Word: iranian
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They shouldn't be shocked. Secret overseas operations are nothing new for the CIA, which was created in 1947 with the broad authority to conduct foreign intelligence missions. In 1953 the agency orchestrated a coup against Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh that returned the pro-American Shah to power. Over the ensuing decade, it supported coups and assassinations in places such as Guatemala and the Dominican Republic to install leaders considered sympathetic to U.S. interests. Despite this legacy, many Americans were unaware of the CIA's clandestine operations until May 1960, when a U-2 spy plane was downed over...
...second phase plays out in a boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television. Just try buying a certain brand of dairy product, an Iranian human-rights activist told me, and the person behind you in line is likely to whisper, "Don't buy that. It's from an advertiser." It includes calls to switch on every electric appliance in the house just before the evening TV news to trip up Tehran's grid. It features quickie "blitz" street demonstrations, lasting just long enough to chant "Death to the dictator!" several times but short enough to evade security forces...
...tactics are unorganized, largely leaderless and only just beginning. They spread by e-mail, websites and word of mouth. But their variety and scope indicate that Iran's uprising is not a passing phenomenon like the student protests of 1999, which were quickly quashed. This time, Iranians are rising above their fears. Although embryonic, today's public resolve is reminiscent of civil disobedience in colonial India before independence or in the American Deep South in the 1960s. Mohandas Gandhi once mused that "even the most powerful cannot rule without the cooperation of the ruled." That quotation is now popular...
...that some companies have cut back on TV advertising, and some stores have dropped advertised brands. A new boycott of text messaging could be costing a state company more than $1 million a day. "There is optimism that protests will continue one way or another," says Farideh Farhi, an Iranian analyst at the University of Hawaii, "because people who are normally not rabblerousers are finding ways to counter the government crackdown...
...Iranian women in their early 30s who live in a tony neighborhood in northern Tehran say they do not go out alone after dark, particularly because the Basij have been cracking down on partygoers who try to circumvent the Islamic Republic's strict rules forbidding alcohol, dancing or consorting with the opposite sex. One university student, who claims that the Basij raped his former girlfriend after she left a party last year, says he has avoided venturing out at night since the election. If he does have to go out, he calls a taxi to come directly to his apartment...