What Will Happen In Iran on Thursday?

Excerpted from The New York Times Reports of Prison Abuse and Deaths Anger Iranians By ROBERT F. WORTH Published: July 28, 2009 From Dubai, United Arab Emirates The prison abuses have also galvanized the opposition movement, whose leaders asked for permission to hold a mass mourning ceremony on Thursday in honor of those killed since the election. The Interior Ministry on Tuesday refused permission for the gathering, but the main opposition leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, said they would hold a public ceremony anyway, several Web sites reported. Thursday is a day of unusual symbolic importance because it will be 40 days since the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan (see image above, from The Telegraph.co.uk), a young woman whose death during a demonstration was captured on video and ignited outrage across the globe. The 40th day marks an important Shiite mourning ritual; similar commemorations for dead protesters fueled the demonstrations that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Questions about the prison abuse have gained more importance in recent days, not only because of the opposition’s public protests but also because the stories have multiplied. One young man posted an account on Tuesday of his ordeal at the Kahrizak camp, which was ordered closed on Monday by Ayatollah Khamenei. "We were all standing so close to each other that no one could move,” he wrote in a narrative posted online. “The plainclothes guards came into the room and broke all the light bulbs, and in the pitch dark started beating us, whoever they could.” By morning, at least four detainees were dead, he added. In another account posted online, a former detainee describes being made to lie facedown on the floor of a police station bathroom, where an officer would step on his neck and force him to lick the toilet bowl as the officer cursed reformist politicians. A woman described having her hair pulled as interrogators demanded that she confess to having sex with political figures. When she was finally released, she was forced — like many others — to sign a paper saying she had never been mistreated. Mr. Moussavi spoke out Monday in unusually strong and angry terms, accusing the government of brutality and irreligion, and warning that its conduct toward the detainees could set off a much greater reaction. “They cannot turn this nation into a prison of 70 million people,” Mr. Moussavi said, adding later that “the more people they arrest, the more widespread the movement will become.” The prisoner release on Tuesday appeared to be the act of a government desperate to defuse the issue, coming just one day after the head of Iran’s judiciary promised that the detainees’ cases would be expedited. Government officials say that of at least 2,500 people arrested in the postelection crackdown, about 150 remain in prison. In announcing the release, Saeed Jalili, the secretary of the National Security Council of Iran, sounded a defensive note, saying that those still in jail “are people for whom there are documents stating they were in possession of firebombs and weapons, including firearms, and who had caused serious damage to public property.” But Mr. Mottahari, the lawmaker, said Tuesday that those responsible for the deaths of detainees must also be identified and punished. Others have gone further, saying the prison abuses suggest a government lurching dangerously out of control. “Those who have turned this society into a police state and have ordered the use of force have to be held accountable,” said Hamid-Reza Katouzian, a hard-line member of Parliament. “The police and the Ministry of Intelligence have told us that they are on the sidelines, and we do not know who is responsible or accountable.”

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The Lede Blog at The New York Times had followed developments in Iran since the June 12, 2009 election, but has not followed events there every day. Some prior coverage of Iran at The New York Times: Iran Releases Protesters, but Still Holds 500 (July 9, 2009) After Four Years in Iranian Custody, a Queens Man Is Almost Home (August 11, 2008) Iran Executes 29 Convicts In One Day (July 28, 2008) Dissident's Tale Of Epic Escape From Iran's Vise (July 13, 2008) Thorough and nearly continual online coverage since the June 12, 2009 Iranian election has been provided by Nico Pitney on his Iran blog at the Huffington Post. Here is a post from yesterday - I read about this donation of thumb drives at - Nico Pitney's blog - last week: 2:24 PM ET -- Help Iranians get online: donate thumb drives. The Wall Street Journal spreads the word to its readers.