IRAN: Demonstrators in Tehran yesterday defied an official ban on their proposed rally to support the people of Egypt and their ongoing process of democratic change. Security forces clashed with demonstrators, firing tear gas into the crowds. There are reports at least one person was killed, and hardliners within the regime are now calling for opposition leaders to be rounded up and executed.

The US government has reacted with intense criticism, saying the Iranian people have “universal human rights” to organize, protest and seek political reform. The White House and the State Dept. have both noted the “hypocrisy” of the Iranian regime’s treatment of the issue: while consistently praising the “people’s revolution” in Egypt, they are engaging in the same kind of authoritarian crackdown (with deadly consequences) at home.

BAHRAIN: In Bahrain, the ruling family says it supports the people’s right to demonstrate publicly, yet police attacked demonstrators there yesterday, firing not only tear gas, but also “bird shot” into crowds of unarmed civilians. At least one person was killed. When thousands marched today in the funeral procession to honor the victim, the scene was repeated.

Amid intense domestic and international outcry, and a spreading demand for the end of the monarchy, the royal family again said it supports the right of Bahrainis to peacefully demonstrate, and that the police violence was inexplicable. According to NPR’s reporting, after this morning’s attack on the funeral procession, police have not been seen near the demonstrators.

JORDAN: In Jordan, where any statement critical of the royal family can result in three years’ imprisonment, protesters are calling for major action to counter official corruption, but are not calling for an end to the monarchy. King Abdullah is widely seen as a source of “stability” and a positive figure for the nation. But in recent days, allegations his wife, Queen Rania, may have used her influence to “enrich her parents’ family” have been spreading.

The royal family says there is no truth to the allegations, but pro-democracy demonstrators are said to be discussing a campaign to have the allegations investigated. Queen Rania is widely seen as a committed proponent of human rights and democracy, internationally. Political observers say the King’s handling of the situation could be crucial for containing the protest movement within the parliamentary system.

LIBYA: Pro-democracy organizers are planning protests in Libya for Thursday, and there are calls on social networking sites for the end of Qadhafi’s rule. There are rumors of a brutal crackdown in the works, and there is mounting pressure on Qadhafi, who has sought to improve relations with the west, especially with the European Union, in recent years, to let the Libyan people demonstrate peacefully.

Qadhafi (also commonly spelled Gaddafi) has warned against the use of sites like Facebook and taken action to suppress online organizing. According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information: “Gaddafi has hired agents to attack activists who call for political reform and an end to corruption in Libya.”

Today, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on all governments to respect the “universal right” of all people to free expression and to share information. She said efforts to block access to the Internet were illegitimate and would not work. She echoed Pres. Obama’s recent statements about authoritarian obstruction of people’s rights being “unsustainable”.

Clinton said the US would support the right of pro-democracy movements to call for democratic change, especially where that effort is carried out through peaceful means. She called on all governments to show their legitimacy by recognizing the right of their people to self-determination, peaceful assembly and free expression.

EGYPT: Lara Logan —a courageous CBS News reporter who was abducted by the Mubarak regime, falsely accused of being an Israeli spy and held without charge, for reporting on the protest movement in Egypt— is now reportedly recovering from a sexual assault she suffered while covering the demonstrations. She reportedly was attacked by a “dangerous element” on the very day Hosni Mubarak left power.

She suffered the regime’s persecution directly, returned home after her release, then chose, courageously, to go back and to continue reporting. Human rights observers worry that hers was just one of many cases in which the regime attempted to silence its critics by any means necessary. According to the LA Times, “The [CBS] network said that a group of 200 people were then ‘whipped into a frenzy,’ pulling Logan away from her crew and attacking her until a group of women and Egyptian soldiers intervened.”

Logan was shooting footage for a report on 60 minutes, in which she was hoping to get a sense of the mood of the crowds in Tahrir Square. Journalists were routinely brutalized by the Mubarak regime amid the recent wave of protests. The Committee to Protect Journalists, of whose board Logan is a member, says at least 140 journalists were wounded or killed in the Mubarak government’s violent crackdown on dissent.

CPJ released this statement:

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by news that CBS correspondent and CPJ board member Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten in Cairo on Friday while covering rallies marking the resignation of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. “We have seen Lara’s compassion at work while helping journalists who have faced brutal aggression while doing their jobs,” CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger said. “She is a brilliant, courageous, and committed reporter. Our thoughts are with Lara as she recovers.”

The news raises still more concern that the crimes committed by the Mubarak regime before the dictator relinquished power may have been just the tip of a cruel iceberg, a systematic regime of arbitrary detention, false charges, brutal assaults and disappearances. There are renewed calls for criminal investigations into the exact nature of all high-level discussions relating to the government’s response to the protests.

The following is a transcript of an interview conducted by Joseph Robertson, Cafe Sentido’s editorial director, with Davoud Geramifard, a Persian mixed-media artist and filmmaker living in Toronto, Canada, whose documentary Voices of the Unheard was screened at this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City…

CafeSentido (editor Joseph Robertson): Was it a difficult choice to film undercover in Iran knowing you might not be able to return as a result?

Davoud Geramifard (director): Going back to make this film was a conscious decision. I knew that I might be arrested, or even killed, as it happened before to many Iranians who tried to do the same thing. The saddest case was Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian who was murdured and raped just for taking pictures outside the notorious Evin prison. But how could I live in peace if I had chosen to be indifferent or silent about the brutalities that I felt for many years in Iran. Someone had to do it, and I hope others continue on this path, because unless we expose these critical issues, we would not be able to gain what our people has been fighting for.

