The family, clad in black, stood at the curb of the road sobbing. A middle-aged mother slapped her cheeks, letting out piercing wails. The father, a frail man who worked as a doorman at a clinic in central Tehran, wept quietly with his head bowed.
Minutes before, an ambulance had arrived from Tehran's morgue carrying the body of their only son, 19-year-old Kaveh Alipour.
On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said.
The details of his death remain unclear. He had been alone. Neighbors and relatives think that he got trapped in the crossfire. He wasn't politically active and hadn't taken part in the turmoil that has rocked Iran for over a week, they said.
"He was a very polite, shy young man," said Mohamad, a neighbor who has known him since childhood.
When Mr. Alipour didn't return home that night, his parents began to worry. All day, they had heard gunshots ringing in the distance. His father, Yousef, first called his fiancée and friends. No one had heard from him.
At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue.
Upon learning of his son's death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a "bullet fee"a fee for the bullet used by security forcesbefore taking the body back, relatives said.
Mr. Alipour told officials that his entire possessions wouldn't amount to $3,000, arguing they should waive the fee because he is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. According to relatives, morgue officials finally agreed, but demanded that the family do no funeral or burial in Tehran. Kaveh Alipour's body was quietly transported to the city of Rasht, where there is family.
Everyone in the neighborhood knows the Alipour family. In addition to their slain son, they have two daughters. Shopkeepers and businesses pasted a photocopied picture of Mr. Alipour on their walls and windows. In the picture, the young man is shown wearing a dark suit with gray stripes. His black hair is combed neatly to a side and he has a half-smile.
"He was so full of life. He had so many dreams," said Arsalan, a taxi driver who has known the family for 10 years. "What did he die for?"
Continued on Page 47
Relatives and friends of Neda Soltan, the 26-year-old protester who's become an international symbol of Iranian resistance, wanted her to be remembered for her love of music and passion for travel.
"She was a person full of joy," the Los Angeles Times quotes her music teacher and close friend Hamid Panahi, who was among mourners at her family home. "She was a beam of light. I'm so sorry. I was so hopeful for this woman."
Details continue to emerge Tuesday about the murdered protester nickamed "Angel of Freedom," after graphic videos of her apparent murder at a Tehran protest hit the Internet.
Images of Soltan's bloody death on Saturday have galvanized the country and many insist on speaking out about this young woman and who she was, despite authorities banning anyone from mourning her.
Neda was reportedly gunned down during protests in the capital city. Videos posted on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter show her bleeding from the nose and mouth as a crowd tries unsuccessfully to stanch the flow and save her life.
The video also shows a moving clip of a man identified as Panahi cradling her head and yelling out, "Neda, don't be afraid. Neda, stay with me. Neda stay with me!
This is a post-election video of Ahmadinejad in a meeting, in the city of Qom, with ultra-conservative Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi. They are basically planning a coup: to take Iran from an Islamic Republic to an Islamic State (i.e.: pure dictatorship, no more elections after him). He says "I can feel the people are spiritually ready for that...". He also hints on the rigged elections: "now that the job has been achieved with your help..." film at the link
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, adopting one of the toughest lines on Iran of any Western leader, condemned on Monday what he said was Tehran's totally unacceptable use of "brute force and intimidation" to deal with protests.
Iranian state television said 10 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in demonstrations on Saturday in Tehran over a disputed June 12 presidential election. "The regime has chosen to use brute force and intimidation in responding to peaceful opposition regarding legitimate and serious allegations of electoral fraud," Harper said in a statement. "Canada calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately cease the use of violence against their own people, to release all political prisoners and journalists ... and to conduct a full and transparent investigation into allegations of fraud in the presidential election."
Canada's relations with Iran have been strained since 2003, when Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi died in custody in Tehran after being arrested. In February, Harper said the Iranian regime had "an ideology that is obviously evil".
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11151 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Or what, they'll say it again.
