- 3 May 2010
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- 3 Comments
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- Events in Iran
May Day in Tehran: The protest you may have missed
3 May 2010 Posted By NIAC
Though most Iran watchers this weekend focused on the impromptu protest which followed Ahmadinejad’s surprise speech at Tehran University, another tense gathering occurred outside the Labor Ministry.
Approximately five thousand people were walking outside of the Labor Ministry on Saturday, May 1st around 5:30 pm in honor of International Labour Day. Factory workers have been increasingly laid off due to Ahmadinejad’s short sighted policies to fix Iran’s severely weakened economy.
One participant who found out about the event through a text message told NIAC, “There was a guy videotaping us from the beginning and he followed us everywhere, it was very nerve racking. There were also undercover cops everywhere so you didn’t know who to trust.” Our contact suspected he was being followed because he was accompanied by two other young men.
According to Iran News Agency (INA), an opposition site, three people were arrested. INA also confirms our contact’s description of a “very tense atmosphere.”
The gathering followed Mir Hossein Mousavi’s message on Thursday, April 29. As IGV reported, he, “cited inflation, decline in production, corruption, the spread of deceit and mismanagement, unpaid wages of workers, the continuing shut down of plants and their operating at low capacity, as some of the current problems in the country.”
In comparison to protests last year, it would seem that this one was a failure. If people stood in groups of more than ten, motorcycle cops would run up to them and break them apart and only about fifty daring people started to chant anti-government slogans, but were quickly silenced.
But the failure of this protest is only on the surface, by taking a deeper look, it shows the paranoia of the Iranian government. The opposition did little to spread the word about the event as nothing was written on Mousavi’s Facebook page and only a few websites had mentioned the possibility of a gathering. Unlike the little preparatory work by the opposition, the Iranian police were out in full force with hundreds of motorcycle and undercover cops videotaping and methodically breaking up groups—once again displaying their fear and paranoia.
What the government has is force and perhaps it can successfully stop people from protesting, but it is not sustainable. Rather than creating new ways to improve Iran’s weakened economy, the government is using its resources to monitor and control their own citizens. As our contact told us, “I don’t think we’ll be able to have the same level of protests as last summer, but this does not mean that our fight is over.”
3 Responses to “May Day in Tehran: The protest you may have missed”
Another fizzle. Relevancy is more and more being called into question.
The perspective and analyses of Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett are again validated,
It’s really too bad that so many of our own Iranian-American analysts became so politically partisan following the June election; generating a sense of bias that has served to flaw their own analyses and provide false expectations. No more excuses: it is time to set ego aside, and return to a more analytical approach to political observations made on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“No more excuses: it is time to set ego aside, and return to a more analytical approach to political observations made on the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Iranian-American community, you heard it here. It is time we all remain silent about the crimes of the Islamic Republic against the Iranian people. It is time we defend the incompetent, backwards and criminal Iranian government while they make a mess out of our country and oppress our people while they do it. No more excuses.
Pirouz, it really is quite amusing to see just how seriously you take yourself ;-).
To Pirouz: I feel you’re a non-“biased observer” yourself; of course, your definition of the word ‘biased’ needs to be clarified. Let me help you!
The regime in power in Iran is morally bankrupt and becomes increasingly more unacceptable to those of us who cannot and will not forget the victimization of our people in the name of the Islamic Republic. I suppose this would make us into ‘biased observers’ alright, that is, if your idea of what constitutes a “more analytical approach” is to be taken at face value.
Actually, Pirouz, our rulers know a bit more about the source of our expectations than you might care to acknowledge, as they continue to suppress the green movement, sparing no effort at demoralizing the silent majority.
And it’s not a question of absolute right or wrong, either. If we’re talking politics, then we people do deserve a better government than this, but need to learn to fight even harder for what we deserve. This has actually been the lesson of the past 30 or so years since the victory of the 1979 revolution. Politics is all about antagonisms and about trying to have a voice.
However, regardless of whether we the people of Iran fight, fall fighting, or remain passive for the time being, the fact of the matter is that there now remains not one shred of legitimacy in the whole of the fabric of the state, no policy decided on or carried through by the government of ANJ that’s worth defending on this or that technical point, except by true outsiders who in fact are better off staying where there are, i.e. outside. I’m sure such a stance would present itself to you as being suitably ‘unbiased’.