I'll admit it. I've been as bad as the news agencies at ignoring Iran this weekend. I heard that things were afoot, that the protests I'd followed so closely this summer, never really gone, were back with a vengeance.
So I logged on to the interwebs to take a look at what I'd missed. It's hard to grab internet at my family's place during Christmas, so I knew I'd be a bit backlogged. But I didn't expect to have missed this much.
Here's a summary of what's been happening, for those who have been too busy with family and holidays to follow the real hope for democracy in central Asia.
Seyyed Ali Mousavi (h/t Scarce)
The big news - like, mind-bogglingly big - is that Seyyed Ali Mousavi (nephew to defeated presidential candidate and reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi) was killed in a protest in the center of Tehran today. This news isn't quite 12 hours old (like I said, backlog), but it remains to be seen what the fallout from the killing will be.
But this has the makings for a perfect storm.
(Credit where credit is due, the first I heard of this was from Andrew Sullivan's outstanding blog at the Atlantic, in a post entitled Why The Martyrdom Of Ali Mousavi Matters)
- First of all, the most obvious point to most Western readers: Ali Mousavi is the nephew of one of the principal figures in the Green movement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi is the man who lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what was widely (and internationally) seen as a clear case of election fraud. - More important, I suspect, is the fact that Ali Mousavi was Seyyed, an acknowledged male descendent of the Prophet. Remember that Iran is an overwhelmingly Shi'a country, and home to over 1/3 of the Shi'a Muslims in the world. The Shi'a tradition attaches special importance to the family of the Prophet. (There's much more I could say on this topic, but my knowlegde is rather limited beyond this point, so I'll simply encourage anyone interested to do their own research on the Seyyed online. - Lastly, this killing occurred on the Iranian national holiday of Ashoura - a day set aside to celebrate the martyrdom of the son of the first Shi'a Imam, a man who was Seyyed himself. I hesitate to say too much about this - I recommend that you visit the two links above to get a better idea of what this holiday means. The short of it, however, is that the martyrdom of Seyyed Ali Mousavi, coming on today of all days, will inevitably evoke deep and abiding comparison to the martyrdom for which the day is commemorated. Both men were killed standing up against what they saw as an unjust regime.Commentators this summer suggested that martyrdom would be what turned the Green movement into a revolution, and the media attention following the death of Neda is, in some ways, a signifier of this. But Seyyed Ali Mousavi is a much bigger deal, and this all comes less than a week after the death (by natural causes) of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri - formerly Iran's most senior cleric. It can be expected that the religious center of Qom will be in turmoil soon, if it isn't already.
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Other than Seyyed Ali Mousavi and Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, most of what's been happening is much like what we saw this summer. (Apologies, but after grabbing all these links and typing for the last hour, I'm getting a bit tired of writing...) Protests in the street - large protests. Shouting from rooftops at night. Violence against the protesters, when they're in small enough groups to be forcibly dispersed. Since I'm going to do a poor job covering details, I'd like to point you to where I get my own news on the subject:
- Andrew Sullivan's page at The Atlantic - EnduringAmerica's coverage - Coverage also at Raw Story (h/t Publius2008) - (Nico Pitney's coverage at HuffPo this summer was really helpful, but HuppPo screws with my browser here and threatens to crash this computer, so I'm not going to try to find a link to what they have going right now)Twitter was a great resource over the summer, but I'm not seeing any trending topics about Iran, so if there's twitter activity, I'm not aware of where to find it right now.
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UPDATE:
Setrak provides a video apparently showing Seyyed Ali lying in the street after being shot. It's not terribly graphic, but if you're squeamish, consider yourself warned nonetheless:
Also, people may be interested in the White House response to today's violence. It's provided below.
We strongly condemn the violent and unjust suppression of civilians in Iran seeking to exercise their universal rights. Hope and history are on the side of those who peacefully seek their universal rights, and so is the United States.
Governing through fear and violence is never just, and as President Obama said in Oslo — it is telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation.
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MORE UPDATES:
Rahesabz.net, an opposition website (again in Farsi) is apparently reporting that protesters and security forces clashed heavily in Isfahan, Babol, Shiraz, and Najafabad (the latter being where Grand Ayatollah Montazeri lived until his death on the 21st). Clashes also in Mashhad and Arak, and unconfirmed reports of casualties in Tabriz. So apparently there's action across the country, though I don't know the size of it outside Tehran. Again, I suspect that security forces are more likely to attack small assemblies, so reports of clashing and casualties aren't necessarily clear indications of the size of the protests.
Also, a Syrian journalist for Dubai TV, Reza al-Basha, may have been arrested. I don't know of any other media incidents at the moment.
H/T to The Raw Story (link above) for all this info.
Lastly, LittleGreenFootballs (yes, you read that right) has a good bit on a video encapsulating the whole issue with martyrdom on the Day of Asura. You can find it here. I won't embed the video because Setrak has expressed an intention to post it later. H/T to VelvetElvis for getting good stuff out of LGF!
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bumblebums mentions a twitterer who might be worth following: oxfordgirl. It looks like the #iranelection hashtag that we were using back in June is up and running again. If you're going to twitter, I'd advise trying to bump that one back up into trending topics.
Also, Scarce mentions that TehranLive has photos from today. If you remember, TL was one of the best sources for photos in June as well. Some of the most iconic images of the protests showed up on their site, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you visit them and take a look at what's happening in Iran right now.
Also, apologies for getting multimedia-heavy, but I've always found the nightly rooftop chants to be one of the most moving parts of the Green Movement. Scarce (who is becoming half of this diary - HUGE H/T) provides a link to video.
الله أكبر