CS: How are the people who were filmed? Have any of them expressed concerns about repercussions? Or are they excited to be speaking out?

DG: My participants are OK at the moment. I have constant contact with them, and till now, there has not been any issue for them. However we are still preventing the mass distribution of the film, and our goal is to show the film in festivals across the globe for now. My participants are proud of what they did, otherwise, they would not have been in the film from the beginning. The Iran that they have portrayed has been missing from the the psyche of outside world for such a long time, that they wanted to take the chance and speak out. I think now it is the responsibility of the international community to respect their courage and HEAR their stories, and do not leave them alone.

CS: Did you have a specific structure of three or four key areas you wanted to cover? Or did you break the film into chapters only after shooting?

DG: I had the structure planned carefully prior to the shoot. I did an academic research that took about two years. I identified and categorized various secular communities, and wanted to have the best structure, so that each category could have a member in the film. I knew the style that I wanted to use, and I wanted to add something to the filmmaking language as well as being fare to the topic. Each participant and his/her environment actually dictated and formed the style, and I wanted the film to allow them to be comfortable.

CS: If there’s a corner of life (or multiple) in Iran you’d like to film but weren’t able to, what would it be? And why? Will you try to do that work without a change in administration?

DG: There are many topics that I want to explore and put into film in Iran. Currently I’m working on my next documentary, Cyber Revolution which is about the use of web-based social media in the formation of emancipatory movements in Iran. This is something I can do without returning back to Iran. I dream of doing docs on topics such as the woman’s rights movements, worker’s situation, and the bitter story of the Iranian oil industry which from my perspective is the real problem of Iran and Iranians. I’m also writing a script for my first fiction film, which I hope I can bring in front of the camera it in a neighboring country, before it is too late!

CS: What role do you believe economic trends play in the mindset of the people you spoke to? Does this vary by generation?

DG: Economics trends play a crucial role. Many of my participants see Iran as a rich country that should be strong, regardless of its oil reserves. The new generation needs work, they demand a good lifestyle, at least something similar to their father’s generation, but the Iranian government prefers to spend the Iranian money on expanding their influence in the region, or buying more arms and building a stronger repressive “Revolutionary Guard”. Inflation rate is galloping in Iran, gas is rationed, but they send billions of dollars for Hezbullah. Iranian people are not happy with that. I personally believe that the deterioration of economics combined with free communication with the outside world will be the Achilles heel of the Islamic Republic. The moment they cannot find buyers for their oil, they are on the verges of collapse.

CS: What issues (aside from political change) did you find are central to the reformists’ agenda?

DG: I think that the 30 years-long experience of the Islamic regime has convinced a fraction of the “insiders” (AKA the reformists) that free trade can prevent the total collapse of the regime. These people who are also famous as “technocrats” want people to have jobs and a little bit of freedom, so that they can be able to buy, spend and be “happy” on a consumerist or liberal democratic level. In order to make this minute change take shape, they have to for example give more freedom to the women, or to the students. Real political change, or the change of the constitution or the theocratic system has not been a part of their agenda. This notion has been forced on them just after the election, by the people whose need for change is much more drastic than the change the reformists were seeking.

CS: Were you conscious of crafting an aesthetic or a mood for the film or for any of its chapters?

DG: Absolutely. I wanted the film to have something to say with its form and aesthetics. Documentary filmmaking is an important part of cinema. I have studied it in academia and as a maker I wanted to add to this rich legacy. I studied form in both fiction and documentary extensively and wanted the film to blur the boundary between these two, because that is what satisfy me the most as a maker. In addition to that, I wanted the film to be poetic and non-expository. Poetry is the most important form of art in Iran. Even in our daily conversations we use tropes, so I always and almost unconsciously go back to that legacy and try to use it in a visual way. Finally I should mention that I think the style of this film was partly dictated by the subject. I wanted the viewer to feel as a member of the communities that they are encountering in the film. Thus I went for a verite style to create that comfort.

CS: What role did sound play in how you put the final cut together?

DG: Music and sound are my passion right after cinema. Sometimes I feel if my love affair with cinema was not this much dominant, I would have been a musician. However this secondary love story has crafted a good listener out of me. I think sound and music should add another layer to a film, and they should be able to speak for themselves. In the film, if you compare the use of sound in the opening of the first chapter with the second one, you will get the most important message of the film. In urban Iran, one wakes up with the dominant sound of religion in the morning (call to prayer); that is how ideology tries to penetrate one’s personal space. But in a nomadic regions with the lack of a religious order, one wakes up with the sound of nature, the sound of a rooster.

CS: Are there more unheard voices you feel it would be important to highlight?

DG: There are many. Iran has not passed its civic rights movement yet. Discrimination is vivid in that society. Gender inequality still persists. Gay rights has been ignored in Iran. Women rights are neglected on daily basis. Religious minorities still does not enjoy equality. In fact Iranian constitution only recognizes 5 religions officially, and there is no chance for agnostics or atheists to voice their existence openly. Ethnic minorities are heavily suppressed to a degree that their languages cannot be taught in the schools of their region. Iran has once been the land of diverse groups of people who shared the same motherland, regardless of their differences. It is heartbreaking to me as an Iranian to see what this regime has made out of Iran. But one day we will take it back, we will build it again and once that day comes if I was alive, I’m going to make sure that no human being faces repression and voicelessness in our land.

CS: What advice would you give journalists and filmmakers who want to report on situations like the one in Iran?