You're no damn help, public opinion is NOT the solution.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/23/2009 0:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
in response Obama toughened HIS stance towards Iran, saying Iranian diplomats invited to our embassies on July 4th will only be able to have a single helping of potato salad! Take THAT!
#3
Canada calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately cease the use of violence against their own people, to release all political prisoners and journalists ... and to conduct a full and transparent investigation into allegations of fraud in the presidential election.
I would laugh... except that it's more manly than anything Obama said!
#4
Always interesting to listen closely for what is not being said or mentioned of late. Crickets chirping. Crickets? Crickets?
"Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?" Obama responded, "I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous."
... That ambivalence at the heart of the Obama diplomacy about freedom has not served American policy well in this crisis. We had tried to "cheat" -- an opening to the regime with an obligatory wink to those who took to the streets appalled by their rulers' cynicism and utter disregard for their people's intelligence and common sense -- and we were caught at it. Mr. Obama's statement that "the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as had been advertised" put on cruel display the administration's incoherence. For once, there was an acknowledgment by this young president of history's burden: "Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons." No Wilsonianism on offer here.
Mr. Obama will have to acknowledge the "foreignness" of foreign lands. His breezy self-assurance has been put on notice. The Obama administration believed its own rhetoric that the pro-Western March 14 coalition in Lebanon had ridden Mr. Obama's coattails to an electoral victory. (It had given every indication that it expected similar vindication in Iran.)
But the claim about Lebanon was hollow and reflected little understanding of the forces at play in Lebanon's politics. That contest was settled by Lebanese rules, and by the push and pull of Saudi and Syrian and Iranian interests in Lebanon.
Mr. Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo did not reshape the Islamic landscape. I was in Saudi Arabia when Mr. Obama traveled to Riyadh and Cairo. The earth did not move, life went on as usual. There were countless people puzzled by the presumption of the entire exercise, an outsider walking into sacred matters of their faith. In Saudi Arabia, and in the Arabic commentaries of other lands, there was unease that so complicated an ideological and cultural terrain could be approached with such ease and haste.
Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obama had spoken of his desire to restore to America's relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution -- and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.
Little more than three decades ago, Jimmy Carter, another American president convinced that what had come before him could be annulled and wished away, called on the nation to shed its "inordinate fear of communism," and to put aside its concern with "traditional issues of war and peace" in favor of "new global issues of justice, equity and human rights." We had betrayed our principles in the course of the Cold War, he said, "fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is quenched with water." The Soviet answer to that brave, new world was the invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979.
Mr. Carter would try an atonement in the last year of his presidency. He would pose as a born-again hawk. It was too late in the hour for such redemption. It would take another standard-bearer, Ronald Reagan, to see that great struggle to victory.
Iran's ordeal and its ways shattered the Carter presidency. President Obama's Persian tutorial has just begun.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11136 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Obama's silence in the face of the violent and brutal Islamic crackdown on the Iranian people peacefully demonstrating for freedom is in keeping with Obama's previous silences:
1. Silent on the Black Muslim Riverdale bombers.
2. Silent on the release of the Black Panthers voter intimidation case.
His department of justice ordered the case dropped.
3. Silent on the murder of Private William Long by a Black Muslim -
Issued a very weak statement, though he loudly condemned the Tiller murder.
4. Silent on the French plane that crashed in the ocean, possibly blown
up by the two Muslim terrorists on board.
5. Silent on Iran - Issued a weakly worded statement.
On the other side of the coin we have:
1. Obama's bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia.
2. Obama's pro Islam speech in Cairo, with many fabricated platitudes about the history of Islam.
3. Obama instructing Eric Holder to issue a memo stating that Muslims were not to be discriminated against.
4. Releases Muslim terrorists from Gitmo to Bermuda, so that they can go into the restaurant business and hang on the beaches there.
5. Eliminating the phrase "war on terrorism" and replacing it with "overseas contingency operation" and "terorists" with "man made disasters".
