The regime may fall? In Iran broken out again the protests in the streets, that never really stopped since the election in June, won by Ahmadinejad with many suspicions of fraud. These days the opposition took advantage of Shiite religious festival of Ashura, which commemorates the death of the grandson of Muhammad, Husayn ibn Ali, killed in 680 AD by the troops of the Caliph Yazid. In the current political climate the Iranian religious feast has a special meaning.
For the opposition the sacrilegious tyrant of the story is obviously the current Iranian leadership, and the martyrs, assimilated to the murdered nephew of the Prophet, are the protesters . According to official sources at least 15 demonstrators were killed by policemen or militia men, including the nephew of the leader of the opposition Mousavi. More deaths in addition to the many opponents killed during the previous months and those who were arrested and were murdered in prison. The revolt started just after the funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri, a religious leader and reformer hostile to Khamenei, and continues today, with new pictures of clashes and conflicting reports. The Basij militia, a paramilitary body founded by Ayatollah Khomeini and now controlled by Khamenei and religious conservative, would have repeatedly attacked the crowd and beat demonstrators while police and regular army would have refused to shoot at eye level. Today there were new arrests of opposition members.
Iranians opponents are a very diverse group: the front line are students and young people who would like a more modern and free country, even secular. But opposition groups are also religious reformers and moderates, as the candidates defeated in the elections, Mousavi and Karroubi.
The umpteenth bloody repression of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei in this case could backfire against the regime. The days of Shiite commemoration of Ashura remember in fact a martyr who defied a tyrant, and if the blood flowing on the streets is the one of protesters, the symbolism may become immediately obvious even to the general population that has not yet taken a position. But if it's true that the police and the army are trying to not participate in repression, leaving the dirty work to basji fanatical militias, the conservative regime could be in danger as never happened in recent months. Within the same Shiite clergy many religious leaders, like Montazeri, criticized the repression of Khamenei.
Revolutions in the end did not succeed because all the population is involved, the majority always tries to avoid confrontations, but they can triumph if the revolutionaries' determination overcome that of governments. The Shah fell in 1979 because soldiers and police began to fail him. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei still have the support of the most conservative and reactionary part of the country, but for them it's increasingly difficult to justify the repression with religious propaganda and the myth of the Western enemies that plots against Islam. Western governments in fact in recent months, Israel apart, were so soft with the Iranian regime to border on connivance. Not to mention the socialist governments of Latin America, who have shamefully welcomed Ahmadinejad with open arms.
But the opposition has never given up and continued to fight, a protest after the other, a constant trickle of young people killed and arrested, newspapers closed and journalists and bloggers forced into exile.
And month after month, for the regime is becoming increasingly difficult to justify its actions, simply because the dictators are firmly in the wrong, and propaganda can hide a part of the truth, but not all of it. If the Iranian opposition will continue to struggle with this determination, the regime could really fall.
Francesco Defferrari
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