming that Washington wanted to deceive the Iranian Government:

Analyzing the U.S. (role) in the nuclear issue shows that there was a trickery in this (deal) proposal (brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency). They (Americans) thought that, using a kind of rhetoric, they can cheat politically," Larijani said addressing a gathering in Tehran, without specifying how the United States has tried to cheat Iran.

1610 GMT: Why Mousavi's Statement (see 1345 GMT) is Significant. An EA correspondent drops by:

Mousavi's latest communique isn't worth noting for its content --- it is a rather stale critique of current basij actions and dubious nostalgic take on the "good old days" of his premiership, when political repression was far higher than now.

What is remarkable is the coordination between Mousavi and Ayatollah Khomeini's bay foundation, run by his nephew Hassan. Mousavi's thoughts regarding the old vs new basij are almost identical to a similar article which appeared yesterday on the Jamaran website, run by the foundation. [Note: Mousavi's latest Internet interview was with Jamaran. -- SL]

This is yet another indicator that Khomeini's family have more than ever thrown their weight behind the reformists, no doubt a significant support in a clannish political system where familial ties are still a key yardstick of political interaction.

1345 GMT: Mousavi and the Basiji Celebrations. Mir Hossein Mousavi has used the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Basiji movement to address the militia in his Statement No. 15. We're looking for an English translation.

1135 GMT: An Outstretched Hand (But You're Still Losers). The Supreme Leader said Wednesday in a televised speech, "Those who are deceived by a smile or applause by the enemy and try to confront the establishment and constitution should know that their efforts are futile."

Ayatollah Khamenei, backing President Ahmadinejad, said the opposition should not be branded as "hypocrites...just because they do not say what we say".

1130 GMT: Inspired by Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir Persepolis, activists have published a Web update on the June election and the protests up to 21 June. All the drawings are from the original memoir except for one --- on the role of Twitter in the demonstrations.

1040 GMT: Trashing Neda. The commander of the Basiji militia, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, has marked this week's celebrations of his organisation by headlining the "real" story on the killing of Neda Agha Soltan. A "person from America" shot Neda as part of a plot in which the Iranian regime would be blamed for her death.

0930 GMT: The reformist website Rooz Online has published an English-language version of the speech of MP Ali Reza Zakani to which we have paid great attention. The summary is still garbled in places but it seems clear from this version that Zakani's primary targets, are not President Ahmadinejad and his inner circle but Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, and those ministries like Interior and Intelligence whom Ahmadinejad has seen as post-election obstacles.

Specifically, I now think Zakani's references to the eve-of-election polls that indicated a close race between Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi are not, as I first misread (and as Rooz now misreads in its headline), an attack on the President's legitimacy. Instead, they put blame at the feet of Iranian ministries (and implicitly Larijani) who spread the polls and thus fed the notion of electoral "fraud" after Ahmadinejad's victory.

0825 GMT: The New York Times reveals that President Obama, on the eve of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Latin America, wrote a three-page letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Obama signalled his hope that Da Silva would back the US-led Vienna proposal for "third-party enrichment" of Iran's uranium.

More significant than the letter or indeed Da Silva's public response, balancing support for international efforts with a declaration of faith in Iran's "peaceful" programme is the leaking of the news by two Administration officials. This indicates that Washington still considered the discussion with Tehran "live", including Iran's tabling of its still-private response to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

0730 GMT: We've begun this morning by posting a video from Iranian students to international colleagues and a response to a reader's question, "Why do we keep analysing this dysfunctional Government?"

Of course, President Ahmadinejad is not admitting to dysfunction. Instead he is offering the globe-trotting sign that All is Well. After his visits to Gambia and Brazil yesterday, he had a stop-over in Bolivia, where he got a warm reception from a small group of Bolivian Muslims and a show of support for Iran's nuclear position and praise of Iranian-Bolivian links from President Evo Morales. Then it was off to Venezuela and another meeting with Hugo Chavez, a firm back of the Tehran Government.