There is a definite pattern in the behavior by Barack Hussein Obama toward the worldwide ummah (in keeping with being raised a Muslim in Indonesia). hat tip Jonathan Galt
#3
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity and ego.
Obama is convinced of his ability to work miracles of diplomacy. He went to Harvard! he's got a first-class temprament! He's an intellectual and scholar! And he's smarter than Bush! All the cool kids think he's boffo keen!! He said he would negotiate with the Iranians and win them over with sweet reason and by gosh that's just what he's gonna do, and he's not gonna let these protestors and neocons and inconveniently-vivid videos of people being shot down in the streets stop him!
Posted by: Mike ||
06/23/2009 10:39 Comments ||
Top||
#4
On the other hand the Obama administration is now unofficially taking credit for the unrest in Iran.
This implies that regime destabilization, perhaps regime change has become an official policy. That's a move in the right direction IMO.
Obama's WH saying that his Cairo speech inspired the protesting and uprising in Iran is disgusting and despicable.
But he still is going to invite those who murdered protesters like Neda (while he was out eating ice cream - how inspiring) to 4th of july celebrations.
But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republics Islamic authority in its 30-year history.
An obvious veiled attempt at checking Rahm's "never waste a good crisis" box.... even if a few hundred unarmed young people get shot down in cold blood. Very presidential I'd say, very Bahía de Cochinos.
#7
I think Mike is right, here. It comes down to simple vanity & conceit, really. Obama thinks his "soft-power" approach is the ONLY way that can ever possibly work despite the fact that such an approach has failed miserably throughout the course of history when push comes to shove. Yet he is so convinced of his superior intellect, powers of persuasion, and singular greatness he is blind to all the signs around him that the soft-power approach-- while on occasion effective in the short-term if only because it serves to delay the inevitable-- ultimately leads to greater suffering and eventual failure.
In essence it's all about HIM and what HE is capable of, regardless of the reality that surrounds him. That's NPD in full effect.
#8
Maybe the WH spokesperson misspoke. maybe he meant to say was:
But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring,the government to shoot the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republics Islamic authority in its 30-year history.
Perhaps static on the line when Ralm and the MSM were having their morning conference call to go over their talking points.
[ADN Kronos] Iranian lawmakers are mooting legislation that would outlaw harsh punishment methods such as stoning and amputations, Iran's official news agency IRNA said on Monday. Ali Sharokhi, who is the president of the Iranian judiciary commission said MPs are eyeing legal amendments to make illegal stoning, cutting off the hands of thieves, amongst other 'Islamic' punishments.
Currently, stoning, or lapidation is a legal punishment for crimes such as adultery, prostitution, and incest.
The last reported stoning in Iran was in December 2008 of two Iranian men and one Afghan man who dug himself out and escaped the stoning in the northeastern area of Iran. These stonings were confirmed by Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi in January 2009.
In stonings in Iran, men are buried to the waist and women are buried to the shoulders. Then stones are hurled until the prisoner dies or escapes.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Ooh, lapidation sounds soooo much better. Hopefully the MPs are going to need to rely on this in the near future.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Around 1,000 pro-reform Iranians gathered in a central Tehran square on Monday as a senior Iranian politician said the ground was ready to legally pursue the moderate defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi for the illegal protests.
"Mousavi's calling for illegal protests and issuing provocative statements have been a source of recent unrests in Iran ... Such criminal acts should be confronted firmly," said Ali Shahrokhi, head of parliament's judiciary committee, semi-official Fars news agency reported. "The ground is paved to legally chase Mousavi," he said shortly after the elite Revolutionary Guards warned they would crack down on any election-related unrest.
Witnesses said protesters were gathering late in the afternoon and riot police were trying to disperse them. Mousavi had urged supporters Monday to stage more protests over the re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi made a veiled appeal to the security forces to show restraint in handling demonstrations -- a move likely to be viewed with deep suspicion by a conservative leadership that has vowed to use force wherever necessary to quell opposition.
