Wednesday, June 24, 2009

House party

New news from Iran: Obama sez yay protesters, the Ayatollah still doesn't understand what's going on, torture, more protests/beatings/shootings, it's all the West's fault, and coerced "confessions".

Also, they've put Mousavi under house arrest so he can't try to hike the Appalachian Trail, can avoid the violence that the British media controls, won't be able to commit suicide before the Guardian Council orders his death to be made to look like a suicide, and can't do all that pesky marching and complaining about an oppressive theocracy stuff.
The Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi is under 24-hour guard by secret police and no longer able to speak freely to supporters, according to the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Mr Makhmalbaf, 52, an informal spokesman abroad for the protest in Iran, said that Mr Mousavi was not under arrest but "he has security agents, secret police with him all the time. He has to be careful what he says."
...
Mr Mousasvi's means of communication had been cut off, or confiscated, just after the disputed election, Mr Makhmalbaf said. He had therefore been asked informally to make sure that a true picture of what was happening in Iran reached the outside world.

Asked to explain where the protests might go from here, he said that Mr Mousavi had urged his supporters not to confront the regime directly but to "adopt the tactics of Gandhi, the tactics of non-violent protest and civil disobedience".
Gandhi, ouch. It's going to be really hard for the Iranian Guardian Council and security forces to demonize the tactics and persona of Gandhi, but I'm really interested to see their effort. Gandhi's whole salt march was so he could rub it in the eyes of British colonialists and ball it up into a rock like projectile, right?

So what's all this mean? It looks like this is going the bloody, violent distance. Ending in either tanks shooting at protesters and martial law or masses of people storming the palace and a nice spate of Hague trials. At least we're getting a full picture of what's going on. Oh, it's actually worse than what we're seeing? Goody.

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