Musical pulpits: How the choice of Ghods Day's prayer leader put the regime in overdrive

Opposition poster - 'Green Ghods Day'

Will he or won't he? The question has been heating up Iranian newswires since Saturday.

Will Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lead Tehran's Friday Prayer on Ghods Day, September 18, which the opposition has marked in green in its calendar and hopes to make a repeat performance of the multi-million-man marches of the movement's early days?

Rafsanjani, head of two key constitutional bodies, the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, has become a reluctant figurehead for the green movement which has propelled him to that position with equal wariness.

Rafsanjani is a regular leader of Tehran's Friday Prayer, appointed as preacher by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and thus not easily impeachable. The last time he spoke at Friday Prayer was July 17 and despite his characteristic tightrope speech in which he attempted to be all things to all men, protesters flooded into the breach. The prayer hall at Tehran University holds about 5,000 people and the adjacent streets and empty lots another 50,000. Video footage showed even more protesters, extending far beyond the usual perimeter of loudspeaker-equipped avenues.

They chanted boisterously, their voices heard from outside the prayer hall, eagerly breaking taboos by responding to the official chant-master's 'Death to America, death to Britain' with their own 'Death to Russia, death to China!' Rafsanjani interrupted his speech, calling plaintively on the demonstrators, 'Please allow me. I'm saying it better than you would.' (Full footage of his speech here, text of the speech in English, courtesy Council on Foreign Relations here). Protesters subsequently took to the streets in a peaceful manner.



Rafsanjani usually preaches at the Tehran prayer once a month, but he was replaced on August 14 by Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khatami (no relation to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami), temporary Tehran Friday Prayer leader and a hard-line supporter of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Reza Taghavi, head of the national coordinating body for Friday prayers, said at the time that Rafsanjani had relinquished his spot to 'avoid any unacceptable political exploitation' of the event.

A month on, it is Rafsanjani's turn once again. In recent years he has always preached on Ghods Day, an annual event created by Ayatollah Khomeini to protest Israel's occupation of Palestine.

But will he or won't he?

Ahmad Khatami, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

On Saturday, September 12, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Friday prayer committee chairman Reza Taghavi as saying that Rafsanjani would not lead the event 'to avoid any unacceptable political exploitation of Friday prayers.' It was the exact quote of a month before. Raja News, which is run by Fatemeh Rajabi, wife of Ahmadinejad government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham, quickly relayed the news under the headline 'Hashemi Rafsanjani is not Ghods Day's Friday imam.' The site wrote that because of the unrest surrounding Rafsanjani's July 17 sermon, 'a definite decision has been made to not invite him. Hojjatoleslam Seyed Ahmad Khatami will possibly lead.'

Shortly thereafter, Mehr news published an interview with Ahmad Khatami in which he denied he would be leading this week's event. 'The decision is made by the Supreme Leader's office and this week's prayer leader has yet to be determined,' Khatami said.

But then IRNA, the Islamic Republic's News Agency, jumped into the fray and published an article in which Khatami denied his previous denial. 'Despite what some sites have reported, I have not denied I will lead the prayers,' Khatami said.

The debate raged on the next day, Sunday. Sarmayeh newspaper's front page headlined, 'Rafsanjani: I have not renounced leading Friday's prayer.' The article went on to say that Rafsanjani's office had issued a statement rejecting previous reports that he had decided against preaching this Friday.

Jomhouri Eslami daily, close to Rafsanjani, also wrote that Rafsanjani had not abandoned the idea of leading the Ghods Day prayer. 'Jomhouri Eslami's reporter has reviewed the claims of certain sites and has ascertained that Ayatollah Rafsanjani's office has not been contacted about [this subject] and that he has therefore not decided whether to preach or not,' the newspaper said.

On Monday, opposition news service Mowjeh Sabz took a stab at Fars news, saying the whole fiasco had been triggered by the 'coup d'état's news agency (Fars news)' which had 'published an old article from another news service and linked it to Ghods Day.' Mowjeh Sabz added that Reza Taghavi had denied making any statement concerning Rafsanjani to Fars news and had demanded that the article be removed from the site.

On Tuesday, September 15, IRNA posted a piece on the ongoing controversy, in which Hojjatoleslam Massoud Moradi, head of the coordinating committee for Tehran's Friday prayer, was quoted as saying, 'Ayatollah Seyed Ahmad Khatami will be the imam of Ghods Day's prayer in Tehran.' Moradi concluded, 'Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will give a speech before the sermon.'