" The revolution is your legacy. To protest against lies and fraud is your right. Be hopeful that you will get your right and do not allow others who want to provoke your anger... to prevail "
Mirhossein Mousavi
State radio said on Monday that the capital had been calm overnight for the first time since the June 12 election. Mousavi, 67, reiterated his demand for a new election, and told his supporters on Sunday: "The revolution is your legacy. To protest against lies and fraud is your right. Be hopeful that you will get your right and do not allow others who want to provoke your anger... to prevail. In your protests, continue to show restraint. I am expecting armed forces to avoid irreversible damage."
Mass arrests
Iranian state radio said at least 457 people were arrested in the violent clashes in Tehran on Saturday that killed between 10 and 13 people wounded 100. State television said a daughter of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a rival of Ahmadinejad, had been released after being detained together with four other relatives during the Saturday rally in Tehran.
The authorities have branded the protesters as "terrorists" and rioters. Tehran's police commander Azizullah Rajabzadeh said police would "confront all gatherings and unrest with all its strength," the official IRNA news agency reported.
Gunfire and chanting
In pro-Mousavi districts of northern Tehran, supporters took to the rooftops after dusk Sunday to chant their defiance, witnesses said, an echo of tactics used in the 1979 revolution. There were no immediate reports of casualties and the shooting appeared an attempt to break up unsanctioned protests.
Government restrictions prevent correspondents working for foreign media from attending protests to report. Iran closed Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau and ordered BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, out of the country.
Analysis shows "irregularities"
Independent British think tank Chatham House said the election results show "irregularities" in the turnout and "highly implausible" swings to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to an analysis published on Sunday. It said that in a third of all provinces, official results would have required Ahmadinejad to take all former conservative, centrist and all new voters, and up to 44 percent of reformist voters, "despite a decade of conflict between these two groups."
There would have to have been a radical shift in rural voting patterns and a "highly unlikely" change in heart among former reformist voters for Ahmadinejad to win as he did, the study concluded.
The authorities reject charges of election fraud. But the highest legislative body has said it is ready to recount a random 10 percent of votes cast.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11137 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Dubai-based television channel Al Arabiya said on Sunday that its Tehran bureau has been ordered to remain closed indefinitely for "unfair reporting" of last week's disputed presidential election.
"The authorities accuse Al Arabiya of diffusing news that is not necessarily fair from their point of view," said channel's executive news manager, Nabil al-Khatib, adding that the channel had not done anything that was in violation of Iranian law and had appealed to the government about what it saw as a campaign against the station in the official Iranian media.
"They have ordered that we do not broadcast any news about Iran, saying Al Arabiya in Dubai does not comply with what Al Arabiya's office in Tehran was ordered to do," he said.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11136 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran's foreign minister accused Britain on Sunday of seeking to sabotage the disputed presidential election that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and ordered the BBC's Tehran correspondent to leave within 24 hours, semi-official media reported Sunday. "Great Britain has plotted against the presidential election for more than two years," Manouchehr Mottaki told foreign diplomats in Tehran in comments translated into English by state-run Press TV.
Retaliation on BBC
Shortly after his comments, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported that Iran had decided to expel the BBC's correspondent. "Jon Leyne will have to leave Iran within the course of the next 24 hours under the charges of dispatching fabricated news and reports, ignoring neutrality in news, supporting rioters and trampling the Iranian nation's rights," Fars said, without giving a source.
Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau was also shut indefinitely after Iranina authorities closed it for a week last Sunday. "We witnessed an influx of people (from Britain) before the election. Elements linked to the British secret service were flying in droves," Mottaki charged.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11142 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
That's the way thugs work, no possibility of any dissentig voice, especially lying with pictues and any actual proof.
Absolutely forbidden.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/23/2009 0:16 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Well, let's start with the things we agree on: Vote sabotage is bad.
