A leading opposition figure has expressed fears that the West will abandon Iran’s pro-democracy movement and strike a deal with the Tehran regime over its nuclear programme.
“We are concerned that the West will betray us — and its own principles of liberty, democracy and human rights,” said the man, an Iranian academic and a leader of an underground cell. He cannot be identified for fear of retribution.
Speaking to The Times in a European capital, having recently slipped out of Iran, the senior member of the country’s “Green” movement warned that Iran’s apparent nuclear concessions were merely a ruse to ease international pressure while it sought to crush domestic dissent. “How can you rely on any promises and pledges made by a government that not only stole the June election, has not only killed and raped its own citizens, but also has consistently hidden major parts of the nuclear programme?” he asked.
His concerns were heightened by the presence of the British Ambassador at President Ahmadinejad’s inauguration in August, after the hotly contested elections in June. “This was a slap in the face of the families who had lost loved ones at the hands of Ahmadinejad. We expected the Russians and the Chinese to do something like this, as they have authoritarian governments. But the country that has ‘the mother of all parliaments’ should hold itself to higher standards,” he said.
A growing economic crisis and an uncrushable opposition will destroy President Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government within four years, he said. “We are confident that Ahmadinejad will not be able to finish his term,”
He described in detail how the opposition flourishes, despite the regime’s brutal crackdown on any form of dissent. In Tehran it consists of half a dozen organising cells that co-ordinate with each other but work independently of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the defeated presidential candidates who have become figureheads of the “Green” movement.
Cell leaders meet in tea houses and restaurants to develop plans and directions. They use internet “trees” to disseminate information about meetings, procedures and slogans, the latest activities of the opposition’s political leaders and articles from foreign media. “We try to avoid mass mailing or even mass text-messaging in order to lessen the possibility of detection,” he said, adding that three recent articles in The Times describing the systematic rape of opposition detainees were translated into Farsi within hours of publication and widely circulated in a country whose independent media has been largely extinguished.
Cell leaders had been astonished by the public’s response, he said. Iranians had begun spontaneously defacing officials’ portraits, motorway signs and walls with green paintballs, or with slogans painted in green. He described how people sat in restaurants writing anti-government slogans on banknotes before paying their bills; how individuals used their own money to have 50 or 100 flyers printed and how he once found a young man putting leaflets under the windscreen wipers of parked cars on his own initiative.
“He and his friends had decided that if the movement was to succeed everyone had to do his or her own thing...It is this activity which is driving the regime mad because it can’t control it. It thought that by arresting so many leaders of the reformist movement, the leaderless popular opposition would simply go away. They failed to understand that this is a bottom-up grassroots movement.” The regime’s attempts to stiffle dissent were making it look increasingly ridiculous, he contended.
A recent football match at Tehran’s Azadi stadium was broadcast in black and white, and without sound, because most of the 70,000 fans were wearing green and chanting anti-Ahmadinejad slogans.
The cell leader said that an important turning point occured last month when as many as a million people defied the regime’s warnings and turned the annual Qods Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause into a huge protest against their own repression.
“We never in our wildest dreams believed this many people would turn up. . . We hoped at best for 100,000 people,” he said. “It showed people were no longer scared of the regime, and that the movement is not only alive but growing. It was a huge morale boost.” Similiar demonstrations are planned for November 4, the day Iranians celebrate the seizure of the US Embassy in 1979.
The activist said university students were mobilising now the new academic year was under way, and that there had already been large, angry demonstrations at the University of Tehran and the capital’s Sahrif and Azad universities. He said there was active opposition in many other cities across Iran including Siraz, Isfahan, Mashad, Kermanshad and Rasht. He claimed that the elite Republican Guard on which the regime depends for its survival was “not as united as it seems, and there is growing discontent over the competency of Ahmadinejad”.
As great a threat to the regime, however was a collapsing economy that was destroying its support amongst poorer Iranians.
Largely as a result of Mr Ahmadinjad’s first-term profligacy inflation and unemployment are rising, property prices slumping and construction stagnating. Only 30 per cent of factories are operating at more than 50 per cent capacity, and within six months another 3,000 are expected to close or switch to a two- or three-day week. Private companies, including almost the entire pharmaceutical and engineering sectors, are owed huge amounts of money by the government. Irankhodro, the Middle East’s largest car manufacturer, is effectively bankrupt. There have been strikes in Tehran, Arak and Masahd. “The economic crisis is becoming catastrophic . . . It will help finish the regime,” the activist claimed.
He e said that the West had grown used to swift “velvet revolutions” like those that toppled former Soviet regimes, but the struggle in Iran would take longer. However, there was now a widespread belief that the regime was “raftani” — heading for the rubbish bin of history.
“We had believed it was for ever, but now we realise it is no more,” he said. The one disappointment, he said, was the failure of Iran’s leading clerics to join the opposition. With a few notable exceptions “the Grand Ayatollahs have not acted in defence of the people against tyranny and the regime’s use of violence and rape. The people looked to them as a class and were disappointed.”