Several hours later, Tabnak news countered with a report of its own. 'In an interview with Tabnak, Hojjatoleslam Massoud Moradi denied this news and declared that Ghods Day's imam will be announced in a few hours,' the site claimed.

IRNA riposted with an article headlined 'The strange denial of IRNA's news on Ghods Day's Friday prayer.' The official Iranian news agency wrote, 'This morning, because the name of the Friday prayer leader is traditionally announced on Tuesday, our reporter contacted Hojjatoleslam Moradi and he gave us the news that was published.' IRNA went on to write that Moradi had called back several minutes later and had asked that the article not be published because the final decision had not been made. 'According to his request, we took it off the news feed,' said IRNA. 'Our reporter contacted Hojjatoleslam Moradi again and complained, Why have you rejected news that you personally gave to us, the audio files of which are available, and which we subsequently took off the news feed upon your request? He said that after speaking to IRNA he had not been in touch with any other media outlet.'

At 12:18 PM GMT, IRNA released another piece, this time citing an anonymous source who reiterated Moradi's initial statement: Rafsanjani would not lead Ghods Day's prayer.

As of this report, the question has yet to be settled.

Will he or won't he?

For the protesters who aim to demonstrate in huge numbers on Friday, the answer may well turn out to be irrelevant.

Unchained letter - End of your religious tyranny in Iran, writes renowned scholar to Khamenei - Part 2

This is the translation of the second and final part of Abdolkarim Soroush's open letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. For part one and an introduction to Soroush go here.


Mr. Khamenei,

[...]

The green movement has been established with determination to create a green Iran. This movement has found its green martyrs, green poets and poetry, its green literature and arts and phrases. It is the fruit of 20 years of efforts on the part of intellectuals and activists in the political and cultural spheres. You are wasting your time trying to break it with your militarism.

This lion is not one that you can escape / There's no escaping the curse of God (NB Soroush recites from the mystical poet Rumi. The two lines immediately preceding this quote are: 'You bark like rabid dogs / you deny the Koran's truth'.)

The fading fear of the people and the vanishing legitimacy of the concept of Supreme Leadership are the greatest achievements of the revolt of honor over plunder

The fading fear of the people and the vanishing legitimacy of the concept of Supreme Leadership are the greatest achievements of the revolt of honor over plunder. The slumbering lion of courage and resistance has been awakened. Neither usurpation by the military, nor rape committed by the corrupt; neither dust thrown in the eyes of humanity, nor hot air to puff up the [regime's] ragged clothes; neither dependence on animal savagery, nor attacks on human sciences (NB Soroush refers to a recent speech by Khamenei in which he voices concern about human sciences taught in Iranian universities because they instil secularism.); neither the flattery of flatterers in your pay, nor the poetry of poem-selling fools; none of these will bend the back of the resistance. Religious tyranny has been besieged by blasphemy and religion, and it is time to cut it down in the green fields of the movement. We have asked this of God and God is with us.

There is no sweeter proof of your turning fortunes than the fact that all your celebrations have become mourning ceremonies. And whatever tweaked your mirth once, now brings you tears and tremors. The universities whom you wanted to kiss your feet, now provoke your nightmares. Street demonstrations, the usual gatherings, Ramadan, Moharram, the Hajj, and mournful prayers have all become curses which work against you (NB The regime has had to cancel one event after the other to prevent protesters from using the ceremonies for their own ends).

A moral society and a government beyond religion are the beacons of our Green nation

We are of a fortunate generation. We shall celebrate the disappearance of religious despotism. A moral society and a government beyond religion are the beacons of our Green nation.

We shall cherish and esteem freedom, that same freedom which you did not value and unto which you heaped injustices. You were sold fascism and told that freedom is whimsical and permissive. [...] If you had allowed the press to be free, it would have divulged corruption and the corrupt would not have dared engage in their misdeeds. If you had allowed people to criticize you, you would not have fallen into the abyss of dictatorship and the corruption of power. The people's true words would have dispelled your daze of ignorance. They are the schools of the nation, not 'enemy bases.' And what would have been so terrifying if the doors of those schools had been kept open and you had been able to learn there?

We will cherish religion, that same religion that you made a tool of your power and in whose name you gave lessons in slavery and melancholy. You did not understand that joy and freedom walk alongside true faith [...] and that religious power corrupts both religion and power. Governing a joyous, free, informed, and nimble people is an achievement, not lording over a bound and dejected nation.

