TIMES ONLINE: The Iranian regime warned that any demonstrations would be mercilessly crushed, and meant it. As darkness fell on baking, dust-shrouded Tehran last night an army of riot police and hardline basiji militiamen used batons, gun butts and tear gas to beat back thousands of Iranians converging on the city centre.
"The security presence was massive. It was like a military occupation," one witness told The Times. "They were clubbing the hell out of people."
The greater victory belonged to the demonstrators, however. Male and female, some quite old, they came armed with nothing more than a burning sense of injustice. They defied the risk of serious physical injury, and the very real possibility of arrest, incarceration and torture. They did this to show the world that their resistance to Iran's brutal and illegitimate government has not been extinguished.
"We went today to show them that we are still here and are not going away and they can’t talk or scare us away. And we'll be back every time there is an occasion to commemorate or when we're asked to," said Maryam, a young female office worker nursing an arm injured by a baton blow. “We want to be heard. We are not going to let the regime ignore us,” said Ahmad, a young man in his twenties. >>> Martin Fletcher | Friday, July 10, 2009