#8
The Beeb will probably do some soul-searching, or whatever the analog is for soul-dead media shills, and decide that they must re-double their efforts to appease mullahs and other third-world bigots.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Following the week long post-election demonstrations and violence in Iran, Britain and Italy have warned their nationals against traveling to the country.
Britain and Italy's Foreign Ministries issued a statement advising their nationals against traveling to Iran "because of the disorder that has followed the June 12 elections, a situation of uncertainty persists in Tehran and in other cities".
Britain's Foreign Office statement also added that British nationals in the Islamic Republic "should avoid demonstrations and large public gatherings."
The UK is also withdrawing family members of its embassy staff from Tehran due to the ongoing situation in Iran. A Foreign Office Spokesman said that "the ongoing violence has had a significant impact on the families of our staff who have been unable to carry on their lives as normal." The spokesman added that there was no need to withdraw staff at this point, but the dependants would be withdrawn until the situation settles down.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11143 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
If they're stupid enough to go, screw 'em.
Write 'em off as suicides - because that's what Westerners going to Iran are committing. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/23/2009 17:54 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Not enuf excitement you say? Try a 14 day NORK-Chicom border add-on.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Amid claims of a 'rigged-election' by certain defeated Iranian presidential candidates, a top election official says the box-by-box details of the vote will be released.
"During previous elections in the Islamic Republic, statistics concerning individual ballot boxes were considered confidential information ... this kind of information was only available to certain officials," deputy head of the Interior Ministry's election headquarters Ali-Asghar Sharifi-Rad said Sunday.
According to Sharifi-Rad, the Ministry had, however, decided to publish the results "box by box," to resolve ambiguities about the disputed election in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory, ILNA reported.
His comments came after the country's highest electoral authority, the Guardian Council, said, "Votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to cast ballots in those areas."
A spokesman for the Council, however, said that the additional votes did not change the outcome of the election, as they were not enough to reverse the reelection of President Ahmadinejad.
The extra votes amount to roughly three million ballots.
Following the victory of President Ahmadinejad on June 12, the country has become the scene of illegal rallies with defeated presidential hopefuls Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi rejecting the result as fraudulent and demanding a re-run.
The office of Tehran's prosecutor general on Monday said it had launched an investigation into the death of the 13 people who lost their lives in Tehran violence on Saturday. The unrest left 20 others injured.
The office announced on Monday that one of the individuals detained in connection with Saturday's violence is an armed terrorist, adding that further investigation will bring the remaining offenders to justice.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11143 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Wasn't It Stalin who said "It only matters who counts the Vote"?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/23/2009 8:06 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Here is a general rule of thumb: If your country has a Supreme Leader, you might have elections, but they don't mean squat.
(Bloomberg) -- Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the security forces will crush further protests over the disputed presidential vote, as the country's elections supervisory body acknowledged some balloting discrepancies. "The saboteurs must stop their actions" or face "the decisive and revolutionary action of the children of the nation in the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij, and other security and military forces, to put an end to the chaos," the state-run Mehr news agency cited the Revolutionary Guards as saying today in a statement.
Police attacked hundreds of protesters with tear gas and fired shots into the air as they broke up a rally in central Tehran's Haft-e-Tir square shortly after the Guards' warning, the Associated Press said.
The 125,000-strong Guards, tasked by Iran's clerical rulers with protecting the Islamic Revolution, have their own ground, air and sea forces. Club-wielding members of the Basij volunteer militia, which is linked to the Guards, have played a role in suppressing the protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's June 12 victory. Opponents say the ballot was rigged. "This shows that it is very serious and can destabilize the regime," Yossi Mekelberg, director of international relations at Regent's College, London, said in an interview. Without the Guards' intervention, the protests won't stop, he said.
Security forces deployed in Tehran to prevent further demonstrations after hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets during more than a week of rallies that saw at least 17 people killed, according to the government. Police arrested as many as 457 people during clashes in the city on June 20, state-run Press TV said.