I ask myself who I am writing this for? For a regime whose luck has turned? [...] And then I recall the words of God:

When some of them said: 'Why do ye preach to a people whom Allah will destroy or visit with a terrible punishment?' - said the preachers:' To discharge our duty to your Lord, and perchance they may fear Him.' (Sura 164 'The Heights')

If I once aided the evil-doers out of error or sin, I ask for your forgiveness and absolution

God, bear witness. I who have spent a lifetime longing for religion and teaching religion, distance myself from this despotic regime's oppression, and if I once aided the evil-doers out of error or sin, I ask for your forgiveness and absolution. Oh God of wisdom and virtue, accept our prayers [...] and leave not your friends in the hands of enemies.

Call the winds to tear away despotism's tabernacle and call fire to burn the roots of oppression. Call the seas to drown the pharaohs and the earth to bury the qaruns (NB According to the Koran, 'Qarun was a man from the people of Moussa, but he oppressed them.') Call the clouds and the rains that they may rain grace and justice and joy and compassion upon this persecuted people, and that this barren land of the oppressors may become the flower field of the just.

Abdolkarim Soroush

Weekend roundup

A review of the most important news of the weekend.

• Alireza Beheshti, senior member of the opposition committee looking into the abuse and deaths of protesters, was released from prison late Saturday. Beheshti was arrested at home on Tuesday after the search and closure of his offices on Monday. He is the son of iconic revolutionary figure Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the first judiciary chief of the Islamic Republic who was assassinated in 1981. Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, visited Beheshti shortly after he was freed. The release, said to be the result of heavy backroom pressure from senior leaders, is considered a setback for the regime hard-liners. (Previous report on his arrest)
   
• Supporters began assembling outside Ayatollah Youssef Saanei's office in the holy city of Ghom on Saturday evening after he delivered a fiery speech against the regime. Congregants, gathered in a mosque on the occasion of Ghadr Night, the night of the revelation of the Koran to the Prophet Muhammed, began chanting even before leaving the premises:
  
  
  
  They subsequently demonstrated outside Saanei's office, chanting 'With God's help we will reach victory, death to this deceitful government!' 'Political prisoners must be freed!' 'Long live Mir Hossein [Mousavi], May Karroubi stand long!' and 'Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, my life only for Iran!'
  
  
  
  Ayatollah Saanei had already delivered a highly critical speech in Gorgan on August 12, in which he implied that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a 'lying bastard.' Ahmadinejad has filed a lawsuit against Saanei.
  
  
• Human rights lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah was released from prison on Sunday after posting 500 million toumans ($500,000) in bail. He had been arrested in his law office on July 8. Dadkhah is a member of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi's Center for the Defense of Human Rights, and has often defended political prisoners in court.
  
  
• Five months after arriving in Tehran, British Ambassador Simon Gass finally presented his letter of appointment to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday, in a ceremony that Raja News and Fars News termed 'a humiliation for Britain.' Gass presented his letter in a joint ceremony attended by other newly-appointed ambassadors from Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand. Ahmadinejad reportedly did not smile when addressing Gass and in response to the British ambassador's assurances that Britain did not want to interfere in the affairs of Iran, said that the Iranian people would not allow anyone to interfere anyway.
  
  
• Mamousta Borhan Aali, a Friday prayer leader in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, was shot and killed at his home. Borhan Aali was a supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and had campaigned for him during the presidential election.
  
  
• The archives of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, have filed a lawsuit against arch-conservative Keyhan daily for alleging that the archives had been infiltrated by traitors. The full text of the complaint in Farsi can be read here. Keyhan daily is run by Hossein Shariatmadari, close adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his representative at the Keyhan Institute. 
  
  
• Candlelight vigils were held at Behesht Zahra cemetery for dead protesters, including Neda Agha Soltan and Sohrab Aarabi. The woman weeping at Neda's grave (the YouTube user incorrectly uses the word 'thumb' instead of tomb) is allegedly her mother and can be heard saying, 'You had so much left to say. Your eyes say so much. What were you seeking, my dear Neda?'
  
  
  
  And at Sohrab Aarabi's grave:
  
  
  
  
• Rooftop chanting was allegedly stronger than usual after Ayatollah Khamenei's bellicose Friday Prayer sermon,  according to several videos posted over the weekend:
  
  
  
  
  

Unchained letter - End of your religious tyranny in Iran, writes renowned scholar to Khamenei - Part 1

In a remarkable open letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, renowned philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush predicts the end of religious despotism in Iran.  


