Op-Ed: Iran has a long history of protests. This time it’s different, says Iranian lawyer
(NaturalNews) Today’s demonstrations, organized by Iran’s youth and their allies, are a far cry from the mass demonstrations against the Islamic Republic that rocked the country on Feb. 14, 2009, when thousands of young people took to the streets in support of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
“There are several differences in this time around. It is not the same mass protest as in 2009. There is a difference, but I can’t tell you why yet,” said attorney Ramin Mostaqbalani, a member of the parliament representing Tehran and deputy chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “There are things that are happening now that didn’t happen in 2009.”
According to Mostaqbalani, who has represented Iranian protesters in international court hearings, Iranian protesters have now taken to the streets as “people who are tired of the government’s refusal to grant them basic rights.”
“The government has given us no way to address the problems in our society. Their solution was to make us live with the problems, because there wasn’t a real solution,” said Mostaqbalani, who said he believes that if the government sees protesters, they will stop protesting as well.
“I believe the government is seeing this as something which it shouldn’t be seen as. They want to crush it, but I think it will be crushed in the end,” he added.
However, protest leader Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Amjadi, “who leads the protests in Tehran, says that “what we are fighting for is better government.”
According to Mahdavi-Amjadi, who was once arrested for refusing to join the anti-regime demonstrations on Feb. 14, 2009, he believes that the protests are a continuation of the protest movement against the Islamic Republic, despite the fact that the demonstrators are now in support of Mousavi in the election for the national parliament.
“The idea of a ‘people’s revolution’ is one that is still alive in the Islamic Republic, and the demonstrators are part of this movement. But the idea of a ‘people’s revolution,’