And, in a signal of hyper-engagement, Iran has revived its application for membership of the World Trade Organization, sending a summary of its commerce policies to the WTO.

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2035 GMT: An advance copy of Michael Slackman's article on Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, published in Sunday's New York Times, is on-line.

2030 GMT: An Iranian activist is offering a running summary of the Government's crackdown on students through arrests and detentions as well as disciplinary action by Universities.

1840 GMT: A Mousavi Trial? Mohammad Nabi Habibi, Secretary-General of the conservative Islamic Coalition Party, has demanded that Mir Hossein Mousavi be prosecuted for claiming that the Presidential election was rigged, "I believe both Mousavi and all those who propagated this big lie must face trial in a court of law."

1810 GMT: We've posted the video and Engish text of Mir Hossein Mousavi's interview with Kalemeh (see 1550 GMT for summary).

1600 GMT: Magically Appearing Crowd. We opened this morning (0745 GMT) with photographic confirmation of the disappointing crowd at President Ahmadinejad's Thursday speech in Tabriz. Kayhan, the firmly pro-Government newspaper, has published pictures, but suddenly the empty bleachers are filled with people.

No one around here is saying Photoshop. Really.

1550 GMT: 1st summary of Mousavi Interview....

People should know what the government has done with $200 billion of oil revenues in the last two years. The Majlis [Parliament] should be criticized for not controlling and overseeing Government expenditures. It is not possible to have consumer prices based on international market prices and wages based on national standards and remove subsidies.

The scope of deployment of forces on the streets on #13Aban was unprecedented. When I walked out of my office on 13 Aban [4 November demonstrations] and saw the number of forces deployed, I thought this in itself is a victory for the Green movement. [Mousavi was under effective detention throughout the day, surrounded in his offices by pro-Government activists.]

1520 GMT: Copies of Mir Hossein Mousavi's interview with Kalemeh are now circulating. We'll have a summary within an hour.

1210 GMT: Today's Media Nonsense. David Frum, the Bush speechwriter who claims to have given the world the phrase "Axis of Evil", wields an aggressive pen in Canada's National Post over "Tehran's Last Chance".

Frum begins by misunderstanding the dynamics of the current negotiations over uranium enrichment. That's OK, his forte is words rather than any comprehension of politics. But then he goes overboard with his Sketch of Doom: The Iranians could not make their message clearer if they had sent a crayoned letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency: 'We're building a bomb--and you don't dare stop us. Boom boom, suckers.'"

And the solution? Just a few missiles from Tel Aviv: "Once again --- as with the Israeli strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, and the Israeli strike at Syria's nuclear reactor in 2007 --- the peace of the region and possibly the world will depend on Israeli strength and courage."

0940 GMT: A Bit More on the Iran-Turkey "Big Push". Yesterday we paid a great deal of attention to the Turkish Foreign Minister's visit to President Ahmadinejad in Tabriz, linking it to Tehran's counter-proposal for an uranium enrichment agreement. Mr Smith noted the pay-off of the Nabucco gas pipeline deal, which would link Turkey and Iran in one of the biggest projects of the 21st century.

Today's Press TV story: "More support for Iran to join Nabucco"

0930 GMT: Nukes, Nukes, Nukes. President Ahmadinejad, pushing for the deal that will shore up his legitimacy, followed up his Thursday address in Tabriz with a nationally-televised speech on Friday night. He embraced more talks with the "West" while contining the theme of negotiating from strength:

Today, the only tool in the hands of [our] enemies is to wage a psychological war and raise the hue and cry; but they know well that threats will have no impact on the Iranian nation....The resistance of the Iranian nation has repelled threats against Tehran.

The Iranian nation welcomes talks and interaction and presses any hand extended for cooperation. But if its dignity and rights are not respected, the nation will not give up its rights.