He is the preeminent living thinker of Iranian Religious Intellectualism which aims to reform Islam and associate the values of religion, pluralistic democracy, and tolerance. The movement is an extension of the works of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, and Karl Popper, but it is also heavily influenced by Persian mysticism, often embodied by the 13th-century poetry of Rumi, of which Soroush is also a world expert. Known as the Islamic Martin Luther, Soroush was featured in Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005. 'Nobody studies modern liberal Islam without studying Soroush,' said Roy Mottahedeh, an Islamic-history professor at Harvard University, in that issue of Time.

Soroush welcomed the revolution and held several senior academic positions within the establishment, but his opposition to the concept of velayeteh faghih, or guardianship of the jurisprudent, which is the basis for the Supreme Leader's power, put him at loggerheads with the regime. In the 1990s, he increasingly became the target of attacks and finally left the country in 2000. 

In the 1970s, he turned to the study of history and the philosophy of science at Chelsea College, London, after obtaining a doctorate in chemistry. He currently teaches at Georgetown University, but has also held posts at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. 

Soroush published his open letter to Khamenei on Thursday September 10. 


Setting the tone early in his letter, Soroush writes to Khamenei, 'You said 'The regime's honor has been rended.' I had never heard such good news in my life.' 


In a particularly harsh portion of his letter, Soroush charges, 'Treason and fraud were not enough, you turned to murder and crime. Treason and crime were not enough, you added the rape of prisoners to everything else. Murder and rape and fraud were still not enough, you added accusations of spying and dishonor to the lot.' Soroush mournfully says, 'You are now the prisoner of a closed regime that you yourself created long ago, in which neither criticism, nor opinions, nor science, nor information flourish.'

'The fading fear of the people and the vanishing legitimacy of the concept of Supreme Leadership are the greatest achievements of the revolt of honor over plunder,' Soroush writes towards the end of his correspondence. 'We will celebrate the disappearance of religious despotism. A moral society and a government beyond religion are the beacons of our Green nation.'

The following is a translation of the first part of Soroush's letter. 

Celebration for the disappearance of religious despotism


The blood-stained wedding ended and the false groom left the bridal chamber.
The ballot boxes shook and the fiends danced in the darkness.
The victims stood watching in their white shrouds and the prisoners, their hands cut off, clapped.
And the world, one eye filled with rage, the other with hatred, bore off the groom.
The times wept and blood flowed from the republic's brow.
The Devil laughed and then the stars were extinguished and virtue fell into a slumber.

Mr. Khamenei,

In this drought of virtue and justice, everyone has complaints against you, but I thank you. Not that I have no complaints. I do, and many, but I have set them before God. Your ears have become so full of the praises and caresses of sycophants that they have no room for the voices of those with grievances. But I thank you greatly. You said, 'The sanctity of the regime has been rended' and it has been disgraced. Believe me, in all my life I had never received such good news from anyone. My compliments to you for announcing the misery and affliction of religious despotism.

You were prepared to allow God to be shamed, to preserve yourself from shame.

I am joyous that finally the sighs of morning prayers have reached the celestial spheres and awakened the fires of divine vengeance. You were prepared to allow God to be shamed, to preserve yourself from shame. To have people turn their backs on piety and religion, but not turn their backs to your guardianship. That tradition and the path and truth be crumpled up, so that not a wrinkle would befall your leadership. But God did not want this. The pained hearts and muzzled mouths and spilled blood and cut hands did not want it and prevented it. The pure and the devout and the prophets did not want it. The deprived and the peacemakers and the oppressed and the righteous prevented it.

'The fairy hides her face as the fiend is about,' (NB Soroush is quoting a line from the beloved Hafez's ode number 64) this is the story of your republic of guardianship. Praise God that the veil of this fiend's false purity has been torn. His secrets have been disclosed, his hands opened, and his guilt placed before the sunlight. And the world has looked upon its naked form with anger and astonishment.

