Iran Rally Ends in Violence.

In contrast to the last two days of spontaneous protest against the Iranian election result today saw hundreds of thousands of Iranian gather in Tehran for a protest organised by the political apparatus of defeated candidates Mohsen Rezai and Mir Hossein Mousavi. After assembling in Tehran's Enghelab square to protest marched to Azadi square for a rally. At around 20:30 local time shots were fired into the crowd killing one and leaving a dozen injured. Although the violence seems to be the work of a single undisciplined militia unit rather then an organised attempt to put down the protests this is exactly what I fear from the continued demonstrations in Iran.

Whether or not they realise it the demonstrators are beginning to be used as agents of a foreign power, specifically Britain who are still bitter over the sailor incident and the ensuing failure of the Lloyds TSB sanction busting operation, in order to destabilise the Iranian state. If this continues the Iranian state will have little choice then to treat the protests as a threat to national security and put them down using force if necessary.

While it is unfortunate that Iran's Supreme Leader is currently not encouraging an open discussion about the way Friday's election was run these protests need to stop. I understand that many of the demonstrators think they a participating in some sort of historical event that will bring about a new era of freedom to Iran but sadly they're not. By continuing the protests they are at best going to push the state too far, bring violence down on their heads and wipe out any progress they have made. At worse they will begin a process which is going to destabilise Iran for a number of years and make life worse for a generation of Iranians. Protests against supposedly stolen elections followed by violence and a fracturing of society is almost exactly how Zimbabwe began it's current problems.