DG: Please familiarize yourself deeply with Iran before going there. Please read the contemporary history of Iran, as well as a bit of ancient history. Iranians are still sad about Alexander’s attack, the Arab invasion, and the Ajax operation. We live with our past, so learn it well before going there. Please read from authentic sources, I will recommend Edward G. Browne, and Morgan Shuster to begin with. Please recognize our 150 years fight for democracy. Please go inside the houses, rather than staying outside on the sidewalks. Iranians cannot speak freely with you in the middle of the streets. The Iran you will see in people’s houses is the uncensored Iran. If you want to understand Iran, travel in every region. Iran is not only Tehran.

The following is a transcript of the text of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s draft of a charter the Green Movement opposition coalition in Iran, released for the one-year anniversary of the nationwide election protests…

Preamble

On the first anniversary of the 10th presidential election we proudly stand tall — even if we have been whipped, wounded, and imprisoned — with demands for freedom, social justice, and national sovereignty, and assured of victory with the help of God, because we want nothing other than the nation’s rights.

From the lies, fraud, and violations of the law that were used in the election, the question of “where is my vote” was born, and you the people, with utmost clarity and without any ambiguity, shouted this question powerfully in a historic, peaceful march on Khordad 25, 1389 [June 15, 2009]. Except for those made blind and deaf by their superstitions and greed, everyone at the national and international levels heard you. But what was the response [of the ruling elite]? Was it anything other than murder and imprisonment, putting chains on the bare feet of the jailed and attacking the university dormitories?

The crimes in Kahrizak [detention center] and the murders on Khordad 25 and 30 [June 20, 2009), and on the Day of Ashura [December 27, 2009] will never be erased from the national memory. And they must not, because that would be tantamount to committing treason against the blood of the martyrs and the innocents [who were murdered]. How can we forget about the shots fired directly at the people and the police cars that ran them over [on the Day of Ashura]?

But the blood and pains [of the innocents] also tore apart the lies of the dictators and revealed the corruption that had been concealed behind the pretense to sacredness. These bitter events and the way the government opposed all the strata of our nation, from day laborers, teachers, and university students to journalists, academics, clerics, managers, bazaaris, women, men, the young and the old, all the social activists, and the poor and middle classes, demonstrated to everyone what the root cause of all of [our] problems is.

That our country executes more people than any other nation relative to its population is not due to the sins of the sinners, but due to the destruction of justice, good management, and good government in our society. The fact that even the daily expedience and urgent affairs of government have not forced the bureaucracy and those who demand absolute power to cease their lying, corruption, and contempt for our Constitution and laws, only indicates the deep penetration of malfeasance into the innermost layers of the political system. It is at such layers that those whose interests are based on the [exploitation of] hundreds of billions of dollars in oil income and the importation of $70 billion a year in goods and products, as well as the control of all financial and monetary institutions without any effective monitoring, have entrenched themselves.

Today, the nation’s wealth is being plundered by those who pretend to be holy, but the nation has yet to see any of the most corrupt prosecuted and brought to trial, despite all the claims and loud declarations [by the ruling elite]. What happened to the great case of [corruption] that was investigated by the Majles, but was closed overnight in a barter deal? [*]

Who dares to talk about the great case of corruption whereby, under the guise of implementing Article 44 of the Constitution [which mandates privatization of most industries], a great portion of the national wealth has been transferred to centers of power and influence, and reveal the facts about this plundering of the nation’s resources that has created great economic trusts? Who is brave enough to talk about the catastrophe of the absence of any monitoring of the financial affairs of the military and security organizations and the quasi-governmental organs that influence the country’s economy? The nation is asking again: Is this the just Islamic state that we struggled to establish? What problems does transparency create that they [the hardliners] have to resort to secrecy and hiding from the nation? Have you forgotten the golden principle of that old man [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] of Jamaran [where he lived] that states, “Do not do anything that would force you to explain it to the nation”?

My dear comrades of the Green Path of Hope,

It is now a year since the birth of the unique Green Movement, and during this time the Greens have come a long way on the path of hope. By rejecting the ruling establishment, by going back to their own homes and developing and expanding their social networks, strong and reliable relations between the various strata of the nation have been established. The social networks have created miracles in the area of informing [the nation] of political-social and cultural [developments]. All we need to do to understand this is to glance at their artistic productions, the amount of news and information that is exchanged, and the analyses that are going on in a completely democratic way. The Green Movement has created a powerful wave of debate and discussion concerning the critical problems among the people that is unique in our recent history.

Today, more than any other time in history, the people recognize those who violate the fundamental rights of the nation. They are aware of the repeated violations of their human rights and dignity by the judiciary-security establishments. They know full well those who have ignored and destroyed the national accord [the Constitution], particularly with regard to the fundamental rights of the people. At the same time — in spite of all the bitter, sad, and bloody events — due to the widespread discussions, wisdom has dominated emotion throughout, which is why those who have done everything in their power [to manipulate the Movement] have not been able to force the people, who have been hurt and had [their loved ones] martyred and jailed, to resort to violence. Resistance and peaceful struggle has been our best weapons against bullets and electric shocks and foulmouthed, cultureless vigilantes.

Millions of our people can see today how those with daggers in their hands run after our women and men, old and young. They know those who, due to their debased sensibilities, use the ugliest words against those [participating] in peaceful demonstrations. In response, our people have created the most beautiful songs, have given each other the most meaningful posters, and have made numerous films and photos about the lives and struggle of the people, circulating them to make their sad stories permanent, eternal.

