Stand-off Continues in Iran as Fatalities Rise

The situation in Iran continues to grow more unstable, with the regime imprisoning protesters, journalists and moderate clerics, even as the Guardian Council admits to wide-spread vote-counting irregularities.

Meanwhile, public opinion in Iran and world-wide has been galvanized by the video-taped death of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot in the chest as she got out of a car near a protest in Tehran. Since ordinary citizens cannot own guns in Iran, it is likely that she was shot by a member of the Basij militia.

The hard-line faction in Iran's theocracy seems to be digging in its heels, and the protester death toll likely has reached two dozen or more. However, the ayatollahs have yet to unleash a full Tiananmen Square-style campaign of repression.

Twenty years ago in Beijing, however, the pro-democracy protests had continued for two months before the government called out the tanks. Let's hope that it doesn't come to that in the streets of Tehran, Isfahan and other Iranian cities.

For an interesting perspective on this historical turning-point, see New York Times columnist Roger Cohen's take on the current situation in Iran.

Photo of protesters attacking a Basij office in Tehran by misterarasmus on Flickr.com.