Obama Admits Mistake Of Not Supporting Iran Protests In 2009
Former US President Barack Obama has admitted that he made "a mistake" by not supporting the Iranian people's 2009 Green Movement against the Islamic Republic.
Former US President Barack Obama has admitted that he made "a mistake" by not supporting the Iranian people's 2009 Green Movement against the Islamic Republic.
Speaking during a podcast on Friday, he described the lack of public support for the 2009 protests as a missed opportunity to back the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, saying, "In retrospect, I think that was a mistake. Every time we see a flash, a glimmer of hope, of people longing for freedom, I think we have to point it out. We have to . We have to express some solidarity about it.”
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“There is deep dissatisfaction with the Iranian regime,” he said, adding that women in particular are chafing under a series of arbitrary and cruel discrimination exercised by the state in addition to the systematic subjugation of women, which has made them fed up and tired of the regime.
Obama said that whether the current uprising – ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini – “ends up bringing about fundamental change in the regime is hard to predict.”
He explained that back in 2009 and 2010, “there was a big debate inside the White House about whether I should publicly affirm what was going on with the Green Movement because a lot of the activists were being accused of being tools of the West, and there was some thought that we were somehow going to be undermining their street cred in Iran if I supported what they were doing.”
Obama noted that “our moral response to the incredible courage that is taking place in Iran and those women and girls who are on the streets knowing that they’re putting themselves in harm’s way to speak truth to power” is “to affirm what they do and hope that it brings about more space for the kind of civic conversation that over time can take that country down a better path.”
Zahedan is the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province in the southeast near Pakistan, with a majority ethnic Baluch citizens who are Sunni with grievances against the Shiite clerical regime. When they came out to protest on September 30 amid nationwide demonstrations, government forces opened fire, killing around sixty civilians. In the following days two dozen more residents were killed.
Iranian plainclothes agents raided a girls' high school in Ardabil, northwest of Iran and an Azari speaking city, on Thursday, injuring 10 students and arresting seven others. One schoolgirl has died of internal bleeding, according to the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association. Reportedly, the government was trying to force the school girls to participate in a pro-regime rally.
Video showing confusion and ambulances in the girls' high school in Ardabil
An anonymous announcement came out in Tabriz, the largest Azari speaking city in Iran following the incident in Ardebil calling on citizens to join nationwide protests on Saturday, warning government forces not to raise their fists against the people.
Independent Iranian human rights group based abroad, HRANA reported that as of Friday evening 233 protesters were confirmed killed by security forces, including 32 children. Earlier, Amnesty International had reported 23 children dead.
HRANA added that authorities have arrested 7,704 protesters, including 170 university students. In the past four weeks 428 street and university protest gatherings have taken place in 112 cities and towns.
School children have been also protesting forced hijab after Mahsa Amini was killed in ‘morality’ police custody in mid-September. An unknown number of school students have been arrested and sent to what the government says “psychological” rehabilitation centers, which no one has ever heard about.
The ethnic Arab population of the oil-rich Khuzestan province in the southwest also protested on Friday. Due to government disruption of Internet access no videos have been received by text messages say there were fierce protests Friday evening in Ahvaz, the provincial capital, with security forces firing weapons.
The government also organized a gathering of supporters in Tehran on Friday, which coincided with Prophet Mohammed’s birthday. Several thousand people took part, but the crowd seemed much smaller than in similar past rallies.
Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei also gave a speech in an Islamic conference organized by Tehran, where he spoke about his vision of Muslim unity, without directly attacking the protests that have rocked Iran for four weeks.
An anonymous group of activists calling themselves the Tehran Youth have called for nationwide protests on Saturday [October 15], which is expected to become a new round of rallies and demonstrations around the country similar to unrest on October 8 and 12.
Iran International obtained the copy of a message sent to all retired members of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and all those affiliated with it to join the government forces planning to confront protesters on Saturday. But our information indicates many have refused to show up at 8:00 am at Tehran’s IRGC headquarters. This means that government forces may not have the required numbers to disperse protesters who have adopted a new tactic of coming into streets in various location instead of one large gathering.
