Word: ahmadinejad
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Despite the initial post-election mayhem, the government had some reason to believe that the fury would subside. Since Ahmadinejad's victory in 2005, when many voters stayed away from the polls, the reform movement had been largely dormant. So when Mousavi called for a demonstration on June 15, no one was sure how many people would show up. Some of his supporters may well have resigned themselves to defeat--until Ahmadinejad's victory speech, in which he compared the protesters to fans upset about losing a soccer match and called them a minority of "twigs and mote." A number...
...elderly. They didn't chant insulting slogans, and there were few police in sight. Beneath the placid surface simmered frustration and anger--but also traces of hope. "People have come out because they've finally had enough. They're tired of all the lies that [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has dished out," said Massoumeh, 46, who brought her two young daughters to the march. (Like most other Iranians I talked to, she did not want to give her full name.) "They can see the difference between what is being said and what is happening...
...regime has crushed challenges to its authority before, most recently in 1999, when students poured into the streets to protest the closing of a reformist newspaper, prompting the government to unleash vigilantes on them. The state deployed its shock troops again this time: members of the Basij, a pro-Ahmadinejad paramilitary group, stormed dormitories at Tehran University, reportedly killing five students and detaining hundreds. At least one demonstrator was killed when a Basiji opened fire on a crowd. There are eyewitness reports of deaths from clashes across Iran. Yet no matter what transpires--whether the government bows to the demands...
...mood on the streets of Tehran has been a mix of anger, exhilaration and dread. The day after Ahmadinejad was declared the victor in a landslide, people emptied into the streets in rage. Downtown, groups of demonstrators set several buses, a building and hundreds of garbage bins on fire, smashed the windows of state banks and destroyed ATMs. On Ghaem-Magham Street, I watched a lone woman dressed in a head-to-toe black chador standing on the side of the road, flashing the peace sign to passing cars and yelling, "Only Mousavi." The woman, a 36-year-old bank...
That people are now willing to risk their lives and take action shows that Iran has crossed a threshold. The nature of the demonstrations has reminded the state that people do, after all, care as much about democratic rights as they do about the economy. Ahmadinejad has done poorly on both counts, but as long as the state respected the vote, Iranians--who fought hard for the revolution that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic--were willing to overlook other shortcomings. Now that trust is gone. "This time they went too far," says Mohsen, a 32-year...