The protest for Friday, as reported by The New York Times:
7:52 p.m. Now that it is early Friday morning in Iran, an Iranian blogger writes on Twitter of a new way of registering protest opposition supporters say they plan for this afternoon:
at one PM people all over Iran will be airing green balloons and make the sky GREEN!
Let’s not waste energy on trying to launch balloons simultaneously with those in Iran (Iran is 3.5 hours ahead of GMT, 8.5 hours ahead of ET). Let’s just blow up those balloons in solidarity. Let’s see some green balloons on your car, at your home, at your work, on the street. It’s easy. It’s solidarity.
This “defiance” is particularly appropriate today. Reuters is reporting that Ahmad Khatami has called for the execution of “rioters”:
A hardline Iranian cleric on Friday called for the execution of “rioters” in the latest sign of the authorities’ determination to stamp out opposition to the June 12 presidential election. …snip
“I want the judiciary to … punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson,” Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University….snip
Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said the judiciary should charge the leading “rioters” as being “mohareb” or one who wages war against God.
“They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely,” he said. Under Iran’s Islamic law, punishment for people convicted as mohareb is execution.
Last time I checked flying a green balloon was not being a “leading rioter.” But definitions in Iran are extremely flexible.
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
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