United States: Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Preston, Iowa, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Irvine, Kansas City, Las Cruces, Las Vegas,[2] Los Angeles, Madison, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, State College, Tempe, Washington, D.C. Canada: Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Waterloo Germany: Berlin, Bochum, Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hannover, Heidelberg, Münster, Stuttgart[3] Sweden: Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Skellefteå, Karlstad, Sundsvall,[4] Uppsala,[5] Helsingborg,[6] Umeå,[7] Jönköping,[8] Uddevalla,[9] Borås[10] Netherlands: The Hague, Amsterdam, Delft, Leiden, Groningen, Maastricht, Italy: Rome, Milan, Turin, FlorenceSwitzerland: Geneva, Lausanne, Zürich, Bern Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra,[11] Adelaide[12] Spain: Barcelona, Madrid Ukraine: Kyiv,[13] Kharkiv United Kingdom: London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bristol[14] France: Paris, Lyon Belgium: Brussels, Leuven New Zealand: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur Portugal: Lisbon Austria: Vienna, Salzburg[15] Romania: Bucharest[16] Hungary: Budapest[17] Czech Republic: PragueJapan: Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto, NagoyaDenmark: Copenhagen, Aarhus Norway: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Arendal, Kristiansand South Korea: Seoul, Busan, Daegu Armenia: Yerevan Israel: Tel Aviv United Arab Emirates: Dubai Turkey: Istanbul, Ankara[18] Pakistan: Islamabad,[19] Karachi, Lahore, PeshawarEgypt: Cairo[20] Kuwait: Kuwait City[21] Greece: Athens[22] Cyprus: Nicosia[23] Bulgaria: Sofia[24] Azerbaijan: Baku[25] Poland: Warsaw[26] Finland: Helsinki[27] Ireland: Dublin[28] Singapore: Singapore[29] India: Hyderabad[30] Bangladesh: Dhaka[31] Philippines: Manila Iranian Green Movement Government After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

[40][41][42] Ahmadinejad called the election "completely free" and the outcome a "great victory" for Iran, dismissing the protests as akin to little more than "passions after a soccer match".

During the 1980s, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran was instrumental in opposing Ayatollah Khomeini through large protests and bombings against politicians such as Mohammad-Ali Rajai, Shahid Beheshti, and Khamenei himself, who escaped an assassination attempt that left his right arm paralyzed.

[60][61][62] Following the 1981 Hafte Tir bombing, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the Mojahedin and anyone opposed to the Islamic republic, "enemies of god" and pursued a mass campaign of torture, rape, and execution against members of the Mojahedin, Fadaiyan, and Tudeh parties as well as their families, close friends, and even anyone who was accused of insufficient Islamic behavior, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Iranians who were usually tried in secret kangaroo courts run by hard line clerics.

Since then, no organized opposition has surfaced in Iran and following this experience, the Iranian Government usually employs heavy handed tactics to marginalize any attempt at regime removal and usually justifies this with the "enemy of god" classification.

[69] Iran has been experiencing high birth rates since 1988, both due to an increase in standard of living and government encouragement of large families, with an estimated 60 percent of the country being under the age of 30.

Ahmadinejad began a campaign of privatization of state enterprises, but most companies ended up in the hands of government-connected officials and foundations (bonyads) operated by wealthy clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

[75] The Terror Free Tomorrow opinion poll, conducted from 11 to 20 May 2009, predicted the high participation and showed similar ratios for the candidates to the later official result, with over a quarter yet undecided.

[79] The UK-based think-tank Chatham House also suspected fraud in the voting process for a number of reasons:[80] On Saturday 13 June after election results announced that Ahmadinejad had won, supporters of Mousavi took to the streets to protest.

On Wednesday 17 June another large protest occurred; some members of the Iranian national football team wore green wristbands in support of Mousavi during their game against South Korea.

[81] On Friday, 19 June, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke during religious services, saying the election was legitimate and called the large voter turnout and resulting victory (for Ahmadinejad) a "divine assessment" and that protests would no longer be tolerated.

several times", but not long enough for security forces to arrive; identifying paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the crackdown and putting marks in the opposition color green, or pictures of protest victims in front of their homes; scribbled anti-regime slogans on money.

[102] Human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani, who had been demanding a recount of all votes, was also arrested on that Tuesday according to Shirin Ebadi, who said that security officials had posed as clients.

[101] Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the international campaign for human rights in Iran, stated that "Iranian intelligence and security forces are using the public protests to engage in what appears to be a major purge of reform-oriented individuals whose situations in detention could be life-threatening".

[109] He also accused the protesters of being a "few elements controlled by foreigners [who were] disrupting security by inciting individuals to destroy and to commit arson" and urged them to stop their "criminal activities".

On 22 June, The Guardian's live blog reported that at approximately 1:30 pm, General Ali Fazli, the newly appointed commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran province, had been arrested for refusing to carry Khamenei's order to use force against demonstrators.

[126][127] The Los Angeles Times reported that militiamen from the hard-line Iran-based Ansar-e Hezbollah group "warned that they would be patrolling the streets to maintain law and order".

The families of those who died were allegedly subjected to penalties and bureaucratic red tape, such as being asked to sign paperwork that they do not have complaints against the government prior to being allowed to claim bodies.

Karroubi's letter angered conservatives and the head of Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, and senior cleric and representative of the Supreme Leader, Ahmad Khatami, denied the reports of sexual abuse.

[150] Al Jazeera English has leveled allegations of direct media censorship by the Iranian government, stating that "some of the newspapers have been given notices to change their editorials or their main headlines".

[156] This directive stipulated that international news outlets could still talk about rallies in their live reports, however, they were not allowed to leave their hotel rooms and offices to witness the protests.

[157] On 20 June, the Ministry of Culture intensified the restrictions by banning international media from reporting on the demonstrations altogether unless they received permission from Iranian authorities.

[160] Reporters from the Italian public television broadcaster RAI stated that one of its interpreters was beaten with clubs by riot police and the officers then confiscated the cameraman's tapes.

Their faces have been obscured in the TV broadcasts, which the newspaper claims, after speaking to witnesses, is due to facial bruising resulting from torture whilst in custody, which included several instances of male rape.

[164] On 13 June, as the election results were being announced, Iran shut down all Internet access for about 45 minutes, then restarted it apparently with lower bandwidth; this may have been in order to set up filters to block sites like YouTube that could be used for political purposes.

[170][171] On 16 June, Der Spiegel cited Voice of America as reporting that the Iranian government had recruited as many as 5,000 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters to clash with protesters.

[citation needed] The number of cities joining the Iranian global hunger strike reached over[quantify] fifty with Toronto, Vancouver, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, as well as Italy, Australia, and Ireland.

About eight players in the Iran national football team playing in their World Cup qualifier wore green wristbands in support for Mousavi[154][218] for the first half of their game.

These institutions consist of "mosques, ritual centres, and even charity funds,"[223] and these venues allowed people to gather right under the nose of the government in order to become organised.

Robert Tait and Matthew Weaver of The Guardian noted that it was funeral processions on the 40th day of mourning of fallen protesters in 1979 that created momentum in toppling the shah's regime.