http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/
The BBC published a report stating that after Iran lost another football match 'Iran football violence continues.' According to the report on the BBC site "Thousands of young people, apparently angered by Iran's 3-1 defeat by Bahrain in a World Cup football qualifying match on Sunday night, took to the streets and clashed with riot police and security forces on Monday evening. Their anger may have been compounded by reports that the International Football Federation (Fifa) had rejected an Iranian complaint about Bahrain fielding ineligible players."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1614000/1614696.stm
However according to the call to demo from the website of the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran for the same days that the BBC was reporting 'soccer violence' by students outraged that their soccer team lost the game the Democracy movement was planning mass demonstrations at the public venueof the soccer games. Now what could have happened here is that the BBC got in touch with Mr. Authority figure in 'the Iranian department of justice' who spoon fed the BBC a story about 'fans outraged by losing at soccer' which the BBC then published, the story having coming from 'reliable and official sources in Iran' after all. However the demos were not at all about soccer according to the Student Movement. What actually happened, according to their call to the demo at the games was outlined on their website as follows...
http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/demo/
All Iranian Cities, Iran (On 10/21/2001)
The Iranian Secular Opposition Movement, known as the Third Force, is rescheduling the Popular Protest gatherings, across Iran, which should have take place on Friday October 19th to Sunday October 21, 2001, after the minute 90 of the game... The Football [Soccer] Movement is the term used for the wide-scale popular demonstrations that occur after the World Cup qualifying matches.
Since all opposition demonstrations are officially banned, and brutally suppressed by the regime when announced ahead of time, the Iranian people are utilizing the Football matches to coordinate the timing of their wide-scale pro-secular and nationalist demonstrations.
The participation of all genders, all age groups, and all walks of life in these demonstrations, in addition to the Referendum slogans chanted by the demonstrators, clearly illustrate that the Football Movement is not a common post-game riot, rather, it is a grass-roots movement that shows the people's defiance to the Islamic Republic as a whole- that shows the Iranian people are separate from the Islamic Republic regime ... to show their "Civil Disobedience" movement.
The so-called "Iranian Students news Agency" (ISNA), The "Islamic Republic News Agency" (IRNA), created by the regime kept their usual silence which states of the shock and fear which has sized the Islamic republic and its leaders.
These gatherings of an unprecedented scale leaded to violent and bloody riots following the brutal intervention of the Islamic republic Security forces. Several official buildings were damaged by an angry crowd retaliating to the Militiamen brutal attacks.
At least 8 Militia’s trucks and 2 Fire Trucks sent to break the demonstrations were damaged and burned by the demonstrators.
Reports from, across Iran, are stating about the arrests of hundreds of "Hooligans" which are in reality some of the vangards of the Iranian Freedom Movement falling in the regime's hands.
Despite this violent repression, Iranians have learned, after 23 years, to come into the streets and to support each other in the expression of their common goals.
Millions of Iranians will seize the opportunity offered by this coming Sunday's game to come back into the main Iranian streets and squares and to practice this "Civil Disobedience Movement" that will shut down Iran by end this Fall or beginning Winter.
Hundreds of clandestine local groups have been formed, across Iran, in order to identify the regime's agents and to prepare Iran for the next steps to take for its liberation."
There are two possible explanations for what is taking place in Iran. Now keep in mind that Iran is on the list of 'terrorist states' and supply weapons to the Hezbollah in Lebanon to use in the fight against the Israeli occupation army. The government of Iran insists that it does not 'support terrorists' but rather that the guerillas it is arming are 'freedom fighters'. There is no doubt in my mind that action against Iran is something the American government would like to do, however bombing Iran into ruin, like Iraq, is politically risky. Now keep in mind that during the fifties the CIA funded and fomented just such protests as a pretext for the coming overthrow of the elected socialist goverment of Iran and the installation of the shah of Iran and the Savak secret police force. So one possibility is that we are seeing a 'psy-op' underway as a pretext for 'stabilizing Iran' CIA style, one of the many optional measures to war to be used against 'ending terrorists states' (to use the administrations lingo).
However, while this is certainly possible and would be par for the course if it was true, at the same time we have to be cautious and not wind up bashing and dissing a legitimate internal student uprising against the conservative mullahs who have been defying popular votes in Iran (moderates win elections by landslides in Iran) in order to maintain a conserative religious state in defiance of popular opinion in Iran (as expressed in the popular vote against these clerics in this years election and in former elections). That widespread discontent for the disrespect shown by these conservative clerics to will of the people and the principle of democracy it would be no surprise to see a legitimate and internal widespread movement of civil disobedience develop in Iran (the mullahs control the police which is the source of their power to defy the will of the people in elections and maintain their conservative religious state).
Personally I believe that the student movement is legitimate and internal, but there is also a third possbility that exists and that is that while the movement is internal, given the need to 'end terrorists states' the CIA could see a golden opportunity to exploit the unrest and thus be now circling around the place like a great big hawk. This is not a call to punish the students, since there cause is just, but rather a call for everyone to keep their eyes wide open for the possible scheming of that great big hawk in the days ahead, as that hawk attempts to take advantage of the situation. After all you don't want to hop out of the mullah fire and straight into the Shah's frying pan, now do you...Hands off Iran, I say, and let them sort it out themselves, and idealistic slogan to be sure, and not one likely to be heeded by that hawk, and thus the need for vigilance...
With the current turmoil in Iran the situation does require vigilance and I for one will be watching the situation closely in the days ahead...
