December 8th, 2009 by Jason

Time magazine reports on yesterday’s Student Day protests in Iran:  ”the regime was clearly taking no chances: Thousands of police, Revolutionary Guards troops and religious vigilantes closed off universities and fired tear gas at student marchers in Tehran, as the government cut off cell phone and internet access and forbade reporters from covering opposition demonstrations.” According to the article, the opposition is composed of a broad range of student youth, traditional politicians no longer in favor, and clerics who question the role of Supreme Leader.

The Lede blog at The New York Times offers a timeline of yesterday’s protests. While students numbering in the thousands demonstrated at universities across the country, insideIran observes that neither Mir-Hossein Moussavi nor Mehdi Karroubi participated in the protests. In fact, the only significant leader who joined the demonstrations was Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former president Rafsanjani.

Meanwhile, Time also reports that Iran’s top prosecutor has declared the days of “leniency” are over. Unconfirmed reports suggests anywhere between dozens to more than 200 protesters were arrested yesterday. But arrests were not the only tool used by the regime to quell the demonstrations. niacINsight reports that the “Basij were indiscriminate in their use of force, apparently hitting any and everyone in sight.” Andrew Sullivan points to Scott Lucas‘ depiction of the Iranian government’s take on yesterday’s protests, characterizing the protesters as “rioters.”

Juan Cole contends yesterday’s protests were “remarkable” because of the number of cities involved, Iranian Kurds participated, and they are the largest demonstrations since this summer. Michael Allen of Democracy Digest quotes insideIran’s Geneive Abdo, who contends the protests show, “the opposition movement is not in any way a passing phase, it is a permanent part of the political dynamics inside Iran.” Henry Newman in The Guardian  calls the protests a “testimony both to the extent of grievances still widely held among a large section of the Iranian population and to the bravery of the Iranian people even in the face of state violence and repression.” Additionally, Mea Cyrus at Tehran Bureau argues ”these demonstrations do not indicate an immediate threat of regime change, but this persistent trend is nonetheless shaking Iran’s political and clerical structure.” Cyrus contends that Ayatollah Khamenei “has reached the point of realizing the deadlock cannot carry on much longer.”

Abbas Miliani reinterprets the history of Iranian-American relations to argue that the U.S. must do more to support the Iranian opposition. After all, history tells us that  ”when the United States failed to stand on the side of the Iranian people, it paid a horrible price.” As President Obama prepares to go to Oslo to accept his Nobel Peace Prize, Emanuele Ottolenghi suggests the President should donate the proceeds to the cause of Iranian human rights and especially Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose prize was recently confiscated by the Iranian regime.

Jonathan Kay argues for enhanced sanctions, contending the traditional argument that sanctions would radicalize the regime makes little sense given that “you can’t get much more radical than the current IRGC-dominated government.” As the Iranian government plans to reduce gasoline subsidies, The Daily Star reports that Iran will need an additional $3 billion to pay for its gasoline imports until March 2010.  However, as we have previously blogged, the opposition movement has specifically warned against broad sanctions, such as the proposed gasoline sanction, that would hurt the Iranian people.

Posted in Democracy Promotion, Elections, Freedom, Human Rights, Iran, Oil, Protests, US foreign policy, sanctions |