Tens of thousands of government opponents packed Iran's main Islamic prayer service Friday, chanting "freedom, freedom" and other slogans as their top clerical backer Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a sermon bluntly criticizing the country's leadership over the crackdown on election protests.
Outside, police and pro-government Basiji militiamen fired tear gas and charges thousands of protesters who chanted "death to the dictator" and called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign. Dozens were arrested, piled in trucks and taken away, witnesses said.
Plainclothes Basijis stood in front of a line of riot police and pumped canisters of tear gas, which young protesters with green bandanas over their faces kicked away across the pavement, away from the crowds. Some set a bonfire in the street and waved their hands in the air in victory signs.
The opposition aimed to turn the Friday prayers at Tehran University into a show of their continued strength despite heavy government suppression since the disputed June 12 presidential election.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to have won the election, sat in the front row of worshippers, attending for the first time since the turmoil began. Many of the tens of thousands at the prayers wore headbands or wristbands in his campaign color green, or had green prayer rugs.
In his sermon broadcast live on radio nationwide, Rafsanjani reprimanded the clerical leadership for not listening to people's complaints over the election, which was declared a victory for Ahmadinejad despite opposition claims of fraud. "Doubt has been created (about the election results)," Rafsanjani said. "There is a large portion of the wise people who say they have doubts. We need to take action to remove this doubt."
Rafsanjani couched his sermon in calls for unity in support of Iran's Islamic Republic. But his sermon was an unmistakable challenge to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared Ahmadinejad's victory valid and ordered an end to questioning of the results. Rafsanjani said the dispute has split clerics and warned of "crisis."
Worshippers interrupted Rafsanjani with chants of "azadi, azadi" -- Persian for "freedom" -- and the cleric got tears in his eyes as he spoke of how Islam's Prophet Muhammad "respected the rights" of his people. Rafsanjani said the leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, "knew that people's vote was the most important thing in our country" and insisted it be enshrined in the founding of the Islamic Republic.
"Where people are not present or their vote is not considered, that government is not Islamic," Rafsanjani said. Now I'm the one with tears in my eyes.
He criticized the postelection wave of arrests, saying the leadership should show sympathy for protesters and release those detained. "Sympathy must be offered to those who suffered from the events... and reconcile them with the ruling system," he said. "We need to placate them."
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Posted by: ed ||
07/17/2009 11:57 ||
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#1
This will continue until the thugs get a very bad defeat, preferably all the basiji killed, then they'll call out the army, and effectively start a civil war.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/17/2009 19:56 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Tehran's Municipality spokesman has urged the Iranian parliament to reject a new bill that gives the Interior Ministry the right to appoint mayors.
"We hope the parliament will consider the principles of democracy and the importance of the people's entitlement to choose their preferred mayors before making it the right of the Interior Ministry," said Mohammad Hadi Ayazi on Wednesday.
At present, city mayors are chosen by the elected city -- or Islamic -- councils. However, a group of pro-government lawmakers have tabled a bill in the parliament which if adopted, would give the interior minister the power to appoint mayors in cities with populations of above 200,000.
For cities with less than 200,000 residents, the bill would require that provincial governors elect mayors with coordination of the Interior Ministry.
The bill, tabled two weeks ago, has drawn criticism from various officials and its possible adoption is seen by critics as a step in the wrong direction.
"The passing of this bill would significantly undermine the role of municipal councils, which has been greatly emphasized in the Iranian constitution," Ayazi continued. "This is why the Tehran City Council as well as the members of Islamic councils in all the other towns and large cities have opposed this bill."
Ayazi was referring to opposition to the bill by prominent members of the Tehran City Council.
Among officials who condemned the measure was Tehran City Council head Mehdi Chamran."The bid for mayors not to be appointed by the councils threatens religious democracy," Iranian daily Sarmayeh quoted Chamran as saying.
"At a time that the government seeks to delegate various tasks with the help of others and lessen its responsibilities, once again assigning the government the job of selecting mayors only questions the existence of councils."
Israel accused Iran and Syria on Thursday of sending weapons to Lebanon's Hezbollah in violation of a UN ceasefire after one of the group's arms warehouses in south Lebanon blew up.
The Lebanese group, which is both a popular political movement and a powerful guerrilla organisation, is backed by both Syria and Iran. The conditions of the 2006 ceasefire that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war prohibit weapons smuggling to Hezbollah and forbid the group from engaging in military activities in south Lebanon.
Lebanese officials say explosions on Tuesday in a supposedly abandoned building 10 miles north of the Israeli border were caused by a fire in a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said on Thursday that the incident was evidence of "Iranian and Syrian efforts to continue to transfer weapons to Hezbollah in direct and flagrant violation" of the UN ceasefire that ended the war.
A senior Israeli officer told reporters on Thursday the warehouse contained short-range rockets that were smuggled from Syria. The warehouse was one of dozens of similar Hezbollah arms depots across south Lebanon and part of a "buildup" of the group's strength there, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with military regulations.
The UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon on Wednesday called the incident a "serious violation" of the ceasefire.
But nonetheless there will be no repercussions for Hizb'allah.
[ADN Kronos] The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, has resigned, according to the ISNA news agency. The report said the nuclear chief had submitted a letter of resignation to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nearly three weeks ago. Aghazadeh also stepped down as the country's vice-president, ISNA reported.
The reason for his resignation is not known.
Iran has consistently said its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes and denied Western claims that it wanted a nuclear bomb.
Aghazadeh previously served as oil minister before taking up his position at the atomic organisation under former president Mohammad Khatami.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Resigns, never to be heard from again? Maybe someone booked him on a recent plane flight to Armenia. I hear it's lovely there this time of year. Assuming you arrive.
#2
ION TOPIX > DIPLOMATS: IRAN WILL HAVE THE MEANS TO TEST N-BOMB IN SIX MONTHS.
* SAME > STANFORD UNIV ENGINEER: CHANCES OF NUCLEAR WAR [incl. Nuke Attack agz CONUS USA] IS GREATER THAN YOU THINK. NUC-WMD TERROR EVENT(S) induces risk of POST-EVENT, RECOVERY/
HUMANITARIAN PHASE "GREAT POWER" MIL CONFRONTATIONISM, e.g. USA-VZ-RUSSIA after a nuc terror event on their soil???
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iran's Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i has warned worshippers against potential unrest in this week's Friday prayers. Mohseni-Eje'i called on worshippers to remain 'vigilant' so that the Friday prayers do not turn into a scene of 'undesirable' events, Fars news reported on Thursday. The minister however added that the capital, Tehran, currently enjoys a good security situation.
After an eight-week absence, Chairman of the Expediency Council and Head of the Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, will lead this week's Friday prayers. Supporters of Iran's opposition, who continue to reject the results of the June 12 presidential election, will reportedly take part in this week's Friday prayers en masse as defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has announced that he will also take part.
In a statement issued by his website Ghalamnews on Wednesday, Mousavi, the country's last prime minister, who came second in Iran's June 12 presidential election, announced that he would join the lines of worshippers for this week's Friday prayers. Mousavi said he would attend the prayers as he feels 'obliged' to respond to calls concerning the path of defending the 'legitimate rights to a free and decent living.'
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2009 00:00 ||
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[Jerusalem Post Middle East] A day after an explosion uncovered a hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon, the IDF's Northern Command estimated that the group had turned hundreds of homes in the area into warehouses to store short- and medium-range Katyusha rockets.
The IDF released video footage taken from an Israeli aircraft, showing a home that had exploded on Tuesday in the village of Hirbet Selm - located some 20 kilometers north of the Lebanese border. The roof is seen in the footage with dozens of holes, which IDF ballistic experts said were the size of 122-mm. Katyusha rockets.
UNIFIL said that storing the ammunition was a "serious violation" of the UN-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The peace keeping force said that it considered the incident a "serious violation" of the UN resolution that ended the conflict, which specifies that there should be no presence of unauthorized assets or weapons in the area of operations.
Israeli defense officials had also accused Lebanon of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. "This is a major violation of resolution 1701," one Israeli official said. "The weaponry was stored inside a village and is proof of our longstanding claim that Hizbullah uses civilian infrastructure to hide its weaponry."
Contrary to Lebanese media reports which claimed that the cache was hidden in the village before the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Israeli defense officials said that the weaponry was recently placed inside the storehouse. According to the officials, the cache was hidden in a storehouse inside the village and contained dozens of 122mm Katyusha rockets as well as high-powered machine guns. Some of the rockets reportedly flew into the sky.
The blast took place at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, and for the first few hours, Hizbullah sealed off the area and refused to grant UNIFIL or the Lebanese army access. IDF sources said that the clearing of the home and the unexploded ordinance had taken over 24 hours.
The sources said the IDF had been aware prior to the explosion that the home was being used as a storehouse for weapons. Several months before the explosion, an IDF aircraft captured footage of several senior Hizbullah operatives entering an underground tunnel near the house and reappearing from an exit 700 m. away. "This house was connected to an entire underground network that was built right under the noses of UNIFIL and the Lebanese army," one IDF officer said. "This is a major violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701."
The Katyusha rockets that went off in Hirbet Selm were being stored in a two-story home. It was unclear on which floor they were being stored, but the home was shown on Lebanese television in close proximity to other village buildings. In addition to the 122-mm. rockets, IDF ballistic experts said it was likely that the home also contained mortar shells and additional types of ammunition.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2009 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.
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[ADN Kronos] The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, has resigned, according to the ISNA news agency. The report said the nuclear chief had submitted a letter of resignation to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nearly three weeks ago. Aghazadeh also stepped down as the country's vice-president, ISNA reported.
[Jerusalem Post Middle East] A day after an explosion uncovered a hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon, the IDF's Northern Command estimated that the group had turned hundreds of homes in the area into warehouses to store short- and medium-range Katyusha rockets. 
