Tehran and oppression
Monday, June 29, 2009 at 1:27AM ARTICLE: In Tehran, a Mood of Melancholy Descends, By NAZILA FATHI, New York Times, June 27, 2009
Wasn't happy to make this prediction (lack of serious legs on the upheaval). It just struck me as so spontaneous as to be too easily crushed.
Now we head into the forced confessions phase, which is pretty typical of authoritarian regimes (old trick for China). But unlike today's China, there doesn't seem to be any gives offered here, which either demoralizes the opposition or angers them into even more committed actions--namely, strikes.
Listen to this bit:
"We used to sell nearly $2,000 a day," said a woman at an Islamic coat shop on Haft-e Tir Square. "But since the election, our sales have dropped to $900 a day." She gave only her first name, Mahtab, citing fear of retribution.
Like many others who spoke, Mahtab said she was depressed by what she had seen since the election. She said that she was not a political person and had not even voted June 12, but that the repression on the streets was "beyond belief."
"I am disgusted, and wish I could leave this country," she said.
She said she had seen a paramilitary officer outside the shop hit a middle-aged woman in the head so hard that blood streamed down the woman's forehead.
When Mahtab and her colleagues tried to leave the shop to go home, she said, the forces began clubbing them while shouting the names of Shiite saints. "They do this under the name of religion," she said. "Which religion allows this?"
Not a good sign for the regime when you alienate those just trying to keep their heads down.
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