Some Thoughts on 22 Bahman
Feb 4th, 2010 by pedestrian
The Green Day of Freedom: 22 Bahman. (With thanks to Green Wave who sent me the work of his friends)
The Green Trail of 22 Bahman. (From facebook page of Iran’s Green movement)
(From facebook page of Iran’s Green movement)
By Kianoosh Ramezani
Jumping Over Hurdles (By Mana Neyestani)
22 Bahman is fast approaching – it is exactly a week away.
Having closely observed the Ashura protests, I think there were three factors that made the demonstrations so effective:
1. The route. Usually, two or three places are announced for the greens. The police secure these places ahead of time, and there is no way for small groups of demonstrators to gather. For Ashura, instead of limited locations, an entire path was announced (from Imam Hossein Square to Azadi Square highlighted below). The police were scattered across this path, with wide areas left open for demonstrators. The route is shown on the google map below, and the circles are where some of the violence took place (along with Hafez bridge, not indicated in the map). In more peaceful areas, you could easily see the fire and smoke coming from Enghelab (middle circle), and you could see groups of battered and bruised protesters running away, but thousands were gathered and peacefully demonstrating. It was truly humbling and those were the images IRIB never aired. Thousands and thousands of people walking peacefully with their hands in the air.
What you could also see were groups of disoriented guards moving towards Enghelab and Azadi and not having the time to brutalize people in between. However, tear gas was everywhere.
2. The numbers. Just like 22 Bahman, the government had announced days of public holiday prior to Ashura. The entire city of Tehran, especially the more affluent parts, felt empty and completely deserted. But, despite this, there was a huge turnout.
3.The Spontaneity. Number 2 actually leads to number 3. Since there had been no official calls to the protests by Karoubi or Mousavi, since the city had felt empty for days, thousands of people came not knowing if anyone would be there at all. What you saw over and over again was big groups of people cautiously walking in the streets which led to the main path, unsure, asking pedestrians if anyone was in the main streets, looking at you with inquisitive eyes that clearly asked: “are you here for this too?” Both the demonstrators and the security forces were caught by surprise. The police forces were clearly, obviously less well organized perhaps because they were just not expecting those numbers.
Number 3 is off the table for 22 Bahman as I’m sure security forces have been in training and on alert for weeks now. But the numbers will decide many things.
Posted via web from lissping
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