The Latest Round of Iran Demonstrations

Widespread protests were reported today in Tehran, as protestors used Students' Day — the anniversary of a crackdown on student demonstrators back in 1953 — to stage the latest round of protests. There are a lot of videos out there on YouTube and various websites, but there are suggestions some may be from earlier demonstrations. In any event, there have been many more arrests and unconfirmed reports of shots fired at the demonstrators as well.

The Green protest movement that emerged from the disputed elections earlier this year is obviously not going away easily as the authorities doubtless hoped it would, but they're still a long way from bringing down the regime. The government has grown more and more ruthless in its suppression of dissent. I haven't tried to post everytime some dissident is rounded up our dies under suspicious cirdumstances, but at a time when Iran is isolated internationally and defiant on the nuclear issue, the fact that its domestic house is far from unified adds a further element of uncertainty and instability.