Iranian opposition leader defends street protests

[discocrisco01]

Source: AFP

PARIS (AFP) – Reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi, one of the most outspoken leaders of the Iranian opposition movement, defended student street protests Monday and warned authorities against launching a crackdown.

"The solution to arrive at reconciliation is tolerance and acceptance of criticism. We need to work to restore the trust between the authorities and the people," the 72-year-old told the French daily Le Monde.

"Repression is not at all the solution, neither today nor tomorrow," he said, adding that moderates on both sides understood the need for national reconciliation but that hardline pro-regime elements were blocking dialogue.

Le Monde's interview, conducted in a written exchange, was published as Iranian security forces clashed once again with crowds of young demonstrators protesting in Tehran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime.




Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091207/wl_mideast_afp/iranpoliticsoppositionkaroubi_20091207135739/print

[pampango]

1. BBC report on how the opposition uses traditional "protest days" and chants.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8386335.stm

"Iranians are marking University Student Day, traditionally an anti-US event that commemorates the killing of three students in 1953. Opposition supporters are expected to try to hijack official protests by chanting their own anti-government slogans."

Slogans that Iranians used 30 years ago to call for an end to the Shah's regime are now thrown back at the Islamic regime which replaced it.

In some cases, "Allahu Akbar" (Eng: God is great) or "Marg bar dictato" (Eng: Death to the dictator) - the chants have not changed at all. The night-time cries of "Allahu Akbar" from people's rooftops continued for months in the early stages of the revolution which overthrew the Shah. The current Islamic government sees the same chant as a threat.

Today's protesters, largely young city-dwellers, have inverted the chant to "Estaghlal, Azadi, Jomhuriye Irani" (Eng: Independence, Freedom, Iranian Republic). It is an appeal for a secular state and also for the freedoms people hoped they were going to get the first time the chant was used.