Election Anniversary Celebrated Across the Nation

The Iranian people started the June 12 anniversary of last year’s disputed presidential election with text messages from the intelligence ministry; threatening text messages that read: “Dear citizen, you have been deceived by foreign media and are operating for them. If you repeat this action you will be dealt with in accordance with Islamic penal law.” The intelligence ministry had used the same ploy before, but the measure failed to deter protesters from coming to the streets.

In the days leading up to the anniversary, the sitting government and military organs mobilized all their resources to prevent protesters from pouring into the streets. But yesterday, the streets of Tehran and other cities across Iran witnessed sporadic clashes between people who voiced their anger by shouting “death to dictator” and security officers who attempted to disperse them.

People also shouted “Allah Akbar” on rooftops on the anniversary, just as they had done after the results of last year’s rigged elections were announced. Yesterday, they came to the streets in defiance of Tehran’s militarized atmosphere. Their presence was large enough for Iran’s police chief commander Radan to announce that many had been detained. Radan referred to the detainees as “suspects,” but did not clarify what they were suspected of having done.

Yesterday’s protests and sporadic clashes took place while the leading presidential hopefuls Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi had called off street protests after the interior ministry refused to issue a permit for the protests. Hours after the announcement, Kalameh website, which reflects Mousavi’s views, called on people and green movement activists to “be aware in this critical condition of the conspiracy pursued by the power-hungry and perpetrators of violence, and not provide the smallest excuse or opportunity for them to exploit in order to achieve their evil aims, perpetrating violence by their forces and using that as an excuse to attack and murder and arrest defenseless people. [People] must realize that in this period the government is essentially in extreme need of radical moves.”

According to Rooz reporters in the field, Tehran faced one of its most heavily militarized atmospheres in recent months, and was filled with police, special riot, plainclothes and Basij officers who had come out again to suppress protesters who were in fact asking what had happened to their vote and who were protesting the murder of their fellow citizens. On the other side were people who had come out to the streets in defiance of the threats, shouting “death to dictator” in various areas across the city, and showing off their presence to security officers by creating heavy traffic in the city.

One Rooz reporter wrote from Tehran, “People behaved in a subtle manner in the streets. They would walk and laugh, angering the police, but at the same time not giving them an excuse to attack them. The officers were extremely angry and frustrated.”