# Iranian Green Movement The Green Movement was the mass protest wave that erupted after Iran's disputed June 2009 presidential election, in which the hardline incumbent [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]] was declared the landslide winner over the reformist challenger [[Mir-Hossein Mousavi]]. Adopting green as their color, millions filled the streets of Tehran asking a single question: "Where is my vote?" It was the largest unrest in Iran since the 1979 revolution and a preview of the [[Woman Life Freedom]] uprising to come. ## The Stolen Election Results announced within hours of polls closing gave Ahmadinejad 63% — implausible margins even in his own and Mousavi's home regions. [[Mir-Hossein Mousavi]] and reformist allies alleged systematic fraud. When Supreme Leader [[Ali Khamenei]] publicly endorsed the result and declared it a "divine assessment," he removed any pretense that the elected presidency operated independently of the unelected clerical apex — a structural truth about the Islamic Republic that the movement laid bare. ## Repression and the Neda Moment The regime answered with the [[Basij]] and the [[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]]. Dozens of protesters were killed, thousands arrested, and show trials followed. The death of Neda Agha-Soltan — a young woman shot in the street, her dying moments filmed on a phone and shared worldwide — became one of the first globally viral images of state violence, earning the uprising its label as an early "social media revolution." Mousavi and fellow reform leader Mehdi Karroubi were placed under house arrest, where they have remained for over a decade. ## Why It Matters The Green Movement is the bridge between the reformist hopes of the [[Mohammad Khatami]] era and the more radical, regime-rejecting protests that followed. It established the template — stolen legitimacy, networked youth, brutal [[Basij]] crackdown, and a diaspora amplifying the story — that recurs in [[Woman Life Freedom]]. For the vault's [[International Democratic Opposition Hub]] layer, it marks the moment the Islamic Republic's electoral façade visibly cracked, and the moment Iranian protest went global and digital. *See also: [[Iranian History Hub]], [[Woman Life Freedom]], [[Mir-Hossein Mousavi]], [[International Democratic Opposition Hub]]*