Today, June 28, 2009, from six to eight in the evening, on the anniversary of the anniversary of the death of Dr. Mohammad Beheshti,1 hundreds of supporters of Engineer Mir Hosein Musavi rallied on Qoba Street at the Qoba Mosque, located on Martyr Dr. Ali Shariati Street in Tehran.
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The Qoba Mosque was filled by the crowd and many of them were gathered in front of the mosque. Twenty minutes later, thousands of people could be seen in front of the mosque. They hailed His Holiness Mohammad (ص) and his pure family and raised the slogan, “God is great!”
There were many special officers in a state of alert at the end of Qoba Street, and many security forces officers could be seen in the crowd.
There was also a number of so-called reporters among them seen taking pictures and films of the ralliers. Some of them, faced with the people’s widespread protests, refrained from taking pictures. At 6:50, the slogan “Beheshti! Where are you?! Musavi is left by himself!” went up among from the rally.
Although it had been promised in advance that Engineer Mir Hosein Musavi would be present in this rally, people it was said in the crowd that he was prevented from coming by the security forces. After a while, the slogan, “We’re awaiting Musavi. We’re not going anywhere; we’re staying here,” then went up from the crowd.
About 7:30, Dr. Alireza Beheshti, the martyred Dr. Mohammad Beheshti’s son, spoke from among the people and thanked them for their presence, saying that he considered this broad presence “a sign of the people’s awareness of the issues of the day in our country.” He asked them to leave the rally peacefully, but since Engineer Mir Hosein Musavi was absent, no one spoke.
The crowd then began to to disperse, chanting the slogan, “Hail Beheshti! Hail Musavi!” and “Long live Karroubi! Be firm, Musavi!” At this point, the security forces officers led the people in the direction of Shariati Street.
The crowd peacefully, with their hands in the air, quietly or with prayers for the bliss of the souls of those departed in the fighting of the previous days, and for their families to remain calm, headed for Shariati Street. But before they reached Shariati Street, at 8:05, special forces suddenly attacked the crowd from Shariati Street and savagely set upon the people with blows.
The people were then forced to retreat to escape from the special forces. To calm the special forces, it was decided that the people would silently sit on the ground, and so they did. But the special forces attacked the people, despite the fact that they were sitting on the ground, and brutally beat them.
The people then retreated hastily and began to flee in the direction of Qoba Street and then began to flee in the other direction down that street, when, unfortunately, a number of old women and young girls were trampled. Most regretably, the security forces officers who were standing on the sidewalk, started laughing at the people who were fleeing to save themselves from a viscious beating atht ehands of the special forces.
In the mean time, Dr. Alireza Beheshti emerged into the street from within the mosque and the protesters went towards him and complained about the security forces’ savage attack on the people’s peaceful gathering. Because the security forces were keeping the people from stopping, I went down side streets and saw old women and girls who were crying out of intense fear and anxiety and the press of the crowd.
Emerging from the sidestreats, I entered Shariati Street and saw a great number of special forces who were in a state of alert. The shopkeepers were in the process of closing their shops on orders of the special forces. On Mir Damad Street and Mother’s Field I also saw a very large number of security forces and specisal forces officers who were busy preparing themselves to beat the people.
http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2009/06/090084.php
Footnotes
1 Dr. Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti was the leader of the Islamic Republican Party, founded just after the revolution as the party of the Khomeiniist mainstream. From the revolution until his death in a terrorist bombing in 1981 he was considered called Khomeini’s Rasputin in the West. He was famous for whipping up crowds of religious zealots to attack the secular and religious left and liberals.
For all his railing against Westernized Iranians, he was personally a cultured man with a taste for the West’s contributions to the arts, which he perhaps developed while in Hamburg as the supervisor of the Shiite mosque there.
