Eyewitness to repression in Iran

CNN:

He was surrounded and pleading for them to stop but six men with clubs, batons and metal rods kept battering a young Iranian man with ruthless force. The swing that keeps replaying in my head was the black baton that smashed the man in the skull behind his left ear.

Seconds earlier the man had dared to stand up to the baton wielding men because they had shoved a 14-year-old girl. For his chivalry he got one of the most savage beatings I have ever seen at the hands of four Iranian riot policemen and members of the Baseej, Iran's plain clothed volunteer militia.

"To hell with Iran," he said as he sat beaten and battered along the sidewalk. "This is not my government. This is not my country."

A grown man who watched the beating burst into tears.

This was a glimpse of the ugly aftermath of Iran's presidential elections, which sparked outrage among supporters of candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.

Moussavi's backers are calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory a sham. They're demanding the vote be annulled. The government's response has been a ruthless and violent crackdown.

For eight chaotic hours I saw the two sides clash throughout the streets of Tehran. These were Iranians versus Iranians, but the two sides were worlds apart in appearance, ideology and brute force.

...

It is not clear to me that Moussavi would be better than Ahmadinejad, but it is clear that many of his supporters were eager for any change at all from the religious bigots who control Iran. They know know what the people trying to change things in the former Soviet Union knew. They don't live in a free country and they will be brutally repressed if they engage in a public uprising against the unpopular levers of power in that country.

It makes a real contrast when you look at the elections on the other side of the border with Iraq. While the Iraqis may have an imperfect government, it is one that reflects the peoples choice now.

You can imagine the sense of betrayal these people in Iran will have if Obama and the US seek an accommodation with their oppressors.