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Wednesday, November 04, 2020

Iranian Student Basij: "Because of COVID, burn American flags at home"




Given the coronavirus pandemic, the traditional Student Day march marking the anniversary of the Tehran United States embassy seizure will not be held for the first time in four decades. But an official of the student section of the Basij militia has said students should instead set fire to the US flag at home and circulate video clips to commemorate the occasion.

Speaking on a television news program on Sunday [November 1], Mojtaba Bastan, Acting Head of the Student Basij Organization, announced a campaign called ‘Everyone Together [Says] Down with the USA.’ Bastan said that at nine o'clock on Tuesday students and their parents should “trample on and set fire” to the flags of the US, Israel and France on their rooftops or courtyards while shouting ‘Down with America.’

Bastan asked students to make one-minute video clips and post them to a specially-created website, while adding their names to a statement ‘US Must Exit [Middle East] Region.’ The website features the competitions ‘Why Down with the USA?’ and ‘Message to American Soldiers,’ for which students can enter drawings, essays, voice recordings and video clips.
I can only imagine the emotional trauma that these students had at not being able to gather together to burn American flags, and their joy at finding out that they could do it in their own homes (or maybe outside, for the smarter ones.)

Unfortunately, I could not find the website where students uploaded their ecstatic flag-burning videos yesterday. It didn't seem to be linked from the main Student Basij Organization site.

I did see this:

The statement of the student mobilization of Payame Noor University of Ilam province states: "We do not trade our independence and freedom with anything from the yoke of arrogance and we note the endurance and spirit of jihad and resistance and martyrdom in the revolutionary and provincial youth until the complete destruction of global arrogance. The freedom of the oppressed of the world from the yoke of arrogance continues."
It sounds very spontaneous and heartfelt.

(h/t Ben R)



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