From the first days of unrest in Syria, the Islamic Republic media tried to completely boycott any news of the protests and pretend that nothing was going in Syria! Hence the Islamic Republic trumpeted continuous propaganda and media support to itself, the Assad government, and the IRGC so that the Syrian people again not forget the Iranian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah in their slogans.
The Syrian people chant “No Hezbollah, no Iran”. Videos posted online show the Iranian and Hezbollah flags being burned along with pictures of prominent Iranian officials. At the same time, some opponents of the Syrian government report that they saw the IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah among Syrian forces cracking down on protests. It is interesting that they’re also found in photos of Syrian protestors, even [in the crowds] around a burning Russian flag.
Published news from Syria, according to many observers, indicate that the crackdown on the protests look very similar to the IRGC’s crackdown on the post-election protests. Furthermore, such news brings the mind of the Iranian audience back to the tumultuous events of the 2009 post-election crackdown.
During Iran’s post-election unrest, immediately slogans such as “Death to Russia” and “Death to China” sprung up as a response to Russia’s support for the Ahmadinejad coup d'état government. The protestors in the streets of Tehran were more enraged about the Russian support for the Iranian government than their stolen votes.
The slogan “No Gaza, No Lebanon” shouted by the Iranian people on Quds Day came to existence when civil newspapers and citizen-journalists published numerous photos of Lebanese Hezbollah members harboring warm intentions of cracking down the protestors in the streets of Tehran.
Not only the crackdown in Iran and Syria are the same, but it can also be said that the protestors share one demand: »No Hezbollah, no Iran« and the Green Movement’s: No Gaza, no Lebanon.
