Last Friday, protesters took to the streets in Iran. Millions of them. When a hundred thousand people wearing green shirts and carrying green balloons showed up for a nationally televised football game, the state broadcaster switched to black and white. When they started to chant "“Death to the Dictator,” “Death to Russia,” and “Death to Putin, Chavez and Nasrallah, enemies of Iran,” the sound was shut off.
But the censors forgot about the radio, and the microphones stayed open, so that millions of listeners could hear the sounds of the revolution. And in Azadi Stadium, as in most parts of the country, the security officers either walked away or joined the party.
As
Michael Ledeen reports:
You will not have heard such stories, nor read about them in our “media,” which have raised denial of the day’s major events to an art form of late. Rather like the Iranian regime, which used to have an enormous influence on the way citizens thought, the major broadcasters and dead-tree scribblers have also become objects of ridicule.
On Sunday morning, Supreme Leader Khamenei proclaimed that the demonstrations had been an enormous success for the regime, but anyone looking at the pictures could see that he was short on sleep. So would you if you had heard the thunderous shouts of “Death to the Dictator” during the night. Khamenei’s claim was greeted with ridicule.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome. I prefer you didn't post anonymously.
To keep it civil, comments are moderated. I reserve the right to decide what appears on my blog.