My dear comrades of the Green Path of Hope

At the beginning of the second year of the Movement, and at the recommendation of some friends, a Charter for strengthening the collective identity of the Green Movement has been prepared that is now presented to you.

It is only natural that the suggested Charter may not be able to address every different view and demand. But what motivated and encouraged your humble comrade to draft it was the solution that some of the voters found last year just before the election. In the human chain [formed by Mousavi supporters just before last June's election] from Tajrish [in northern Tehran] to Railway Station Square [in southern Tehran], there were people who said that they were prepared to elect the bad [Mousavi] over the worse [Ahmadinejad], and this choice strengthened that unforgettable chain. True reforms begin with recognizing and accepting the responsibility for electing this or that [candidate].

This Charter is a first step and, God willing, over the course of its evolution, the Green Movement will make it more complete and more beautiful.

The Root Cause and Goals

1. The emergence of various deviations from and gradually erected impediments on the path of achieving such goals and ideals as justice, independence, freedom, and the Islamic Republic for which the people won the glorious Islamic Revolution; the emergence of authoritarian tendencies among some government officials; violations of the fundamental rights of citizens; insults to human dignity; government mismanagement; the growing [economic] gap and economic and social poverty; neglect and even violation of laws by those responsible for enforcing the law; and the gradual and painful abandonment of morality are what gave rise to the people’s protestations, whose powerful emergence as the Green Movement was demonstrated after the 10th presidential election in 1388 [2009].

2. The Green Movement is loyal to human, moral, Iranian, and religious values and principles, and is dedicated to the reform and cleansing of the system that has existed in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the years after the Revolution. It is based on these principles that it considers its struggle as taking place within the framework of the Constitution and regards respect for people’s views and votes as the target of its efforts.

3. The Green Movement represents the continuation of the struggle of the Iranian people for freedom, social justice, and national sovereignty, goals that were also pursued in the Constitutional Revolution [1905-1911], the movement for nationalization of the oil industry [1951-1953], and the Islamic Revolution [1978-1979].

4. Rereading of the recent [national] history of the struggle for social-political goals indicates that only by strengthening civil society, expanding the environment for societywide debate, elevating the level of the awareness [of the people] and the free flow of information, [enabling] effective participation by political groups and parties, and providing the necessary setting for the free activity of intellectuals and social-political activists who are loyal to the national interests within the framework of changing existing conditions, can we achieve the goals of the Green Movement. This necessitates an accord on a minimum number of demands and common goals, and the establishment of harmony among all the forces that, despite their own independent identities, accept pluralism in the Green Movement and are willing to work under the same banner.

The Fundamental Solutions

1. The Green Movement is an all-encompassing movement that never considers itself mistake-free and, by rejecting any sort of absoluteness, emphasizes the expansion of the environment for debate both within and beyond the Movement. The monitoring of the path of the Movement and its development by all supporters, particularly the intellectuals and analysts, is vital to protect the Movement from slipping into the path of authoritarianism and corruption.

2. In the view of the supporters of the Green Movement, the Iranian people all want a free, proud, and developed Iran. The Green Movement supports pluralism and is against exclusion of any thinking. As result, enmity toward any segment of society is not acceptable to the Green Movement. Making efforts to discuss and debate with our competitors and enemies in a healthy environment and informing the various segments of our society about the aims and principles of the Movement are the duty of all those who consider themselves supporters of the Green Movement. We are all Iranian and Iran belongs to all of us.

3. Activating and expanding the social networks — both real and in cyberspace — and enriching the environment for debate over the fundamental goals and identity of the Green Movement are activities deserving of particular attention by all Green Movement supporters.

4. While the Green Movement emphasizes its independence and separates itself from those forces that are foreign or not nationalist, it does not seek an isolated, chauvinistic path. Justice, freedom, independence, human dignity, and morality are universal values, and learning from the experience of those nations that struggled to realize such values, accepting the critiques and insights of all freedom fighters and those who peacefully struggle for human freedom and dignity, is also part of the Green Movement’s way.

The Green Identity:

The Iranian-Islamic Treasure Trove

1. While accepting pluralism within the Green Movement, the Movement emphasizes the necessity of a faith that is about kindness, morality, and respect for human dignity and rights, and believes that the way to strengthen the religious values in society is by strengthening the moral aspects of Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Uniting our Iranian-Islamic heritage, creating social zeal for the development and advancement of the country, avoiding forcing people to follow a certain ideology and manner, challenging the use of religion [to advance one's agenda], and preserving the independence of the clerical and religious organizations from the government are the only means that can protect the high moral position of religion [in Iran] and the continuation of its distinguished role in Iranian society, which is one of the most important principles of the Green Movement.

2. The secret to the survival of the Iranian-Islamic civilization is the coexistence and convergence of national and religious values in the history of our land. In this vein, the Green Movement emphasizes the protection and strengthening of the high values of Iranian culture and our accumulated wealth in the form of our national traditions and customs, and sets as its goal making people aware of the special national and religious traditions that give us our identity.

3. Throughout the history of its struggle for freedom and independence, the Iranian nation has demonstrated time and again its self-reliance and unity based on [certain] principles. Relying on this national heritage and collective wisdom and rejecting self-centrism and arrogance, the efforts of the Green Movement of Iran in pursuit of its goals are based on collective agreement and rejecting those elements that want to create chaos. It believes that this [agreement] is possible if it is the result of collective wisdom based on a monotheistic understanding.

