The New York Times.com
February 12, 2010
Iran’s autocrats were determined to use Thursday’s anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution to show that they are still in control and have the support of Iran’s people. Their ruthless campaign of violence and intimidation against a largely peaceful — and extremely courageous — opposition proves just the opposite.
The government claims that the overwhelming number of people who came out to demonstrate were government supporters. State television showed live footage of hundreds of thousands of people, some carrying Iranian flags and pictures of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, converging in Tehran’s main square. A far more important indicator is the level of repression it needed to keep protestors — galvanized by June’s fraudulent presidential election — to a minimum.
In the run-up to the anniversary celebration, hundreds of people, including family members of prominent politicians and scores of journalists, have been arrested. On Thursday, an unusually large contingent of security forces, including masked Revolutionary Guards special units armed with assault rifles, closed off streets and kept opposition groups from the main square where the celebration took place.
Opposition supporters still showed up, even in conservative cities around the country. And they did take risks. Foreign journalists were restricted in covering the event. But opposition Web sites reported that security forces fired gunshots and tear gas at supporters of the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and that his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, had been beaten by plainclothes agents with batons.
While that was happening in the shadows, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on center stage announcing new advances in Iran’s nuclear program — a cynical effort to divert attention from his government’s repression and economic and political failures. More than three decades after Iranians overthrew the United States-backed shah, the country remains a living contradiction between its revolutionary ideals — justice, independence and self-sufficiency — and its shameful practice.
