A top Iranian cleric said Friday that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.
The announcement by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati alarmed European nations and fueled calls for tougher action against Tehran. Britain is pressing for members of the European Union to pull their ambassadors out of Tehran to protest the arrest of its embassy staffers last week a step that the EU so far has hesitated to take.
Jannati does not hold a position in the government or judiciary, but is the head of the Guardian Council, a powerful body in Iran's ruling clerical hierarchy that stands above the elected government.
Jannati took a tough line, indirectly accusing Mousavi of treason.
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Posted by: ed ||
07/03/2009 14:19 ||
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#2
Time for the Brits to nuke the he$$ out of Iran, beginning with Qom. Putting diplomatic personnel on trial on such a trumped-up charge is an act of war, and should be responded to accordingly. Too bad Jimmah Kahtah wasn't man enough to do that in 1979. We wouldn't have had this problem today if he had. What a limp-wristed psychopath - HE belongs in Iran.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/03/2009 21:09 Comments ||
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#3
From the NY Times:
As local employees of the embassy, those arrested did not have diplomatic immunity. None are British citizens.
Late last month Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointedly restated Great Britain's longstanding designation as Tehran's public enemy No. 1, surpassing the Great Satan America and Zionist Israel. In this verbal assault, the clerics credited "Perfidious Albion" with manipulating and even controlling the actions of the United States in confronting Iran and containing its ambitions. Wow!
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Press TV has broadcast newly-obtained footage of a controversial clash between Basij members and protesters, which shows the Basij base under siege.
Tehran became the scene of violence in recent weeks amidst rallies staged in protest at the outcome of the June 12 presidential election -- which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected to a second term in office.
People described by Iranian officials as "saboteurs" infiltrated the riots and set fire to a mosque, two gas stations and a military post in western Tehran. At least 20 people were killed and many others were injured in the ensuing violence.
The protests came to worldwide attention when major media outlets broadcast footage of what they described as unprovoked attacks by security forces.
In Britain, Channel Four covered the news by airing a video of a clash between rioters and Basij members in which a man was seen shooting at the crowd.
According to comments broadcast in a video provided by the government in Tehran, journalist Maziar Bahari had provided [Iran Press TV] Channel Four with the footage of the June 15 attack. What was aired by the channel, however, had the scene of the attack on the base censored.
The new footage obtained by Press TV shows a group of people attacking the Basij base with Molotov cocktails.
The building in question has been deemed as a vital structure and has been confirmed by Tehran officials as an armory.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I watch segments of Press TV on tvweb360.com. Pure propaganda.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election campaign manager, Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, says Iran's electoral process was fair and healthy.
Iran became the scene of opposition rallies after the announcement of Ahmadinejad as the winner of the 10th presidential election with nearly two-thirds of the vote.
At least 20 people were killed and many others were injured when some protests turned violent.
In an interview with Press TV on Thursday, Samareh-Hashemi said that the supporters of the defeated candidates knew fully well that "the result of the election was true".
He went on to claim that this knowledge was the reason behind the refusal of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei to send representatives to the committee tasked with probing the vote result.
Iran's election watchdog, the Guardian Council, formed a "special commission" to look into the issues surrounding the election and to conduct a partial vote recount.
Samareh-Hashemi explained that the Ahmadinejad administration had temporarily suspended text-messaging services, made cell phone services intermittent and blocked certain websites to "ensure security in the country" following the post-election unrest.
He went on to accuse certain American internet service providers of implementing the policies of the US government by "launching attacks on 200 Iranian websites and helping fuel the unrest."
"Even, the election website came under cyber attack," he said.
Samareh-Hashemi insisted that Mousavi must publicly declare his adherence to the law, saying all Iranians are required to abide by the Constitution.
He went on to describe the defeated candidate's recent statement as a "step forward".
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2009 00:00 ||
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[11143 views]
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#1
He won so fair that the military were pouring into the cities and Phone / internet connections were cut before the election was even finished.
[Iran Press TV Latest]Moscow opposes imposing sanctions on Iran over what the West describes as a crackdown on protesters who illegally took to the streets following the country's presidential election.
"We believe that sanctions against Iran over its internal political problems would be unlawful and counter-productive," Xinhua quoted Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko as saying on Thursday.
Nesterenko warned that such a move would provoke unwelcome events in the country and the region. He stressed that all disputes should be addressed through legal channels.
Iran's 10th presidential election which was held on June 12 resulted in a landslide victory for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Unrest in some Iranian cities began when supporters of some defeated presidential candidates took to the streets to protest against alleged 'irregularities' in the election process.
