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IRAN: “The Streets Were Overtaken by Tear Gas”

Sara Farhang

TEHRAN, Jun 21 2009 (IPS) - The streets of Tehran were a veritable war zone Saturday night, as angry voters took to the streets for the sixth day of protests this week against the Jun. 12 elections that re-instated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

Separately, the crisis has led to political wrangling in the highest echelons of Iranian’s theocratic power centres. Reportedly, the powerful Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has openly sided with Ahmadinejad, is being challenged by one of Iran’s most powerful clerics, former president Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, a behind-the-scenes player in the opposition who heads the body that oversees the top theocrat.

Protests and violent conflict ensued in several major areas in Tehran and also in several provinces Saturday.

In Tehran’s streets, a call for protest by presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi led to citizens attempting to gather in Enghelab (Revolution) Square for a planned march to Azadi (Freedom) Square. The Basij plain-clothes militia and riot police directed unarmed protesters away and met them with violence, including using tear gas, batons, fire hoses and gunfire.

According to reports, some citizens engaged in combat with the paramilitary forces, throwing stones and setting their motorcycles on fire.

According to one female protester interviewed by IPS, “The streets from Tehran University to Azadi Square were overtaken by smoke from tear gas.”

“Many residents along the streets surrounding Azadi Square provided refuge to protesters fleeing the violence,” the protester said, adding that security forces retaliated by destroying property in those streets.

Despite the extreme violence and the attempts by security officials to disperse protesters before they could gather, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, who had earlier in the day announced that he was ready for martyrdom, managed to make it to the area where he spoke to supporters, urging that they continue their peaceful protests and suggesting that they launch a general strike if he was arrested.

The protests followed charges of election fraud – irregularities and out-and-out fraud – by all three candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad, who was declared the landslide winner with nearly 63 percent.

Moussavi, who served as prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, and the other reformist candidate, former parliamentary speaker Karroubi, have called for new elections, while Mohsen Rezaee, Ahmadinejad’s conservative challenger, has asked the Guardian Council, which oversees elections, for a recount. So far, however, the Council has agreed to review only 10 percent of the ballot boxes which all three candidates have insisted is insufficient.

Khamenei, who congratulated Ahmadinejad before the Guardian Council had certified the results, dismissed charges of massive fraud and warned against continued demonstrations at Friday Prayer ceremonies. Conspicuously absent were Moussavi and Karroubi, as well as Rafsanjani.

In a statement issued during the street violence Saturday, Moussavi told his supporters they should not allow “liars and cheaters to steal their right to defend the Islamic Republic,” and in what appeared to be a thinly veiled slap at Khamenei’s warnings about covert foreign intervention to undo the election, added, “How unjust are those who allow their trivial goals to call the miracle of the Islamic Revolution a plot conceived and devised by foreigners and a velvet revolution.”

Saying that his concern was more than an “unwanted government”, but also “the imposition of a new form of political life”, Moussavi warned that “…if the high rate of fraud and shifting of votes, which has eroded the trust of the people, is cited as a testament to the absence of fraud itself, then the republic portion of the state will be undermined and notion that Islam and republicanism cannot coexist will be confirmed.”

In recent days, analysts have echoed Moussavi’s concerns that the refusal to abide by the will of the people in the elections is tantamount to instituting an Islamic State, in place of an Islamic Republic where the people have a say.

Because of closure and blocking of reformist websites and severe restrictions on foreign media, the only source of information within Iran has become the state-controlled media, leading to rampant rumors and speculation about what is transpiring behind the scenes.

Many theories claim that this is a fight for power between Khamenei and Rafsanjani, who heads the Assembly of Experts, an 86-member body composed of senior Islamic Jurists charged with the election and oversight of the Supreme Leader. Passports of Rafsanjani’s children were reportedly canceled in the last several days.

One popular theory claims that Khamenei, who is in failing health, is supporting hard-liners led by Ahmadinejad to enhance the chances that his son, Mojtaba, will succeed him – a scenario believed to be strongly opposed by Rafsanjani, who reportedly has spent much of the past week engaged in discussions with senior religious leaders and members of the Experts Assembly in Qom about the possibility of replacing Khamenei with a Supreme Council of Leaders.

On Sunday, however, some members of the Experts Assembly released a statement of support for Khameini and the views he expressed Friday, a statement touted by the state media as a full endorsement by the entire Assembly of the Supreme Leader.

Nonetheless, Qom-based sources reported that Rafsanjani’s proposal enjoyed the support of at least one third of the Assembly. Several grand ayatollahs in Qom have issued public statements condemning the election results or the use of violence to suppress peaceful demonstrations.

While Sunday morning witnessed relative calm on the streets of Tehran and other cities, most analysts believe that the crisis is far from over.

According to the state broadcast media, at least 10 people were killed in Saturday’s violence, although foreign media have reported significantly higher casualty tolls.

One protester told IPS Saturday night that she had seen several individuals who were shot during the skirmishing near Enghelab Square, one of the key demonstration sites, reporting that a mother and son had been shot and were having “problems getting to the hospital”.

The protester also said that three young men had been shot and “were in a poor state and were bleeding profusely. They had been waiting for some time for the ambulance to arrive.”

Another woman who went to the hospital for treatment for injuries she suffered after police attacked a crowd of protesters in the same area said hospital staff told her to use a fake name, “as the Basijis and security forces were following up and arresting all those who have been injured in the protests”.

The woman said the hospital was in chaos and filled with casualties, including several gunshot victims, and security personnel: “One person who had been stabbed and who was in poor health was being questioned by security officers who were pressuring him to identify others who accompanied him during the protest.”

According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, “numerous Iranians beaten and injured by security forces as they tried to stage peaceful demonstrations have been arrested and detained when they sought medical treatment in hospitals.” Some foreign embassies have reportedly opened their doors to injured citizens and are providing assistance to those who seek refuge.

Amateur videos released on the internet by citizen journalists capture shootings of citizens by security police and snipers.

A widely circulated video released Saturday purportedly captured the shooting and subsequent death of a young girl named Neda on Kargar Street which leads to Enghelab Avenue. This particular video appears to have intensified the popular anger, which is unlikely to abate soon.