“We did not give blood to give up now” Eye witness report of June 20 Repression

Sayyid Ali Khamenei in his speech yesterday said: there has been no cheating in the elections and that people are not going to get their demands through demonstrating in the streets. Many people were waiting to see what he was going to say, especially the reformists, and he made it very clear that he is on Ahmadinejad’s side, so it is not very hard to guess that reformists are backing down eventually and what we saw today in the streets of Tehran is very different than what we saw during the last weeks.

Many of the reformists who had been a part of demonstrations for the past few weeks and had said they will not stop protesting till they get their demands were not among people who were fighting and dying for freedom in the streets of Tehran today.

The demonstrations started in the centre around 4 o’clock the police (including the official city police all three branches of Sepah and Basijis in plain clothing) had already settled in all the main squares and streets. We saw many members of Basij with plain clothing armed to the teeth ready to kill people who came in groups of 5-10 and stayed in corners at first you could say there was about 10,000 people around Enqelab Square (Revolution Square) who had not joined each other yet. What happened was like 3500-4000 people would gather and form a demonstration start yelling out things like: and “Khamenei you Pinochet Iran is not going to be Chile”. But none of the gatherings could last long because the police would hit people and Sepah would shoot people, and members of Basij stabbed people.

People who lived in the neighbourhood had left their doors open so injured people and the ones followed by the police could get in. It was the same in many other places, in Tehran at Tohid Square the police were settled in a bus and shot people from there, people who did not even carry weapons and had came to the streets just to have a calm demonstration to defend their basic rights as citizens and human beings.

In Azadi square (Freedom Square) people were numerous and were also attacked, injured and killed by the police, but today the demonstrations were not only held in the city centre, they were spread out in most places of Tehran: Vanak Square, Ferdosi Square, Shahrakegharb, Tehranpars, Ariashahr and many other neighbourhoods. Tehran was a scene of ordinary people and even children fighting against the police, unarmed and unprotected, but brave and willing to sacrifice anything even their lives for freedom. People had burned down cars and other vehicles that mostly belonged to police, tear gas cannisters was fired in every place that people had gathered. Many of us had never seen so many members of Basij in all our lives. The regime had gathered all of its forces and supporters to kill its own citizens wildly in the streets. People stayed in Azadi and Vanak Square till 12 midnight and there are still battle going on in some streets.

Many people are in hospital, were the police are making a list of their names. Many of the activists are arrested and some have disappeared. Today the Islamic Republic showed every one once again, that they will not obey peoples will and they are ready to kill as many as it takes to stay in power. Some on the Left will support the Islamic Republic against us and Western Governments may try to meddle, their support is poisonous, the Iranian people will decide their fate alone, against imperialism and against the Islamic Republic. We do need the support of our comrades across the world. The people showed that they want more than just tiny reforms, they want what has been taken away from them all these years, they want their freedom and their dignity back. A regime that is so afraid of the majority of its citizens that kills unarmed people in the streets is not a regime that could last and we will take on this fight till we are a free nation.