Mr. Khamenei,

I know that you are passing through bitter and hard times. You have committed an offense, a severe offense. I explained this offense to you twelve years ago. I told you to choose freedom as your method. Forget that it is virtuous and just, choose it as a method of successful governance. Is this what you want? Why are you doing things backwards? Why do you send denouncers and spies among the people to look into their hearts and pull words from their mouths through trickery, and then report lies and truths to you? Leave the press, political parties, associations, critics, teachers, writers... alone. The people will express themselves in a thousand ways and cast open their windows to you and help you in organizing the country and the system. Don't strangle the press. The press is the breath of society. But you took dead ends and weaving paths. And now your are under the spell of nothingness and have become the prisoner of a closed regime that you yourself created long ago, in which neither criticism, nor opinions, nor science, nor information flourish. You think that by reading confidential bulletins or listening to subservient advisers, you will grasp the reality of what is going on. Both the election of Khatami and the green election of Mousavi must be obvious to you, otherwise disdain and the charms of despotism would not have chased away the knowledge and shrewdness within you. And now, to make up for that sin, which is due to ignorance and despotism, you are turning to even greater crimes. You are washing blood with blood in order to regain purity.

You are washing blood with blood in order to regain purity.

Treason and fraud were not enough, you turned to murder and crime. Treason and crime were not enough, you added the rape of prisoners to everything else. Murder and rape and fraud were still not enough, you added accusations of spying and dishonor to the lot. You did not spare dervishes or clerics or writers or students. And in the end, you reward the killers and wrongdoers. Then you laugh in everyone's face and take a poor soldier to task for stealing an electric razor. (NB Soroush is referring to the student movement of July 1999 in Iran. Dormitories were raided, students beaten and arrested, and an unknown number of people killed. The death toll is generally considered to be at least four. The ensuing trial acquitted all police commanders and security officers, except for one soldier who was fined and imprisoned for stealing an electric razor from the student dorms, and a police officer who was jailed for assault.)

I was amazed by God's patience.

[...]

I knew that bereaved mothers and fathers were weeping behind closed doors and asking God, Save us from this place of oppression and send us succor. [...] The prisons were temples where worshippers genuflected day and night, and prayed -- and are still praying -- to God for the collapse of the guardianship.

As Jesus said on the cross, I asked 'Father, why have You forsaken us?'

When Neda Agha Soltan was martyred, her chest pierced by oppression's bullet, I wailed to God, Do You not hear the voice of the people? (NB Neda means voice in Farsi) As Jesus said on the cross, I asked 'Father, why have You forsaken us?' [...]

Until that day when I heard that forced admission, I mean those life-giving words, 'The sanctity of the regime has been rended.' It was as if the words had come from You, God. I knelt and thanked You. [...]

Mr. Khamenei,

I want to tell you that the page has turned and the regime's fortunes have shifted. It has been disgraced. [...] Even God has turned His face and taken His light from you. Those acts you committed in secret places and behind curtains have been revealed. [...] Even the path of repentance has been closed to you. Religion will not intercede in your favor, you who have lost legitimacy. The green Iran will no longer be that black Iran of devastation. This movement's whiteness and greenness have taken precedence over the blackness of your tyranny. The earth and water and fire and clouds and winds... are aligned against you on God's orders.

For years, your cohorts and agents, under the umbrella of your protection and guardianship, savaged the people like hungry jackals

For years, your cohorts and agents, under the umbrella of your protection and guardianship, savaged the people like hungry jackals and took safety and justice away from them. [...] They took them prisoner, like an invaded tribe, trampled their rights, plundered their freedoms, broke their dignity, subjugated their thoughts, and turned their religion upside-down. They started producing sanctities as if in a factory and sold superstition as religion. They shoved their treasonous hands into the people's ballot boxes. They placed the universities under the supervision of the uneducated. They filled a house of woes called the Islamic Republic's radio-television with lies and insults and gave the nation lessons on how to despair and be slaves. They created fake and extravagant gatherings and sold lies to the world about how the people loved the regime of the Supreme Leader. In prisons and houses of death, they murdered, raped, committed injustices, assaulted, and tortured to an extent unseen even during the Mongol invasion. They trampled the law and encouraged the science of ignorance and fanaticism. They lifted up the benighted and pushed down the wise. They took joy from the young and dignity from elders. They created colorful ayatollahs and obtained heavy fatwas from them. [...] Their psychosis about imaginary enemies created daily crises. People were imprisoned and ridiculous confessions were placed in their mouths and horrendous punishments were meted out. [...]