0900 GMT: A well-placed EA source gives us an exclusive:

This week is the Week of Basij [militia]. What is interesting is that General Naqdi, the new Basij commender, and his companions went to Imam Khomeini's shrine, but Seyed Hassan Khomeini [the Imam's grandson] did not show up to welcome them.

Seyyed Hassan did not welcome Ahmadinejad, his Cabinet, or the head of police, but when Hashemi Rafsanjani visited the Shrine he warmly greeted him. This is could be why Ayatollah Khamenei invited Seyyed Hassan to see him on Thursday "to give him some advice".

0815 GMT: Former Minister of Culture Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi, who was dismissed by the President in the controversy over the choice of First Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has criticised Ahmadinejad in Ayande News. He claims that the President is arrogant, too easily trusts people such as Mashai, and does not accept advice.

0810 GMT: More Rumblings from Parliament. Ahmad Tavakoli, the high-profile member of Parliament and ally of the Larijanis, has declared that Ahmadinejad’s demands from the Parliament are illegal. He warned that if those demands were accepted, this would lead to the closure of a Parliament which was failing to function.

0755 GMT: Salaam News has a lengthy interview with Hossein Marashi, who is close to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. What is interesting, beyond the clear disappointment with the Iranian system accompanied by the declaration that Rafsanjani "more than anyone else" is loyal to that system and its leadership, is Marashi's attention to the "reformists" and the Green Wave. While emphasizing that "public anger is serious", he is equally emphatic about the need for "communities of leadership" for the movement.

(Note: given what I think is a significant interview and our attention to the development and future of the opposition, I would be grateful for any comments and further translation of key sentences of this article.)

0745 GMT: Catching up with bits and pieces. An EA reader finally gave us the visuals we wanted on the crowd for Ahmadinejad's Thursday speech in Tabriz.

Picture 1 is from the Presidential campaign; pictures 2 and  3 are from Thursday.

Iran's New 13 Aban: An Eyewitness Account "I Have Never Seen as Much Violence"

Iran’s New 13 Aban: A First-Hand Account from the Streets
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The Latest from Iran (6 November): The Day After The Day After

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From Persian Umpire (compare with the account offered by EA's Mr Azadi yesterday):

A strange sentiment crept in me today. A man in his late fifties was beaten by a group of people a meter away from me, and I enjoyed it. While I neither had the urge to join in, nor the time to think about it, the delight I took in seeing this man’s fearful face pushed me to encourage his assailants. I am glad I didn’t. In the mayhem, as he was begging them to stop, and kept yelling “why are you beating me?” I only thought to myself “you must be kidding”. He was a member of the Basij.

I had never seen as much violence perpetrated before me in one day. If another day compares to 13 Aban, it would be the 30th of Khordad, the day after Khamenei gave his gangsters the green light to show no merci to Iranians. 13 Aban was worse, maybe because I stayed on longer, or maybe because it was worse indeed. I had not seen so many security forces concentrated in one area before either. I covered 7-Tir Square, Karim Khan Avenue, Vali-Asr Square and the surrounding area today. Thousands of greens showed, mostly without green signs, and were met with thousands of simians, to whom if one grants the label Homo, their qualifications would not allow them to go any higher than Erectus.



The ape forces had one goal in mind, which was to prevent any crowd from forming. Their strategy: indiscriminate violence. At about 10:30 in the morning, before getting to Vali-Asr Square, we passed by the Beheshti metro station. A group of ten anti-riot IRGC members in camouflage uniforms and wielding batons suddenly rushed the station gate, frightening people who were exiting to flee inside. About seven or eight of the security men ran in while the others shut and held the gates behind them. After that, you could only hear the sounds of screams and thuds. Maybe some greens were among them, maybe not. One was carrying a shopping bag.

Something we have learned in the protests is that when the apes charge, you should avoid running, get on the sidewalk close to shop windows and keep walking, or just stand against the walls. They would normally go past you in pursuit of those who run. Today, the apes would get on the sidewalks on bikes, hold out their batons against the walls and drive on. If they were without bikes, they just ran through and waved their clubs, sticks, or chains. It didn’t matter who or what it hit.