4. The Green Movement is an Iranian-Islamic movement that seeks a free, developed, and advanced Iran. On this basis, any Iranian who accepts reliance on monotheistic collective wisdom as the way to build a better tomorrow is counted among the supporters of the Green Movement. The Movement considers Iran as belonging to all Iranians.

People’s Sovereignty

1. People’s determination of their own fate is a fundamental principle of the Green Movement, and elections are the best way to put this principle into practice. It is on the basis of this principle that the Movement will continue its efforts to safeguard people’s votes until such time as free, competitive, fair elections, without any vetting [of candidates], can be guaranteed. The people’s will and vote are the source of legitimacy for political power, and the Green Movement views any vetting of election candidates [by the Guardian Council] as violating the Articles of the Constitution that recognize people’s rights, and will challenge it.

2. Achieving such goals as freedom and justice is possible only if the national interests and sovereignty are taken into account. The Green Movement, adhering to this principle, opposes any action that undermines the national interest and violates national independence, and considers this one of its basic tenets.

Values of the Green Movement:

Human Dignity and Avoiding Violence

1. The first social value of the Green Movement is defending human dignity and human rights, regardless of ideology, religion, gender, ethnicity, and social position. The Green Movement emphasizes that the establishment and guarantee of human rights is one of the most important human achievements and a result of collective wisdom. These are God-given rights that no ruler, government, parliament, or power can annul or unjustifiably limit. Attaining such rights necessitates respect for such principles as equality, compromise, debate, and peaceful resolution of conflicts, whose realization is possible only when the necessary environment for a free press, the prevention of censorship, the free activity of nongovernmental social networks, and the modification and reform of laws in order to prevent any discrimination between citizens is provided.

2. The Green Movement is a civil movement that believes, as one of its core principles, in avoiding violence within the framework of the civil struggle. Believing that only the people will be the victims of violence, the Movement believes in debate, peaceful struggle, and the employment of peaceful means as core values. The Green Movement will use all peaceful methods in its struggle.

Justice, Freedom and Equality

3. Justice has a special, high position among the values and ideals of the Green Movement. Fair distribution of all resources, whether social, political, economic, or otherwise, is one of the Green Movement’s unalterable goals, for whose attainment it is necessary to make an all-out effort. Spreading justice in society is possible only if the political system acts independently, both internally and externally, without any kind of servitude to or reliance on political, economic, and social organizations and power centers, and can guarantee the economic development and advancement of the country in such a way that there is social justice for all.

4. Due to the necessity of addressing the needs and demands of all the strata and classes of the society, the Green Movement emphasizes the links between the middle and lower classes of society — those that are most vulnerable to social-political pressures. Relying on Article 9 of the Constitution, the Movement opposes denying people’s rights in the name of protecting the independence and territorial integrity of the country. While emphasizing the political, cultural, economic, and military independence of the country, it views recognition of people’s right to decide their own fate as the only way of defending the nation’s interests and borders.

5. Establishing freedom and equality is one of the core, undeniable goals of the Islamic Revolution that the Green Movement also emphasizes. Rejecting the elimination of any type of monolithic or exclusionary thinking, [applying the same] to the press and political [groups], and opposing the physical elimination of any thinking or viewpoint are at the top of the Green Movement agenda. In this vein, it is necessary to make efforts to free the people from any type of domination: political (dictatorship), social (discrimination and social inequality), and cultural. The Green Movement emphasizes its support for women’s rights and rejection of any type of discrimination based on gender and ethnicity, and emphasizes the rights of ethnic minorities.

6. The Green Movement believes that security does not imply security only for the government, but security for every Iranian. Security must be established for all Iranians, so that they can live free of fear under protection of the law. The independence of the judiciary, noninterference by military forces with political and economic affairs, and dealing with the organizers and members of the so-called plainclothesmen are central demands of the Green Movement.

7. Executing all Articles of the Constitution, particularly those that govern the rights of the people (chapter 3 of the Constitution), is a primary goal of the Green Movement.

8. Some of the best ways to achieve this, which deserve special attention, include releasing the political prisoners; eliminating all illegal limitations on the activities of political groups and social movements, such as the feminist movement, and the framing of their activities as security issues; putting on trial the perpetrators of the election fraud and the torture and murders of the election protestors; and identifying and putting on trial those in the various layers of the government who justify violence against the people.

Respect for Individual and Societal Creativity

1. Unfortunately, it must be admitted that the many iniquitous political, social, and economic policies of the ruling elite have lowered the society’s moral standards and social capital. The Green Movement emphasizes the necessity of the revival of morality as the basis for the social lives of the people of Iran, and it will be loyal to moral principles.

2. The Green Movement is neither an organized political party, nor an unorganized and aimless collection of various people. Reviewing the historical experience of the Iranian people indicates that, at historic junctions, they have been able to demonstrate their high capabilities, shrewdness, and wisdom; by relying on their creative power, they have paved the way for achieving their goals. The Green Movement relies on its principles and social networks, and the wisdom, ingenuity, and civil creativity of the Iranian nation, and believes that achieving such ideals as justice and freedom is directly linked with the blossoming of such creativity. The [recent] motto “Every Iranian is a center [of news and information]” should now be changed to “Every Iranian is a movement.”

Respect for Laws and Negotiation

1. The Green Movement is pursuing the ideals and goals of the Islamic Revolution, relying on critical rereading of what has happened since the Revolution — particularly in the relationship between the nation and the government — and on the national accord of the people of Iran, meaning the Constitution. It wants a better future for the Iranian nation.

