Standing up to Ahmadinejad: Discontent Brews in Iran

[democratic]

TEHRAN, Dec. 18, 2006 — This is my fourth trip to Iran and it's the first time I haven't been arrested. Encounters with Iranian police are a rite of passage here for foreign reporters — and more often than not, the journalistic equivalent of getting pulled over for speeding.

Still, many continue to speak out. This weekend, we met one of the people who last week organized a protest where university students burned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's photograph during a speech he gave. They shouted "Death to the Dictator." He called them "Americanized." It was, by far, the most public grilling of his presidency.

The organizer, 23-year-old Babak, hobbled into our interview on a broken foot, an injury he sustained when paramilitaries beat him up after another anti-government protest. When I asked him why he wasn't scared to criticize the government so openly, he said, "The risks are inevitable, but we're determined to continue. Patience has its limits and our patience with the government has run out."
Afterwards, Babak asked me if I would promise to spread the word if he was ever arrested. I said I would.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2735129&page=1

[MADem]

1. That Babak kid sounds a lot like the students who were protesting during the Shah days

Back then, those poor kids thought that Khomeini's leadership was just a bridge to democracy, not a repressive regime in their future that would lead them to a brutal war without end for over a decade with Iraq....they learned otherwise, to their horror.

I hope they learn from the history of that experience, and push forward with a robust agenda for change. It's almost thirty years past due, IMO.