The Guardian Council, which oversees the election, confirmed the election results earlier this week after launching a probe into the allegations.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Russia must want something from Iran.
I dunno, customer for nuke fuel? Patsy? Distraction? Something.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/03/2009 1:18 Comments ||
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#2
(1) Iran has been a client of Moscow for decades.
(2) Putin wants the oil market off of the US $$
(3) The Russian economy contracted by >30% in the last year. The revenues they gave up from cancelled Iranian missile sales hurt.
(4) I wonder if the militants in Ingushetia have good relations with Teheran ....
[Iran Press TV Latest] The International Police force (Interpol) has flatly denied any involvement in searching for the man who witnessed the death of Neda Agha-Soltan.
The death of Neda, who was shot dead on a Tehran street on June 20 amid the post-election unrest in the capital, has turned into a controversial issue.
Iranian physician Arash Hejazi told the BBC that he had witnessed a member of the Basij shoot Neda. The volunteer force has, however, strongly rejected the allegation.
"Arash Hejazi is wanted by Interpol and Iran's Intelligence Ministry," Fars news agency quoted Ahmadi-Moqaddam as saying on Wednesday.
Interpol spokesperson Rachel Billington, however, rejected involvement in any investigation into the death of Neda.
"We've not received any request for information or for assistance on the death of that lady," Billington told CBSNews.com on Thursday. "We've received nothing from Iran."
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Fanatic Shiites are fixated on alleged UK involvement in Neda's death. They don't let facts get in the way.
[Khaleej Times] Iranian presidential election runner up Mir Hossein Mousavi on Wednesday renewed a demand for a complete re-run of the vote and pledged to help set up a new group to defend citizen's rights.
Another defeated candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, saw his reformist newspaper Etemad Melli shut down after he denounced the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as invalid and the new government as not legitimate.
The 12-member Guardians Council election watchdog had warned the defeated candidates that it will brook no more challenges to the results following a recount of 10 percent of ballot boxes from the June 12 poll.
Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's closest rival who won 34 percent of the vote compared to 63 percent for the incumbent, remained defiant, saying: "The majority of the society to which I belong will not recognise the legitimacy of the (future) government.
"Our historic duty is to continue the protests to defend the rights of the people... and prevent the blood spilled by hundreds of thousands of martyrs from leading to a police state," he said in a posting on his website.
Mousavi said a group of politicians including himself have decided to create "a legal political body to defend citizen's rights and votes that were crushed in the election, to publish documents about the frauds and irregularities and to start legal action."
Iran's police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moghaddam said that 20 people were killed and more than 1,000 arrested in the wave of protests over the disputed presidential vote.
"No policeman was killed in the Tehran riots but 20 rioters were killed," he said, confirming earlier reports.
"Police arrested 1,032 people in the recent riots. Many have been released and the rest are being prosecuted in Tehran's public and revolutionary courts," he was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.
The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights has said that more than 2,000 people are in custody in Iran and hundreds more missing, while rights group Amnesty said it is concerned that several detained opposition leaders may face torture.
Human Rights Watch said harsh interrogation conditions and inadequate medical care are threatening the life of detained reformist Saeed Hajjarian, a former presidential adviser and Tehran city councillor.
Police chief Ahmadi-Moghaddam said the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, who became a symbol of post-election street rallies in Iran, was a "prearranged scenario," state owned English-language Press TV reported.
He accused Arash Hejazi, a doctor who says he tried to save Neda's life in her final moments, of fanning the flames of the western media hype, the TV station said on its website.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed Ahmadi-Moghaddam's allegation as "misinformation."
"I think the notion that the death of an innocent woman would be staged is -- even with them, it's shocking," Gibbs said.
Ahmadinejad on Wednesday cancelled a trip to Libya, where he was due to have addressed a summit of African leaders in the seaside town of Sirte at the invitation of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
Pressure of work was blamed for the cancellation and it was impossible to know whether Ahmadinejad's pullout was connected with the wave of opposition which has swept Iran since the election, triggering the worst crisis since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Foreign media remain banned from reporting from Iranian streets under restrictions imposed in the violent election aftermath.
Mousavi called for a guarantee of freedom of assembly, a free press, the lifting of bans on independent newspapers and websites and for the possibility to have "an independent television network."
The former prime minister also demanded the release of people arrested for "political reasons" and an end to "telephone tapping".
Etemad Melli said its publication was suspended on Wednesday as a direct result of Karroubi's latest statement.
