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| Topic: Unrest in Iran Deepens as Leading Critics Are Detained | |
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Unrest in Iran Deepens as Leading Critics Are Detained TEHRAN — The Iranian authorities detained more than 100 prominent opposition members, and on Sunday unrest continued for a second day across Iran in the wake of the country’s disputed presidential election. The leading opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, issued a fresh statement calling for the election results to be canceled, as his supporters skirmished with a vast deployment of riot police and militia members on the edges of a victory rally organized by the government in central Tehran. A moderate clerical body, the Association of Combatant Clergy, issued a statement posted on reformist Web sites saying the election was rigged and calling for it to be canceled, warning that “if this process becomes the norm, the republican aspect of the regime will be damaged and people will lose confidence in the system.” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the opposition’s allegations of large-scale election fraud, saying his landslide victory had given him a bigger mandate than ever. He hinted that Mr. Moussavi — who remained at home Sunday with the police closely monitoring his movements — might be punished for his defiance. “He ran a red light, and he got a traffic ticket,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said of his rival, during a news conference at the presidential palace. Those arrested were from all the major opposition factions and included the brother of a former president, Mohammad Khatami. Some were released later in the day. Calling the opposition protests “unimportant,” Mr. Ahmadinejad suggested that they were the work of foreign agitators and journalists. But he also seemed to throw down the gauntlet to other nations, saying, “We are now asking the positions of all countries regarding the elections, and assessing their attitude to our people.” But Mr. Ahmadinejad’s electoral rivals appeared to be holding firm in their protest against the vote. Mr. Moussavi issued a statement saying he had asked Iran’s Guardian Council, which must certify the election for it to be legal, to cancel the vote. He also said he was being monitored by the authorities, and was unable to join his followers. His campaign headquarters have been closed down, he said. Another candidate, the reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, echoed Mr. Moussavi’s demand for the election to be canceled. “I am announcing again that the elections should not be allowed and the results have no legitimacy or social standing,” Mr. Karroubi said. “Therefore, I do not consider Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as p resident of the republic.” Mr. Ahmadinejad also spoke at a square in central Tehran, surrounded by thousands of flag-waving protesters in what was clearly intended to be a show of popular support for his election victory. But the smell of tear gas and smoke drifted over the cheering crowds, and only a few blocks away, groups of protesters chanted their own slogans against the government, and bloodied people could be seen running from baton-wielding police officers. As night fell, chants of “God is great!” could be heard from rooftops in several areas of the capital. “No one led these people in the streets,” said Basu, 28, an opposition supporter who, like many others, was afraid to give his full name. “This is the least we can do; we cannot stay at home and watch them celebrate a fake election.” He opened his shirt to show long, red welts on his chest where a Basij militia member had whipped him with a chain. Next to him, a female friend dressed in a black chador stood with a bloody scar on her forehead; she said she had been attacked by the police. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/world/middleeast/15iran.html?hp |
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The media will spin us to action as they have done in the past and bury the real story until it is too late to back out of it..... the war machine wins again!
NOBODY WANTS A NUCLEAR WAR! Get it together people! North Korea, Iran, these people aren't against us, they just want us to quit trying to bully them! SH!T! I am so tired of the media BS! Read the real statements made by N Korea, not what the media says "they meant". Keep the CIA out of Iranian elections!!!!!! Christ! Like that helps! We're never going to rule the world any more than we do right now! Why can't our leaders be happy with that? I guess the population isn't thinned enough for their satisfaction, and there is still a few pennies in the pockets of Americans and other countries under the control of the banker cartel. Blow it all to HELL, kill everybody, then be left fighting among yourselves...... you seem to think that is progress..... welcome to it! |
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Iran poll loser in protest rally By Jon Leyne BBC News, Tehran As demonstrations against the Iranian election result continue, the situation in Tehran is becoming unpredictable and potentially explosive. Throughout Sunday, crowds gathered in a number of areas. Often they were not organised protests. In traffic jams, car drivers hooted their horns in opposition to the government. Crowds stood on the pavement, chanting and showing v-signs. In some places, the police were out in force. Some of them were in full riot gear. Others charged into action on the back of motorbikes. They seem to have been given clear instructions not to open fire. Though occasional gunfire has been heard, mostly police have been wielding truncheons and batons in often brutal fashion. Stifled aspirations It is difficult to get any reliable picture of the scale of the protests in Tehran, let alone the whole country. But they spread rapidly during the evening. The cheers and chanting echoed even in customarily quiet middle-class neighbourhoods. Many Iranians came