Iran protests unstoppable now: Opposition activist

Iran's rulers cannot stop mass protests even if they arrest opposition leaders because the movement has gathered too much momentum, campaigner and film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf told Reuters.                                           

Some Iranian hardliners have urged the judiciary to arrest senior opposition figures such as Mirhossein Mousavi, whom Makhmalbaf supports. But the director, who made the 2001 hit "Kandahar", said the threats were empty and would not work.                                           

"Who are main leaders of the movement? It's the young generation. In each alley, in each street, you will see one smart youth lead 10 others," Makhmalbaf told Reuters at his home in Paris, between taking phone calls from fellow activists.                                           

"We have some famous people everywhere, but even if the government kills all of them, this movement will continue."                                           

He said while Mousavi was severely limited in his work after the arrest of his closest aides in Iran, his mere presence as a symbol of the opposition movement was encouraging others.                                           

Iran has been rocked by protests since a disputed election last June that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. The government has denied opposition allegations of fraud and accuses foreign-backed forces of trying to topple the state.                                           

Since the contested vote, Makhmalbaf and his family have been campaigning full-time for Mousavi and the pro-democracy movement, spreading information inside and outside Iran through websites, Skype video calls and over the phone.                                           

Makhmalbaf himself was imprisoned before the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah, and later left Iran for Europe.                                           

Contrasting the 1979 uprising and today's protests, Makhmalbaf said the opposition had left behind Iran's history of violent political change and preferred a prolonged, peaceful campaign to a rapid overthrow.                                           

"The past seven months have been the first time that we could ask people to think about non-violence," he said.                                           

"We are going to kill dictatorship, not dictators. We don't want to empty the prisons and then fill them with other people."                                           

However, he warned that arresting senior leaders could provoke a strong backlash, and said he expected Iranian authorities to refrain from such a move for just that reason.                                           

"They are afraid, they don't want to make people crazy," he said.                                           

He urged Western governments to impose economic sanctions on the Revolutionary Guard, twinning the issue with talks over Iran's nuclear programme which many foreign experts believe aims to create an atomic bomb. Iran says the programme is peaceful.                                           

He said the next step would be a general strike in Iran, though he ruled out negotiations with the authorities.                                           

"They can do everything they want, but we are ready to die. We are ready for everything they are going to do," he said.