Issue 865, 20 November 2009

Protests continue but political opposition fades

Opponents of President Ahmadinejad’s re-election and the wider regime continue to protest and organise, but opposition group leaders are under increasing pressure as the supreme leader and his allies dig in

Iran’s annual 4 November rally celebrating the storming of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 was the latest scene of popular protest since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June. But with the new government firmly entrenched after the volatile post-election period, protests on the streets have started to focus on opposition to the regime, civil liberties and even the fundamentals of the Islamic political system, rather than disputing the election results. In a rally that traditionally includes mass chants of “Death to America”, thousands of supporters of defeated presidential candidate and former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi were heard to shout “Death to the dictator” – a phrase becoming increasingly ambiguous, targeting not only the president, but the entire regime. Video footage on the internet shows protesters tearing up and stamping on pictures of Rahbar (supreme leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, confirming that the presidency and election results are no longer the only targets of the opposition.

The protest – the first since the hijacking of the Quds Day rally in September, when Iranians traditionally show solidarity with the Palestinians – signified a change of tactics by the opposition, which now targets only official rallies rather than spontaneous gatherings. Protesters were greatly outnumbered by government supporters, and threatened by police operating alongside the feared Basij militia. In this environment, the opposition’s persistence suggests that a substantial hard core of dissidents will not allow their voices to be suppressed, even though many who participated in previous protests continue to be detained and ill-treated. Officials have confirmed that a further 109 people were arrested in November’s protests.

Meanwhile, political opponents of the regime appear to have quietened down in the face of crackdowns, notably after the trial and imprisonment of several key opponents.

Pressure on Mousavi

Mousavi has continued to encourage his supporters to dispute the election results and call for reform, but public appearances are becoming less frequent. Members of the security forces prevented him from leaving his office and attending this month’s rally. Although Mousavi is adamant he is not challenging Iran’s clerical elite, the supreme leader or the Islamic constitution, around a third of MPs in the Majlis (parliament) have called for him to face criminal prosecution for his role in the continuing protests.

Meanwhile, in what is thought to be an attempt to put pressure on Mousavi, his brother-in-law Shapour Kazemi, who was arrested during the crackdown in June, is due to be put on trial. According to a report in the Vatan-e Emrouz newspaper, a relative of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani claims that Mousavi continues to enjoy the former president’s support. Rafsanjani emerged as a prominent Mousavi ally during the election campaign, but the wily Expediency Council chairman has recently been relatively quiet after coming under pressure from fellow members of the ruling establishment.

With the election results confirmed and the new government deeply entrenched, there appears to be no possibility of Mousavi gaining position in public office, and the heavily conservative government and state apparatus – such as the increasingly powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) – will prevent him from future involvement. Although the ‘green wave’ which Mousavi came to symbolise goes on, it is less of a concern for a government increasingly willing to suppresses civil unrest through force.

Karroubi fights on

Defeated reformist presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi has shown no signs of curbing his outspoken criticisms of the regime. An adroit user of the internet, Karroubi has continued to encourage protests despite the arrest of his aides, storming of his offices and closing of his Etemad-e Melli newspaper. Karroubi recently reiterated his claim that the election was fraudulent, despite Khamenei declaring such claims were criminal acts. He further angered the authorities by making repeated claims of police and IRGC brutality against opposition detainees.

Karroubi continues to attend public events and rallies, where he has reportedly been attacked by government supporters and members of the security forces. Tagheer website – the news outlet for Karroubi’s National Trust Party – reported that he became unconscious after a tear gas attack at November’s rally. As with Mousavi, many Majlis deputies have called for his arrest, but his close association with the revolution and its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, makes this unlikely.

Khatami, Montazeri and other critical clerics

Another reformist figurehead, former president Seyed Mohammad Khatami, is a leader of the Green Path of Hope political front, along with Mousavi and Karroubi. Khatami continues to fiercely oppose the new government, and calls for political reform to rectify “deviations” in the system, which he claims contradict the constitution and the founding principles of the revolution.

Iran’s clerical elite remains deeply divided over Khamenei’s personal power and Ahmadinejad’s government. Two influential clerics, Rafsanjani and Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, have been highly critical of the regime’s consolidation of power and clampdown on civil liberties, yet have become far less vocal in recent months. Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election, is seen as the greatest threat to the conservatives’ grip on power from within the system, and is therefore increasingly censured by the state – he was recently banned from making his traditional Quds Day rally speech. Rafsanjani’s influence over powerful bodies such as the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council and, crucially, the Assembly of Experts poses a greater threat in the long term, when the issue of Khamenei’s succession arises (GSN 861/1).

A significant contributor to the 1979 Islamic constitution and the man initially designated as Ruhollah Khomeini’s successor, Montazeri has established himself as one of Iran’s foremost reformist figures and government critics since his highly publicised disagreements with Khomeini in 1989 over democracy and civil liberties. Ahmadinejad has increasingly found himself the target of such criticisms, and Montazeri is expected to continue attacking the regime from his safe haven in the holy city of Qom. During the 4 November rally, he spoke out against the seizing of the US embassy, calling it a “mistake”.

It’s not 1979 revisited

The reopening of universities after the summer did not result in a surge of protests like those that contributed to the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979, as was predicted by some western analysts following the highly publicised death of student (and, it transpires, militant activist) Neda Soltan, who became a symbol of the opposition. While there have been reports of an IRGC presence at several universities, and sporadic protests, the consensus is that it is unlikely the regime will be seriously undermined.

The internet war continues, with the authorities countering the online offensive of Karroubi and younger dissidents by instigating more controls. A 12-member police unit has been established to scour the web for abuse of the Islamic system. It is headed by police colonel Mehrdad Omidi and reports to the special prosecutor. Bloggers must already seek registration or risk imprisonment.

In what was either a brave act of defiance or an elaborate ploy by the regime, maths student Mahmoud Vahidnia became a hit across Iran after publicly criticising Khamenei for his role in the crackdowns. The incident has been used to great effect by Khamenei’s supporters to demonstrate the regime’s tolerance of criticism – which is palpably not the case.

Trouble on the margins

The iron fist is also hammering down on more traditional opponents of the regime. Radicalised ethnic minority groups seem to have become more active since the election, with some calling for independence, and the authorities are widely seen to be cracking down hard in potential trouble spots. In October, six senior members of the IRGC were killed in an explosion in the south-eastern Sistan-Baluchistan border province, in an episode that underlined the volatility of border regions (GSN 863/3). Local campaigners in Khuzestan told GSN the authorities had been cracking down in south-western Iran.

Kurdish areas are also feeling the heat. “The Iranian regime is trying to intimidate ethnic minorities from joining the green wave [movement of Mousavi],” Kurdish opposition group Komeleh’s leader, Abdullah Mohtadi, told Al-Arabiyya TV: “One of the methods to deter people is stricter sentencing in ethnic provinces such as Kurdistan, Baluchistan and Ahwaz.” He was speaking after the early November hanging in Sanandaj of 27-year-old Kurdish activist Ehsan Fattahian, who was charged with “armed struggle against the Islamic regime”. Fattahian admitted being a member of the banned Komeleh, but his lawyer Mohammad Mostafai denied he was violent and said his client had been extensively tortured. Fattahian had initially been sentenced to ten years in prison, but this was changed to death by a higher court.