out on to their roofs to shout "down with the dictator". It has become a challenge not just of an election result, not just to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei himself. That means it is, in effect, a challenge to the whole basis of the Islamic Republic. For two years I have watched as young, ambitious Iranians go about their lives with growing frustration. They feel the system stifles their aspirations. Now they feel that their intelligence and their pride has been insulted by an election result many Iranians believe is blatantly fraudulent. And President Ahmadinejad's almost casual dismissal of their complaints just adds to the anger. Without precedent Make no mistake, President Ahmadinejad still has plenty of supporters. They turned out in large numbers in the victory rally he held in central Tehran on Sunday afternoon. He has focused his rhetoric on foreign governments and the international media, blaming them for stirring up the trouble. There is a danger now that the two sides could come to blows. And many people will fear that the government will authorise the police to open fire, if the situation slides further out of control. Yet it is hard to see what political compromise is possible. Mr Ahmadinejad is defiant, confident in the support of the supreme leader. The opposition will know that the formal appeal process has minimal chance of success. It is a situation without precedent in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic, and the outcome is impossible to predict. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8099884.stm |
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Iran reformist supporters shot as police storm mass Teheran rally The wave of popular support for reformist candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi, declared the loser in Friday's presidential elections in Iran, appears to be spiraling out of control. The government has outlawed the mass protests and threatened participants, but hundreds of thousands on Monday afternoon took to the streets of Teheran and other Iranian cities. Mousavi himself, apparently concerned by government threats and increasingly violent attacks by police on his supporters, attempted to call off the support rallies, but to no avail. When Mousavi realized he could not cancel Monday's mass demonstration, he delivered a speech before the immense crowds, said to stretch five miles deep, and attempted to tone down the protest. Shortly afterwards, government forces moved in and attempted to disperse the crowds using tear gas, batons and, in a tactic used increasingly over the past week, charging into the crowd on motorcycles. The situation quickly deteriorated as even the massive police forces, called in from throughout the country, found themselves outnumbered. Government forces then began using firearms, and several protestors have been shot. At least one fatality was reported on the spot, and numerous injured demonstrators have been evacuated, although many of them are afraid to go to the government controlled hospitals. As Teheran moves into night there is widespread fear that mass rioting will break out under cover of darkness. In the meantime, Iranians abroad have been staging demonstrations of support for Mousavi and protest against the government violence in a number of European capitals. © 2009 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com) |
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Last I heard, the speed of the vote count is suspect...jmo
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* Read * VIDEO * PHOTOS * TIMELINE Decrease font Decrease font Enlarge font Enlarge font TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi told followers Monday he will "pay any cost" to contest the country's presidential election results, but said he had little hope his challenge would succeed. Iranian opposition supporters protest in Tehran on Monday in the largest demonstrations there in 30 years. Iranian opposition supporters protest in Tehran on Monday in the largest demonstrations there in 30 years. Click to view previous image 1 of 3 Click to view next image more photos » Moussavi made his first public appearance since Friday's vote during a massive rally in central Tehran. The official results showed incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad winning with more than 62 percent of the vote, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- the true leader of Iran -- has given his blessing to the outcome. Moussavi has alleged fraud and filed a complaint with Iran's Guardian Council, which oversees elections, but he said the council had not remained neutral in Friday's vote. "I don't have any hope in them," he said in a statement posted on his campaign's Web site Monday evening. The fraud complaints will be looked into by the Guardian Council, which is made up of top clerics and judges. The council is expected to issue its findings within 10 days. An Iranian official who asked to remain unidentified said allegations the Guardian Council was in Ahmadinejad's corner are "unfair and unfounded." In the United States, President Obama said Monday he was "deeply troubled by the violence I've been seeing on television" in Iran. "I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected." Don't Miss * Q & A: Was the Iranian election rigged? * Iranians take their protests online * CNN.com in Arabic * iReport.com: On the ground in Iran "We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran," Obama told reporters at the White House. Obama did not take a position on the claims of election fraud. But he said, "The Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected." "Whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they are rightfully troubled," he said. "I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we've seen on the television over the last few days." In Tehran, Moussavi surfaced in a sea of protesters who flooded Azadi -- "Freedom" -- Square on Monday, wearing an open-neck striped shirt and