Guardian Council
The clerical Guardian Council, the top election body, acknowledged that the number of ballots cast in 50 districts surpassed the number of eligible voters in those areas, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported today. Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said the discrepancies, in areas with a total electorate of about three million, may have sprung from voters being allowed to cast their ballot in cities or provinces other than those where they live.
The Council has rejected a call from Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger in the disputed election, for a new vote, offering only a partial recount of ballots. "Crossing the red lines and pursuing scenarios to agitate the public is an obvious sign of threatening the national security and endangering the interests of the establishment and Iran," the Guards said in their statement, adding that the protests tell "a story of a big conspiracy against the revolution and the Iranian nation."
Supreme Leader
The Guards, who answer directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and act as a counterweight to the army, warned the international community including the U.S., U.K. and Israel to stop stirring unrest in the country. Iran has accused foreign nations of provoking the protests, a charge denied by Western diplomats.
The U.S. designated the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force a terrorist organization in October 2007, accusing the paramilitary group of supporting attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. The focus of the Quds Force has been assistance to Islamic militant groups in other countries.
The U.K.'s Foreign Office said today it will withdraw temporarily family members of its diplomats in Tehran, because they have been unable to continue their normal lives. The ministry isn't advising other Britons to leave, though it said it is monitoring the situation with "the utmost vigilance" and advised against all except essential travel to the country.
Splits in Elite
The Guards' intervention came as splits within Iran's ruling elite deepened after police arrested relatives of an ex- president and Parliament's speaker said that most Iranians questioned Ahmadinejad's electoral victory.
Security forces detained five relatives of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the most influential politicians in the country, state media said yesterday. They were released later. Bolstering the opposition, Speaker Ali Larijani, who served as Iran's nuclear negotiator until 2007, criticized the top election body for siding with Ahmadinejad and said most Iranians don't accept the results. "There is some serious dissatisfaction within the ranks," said Ilan Berman, an analyst with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington. "Anytime a regime begins to eat its own, it signals significant transformation."
Rallying Support
Rafsanjani is believed to be rallying support within the clerical establishment for former Prime Minister Mousavi, 67. "The ball is in the opposition's court," said Kaveh-Cyrus Sanandaji, an Iran expert from Oxford University in the U.K. "The supreme leader and Ahmadinejad have proven they are willing to use violence against all dissent."
At Friday prayers in Tehran University on June 19, Khamenei reaffirmed Ahmadinejad's electoral victory. The president was re-elected for a second four-year term with 63 percent of the vote to Mousavi's 34 percent, according to the official tally.
Iran's rial strengthened 0.4 percent to 9,853.15 to the dollar, compared to 9,894.6 at the close of trading on June 19. The currency's rate is managed by Bank Markazi, the central bank.
Iran's governor at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, said the protests haven't affected the country's oil industry or crude exports. Iran is OPEC's second-biggest producer.
Oil Industry 'Normal'
"The recent developments in the country have had no impact on the oil industry or crude exports," state-run Press TV cited Khatibi as telling the Iran Daily newspaper yesterday. "The national oil industry is 100 percent normal."
The protests, the largest since the Islamic Revolution that ousted the shah in 1979, and the divisions within the regime mark an unprecedented challenge to the authority of Khamenei, the successor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution. The loyalty of the security forces may be tested in the event of major bloodshed.
Mousavi urged his supporters to continue peaceful protests. Opposing lies and fraud is a right, Mousavi said in a statement published yesterday on his Web site.
Rafsanjani, 75, who heads the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that has the power to appoint or dismiss the supreme leader, is likely to try to dislodge Khamenei, 69, said Anoush Ehteshami, a professor of international relations at Durham University in the U.K.
Rafsanjani's 'Direct Challenge'
"Rafsanjani is being forced to come out into the open," said Ehteshami. "The arrest of his family members is a direct challenge to him."