2. In this vein, execution of all articles of the Constitution is the main and fundamental principle of the Green Movement. The Movement believes that only through a return to lawfulness, forcing the various organs to obey the laws and confronting those who break the law regardless of their position, can the nation prevail over the various crises with which it has been grappling and move along the path of development and advancement. At the same time, the Green Movement asserts that respect for the law does not mean its selective use by the ruling elite. Conditions must be provided to ensure that the laws cannot be used to justify arbitrary violence, baseless accusations, and violations of the fundamental rights of the citizens where illegal violence, injustice, and discrimination become the law.

3. The laws of the country, including the Constitution, are not permanent and unchangeable written documents. Every nation has the right to correct its course by correcting and modifying its laws. But it should be recognized that the only changes and modifications in the Constitution that can be accepted are those that result from public debate and discussion, through the participation of every strata of society and all social groups, and without the use of force.

4. Expanding civil society and strengthening the public domain are among the fundamental principles of the Green Movement. The Movement believes that protecting the goals of the Islamic Revolution and ameliorating the consequences of the present crisis require negotiation and discussion among the representatives of various schools of thoughts and political groups, and in this vein the Movement will accept any invitation for transparent negotiation and discussion with the aim of defending people’s rights and resolving social problems.

5. The Green Movement wants to strengthen the national economy in the international arena and investment [in Iran], with the goal of increasing the purchasing power of the Iranian people. The Movement advocates a wise foreign policy based on transparent and constructive relations with the world, and rejects adventurism and demagogy in foreign affairs. The Movement seeks the elevation of the dignity of the great and enduring nation of Iran.

Your humble comrade,

Mir Hossein Mousavi

[* Note from preamble: The "barter deal", as Mousavi calls it, is an alleged arrangement between the administration of Pres. Ahmedinejad and the Supreme Court's chief justice, precluding the prosecution of a top official in exchange for the administration not prosecuting a member of the chief justice's family on allegations of serious corruption.]

Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, has reportedly been transported by military helicopter to a secure location, on a military base outside Tehran. Reports emerging from Iran suggest the security forces’ brutal crackdown on unarmed civilians during the festival of Ashura has sparked active resistance. There are now reports of ongoing clashes across the capital.

According to Global Post:

Witnesses described demonstrators constructing street barricades and fighting against security forces for the control of squares. Unverified reports claimed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been transported to a military base in a helicopter from his residence in central Tehran.

“There’s fighting going on across the north of the city, and the number of killed is far more than the four whose death has been announced,” said one witness who described the kind of weapons used as “Colts and a larger handgun.”

There were sporadic reports Sunday of calls for a nationwide general strike for today, to protest the violence against civilians and show support for those killed. The Islamic revolution that brought Khamene’i's predecessor, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to power, and established the current constitution of the Islamic Republic, coalesced around students who had staged a nationwide general strike that shut down the nation’s petroleum industry.

Online reports earlier this month cited unnamed opposition sources saying Khamene’i had been temporarily removed to a “secret place” and that there may be a helicopter standing by to remove him to somewhere in Russia, should the anti-government protests turn the tide against his security forces. There is reason to believe such measures are being taken again, as numerous reports suggest violent clashes continue in the north of the capital.

There are also reports that the son of a state television host is among those killed in the Ashura crackdown. Opposition figures reportedly under arrest include the son of Ayatollah Taheri, Alireza Beheshti —aide to Mousavi aid and administrator of kaleme.org—, two managers of former president Mohammad Khatami’s Baran Foundation, and others.

PBS’ FRONTLINE Tehran Bureau is quoting a nurse in Isfahan, saying of the Ashura crackdown:

They brought a few of the injured today to the Al Zahra hospital in Isfahan. One man, in his 30s, was so severely beaten that he was unconscious and immediately taken to the resuscitation room. He had sustained multiple rib fractures causing a condition known as flail chest, head trauma (he had a depressed skull fracture) and a broken arm, the doctors said.

Minutes after his arrival, plainclothes agents turned up and ordered hospital officials to immediately transfer the man to the Sadoughi Hospital, which is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. At first there were some protests because of his critical condition, but hospital staff eventually relented and the IRGC agents took him with them. This man needed immediate surgery. I can only hope that he has received the care he needed. He was registered as a motor vehicle accident victim at this hospital.

There are now 9 reported deaths associated with the security forces’ assault on demonstrators. Emerging anecdotal reports suggest there may be more deaths as yet unconfirmed or being concealed by elements close to the Khamene’i-Ahmedinejad power bloc. There are reports of Basij militiamen threatening religious leaders considered critical of the regime and openly calling for the death of dissident figures.

FRONTLINE cites Mohammed Sadeghi, a Facebook administrator for opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, relaying reports from the holy city of Qom:

Beginning this morning, a group ranging from 50 to 250 people — the number fluctuated throughout the day — surrounded the end of two streets, chanting slogans. The streets were cordoned off because one of them led to the office and home of the late Ayatollah Montazeri, and the other to the office and home of Ayatollah Sanei.

Guests and locals were attending ceremonies at these two homes.

Meanwhile, Basijis surrounded Ayatollah Sanei’s office and started chanting, “Death to Sanei,” “Sanei is an unbeliever,” “Sanei is a source of emulation for the British,” and “BBC, Sanei, congratulations on your union.” One slogan they kept repeating was, “This army that has turned up is for the sake of [out of love for] the Leader,” apparently referring to themselves.

