Thirty years ago, the world was mesmerized by pictures of 52 blindfolded Americans being taken hostage in their embassy in Tehran by Iranian students. [Last] week’s anniversary provided more gripping scenes, as Iranians used the official celebration of that event to take to the streets once again, this time to protest against their own government and their country’s controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose re-election in June they still hotly dispute.
The green movement, as the opposition calls itself, had held no big rally since Jerusalem Day in mid-September, when protesters turned an officially sponsored event into an anti-government one. On November 4th they did it again. Thousands came on to the streets, despite dark warnings from the authorities. … As before, the police and the baseej, a vigilante force that backs Mr. Ahmadinejad and answers to the powerful Revolutionary Guard, came out in strength too. Protesters were beaten, arrested and drenched with tear gas. …
The top echelons of politics and the clergy are riven with dissent. The day before the celebration of the siege, Hossein Ali Montazeri, a grand ayatollah now aged 87 who was once the heir apparent of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said that the occupation of the American embassy in 1979 had been a mistake. Access the full article>>
