[Marxism] 5, 000 in Iran march to commemmorate murdered cleric, protest repression

[Fred Feldman]

Sunday, June 28, 2009
5,000 March Silently in Iran 

CNN is reporting that 5,000 dissidents marched silently on Shariati street
near a major mosque in downtown Tehran, ostensibly in honor of cleric
Mohammad Beheshti, who was killed in a bombing by the terrorist organization
Mojahedin-e Khalq (Holy Warriors of the People) in 1981. But in fact they
were protesting the stealing of the recent presidential election and the
betrayal of the ideals for which Beheshti died. By casting their march in
the terms of a commemoration of a martyr to the revolution at the hands of a
despised dissident group, the crowd cleverly made it difficult for hard
liners to depict them as agents of a foreign power or revolutionaries
seeking an overturn of the government. CNN says that they walked slowly as
part of their protest, despite attempts of government security forces to
move them along.

The resort to licensed, legal demonstrations is a way for the movement to
keep making news and coming in public, something the regime refuses to allow
in the case of unlicensed protests. Opposition leader Mir Hosain Mousavi is
alleged to have promoted today's event via Facebook.