The whereabouts of Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i are reportedly unknown at present, and opposition figures say his “disappearance” is a sign the pro-government clerical establishment is “scared” of the demonstrations and believes there is a real possibility Khamene’i will be toppled. There are no known reports as of this writing suggesting opposition figures have urged the Assembly of Experts to convene to remove Khamene’i on charges of violating his constitutional obligations or abusing power, though previous attempts have been reported.

Iranian police have fired on crowds of unarmed civilians demonstrating in Tehran on the feast day of Ashura, the commemoration of the most sacred martyr of the Shi’a strain of Islam. At least four people are reportedly confirmed killed, including one nephew of the leading opposition politician, Mir Hossein Mousavi, whose supporters —along with numerous international observers— believe he won the disputed presidential elections in June of this year.

According to the New York Times:

Iranian police opened fire on protesters in Tehran on Sunday, killing at least four people, including a nephew of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, as vast crowds of demonstrators flooded the streets of cities across Iran and fiercely fought security forces, according to witnesses and opposition Web sites.

The protests, taking place on the holiday marking the death of Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, were the bloodiest — and among the largest — since the uprisings that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election last June, with hundreds of thousands of people thronging Tehran alone, witnesses said. There were reports of hundreds of injured people and numerous arrests.

Having fired into crowds of unarmed civilians, and now having martyred a member of the family of the opposition leader himself, the Khamene’i-Ahmedinejad ruling power-bloc and their allies in the security forces have potentially nudged their nation closer to a period of destabilizing political violence. The Ashura killings will also lend far more popular sympathy and momentum to the Green Path of Hope movement that has grown out of the Mousavi presidential campaign and post-election protests of the summer.

Accounts from Tehran appear to indicate a planned, concerted assault on the demonstrators. Security forces, acting within the context of an official pledge of extreme measures to suppress demonstrations, first fired tear gas and assaulted civilians with batons. When the crowd failed to disperse, they reportedly fired “warning shots” in the air, and then turned their guns on the crowd and fired directly into the bodies of those gathered. It is unclear if the killings were the result of a handful of agents mistakenly firing on demonstrators or of direct orders to do so.

But reports across Iran and internationally suggest the perception is that there was a concerted effort to impose, as promised, a harsh crackdown with the use of extreme measures, to silence dissent. That perception will now likely turn into a groundswell of popular support for the opposition Green Path of Hope movement, and its protests against what they perceive as the dictatorial regime being illegally imposed by a power bloc including the Ayatollah Khamene’i and Pres. Ahmedinejad and their supporters.

Attention may also begin to focus on the holy cities of Qom and Isfahan, where Iran has strategically placed its nuclear research facilities, and where the heart of the opposition movement converges with key elements of the clerical establishment. In both cities, efforts to mourn the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri were suppressed when security forces raided mosques and officially banned rallies honoring the pro-opposition ayatollah, and the regime’s aggressive crackdown on political and even religious expression is spreading anti-government sentiment.

The killings have resulted in violent clashes between demonstrators and police across the country. In some areas, protesters are said to have pushed police back, throwing stones and charging the police lines, while angry crowds of unarmed civilians attacked Basij militiamen, in what seems to be the most widespread public outcry against the government’s use of violent repression since the 1979 revolution.

The cities of Arak, Isfahan, Mashad, Najafabad and Shiraz, also saw clashes between police and demonstrators, according to reporting gathering accounts from opposition web sites. Protesters were reportedly heard chanting “This is the month of blood” and “Yazid will fall”, a comparison between the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and the tyrannical medieval caliph Yazid, who ordered the killing of Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

Former president and key reformist politician Mohammad Khatami has reportedly said “The family of Imam are with us”, an apparent reference to Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, and its first supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an establishment figure who is reported to support the opposition movement. As support gathers for the opposition, there are widespread fears security forces will become increasingly aggressive in the violence of their repression of dissent.

Pictures from Iran, some of which are unconfirmed as specific to the Ashura protests, show numerous cases of severe injury and the level of violence used by security forces. One image, already treated as an icon of the day’s events, shows a young woman severely bloodied, apparently the result of being beaten about the head by batons wielded by security forces.

Social networking sites are the focus of efforts to get the word out about what has actually taken place on the streets, among the crowds. Eyewitness reports from Tehran seem to suggest there was little normal police presence in Tehran, only large numbers of Basij militia and Revolutionary Guards. As visual reports and media accounts are hashed out, the involvement of security forces closely linked to the president and supreme leader will be a focal point of opposition organizing and criticism.

The Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri died this past weekend, opening a period of seven days of mourning for one of the nation’s most influential clerics. The seventh day of mourning happens to coincide with the Shi’a holy day of atonement, Ashura. Ashura marks the killing of Hossein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed, by the Caliph Yazid, in the year 680. Yazid is often portrayed as a tyrannical ruler in Shi’a tradition, and the festival lends itself to an expression of the very anti-dictatorship language used by the reformist opposition.

Efforts to hold large-scale ceremonies to mourn Montazeri’s death have been blocked by security forces in Qom and Isfahan, both ancient holy cities with high strategic and political value. Qom is the holy seat of the Assembly of Experts, the panel of senior clerics responsible for installing or (potentially, under Iran’s constitution) removing the Supreme Leader.

Qom and Isfahan are also the cities next to which Iran has built its two most important centers of nuclear research and production. And, it is believed they share a common characteristic of entrenched political interests critical of the Khamene’i-Ahmedinejad power bloc. ‘Believed’, because Iran’s government so persistently suppresses dissent, it is hard to unearth organized centers of dissent.

