No Wonder Khamenei Went for a Big Crackdown. People, Especially Women, Were Getting Through To Basiji.

We saw the pictures early on of protestors protecting Basij if the security people got isolated.  You would hope that would have had more of an effect.  I read somewhere that there are 300,000 of them, some armed, some on motorcycles, some with guns, and some in uniforms, but some in plaincloths and with nothing but truncheons or hoses.  I saw photographs of the protective efforts of protestors, (unless they were some of the planted plain clothes intelligence presonnel).  

Gary Sick quotes a woman from Tehran's call showing though that people were beginning to talk and bargain with  the Basij and that the Basij were responding.   But the rest of the mini report shows the big danger of the reduced protests.  Their is such a huge intelligence factor in Iran that a smaller presence in the demostrations leaves them packed with spies and Basij.

Still the piece showed how women could protect men who seemed in danger of being beaten by rushing up and surrounding the Basij involved and telling them not to beat the man.  And amazingly the Basij were answering back and explaining that they weren't going to beat him.

That's conversation, that recognizing the other's humanity.  That's what moves the military to side with the people.

And apparently that's what scared the hardline mullahs.*  They had seen this before in 1979 and this time they were on the wrong side.

See Gary's Choices "Don't mess with Iran's women! "

(If you read the piece you'll see that at the demonstration on which the lady from Tehran reported, there were actually more Basij and intelligence agents than real protestors so the leaders soon knew what was going on.)

tags: iran  iranelection  demonstrations  basij  

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