Next is Khamenei?

Iranians came out to support Egypt and Tunisia

Crowds of thousands on the streets, clashes with police and one dead are the results of an unsanctioned rally held in Iran on February 14. After the 2009 protests, the Iranian opposition reasserted itself. Unrest in Iran was expected ....

Crowds of thousands on the streets, clashes with police and one dead are the results of an unsanctioned rally held in Iran on February 14. After the 2009 protests, the Iranian opposition reasserted itself.

Unrest in Iran was expected. For several weeks, it remained perhaps the last country in the Middle East not captured by protests.

“Having learned about the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, the Iranian authorities arrested potential oppositionists and launched a large propaganda campaign,” says orientalist, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor Vladimir Sazhin. “They called the popular uprisings in North Africa a continuation of the 1979 Islamic revolution and supported them.”

The Iranian opposition supported them too. Its leaders, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and ex-parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi, asked for permission to rally in support of the popular movements in Tunisia and Egypt. It was not difficult to guess that her slogans were not about Mubarak. The rally was not allowed, opposition politicians were placed under house arrest just in case, and a wave of detentions took place across the country. According to the Iranian human rights organization Rahana, 14 journalists have been arrested in the past four days alone.

Nevertheless, calls to go to the rally spread through social networks and through Twitter. Like a year and a half ago, on the evening of the 13th, people climbed onto the roofs of houses, from where they shouted opposition slogans. It became clear that the demonstration would take place.

According to eyewitnesses, groups of the Basij volunteer police began to appear on the streets of Tehran at about two in the afternoon. Together with people in civilian clothes, they shouted slogans in support of Ayatollah Khamenei, carried his portraits, flags of Iran, Egypt and Hezbollah.

Oppositionists appeared on the streets only at three. “We left the university and scattered through the streets,” an anonymous Tehran student says on the opposition Tehran Bureau website. The police were everywhere, even in the alleys. They attacked people, did not allow to gather together. We were caught in a narrow street a kilometer from Azadi Square. One was arrested, the rest turned back.”

The rallies continued into the night. The demonstrators occupied all the central streets, overturned cars, set fire to garbage cans, and shouted anti-government slogans. Eyewitnesses say that there were tens of thousands of people on the streets of Tehran. The Internet was blocked in the city, cellular communication worked intermittently, broadcasting of satellite TV channels was interrupted. In the late afternoon, police fired tear gas, at least one dead and three injured.

The official media could not ignore the protests, so the evening news showed portraits of opposition leaders against the background of the Star of David and the American flag, as well as the son of the Shah of Iran, who was deposed in 1979, who allegedly supported the demonstrators. The protesters themselves were called monarchists, thugs and instigators. The official version: provocateurs from the banned rebel group People Mujahedeen were guilty of the demonstrator's death.

On the video recordings of the rallies, one can hear: the main slogans of the opposition are “Death to the dictator”, “Mubarak, Ben Ali, the next is Khamenei” and “Khamenei, be ashamed, look at Mubarak”. Traditionally, in Iran, the power of the supreme ruler, the Ayatollah, who is now Khamenei, was considered indisputable. All opposition speeches were directed against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And only in the midst of the opposition demonstrations in 2009, calls for the overthrow of the ayatollah began to sound more and more often, which have resumed now. It seems that the same people took to the streets, whose protests were brutally suppressed by the authorities a year ago. They have gone underground and have now shown themselves, despite the threat of arrests and the propaganda campaign.

As Vladimir Sazhin is sure, even in the ruling elite of Iran there are disagreements, part of it opposes the president and the ayatollah. The impact of Western economic sanctions exacerbates this rift.

“Khamenei's opponents will certainly use them to demonstrate to the ayatollah that his power is not eternal,” says Sazhin. “But they are not interested in resolving their differences through street performances. The crowd in Iran has little to do with it, and it is too early to say that the current protests will continue and bring about dramatic changes.”

Arrests and repressions will continue, Sazhin believes. But the very fact that a year after the failed revolution the opposition was able to organize itself and unite is already quite a lot.