waving to supporters. Iran's Press TV reported hundreds of thousands of people attended the rally. Photo View images of unrest in Tehran's streets » Though the event, the largest protest in Iran since the 1979 revolution, was largely peaceful, at least one person was reported to have been shot to death near its end. Demonstrations continued into Monday night, with Moussavi's supporters taking to rooftops to chant "God is great" -- an echo of the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic republic. Parisa Hatami, who attended Monday's demonstration, said the calls lasted for about half an hour. "This was what people were saying 30 years ago during the Islamic Revolution," she said. "Today, we used those words against the government." Moussavi, in his statement, called on authorities to stop attacks on his supporters by police and Ahmadinejad's supporters, and he urged his followers to continue demonstrating peacefully. "You are not breaking glass," he said. "You are breaking tyranny." Iran's Press TV reported hundreds of thousands of people attended the rally, and Hatami said the crowd stretched down one street for nearly 8 kilometers (5 miles). The streets "were full of people who never, ever, come to demonstrations in Tehran," she said. "Everybody knows we've been cheated," she said. "This regime, it's like they're just playing with us." She said it was "impossible" that Ahmadinejad would have racked up the totals in the official results, which she called "a big lie." "They tell everyone, 'You don't understand, and you are nothing.' That's the matter," she said. "What is eating me is that they think we know nothing." Hundreds of riot police were deployed at the edge of Monday's march, but did not intervene. However, Press TV reporter Amir Mehdi Kazemi said he heard gunshots at the rally and at least one person, a boy, appeared to be injured by the gunfire. "A number of people started shooting, I heard a couple of gunshots, and then this resulted in a number of people ... yelling at that particular building," Kazemi said in his report on the government-funded TV station. "The police have not shown any involvement in this issue right now. The people are running." A photographer for another news agency reported one person had been shot and killed. A photograph from that agency, which aired on CNN, showed a man apparently lying dead on the street with a large amount of blood around him from a gunshot wound to the head. Another man squatted over him, his arms outstretched. The news agency has not linked the photograph with the photographer's report, however. And another photograph showed a man who appeared to have been shot in the abdomen; he is alive and being carried from the scene. View timeline of Iraq's modern history » CNN could not independently confirm the reports. Moussavi and the other two defeated candidates, Mehdi Karrubi and Mohsen Rezaie, have reportedly been invited to the Guardian Council on Tuesday to discuss any concerns over the election results. In his Monday statement, Moussavi told supporters, "The election fraud was obvious, and I will pay any cost to realize the ideals of the Iranian nation." Amateur video from Monday's demonstration showed people clapping their hands over their heads -- but there was little or no chanting of political slogans among the marchers, and demonstrators quieted anyone who tried to shout, because the Interior Ministry has banned political demonstrations. Video Watch report on latest violence in Iran » The rally was a repeat of a march that Moussavi supporters staged Wednesday, before the election. Many of the participants wore green, a color traditionally associated with Islam that Ahmadinejad opponents have adopted as their own. Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the election by a margin of 2-to-1, surprising many experts who had expected Moussavi to win. But Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political scientist who supports Ahmadinejad, said the incumbent's widespread support in rural areas and small towns was the reason for his victory. Ahmadinejad is "populist" who favors "redistributive justice" and "pays keen attention" to rural areas and small towns, where 75 percent of Iran's voters live, Afrasiabi said. Moussavi may have won in the capital, "but he lost in the provinces, and that's something they have to come to terms with," Afrasiabi said.Photo See images from protests around the world » There have been several violent incidents blamed on groups of Ahmadinejad supporters. Armed with clubs, metal batons and baseball bats, men in motorcycles reportedly combed through streets and alleys for protesters Sunday, chasing and beating them. On Sunday, a family that lives in a high-rise apartment near Moussavi's election headquarters in Tehran reported that their building was attacked by militiamen. Photos show damage to the building and nearby vehicles. A relative of one of the residents, who did not want to be identified, said the attack happened after people inside the building shouted "Dictator!" and "Allah o Akhbar," or "God is Great," from the windows. Protests have also been held in cities including Washington; London, England, and Toronto, Ontario, while tens of thousands of others championed the demonstrations on social-networking Web sites. Video Watch protests in London » advertisement Iranian authorities closed Al-Arabiya's Tehran bureau for a week without explanation, the Arabic network said on Sunday. Two reporters were attacked outside Moussavi's headquarters on Friday, according to Reporters Without Borders, the France-based media rights group. Video Watch report on beaten journalists » Reporters for an Italian station, RAI, and for Reuters were beaten by police in the capital, Tehran, the group said, and a CNN producer was hit with a police baton. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend Share this on: Mixx Facebook Twitter Digg del.icio.us reddit MySpace StumbleUpon | Mixx it | Share |
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