"Last night, after Karroubi's statement was released, representatives of the Tehran prosecutor and the culture ministry prevented the publication of Etemad Melli newspaper," his party of the same name said on its website.
"They wanted the statement censored and not published -- so the newspaper will not be published today," it said.
Among people still held by the Iranian authorities is one local staff member from the British embassy out of nine who were detained on allegations of stoking the unrest, Press TV reported.
A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "The latest situation is two of our staff have been released over the last two days. We are also seeking confirmation that a further member of staff has been released today.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the arrest of the nine embassy employees "is unjustified and it is unacceptable and some people in Iran are trying to seek to use Britain as an explanation for the legitimate Iranian voices calling for greater openness and democracy."
EU countries are considering a proposal from Britain for a temporary recall of all of their ambassadors from Iran in protest at the detention of the British embassy employees by Tehran, a European diplomatic source said.
A senior foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama said Iran's political crackdown and nuclear programme will be "at front and center" of the US president's visit to Russia and the G8 summit in Italy next week.
In a sign of life in Iran returning to normal, the text messaging network was restored on Wednesday after being cut off since June 12.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2009 00:00 ||
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Iran on Thursday announced more arrests in the post-election turmoil, detaining seven alleged provocateurs of violence it says were linked to Iranian exiles, while a hardline lawmaker called for legal action against defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The arrests continue a heavy crackdown that has squashed the mass protests that erupted over the disputed June 12 presidential vote. Iran's top police chief has said 20 people were killed in violence during the protests, and that 1,032 people were detained.
The Basij, a paramilitary militia that had a prominent role in putting down the protests, on Wednesday formally requested that Mousavi be investigated for the post-election protests, saying he "supervised or assisted in punishable acts." A hard-line MP on Parliament's legal committee, Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, echoed that call Thursday, saying Mousavi had continued his calls for protests even after Iran's supreme leader had ordered a halt to street unrest.
The semi-official Fars news agency reported Thursday that families of the "innocent victims" of bloodshed during demonstrations would receive government compensation. Fars said "terrorists infiltrated among protesters to foment unrest," causing the violence.
There was no word on who would receive compensation and how much - but it seems to refer to eight Basij members who were reportedly killed.
The compensation is to come from the state-funded Martyrs' Foundation, a body that helps families of those who died in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, in which more than a million people from the two countries were killed and far more wounded.
Iran has been eager to depict the unprecedented wave of protests as inspired by outsiders, apparently looking to boost the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was announced as a landslide victor over his pro-reform opponent Mousavi. Mousavi insists he is the winner, calling the official results fraudulent.
The newly announced arrests were of seven members of "anti-government groups" who were "provoking unrest" in Tehran and the northwestern city of Qazvin, the state-run satellite channel Press TV reported.
The Qazvin regional intelligence department said the suspects had confessed to connections with groups including the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), or People's Mujahedeen, the armed wing of a France-based opposition group, the National Resistance Council of Iran. Iran has repeatedly blamed the MEK for inciting post-election unrest.
Meanwhile, the official tally of deaths among Iranian protesters during the demonstrations following the vote was upped from 17 to 20, police chief General Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam announced, according to the state-run newspaper Iran.
Police detained 1,032 people, and most have been released, said Ahmadi Moghaddam, adding that 500 policemen were injured in the clashes. He did not specify whether the numbers included those detained by the Basij, who are connected to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, not the police.
Despite the crackdown, which has halted protests since Sunday, Mousavi appears driven to maintain his opposition. In a challenging statement Wednesday, he said he would consider an Ahmadinejad government illegitimate and demanded political prisoners be released.
Tehran also faces pressure from the West, sharpened after the detention last week of several Iranians employed by the British Embassy. Iranian state television reported all but one of the detained has been released.
The EU on Thursday called on Iran to release all the employees, but it held off on a British request that all 27 EU ambassadors be withdrawn from Tehran. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said it was too early to recall the envoys and the EU was "awaiting how the Iranian authorities will react." He added that "more than one" of the employee remained in detention.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday called for next week's Group of Eight summit to send a "strong message of unity" in support of Iranians' human rights, and said efforts to address concerns over Tehran's nuclear ambitions must remain on track.
But her call stopped short of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's statement this week that the G-8 nations would consider sanctions against Iran.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/03/2009 00:00 ||
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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.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The International Police force (Interpol) has flatly denied any involvement in searching for the man who witnessed the death of Neda Agha-Soltan. 
[Khaleej Times] Iranian presidential election runner up Mir Hossein Mousavi on Wednesday renewed a demand for a complete re-run of the vote and pledged to help set up a new group to defend citizen's rights.
