Iranian protesters in Tehran
In what could be a sign of fissures beginning to develop within the Iranian government, the consul of the country's embassy in Norway resigned suddenly on Wednesday over the regime's bloody crackdown on antigovernment protesters during the Shi'ite holiday of Ashura last month — the worst violence the country has seen since the unrest that erupted following last June's disputed presidential election.
Mohammed Reza Heydari told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK that his decision to step down was tied to the crackdown, during which security forces fired directly into crowds. At least eight people were killed, including the nephew of the opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. "It was the Iranian authorities' treatment of demonstrators over the Christmas period that made it clear to me that my conscience forbids me from continuing my job at the embassy," Heydari was quoted as saying by NRK.
Tehran immediately dismissed the report as rumor, calling it part of the "psychological war" being waged against Iran by the West. "The report is baseless. A diplomat returns to the country when his mission is finished in another country," Ramin Mehmanparast, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told the Reuters news agency. "Sometimes they stay longer in the country where they served as diplomats for various reasons, including waiting for the end of the school semesters for their children."
But according to Rahman Saki, chairman of the Norwegian-Iranian Support Committee — an aid group — Heydari is considering asking Norwegian authorities for political asylum. "There is no way he will return to Tehran. If he goes back, it will undoubtedly mean imprisonment and torture," Saki says. According to the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, Heydari will take a couple of days to figure out his plans, and during that time he will not give any interviews. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it had yet to be contacted in the case.
If Heydari applies for asylum, it will mark a significant defection for Iran — especially at a time when the Iranian people and the rest of the world are watching for cracks to appear in the government following last month's violence. Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a scholar and former diplomat in Iran, told the Los Angeles Times that such a defection would be huge: "If it is true, then it is going to be a precedent, because it has not happened since the beginning years of the [1979] revolution, when some of the appointed postrevolutionary diplomats defected and sought asylum. This case in Norway can be the beginning of something, if it's true."
The violence that broke out during the protest on Dec. 27 — the mourning day of Ashura, the most sacred date on the Shi'ite calendar — was seen by many experts as a possible turning point in the increasingly bitter struggle between the hard-line regime and the opposition green movement. Not only was it the first time that security forces opened fire had on protesters since last June's election sparked the mass antigovernment demonstrations, but the protesters also took unprecedented risks, attacking police with rocks and other weapons and leaving their faces uncovered.
The next test for both sides will be the 11-day commemoration of the 1979 revolution that begins on Feb. 1, marking the day the revolutionary leader Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from 14 years in exile. The celebration is the most important political holiday of the year in Iran. It is likely the opposition will use the occasion to make another statement.