Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran a story that showed just how desperate the Iranian government is getting. If harassing Iranian protesters living in Iran was not enough, the Iranian authorities are now threatening Iranians living abroad. As the article states:
In recent months, Iran has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide — not just prominent dissidents — who criticize the regime, according to former Iranian lawmakers and former members of Iran’s elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, with knowledge of the program.
Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad, these people say.
Interviews with roughly 90 ordinary Iranians abroad — college students, housewives, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople — in New York, London, Dubai, Sweden, Los Angeles and other places indicate that people who criticize Iran’s regime online or in public demonstrations are facing threats intended to silence them.
But Monday’s student protests are a reminder that the government’s suppressive techniques are failing. Despite a wide-ranging effort by the Iranian forces to block the protests, students took to the street on the National Student Day, a day that commemorates the killing of three students by the shah’s forces in 1953. A New York Times’ article described the protests taking place all across the country:
Large crowds of university students gathered on campuses across Iran on Monday morning, many holding banners or wearing armbands in the opposition’s trademark bright-green, to chant “God is great!” and “Death to the dictator!” Twitter and opposition Web sites featured video clips of rallies in Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz and other cities.
One video showed hundreds of students at Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran waving bank notes in the air to ridicule the Basij members, who are officially volunteers but who are widely said to receive money for cracking down on protesters. Another video showed students breaking down the university’s front gates, which the authorities had locked to prevent the protests from spreading.
Another group of protesters near Tehran University waved a Russian flag at the police and then set it on fire, in a gesture mocking the Iranian government’s ritual anti-Americanism. Russia was quick to recognize Mr. Ahmadinejad as president after the election, prompting protests from opposition supporters, who believe the election was stolen through extensive fraud.
For a in-depth coverage of the Iranian student coverage, which include You-Tube videos showing the protests and the shuffle between the protesters and the Basij forces, check the New York Times News Blog.
The student protests were not the only reminder that the green movement is far from being over. On Sunday, Rafsanjani, a former president and a highly regarded political figure who initially provided crucial support to the opposition in the aftermath of the election turmoil but has since been silent, criticized the government on Sunday. Rafsanjani complained that “constructive criticism is not tolerated in the country.”
