::::::::
Thousands of protesters massed in the streets of central Tehran on Thursday evening, defying government warnings and resuming a strategy of direct confrontation with the police nearly a month after Iran's disputed presidential election.
Photo: Getty Images/Getty Images
Protests Resume in Iran
Amnesty International Warns Iran the World Still Watches
Four prominent
politicians are being held in the notorious section 209 of Evin prison, where incommunicado detention and torture
are routine and
deaths in custody have occurred. The men face indefinite detention all
because they publicly supported either Mir Hossein Mousavi who according to
the Guardian Council lost the disputed election or the other
"reformist" presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi.
Powerful Iranian government officials want to make an example out of well-known
opposition leaders by charging them with serious offenses, where if found guilty, they could be
sentenced to death.
These four opposition leaders are at risk of facing this senseless and brutal
punishment unless we show Iran's
leaders that even the harshest of sentences will not silence the Iranian
people's calls for justice and human rights.
Tenth Anniversary of 1999 Student Revolt
The Spirit Lives
Michael Slackman, NYTimes
" As tear gas canisters cracked and hissed in the middle of crowds, and baton-wielding police officers chased protesters up and down sidewalks, young people, some bloodied, ran for cover, but there was an almost festive feeling on the streets of Tehran, witnesses reported in e-mail exchanges.
A young woman, her clothing covered in blood, ran up
Kargar Street, paused for a moment and said, "I am not scared, because we are in this together."The protesters set trash afire in the street, and shopkeepers locked their gates, then let demonstrators in to escape the wrath of the police. Hotels also served as havens, letting in protesters and locking out the authorities.
It has been almost four weeks since the polls closed and the government announced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election in a landslide.
And there have been almost four weeks of defiance, in the face of the government's repeated, uncompromising and violent efforts to restore the status quo. The government did succeed in keeping people off the streets in the previous 11 days, leaving many to simmer on their own as political insiders and clerical heavyweights slugged it out behind the scenes.
But there was an opening to take to the streets again on Thursday in a collective show of defiance, and many protesters seized it, even though the principal opposition leaders stayed away. Mir Hussein Moussavi, who claims he won the election; another candidate, Mehdi Karroubi; and former President Mohammad Khatami have agreed to pursue their complaints through the legal system and to protest only when a permit is issued.
But the mood of the street never calmed. One witness said that had it not been for the overwhelming show of force, it appeared, tens of thousands would have turned out.
The day was supercharged from the start, with a protest called for 4 p.m. to honor the students who 10 years earlier were bloodied and jailed during a violent confrontation with the police. "