I won’t give a moment-by-moment account of the day. Most of it was an uninterrupted sequence of severe beatings, bruises and blood, from which I remember snapshots. I also remember hearing gunshots on a couple of occasions. Arrests seemed to be indiscriminate as well. We saw Basij members picking on the young randomly, forcing them on their knees, handcuffing and blindfolding them, and then taking them away.

On Vali-Asr Avenue, north of the square, a policeman was shouting insults at an old man for having shown up to the demonstration. A young boy went over to the policeman and handed him a flower, to which his response was to slap the boy and throw him on the sidewalk. The boy picked himself up and left.

In the mayhem, we saw security and Basij forces get beaten up or hit by rocks also. On Karim Khan Avenue close to Vali-Asr Square, an eighteen or nineteen-year-old Basiji, wielding a rubber belt, started chasing a man on the street next to the sidewalk. The man was big and the Basiji was short, chubby, and his beard had barely sprouted. For the first time I saw a technique I’ve read about but difficult to perform, in action. Mid chase, the man suddenly stopped dead, turned around, grabbed the Basiji who was stunned, and slammed him against the side of a car. It took him a few seconds to get up. When he saw a group of people who were now rushing him, he ran, but they got to him and started pummeling him. At this moment, a fifty-something-year-old Basiji with short white hair, the man I mentioned above, appeared from behind a bus and ran toward the scuffle, with the same kind of strap in his hand, attempting to beat and scare the others to get the other Basiji out. Another group of people appeared and charged him. He fell to the ground a meter away from me and started receiving kicks and punches. This is when a group of Basiji apes arrived at the scene, surrounded the two other apes and dragged them away.

Later on, at 7-Tir Square, a Basiji, an older man again, was holding his head and was bleeding profusely. Another was propping him up and helping him cross the square to where their camp was set up.

The demonstration never took the magnitude and concentration of Qods Day. It was never allowed. Everyone was fleeing from the security forces, regrouping in the side streets, or recovering from tear gas and beatings. The largest group of people I saw walking on Karim Khan and chanting anti-government slogans reached two or three hundred people at best. There were pro-government demonstrators who appeared from time to time, with loudspeakers and chanting. The largest of those were a few hundred people. I remember one of their new slogans: “Death to the velvet dictator.” Whatever that means.

Before I go and crash, as I am beat, grimy, and tired, let me tie in 13 Aban with Rafsanjani’s Super Duper Plan. Since its inception and the supposed detente between Rafsanjani and Khamenei, the plan has been viewed by many in Iran as false hope and a ruse by the Supreme Leader to buy time and create diversion at best. 13 Aban was another promise broken, another U-turn, another glimmer of hope faded. We are facing a regime in which reform has no practical representative. Neither the leaders of the green movement, nor Rafsanjani or the Marjas, have managed to get meaningful concessions from the Supreme Leader. What I keep hearing is, “What are they going to say now? More of the same?” 13 Aban has left us no doubt about Khamenei’s desire to utterly crush the opposition. Many in Iran view him as a man who does not negotiate, and the perpetrator of all that has happened since the elections.

Something is abuzz in the air in Tehran tonight. It is angry talk about meeting violence with violence. Patience is running out and I am now hearing about switching to the same language as the opponents. How viable that is, or whether we will go down that road will be determined in the future, but 1979 is before our eyes. Take away hope and it won’t be long before reform will give way to overhaul. So far, some are wondering whether reforms have hit a dead end. “Reconciliation” is a funny word now. Maybe it is just a reaction to a brutal day on the streets, or an existential phase, inevitable after six months of going in circles. But one thing is clear. Early on, the movement’s demand was taking back the votes. Today, it is stomping on the Leader for an “Iranian Republic”. He may succeed in crushing the opposition, but may someone save his soul if he fails.