The Rafsanjani family members, including his daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, were detained two days ago in connection with the protests. The relatives were released yesterday, with Rafsanjani's daughter the last to be freed, late last night, Press TV said.
Ten people were killed on June 20 in Tehran as thousands defied Khamenei's imposition of a ban on rallies, state television reported, citing deputy police chief Ahmadreza Radan. Radan said more than 100 people were also injured in rioting. He said security forces didn't use firearms and "terrorist groups" among the protesters were responsible for the casualties. CNN television, citing workers at a Tehran hospital, said 19 people were killed. "The first priority of every nation is security," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said today at a news conference in Tehran. "It will first ensure security then turn to elections, freedom, human rights and democracy."
Media Crackdown
The Iranian government continued its crackdown on foreign media coverage of the crisis. The British Broadcasting Corp. said yesterday that its correspondent in Iran, Jon Leyne, was told by the country's authorities to leave.
Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, 41, was arrested by security forces at his Tehran apartment over the weekend. Newsweek called in a statement for the dual Canadian-Iranian citizen's immediate release. "The stage may now be set for a violent showdown," said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Past experience, however, raises questions about whether the security forces can be uniformly relied on to implement an order to violently quash the protests."
In 1994, army and Revolutionary Guards garrisoned near Qazvin, a town northwest of Tehran, refused to obey orders to fire on rioters, said Eisenstadt.
For Rafsanjani, Mousavi and their allies, the democratic legitimacy of the Islamic republic is at stake, said Hooman Majd, the author of "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran."
"If they have the chance to seize power and oust the supreme leader, they'll do it," Oxford University's Sanandaji said.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11143 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#2
Their problem is that they can not play two games with contradicting strategies. If they continue to provoke the outside world with threats and terrorism, that will eventually lead to an external response. By suppressing the population internally so clearly and forcefully, the very population they will have to swim among, in any external intervention in the future, will be hostile and be the eyes and ears of their enemy. Just remember the best trained army in the Muslim world is now on their doorstep. Keep sending those bombs and agents in across the border making 'friends' and influencing people.
#3
I don't see Iran getting better until there is a popular uprising; they tear down the existing structure and start over again. They need to clean house of the mullahs who have a stranglehold on the country.
#4
The fact that the IRGC statement is not attributed to anyone is significant. The authorities have been arresting officers in the IRGC for several days. One of the arrested was the IRGC commander for Tehran (a war hero who lost an eye in the Iran-Iraq war).
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
06/23/2009 18:52 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"...One of the arrested was the IRGC commander for Tehran (a war hero who lost an eye in the Iran-Iraq war)."
would make good movie
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/23/2009 19:27 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Relatives and friends of Neda Soltan, the 26-year-old protester who's become an international symbol of Iranian resistance, wanted her to be remembered for her love of music and passion for travel.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, adopting one of the toughest lines on Iran of any Western leader, condemned on Monday what he said was Tehran's totally unacceptable use of "brute force and intimidation" to deal with protests.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Dubai-based television channel Al Arabiya said on Sunday that its Tehran bureau has been ordered to remain closed indefinitely for "unfair reporting" of last week's disputed presidential election.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran's foreign minister accused Britain on Sunday of seeking to sabotage the disputed presidential election that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and ordered the BBC's Tehran correspondent to leave within 24 hours, semi-official media reported Sunday. "Great Britain has plotted against the presidential election for more than two years," Manouchehr Mottaki told foreign diplomats in Tehran in comments translated into English by state-run Press TV.
(Bloomberg) -- Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the security forces will crush further protests over the disputed presidential vote, as the country's elections supervisory body acknowledged some balloting discrepancies. "The saboteurs must stop their actions" or face "the decisive and revolutionary action of the children of the nation in the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij, and other security and military forces, to put an end to the chaos," the state-run Mehr news agency cited the Revolutionary Guards as saying today in a statement.
