Saturday June 20th at 4pm Tehran time (7:30AM EST), there has been calls from opposition leaders around Iran for those disagreeing with the election to protest peacefully in the streets, despite the Supreme Leader’s assertions during Friday prayers that such protests are anti-Islamic and against the Revolution.
I would like to to provide you two different pieces of information in this particular post, to give a hint of what may happen tomorrow.
First, a personal story I quote from NiacBlog:
3:09 pm: One of our readers requested that we translate the following blog post: Tomorrow is a big day, maybe I’ll get killed tomorrow!
I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed.I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs.
I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow!
There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again.
All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye.
All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that.
My mind is very chaotic.
I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism.
This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children”
Compare the narrative above to some of this transcript from Lindsey Hilsum (ITN) interviewed on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer
I understand that the Basij militia are out on the streets tonight and that is rather threatening.
I’m told that they have rifles, clubs, and bicycle chains
Now, an organization of reformist clerics has called for people to come out on the streets tomorrow in protest.
Mr. Mousavi has indicated that he is not calling for protests tomorrow or the next day, but we don’t know if that cancels the other rally.
And another main opposition reformist, Mr. Karobi, he is still challenging the authority. he has put out a letter saying that the guardian council/supreme leader should accept the Iranian nation’s will by canceling the vote and guaranteeing the establishments survival.
Now, I’ve been trying to speak to people although the telephones are very difficult here.
And I say that people really scared. One man whom I know, who is in Mr. Karobi’s camp said to me, “Look, I can’t talk to you right, I can’t talk to you in this situation”.
Another young man i know who has been active out on the street says, “everyone is very afraid”.
[…]
People are afraid that if they turn out on the streets that the Basij militia will attack, that they will physically attack them.
What has been happening in previous days is the big mass of demonstrations have been allowed to go ahead, so you have had huge numbers of people on the streets and the police have stood by.
Now, when those [unintelligible] start to break up towards dust there have been attacks by police and sometimes clashes as well and attacks by the Basij militia.
And what I think people will fear is that the demonstrations themselves will not be tolerated and that this could lead to a high degree of voilence.
What we don’t know is whether this will deter people from coming out tomorrow. When I spoke with people yesterday they said nothing would deter them (they would all come out), but that was before the Supreme leader spoke.
Now people know that if they come out into the street they are not just challenging the election results, they are challenging the supreme leader, they are challenging the Islamic republic itself. Now that is seen as very serious.
[Where is the momentum now?]
I don’t know, because every day I wake up and it’s changed. At the moment the supreme leader has made these very serious warnings, some would say threats, so the momentum is with him and with the state and with the government/with the forces of law.
But, tomorrow this could change, and if the people, especially the young people decide to come out to the streets again and Mr. Karobi, this reformist leader, comes out with them — Mr Mousavi gives them a go-ahead, as it were, then the momentum will go back again.
And so we are looking at people that are looking into the abyss, here because the supreme leader has suggested that anyone that protests now is, really, an enemy of the state — that is what he is suggesting.
But the people that who have been challenging the election results have not yet indicted that they are willing to stand down, that they will let this go.
Everything stands in the balance tonight.
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