Word: tehran
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...Year's Eve, days after the some of the bloodiest confrontations to hit the streets of Tehran since June's disputed election, security forces were still stationed in large numbers at major intersections and squares. Alongside regular uniformed officers stood civilian members of Iran's Basij paramilitary front, many of them teenagers with flossy beards and uncertain looks, lacking shoulder pads and body armor. Their borrowed batons and riot helmets looked incongruously large compared with their skinny frames. Meanwhile, the ranks of the opposition bristled with reports that they now plan to field armored antiriot vehicles purchased from China...
However, there had been no riot police or civilian militia to deter one large gathering. On Wednesday, Dec. 30, in Tehran's Revolution Square, firebrand pro-government cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda stood before a large pro-government rally and tried to pump it up with language little short of an incitement to civil war. "Enemies of the leader, according to the Koran, belong to the party of Satan," Alamolhoda declared. "Our war in the world is war against the opponents of the rule of the Supreme Leader...
TUMULT IN TEHRAN After incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's June presidential election by what many considered an implausibly wide margin, millions of Iranians massed in protest. Opposition supporters braved beatings by paramilitary thugs and sidestepped a crackdown on the media by spreading news through Facebook and Twitter. There was no happy ending for the protesters--Ahmadinejad's win was certified--but the popular dissatisfaction they embodied marked an unprecedented, ongoing challenge to Iran's conservative theocracy...
...Such shows of direct opposition would have been unthinkable a year ago, as would the necessity of government-sponsored counterprotests in support of Khamenei. Filing out of Tehran University's east gate, 2,000 government supporters, men strictly separated from women, shouted a well-rehearsed slogan in favor of ideological totalitarianism: "Our leader only, Seyyed Ali, our party only, the party...
...That crowd never made it. Ripples of fear prompted a stampede after a concerted police charge. Tear gas and batons held the day once more. But word later came through that many had in fact reached Revolution Square and some had even gone to Tehran's iconic Freedom Monument...