“We are concerned that the West will betray us — and its own principles of liberty, democracy and human rights,” said the man, an Iranian academic and a leader of an underground cell. He cannot be identified for fear of retribution.
Speaking to The Times in a European capital, having recently slipped out of Iran, the senior member of the country’s “Green” movement warned that Iran’s apparent nuclear concessions were merely a ruse to ease international pressure while it sought to crush domestic dissent. “How can you rely on any promises and pledges made by a government that not only stole the June election, has not only killed and raped its own citizens, but also has consistently hidden major parts of the nuclear programme?” he asked.
His concerns were heightened by the presence of the British Ambassador at President Ahmadinejad’s inauguration in August, after the hotly contested elections in June. “This was a slap in the face of the families who had lost loved ones at the hands of Ahmadinejad. We expected the Russians and the Chinese to do something like this, as they have authoritarian governments. But the country that has ‘the mother of all parliaments’ should hold itself to higher standards,” he said.
A growing economic crisis and an uncrushable opposition will destroy President Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government within four years, he said. “We are confident that Ahmadinejad will not be able to finish his term,”
He described in detail how the opposition flourishes, despite the regime’s brutal crackdown on any form of dissent. In Tehran it consists of half a dozen organising cells that co-ordinate with each other but work independently of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the defeated presidential candidates who have become figureheads of the “Green” movement.
Cell leaders meet in tea houses and restaurants to develop plans and directions. They use internet “trees” to disseminate information about meetings, procedures and slogans, the latest activities of the opposition’s political leaders and articles from foreign media. “We try to avoid mass mailing or even mass text-messaging in order to lessen the possibility of detection,” he said, adding that three recent articles in The Times describing the systematic rape of opposition detainees were translated into Farsi within hours of publication and widely circulated in a country whose independent media has been largely extinguished.
Cell leaders had been astonished by the public’s response, he said. Iranians had begun spontaneously defacing officials’ portraits, motorway signs and walls with green paintballs, or with slogans painted in green. He described how people sat in restaurants writing anti-government slogans on banknotes before paying their bills; how individuals used their own money to have 50 or 100 flyers printed and how he once found a young man putting leaflets under the windscreen wipers of parked cars on his own initiative.
“He and his friends had decided that if the movement was to succeed everyone had to do his or her own thing...It is this activity which is driving the regime mad because it can’t control it. It thought that by arresting so many leaders of the reformist movement, the leaderless popular opposition would simply go away. They failed to understand that this is a bottom-up grassroots movement.” The regime’s attempts to stiffle dissent were making it look increasingly ridiculous, he contended.
A recent football match at Tehran’s Azadi stadium was broadcast in black and white, and without sound, because most of the 70,000 fans were wearing green and chanting anti-Ahmadinejad slogans.
The cell leader said that an important turning point occured last month when as many as a million people defied the regime’s warnings and turned the annual Qods Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause into a huge protest against their own repression.
“We never in our wildest dreams believed this many people would turn up. . . We hoped at best for 100,000 people,” he said. “It showed people were no longer scared of the regime, and that the movement is not only alive but growing. It was a huge morale boost.” Similiar demonstrations are planned for November 4, the day Iranians celebrate the seizure of the US Embassy in 1979.
The activist said university students were mobilising now the new academic year was under way, and that there had already been large, angry demonstrations at the University of Tehran and the capital’s Sahrif and Azad universities. He said there was active opposition in many other cities across Iran including Siraz, Isfahan, Mashad, Kermanshad and Rasht. He claimed that the elite Republican Guard on which the regime depends for its survival was “not as united as it seems, and there is growing discontent over the competency of Ahmadinejad”.
As great a threat to the regime, however was a collapsing economy that was destroying its support amongst poorer Iranians.
Largely as a result of Mr Ahmadinjad’s first-term profligacy inflation and unemployment are rising, property prices slumping and construction stagnating. Only 30 per cent of factories are operating at more than 50 per cent capacity, and within six months another 3,000 are expected to close or switch to a two- or three-day week. Private companies, including almost the entire pharmaceutical and engineering sectors, are owed huge amounts of money by the government. Irankhodro, the Middle East’s largest car manufacturer, is effectively bankrupt. There have been strikes in Tehran, Arak and Masahd. “The economic crisis is becoming catastrophic . . . It will help finish the regime,” the activist claimed.
He e said that the West had grown used to swift “velvet revolutions” like those that toppled former Soviet regimes, but the struggle in Iran would take longer. However, there was now a widespread belief that the regime was “raftani” — heading for the rubbish bin of history.
“We had believed it was for ever, but now we realise it is no more,” he said. The one disappointment, he said, was the failure of Iran’s leading clerics to join the opposition. With a few notable exceptions “the Grand Ayatollahs have not acted in defence of the people against tyranny and the regime’s use of violence and rape. The people looked to them as a class and were disappointed.”
