- 8 December 2009
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“The Basijis have become violent!” (Footage from the 17 of Azar)
8 December 2009 Posted By NIAC
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTArBAvNvV4&feature=player_embedded]
Those who believed that the protests would be quelled by the massive arrests carried out by Iranian government were proven wrong today as Iranians hit the streets in their second consecutive day of protests. This video from today shows huge crowds outside the University of Tehran. Voices are heard yelling, “The Basijis have become violent! The Basijis have become violent!” showing the chaotic and claustrophobic atmosphere in the crown. Towards the end of the clip, a woman’s voice emerges as she screams, “Allah Akbar!” (God is Great!), the staple chant of the Green Movement.
3 Responses to ““The Basijis have become violent!” (Footage from the 17 of Azar)”
Michelle, I wouldn’t necessarily qualify the number of arrests since June as particularly “massive”. For comparison, in San Francisco in 2001, probably an equal number of protesters against the Iraq War were arrested during a period of 1-2 days.
I will say this: the student protesters showed a lot of courage for 16 Azar. I’m possibly rethinking my views on this movement I in fact voted for, but subsequently accepted as defeated and irrelevant.
Dear Sargord Pirouz, how many people did the authorities in San Francisco kill during the antiwar protests that occurred at the time of the Iraq war? I would love to hear your response.
Alireza, it’s not so much Pirouz’s exaggeration of U.S. domestic repression that bothers me as his placing the U.S. as the standard. Somehow if the U.S. does something it becomes okay for other countries to do as well.
Pirouz, you’ve spoken in your other posts of taking part in the anti-government movement in the U.S. in the seventies. What made you forsake the left and turn to statism? What happened to your universal principles (if you ever really had them)?