CNN: Will Iran change heavy-handed tactics against pro-reform protests?

CNN | February 12, 2011
By Phil Gast

(CNN) — In a few breathtaking weeks, the winds of change whipped from Tunisia east to Egypt and Jordan, bringing down two regimes and putting the third on notice that it must make democratic changes.

Now analysts, and a world suddenly focused on the region, are wondering whether those winds will continue blowing east into Iran and bring real democratic change or, instead, amount to only a whisper.

A year and a half after the Iranian regime brutally suppressed the so-called Green Movement, a new test of its openness to reform and patience may come Monday.

The government — which Friday said the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt “joyfully” coincided with the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution — has rounded up activists after Iran’s two leading opposition figures called for a rally Monday in support of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

From all appearances, the regime is not about to loosen its grip.

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