Posted on 06/14/2003 7:51:20 AM PDT by Eurotwit
The Uprising is Spreading to the General population
Independant News Agency Zagros (INAZ) - Saterday June 13th, 2003,
The third night and the fourth day of the urpising of the people is still in progress. From the start of last night thursday, thousands who headed towards the university helped open the locked gates for the students and the people to join each other. Clashes between the people and the regime's forces, in particular the Ansar e Hezbollah (Islamist Vigilante's) has started. These clashes lasted 9 hours, and the plainclothes Hezbollah vigilantes attacked the people with chains and poniard daggers. There is talk of hundreds of injured and there are no official numbers. Many girls and women last night removed their veils, and they were attacked quite viciously by the Ansar e Hezbollah.
Last night, like three nights ago, there was active resistance to the regime's forces and during clashes many times the students forced the Ansar e Hezbollah and the anti-riot police to flee. Around the university makeshift barricades and throwing stones and gasoline bombs broke the regime's advances.
Throughout the town there was heavy traffic indicating a very large presence of the people out on all the streets. Tens of thousands in their cars honked their horns and chanted political slogans against the regime and its leaders. Around the university, these cars had fully taken over all the streets.
In the university, groups are being organised for resistance and assaults against the regime's forces, and there are fires lit on the streets. By chanting slogans such as "Death to Khamenei", "Death to Khatami", and "Death to Dictatorship" the students are showing their resolve. Farshad, with his face covered and his hands full of stones said, "It is time for the nation to take their revenge, what we will do to them will make them buy mouse holes."
Zhilah who was organising girls groups in the dorms said, "These are the university dorms, the first liberated zones in the country to be declared free of the Mullahs. The people have to rise up for other parts of the country to get liberated".
Foreign media have been forced to give coverage to these protests, helping to influence and inform world opinion about the developments in Iran.
A political analyst considers this as a preview of a much larger uprising that will spread to the general population, and consist of a large scale solidarity that cannot be repressed. He added, "the current situation is so volatile that the more the regime represses the more radical the movement will get, in other words represssion will only increase protests not decrease it. This will make it impossible for the student uprising to be stopped after this".
He concluded, "with this logic the complete collapse of the Islamic Republic is inevitable, because avoiding clashes will only increase the protests, and repressive measures will only radicalise it".
Armed Vigilante's attack Demonstrators Bringing about a Response in Kind.
Independant News Agency Zagros (INAZ) - Saterday June 14th, 2003,
There were widespread clashes throughout Tehran last night. The youth and the general public engaged in a fourth night and fifth day of protests. They were openly chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic and its leaders. There were families with children driving round in their cars and walking on the streets.
During planned operations last night, the Ansare Hezbollah (Islamist Vigilantes), agents of the Intelligence Ministry, Special Units in plainclothes, and the Basij (vigilantes) were brought in to forcefully end the protests.The plainclothes forces were equipped with knives, chains, daggers, screwdrivers, bats, tear gas and guns. These forces attacked severely injuring tens of students in the dormitories of the university on Amirabad street (Northern Kargar), Jalal Ahmad, Geesha, Beheshti University dorms, and the Alameh Tabatabai university
The police force had been ordered not to interfere in the special operations of the plainclothes agents and to grant them full freedom and authority in crackdowning and attacking the protestors. Many reporters have been reporting on the brutality of these attacks and are mentioning high numbers for the total number of injured and arrested.
The plainclothes agents caused alot of physical damage and injured many during their attack on Alameh Tabatabai university. Inside the main university they attempted to break into the dorms, and in the adjacent streets they attacked everyone including people standing in their own doorways, injuring many with daggers, chains and knives.
The students in return took several vigilantes hostage, punishing them publicly. In some instances the plainclothes agents were forced to flee or surrender by the people.
A 20 year old student named Parta says, " you won't even find this kind of merciless and ferocious barbarism amongst animals. We will hunt down these 'lesser than animals' ".
ISNA News agency is estimating the total number of serious injuries as 15, but eyewitnesses speak of tens of injured in the hospitals.
A political analyst in Berlin had this to say about the recent events, " Its gotten to a point where everybody understands the necessity of active and aggressive resistance against the vigilante forces. The opposition has to learn how to respond in kind that means arming, equipping and organising itself. This is the only way to confront these crackdowns.
While protests raged on in Tehran last night, there were widespread protests in Esfehan and Shiraz also, with chants against the regime and its leaders.
"The Uprising is Spreading to the General population"
Seems like the protests are spreading demographically and geographically. Promising developments.
Gotta love it !!!
This is very important news. It seems there is about to be a turning point here. These protests keep going, and either they will be crushed soon, or they will build and build.
It would be nice to actually see some of this on the news.
(They hate to see any advancement of liberty.)
I agree. It was American involvement in installing and supporting Reza Shah that was probably the main factor in his undoing. The mullahs had been quite unsuccessful in their opposition to him at least from the early 60s. It was the socialist students, the Tudeh party backed by the Soviet Union, that got the traction that led to the revolution (which the mullahs then hijacked).
The only way America can become involved is if we are invited in -- much as we once asked for help from the French. This has to be their revolution.
You are permitted to see it any way you wish. But when I put it together with what I hear, and have heard over the years, from Persians here including those with family back there and those who travel back and forth, it is more than simply credible. The people have been suffering under the mullahs for a long time.
If you ever get a chance, see the Iranian-made movie "Secret Ballot"... and watch it carefully. It's not very kind to the theocracy.
Once they overthrew their Shah, they suddenly got pulled back and got to enjoy their Islamic paradise which they really didn't enjoy all that much. From what people tell me that on the surface things look one way, the women are forced to wear brown ugly drapes in public ---and they don't like it --but underneath they are wearing make-up, dressed very nicely. Everyone listens to smuggled in American and European music CD's, they're watching American movies, the customs agents haven't been confiscating many items brought it because they also don't support the hardline clerics. It will be interesting but I think they may follow the example of Poland when it overthrew their oppressors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.