Iran: Saturday’s Crackdown, Neda, Khatami Criticizes Khamenei, Montazeri Calls for 3 Days of Mourning, & more

1. Saturday’s Crackdown: I’ve been saying that it was bound to happen and now it’s happening. The footage of the crackdown coming out of Iran is massively disturbing, especially the one covering the death of a girl named Neda. I have to warn you, the video is traumatic. See it here but only if you have the stomach for it. Here’s another troubling video of attacks occurring at night at people’s residences, presumably punishment for participating in protests earlier. And here’s a video of a man killed. Here’s al-Jazeera’s coverage of Saturday. But be warned, the violence Iran saw yesterday is nothing compared to what the regime is capable of and is willing to do. It’s just a taste of what’s to come, should the protests continue.

2. World Solidarity in Support of The Demonstrators: Here’s a video/photo essay chronicling world solidarity (30 cities) in support of the people in Iran.

3. The Internal Power Struggle: The internal power struggle is brewing. Reports suggest that Rafsanjani has been busy rallying clerics in Qom against both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. Here’s an al-Jazeera video updating us on that power struggle. Furthermore, 5 of Rafsanjani’s family members have been arrested, including his daughter Faezeh. They have all been released but reports indicate that Faezeh may still be in custody. All of this shows the severity of the internal showdown.

4. Khatami Criticizes Khamenei: “Prohibiting people from expressing their demands in a civilized manner will have dire consequences… Linking the healthy movements of the people with foreign interference is a flawed political practice, which leads to alienating the people from the government…”

5. iPouya Featured in the Harvard Crimson: I usually don’t have anything important to say, and when I do, the interviewers leave out the important stuff in favor of my trivial words, but I stand by this one sentence of mine: “He adds that he believes the massive media coverage of the election in the West, though not always accurate, is ultimately a good thing, considering that a lot of democratic movements in the Middle East are not reported at all.”
6.  Lack of Leadership: In another stark contrast between 30 years ago and now: “The BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen says there is an apparent absence of strong leadership of the protests. ‘The protesters have got so many options at the moment of course but we just don’t know how the actual leaders of the protests will react,’ one Tehran resident told the BBC. He said the defeated presidential candidates and leading politicians who had been associated with the protest movement – Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami – were ;’taying in the background’. ‘I think this is possibly a negative sign for the opposition,’ he said.”