[These acts] lit a blaze in the conscience of the people that burned the house of the guardianship. The post-election protest was neither a military exercise, nor sedition, nor the Zarrar Mosque -- a term you have coined in your mint and employ often. (NB The Zarrar Mosque, mentioned in the Koran, was built by religious hypocrites to tempt the true Muslims.) It was an outburst of honor over plunder. The people, with awakened consciences, defended their vote, their elected choice, their rights as citizens, and their freedom of thought in a calm and collected manner against those who would plunder their vote and rights and freedom. The thieves were up in arms, but we heard God's laughter. He was satisfied with us. He had heard our prayers and had disgraced the murderers and the wrongdoers. Taraneh Mousavi's death was the death knell of tyranny.

(End of part 1. For part 2 go here)

Delusions of candor: Tehran IRGC commander puts the latest spin on unrest

General Abdollah Araghi

'Delusions of candor' is an ongoing series on the regime's efforts to spin the news, create disinformation, and spread propaganda.

'Despite reports published in foreign media, the number of dead in the unrest totaled 36, three in Kahrizak [detention center] and almost 10 others whose place of death is known. But it is unclear where the rest were killed and who shot them,' said the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander for Greater Tehran, General Abdollah Araghi.

Araghi, who heads the IRGC's Mohammad Rassoulollah (Mohammad Prophet of God) Corps, was speaking at the induction ceremony for northern Tehran's new IRGC commander, according to news reports from ILNA and IRNA.

Before the closure of its offices on Tuesday, September 8, the opposition committee looking into the abuse and deaths of protesters had released a list of 72 identified dead protesters and had announced additions to the tally in the near future. Two senior members of the committee, Alireza Beheshti and Morteza Alviri, were arrested on the same day.

However this is the first time that a top regime official has admitted that any deaths occurred at Kahrizak. Just recently, Iran's Security Forces Chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam had said that no one had died at the notorious detention center. Araghi's figures also contradict those of IRGC commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari, who claimed last week, 'In total, there were 29 dead and of those, 20 belonged to the Basij forces and only 9 were protesters.'

Araghi devoted most of his speech to the post-election unrest and the security measures taken to counter it.

In a strange statement, fraught with unintended meaning, Araghi said, 'Three outcomes had been predicted. First, that the Principlist candidate [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] would take the vote, and this is what happened and we saw the result. Second, that Mr. Mousavi and the 2nd of Khordad front would win the vote, and in this respect post-election celebrations had been predicted. And finally, that the election would go to a second round.'

Araghi said that the Basij had not been summoned on the evening of the election, when 'garbage cans, government property, and banks were set on fire, and clashes with security forces took place.'

Subsequently, security forces in the capital went on red alert, according to the IRGC general. 'Certain parts of Tehran, like Narmak, Tehran Pars, and Gheitarieh, saw truly heavy clashes, so much so that the city looked like it was in revolt,' said Araghi, citing only districts in northeastern Tehran, although most of the documented protester deaths took place in other parts of the capital.

'The heaviest demonstrations took place on June 15, when the organizers managed to bring anyone who had any grievance into the streets,' Araghi continued, employing the same dismissive tone that Ahmadinejad took in a recent speech when he said, 'Anyone who had had a spat with his mother came to the streets.' Photos, videos, and eyewitness accounts of that demonstration seem to indicate that the silent protesters held aloft posters with only one message: 'Where is my vote?'

Araghi contended that Leader Ali Khamenei's Friday Prayer sermon on June 19 'clarified matters and led to a fall in the number of ignorant people who were coming to the streets.'

'Unfortunately, the Association of Combatant Clerics' statement on demonstrations, which was akin to thumbing their nose at the regime, invited the population to engage in civil disobedience,' regretted General Araghi. 'The IRGC, Basij, security forces and other forces decided to put an end to this disobedience.' The next day, June 20, turned into one of the deadliest for the reform movement.

As an example of foreign media bias, Araghi referred to footage of a Basiji shooting on people from a rooftop at the Ashoura 117 Base near Azadi Square on June 15.



The valiant Basiji had been defending the base for three and a half hours, said Araghi, before opening fire on one individual who was trying to gain control of the base's arsenal. According to reports, at least seven people -- Ahmad Naim Abadi, Nasser Amirnejad, Sorour Boroumand, Fatemeh Rajabpour, Mahmoud Raisi Nafissi, Kianoush Assa, and Massoud Khosravi -- were killed in front of the Basij base on Mohammad Ali Jenah Street and in the adjacent Azadi Square that day.

Araghi warned that the 'enemy's tactics have moved from the military phase to soft threats' and that the IRGC had to change its approach to confront the new dangers.

He did not elaborate on whether civil disobedience was a part of the opposition's new ominous tactics.