Slater Bakhtavar

Iran: the Green Movement Slater Bakhtavar 1st edition

"This was by far the largest street protest and demonstration in the history of Iran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The hundreds of thousands of upset supporters of the defeated reform candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi marched the streets of Tehran and other cities, defying the official protest ban. Mousavi appeared for the first time in public at a rally staged by his supporters in Tehran after the landslide election win of Ahmadinejad, in the hope of calming the now-growing demonstrations. What some hoped to be a calm protest turned out to be a riotous one as the protesters vented out their frustration and dismay about their candidate's loss in the June 12th election. In order to quell the protests, the Iranian security forces and the uncompromising militia continued to act with force and arrest the protesters, causing them to revolt further. The revolution only led to the supporters' incurring of injuries from the beatings of the government's militia. Brothers' blood was shed on the streets of Tehran as the rioters fought back and the militia fired guns from rooftops.


Iran's supreme leader and most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, drew a hard line that posed as a ploy for Iran's opposition protesters to either halt any further protests over the June 12th disputed election or risk a violent crackdown. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued this warning during his stern sermon in Tehran. He warned the protesters and opposition leaders that they would be held personally responsible if the street protests did not end. 


Uncompromisingly, Khamenei told the protesters to drop their demands for a new election and insisted that last week's presidential votes had been transparent. He said that the Islamic Republic does not alter vote counts as the system does not allow cheating. At the end of the sermon, Khamenei added that if the protesters will not obey and still pursue protesting, he will unleash the military force. Khamenei's warning seemed to not have any effect because shortly after dusk, cries of "Death to the dictator" were shouted from the rooftops as the protesters began their first sign of resistance."