Reporter Jon Lee Anderson visited Iran, and spoke with members of the reform movement as well as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His conclusion: Under intense pressure from government supporters, “the Green Movement has effectively ceased to exist as a visible political force.”
NEAL CONAN, host:
Very few Western reporters have been allowed to visit Iran since last year’s contested presidential elections sparked massive protests. But Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker recently got the opportunity to visit Tehran to interview President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and see what’s become of the opposition Green Movement. He found the first both relaxed and defiant in advance of an expected visit to the U.N. General Assembly next month in New York. And the Green Movement quiescent, if not quite crushed.
Jon Lee Anderson joins us now from the studios of the BBC in London. Nice to have you back on TALK OF THE NATION.
Mr. JON LEE ANDERSON (Staff Writer, The New Yorker): Thanks, Neal. It’s a pleasure to be here.
CONAN: There were moments last year with millions in the street that the Green Movement seemed, well, inexorable. Now you report – I think I’m quoting -“repression works.”
