Iran's protests have already left one dead, and protesters aren't hesitating to attack police.
Less than a week after Egyptian protesters forced dictatorial President Hosni Mubarak out of office after 30 years in power, demonstrators in Iran took to the streets to demand the ouster of their autocrats, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Unlike their Egyptian counterparts, however, the Iranian protests turned violent almost immediately.
Though it's illegal for the foreign press to report on the protests, the unofficial word out of Tehran is that one protester has already been killed by police, who also fired tear gas into the crowds amassed in the capital. In response, protesters burned photos of Ali Khamenei and set ablaze garbage bins to serve as barriers between themselves and authorities. As you can see in the video below, demonstrators also outright attacked Basiji, members of the Supreme Leader's paramilitary militia.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFNAWuT2zow
Iran's June 2009 protests left 150 dead, according to human rights groups. Hopefully that number will be much lower this go-round.
Update: On Tuesday morning, as protests continued in Iran, more than 200 Iranian lawmakers called for the trials and executions of opposition leaders for "stirring unrest."
photo via Twitpic user msnbcphotosPXLS
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