But the effort to suppress dissent at public gatherings during the Ashura holy day celebrations is already aggressively underway. Security forces have warned against “illegal gatherings”, though specific mention of what tactics will be used to mobilize against dissident demonstrations has not been forthcoming.

The government has also been clamping down on its opponents in incremental ways, dismissing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from an arts post he held, though he still sits on the influential Expediency Council. And top opposition organizers have been jailed, put through show trials and accused of “treason”  and “espionage” for organizing demonstrations critical of the government.

According to Reuters and the New York Times:

It said Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, who backed opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in the vote, was sentenced by a court on charges including acting against national security, propaganda against the Islamic system and possessing classified documents.

There are concerns that the government may once again over-play its hand, leading to more widespread and more violent unrest. If security forces are seen attacking demonstrators or worshippers on the feast day of Ashura, a day of spiritual sacrifice and atonement, and the holiest day of the Shi’a religious calendar, it could solidify public opposition to the ruling power bloc.

Raids on mosques have already led to a convergence of views among secular reformists and religious conservatives who accuse the Khamene’i-Ahmedinejad power-bloc of betraying the Islamic principles of the Iranian constitution. Further invasions of places of worship by security forces, or interventions to bloc communication between clerics and worshippers could provoke violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

Amnesty International is now calling on Iranian authorities to permit peaceful demonstrations during Ashura, in keeping with the Iranian constitution, which guarantees the right to free assembly. A statement on Amnesty International’s website reads:

“Iran’s government must make ‘Ashoura the time to end the practice of preventing peaceful demonstrations – including by making pre-emptive, arbitrary arrests – and ensure that excessive force is not used in the event that those taking part in ‘Ashoura commemorations gather to voice their opposition to the government,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

“We call on the Supreme Leader to ensure that no one faces arrest or the batons of plain-clothed Basij for merely taking part in a peaceful demonstration on such a solemn occasion.”

Amnesty has specifically called for the Basij militia not to be used in any efforts to maintain order. The Basij are accused of widespread human-rights abuses, including kidnappings, torture and murder, and were implicated in the shooting death from close range of unarmed civilian bystander Neda Agha Soltan, during this summer’s post-election demonstrations.

There is also a competition for control of cyberspace lining up, as the US has lifted its ban on Iranians downloading US-produced computer-based communications software and Iran has pledged to target social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, in an effort to crack down on viral dissent and the spread of eyewitness testimony from rallies and security crackdowns.

Iran’s government has temporarily banned foreign media from operating in the capital, Tehran, in anticipation of student rallies on Monday, marking Iran’s Student Day commemoration. The government has warned against any “illegal rallies”, suggesting it fears the student rallies could turn into a new round of protests against the alleged rigging of the June presidential vote and the subsequent violent crackdown against dissent.

According to Reuters:

Police and elite Revolutionary Guards have warned that any “illegal” rally will be fiercely confronted on Monday when the country marks Student Day, commemorating the killing of three students in 1953 under the former Shah.

“All permits issued for foreign media to cover news in Tehran have been revoked from December 7 to December 9,” the Culture Ministry’s foreign press department said on Saturday in an SMS text message sent to journalists, photographers and cameramen working for foreign media in Iran.

Throughout the weekend internet connections have been deliberately slowed or disabled and cellphone networks have been interrupted. It appears the authorities are testing a series of measures designed to interfere with person to person communications, to stop people from organizing and from reporting on abuses that may be committed by security forces.

Reuters also reports that “An official at Iran’s telecommunications ministry told Reuters that Internet access and cellphone lines would be disabled on Monday.” Police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam warns that any “illegal gathering” near the universities will be “strongly confronted”, raising fears of more bloodshed and political disappearances, like those that the government used to respond to the anti-government protests this summer.

The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is warning that the situation for journalists in Iran is worsening. Over 100 reporters and bloggers were detained during the summer demonstrations; 23 are still being held. Many are treated like foreign spies, especially photographers, whom the government feels it has a fundamental right to control.

In the case of Maziar Bahari, a journalist working for Newsweek magazine, he was detained and held without charge, was interrogated and severely beaten. He was accused of espionage, was told that his magazine was in fact an intelligence agency, and was told that video of himself doing a comic sketch on Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ in which a comedian pretends to be a CIA agent was proof he was a spy.

The situation in Iran is also getting more difficult for foreign journalists. There are increasing restrictions on what they are allowed to report, and when, and by what medium. Foreign journalists are now routinely barred from reporting on public gatherings or meeting with any member of the opposition. The media clampdown is a sign the hardline government continues to find itself under pressure from internal opposition.

It is also clear that there is a connection between the government’s treatment of journalists and its plans for a potentially violent crackdown. It wants to avoid images getting out like those that showed the bloody death of Neda Agha Soltan, an innocent bystander gunned down in cold blood, in the middle of a crowded street, allegedly by a member of the Basij militia.

The government has failed to provide any democratic channel by which the opposition could address its grievances regarding the vote of 12 June 2009, which most observers, even some conservative clerics inside Iran, believe was rigged to give Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the supreme leader’s preferred candidate, a second term as president.

It is expected that Monday will bring the beginning of a new series of protest rallies, initiated by students in observance of Student Day, but supported by the Green Path of Hope movement of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and possibly winning popular support from ordinary citizens still outraged over the violence used by government forces to end the summer’s post-election demonstrations. If such rallies do emerge, the government is expected to take action to interfere.

From WhiteHouse.gov: “In an address recorded in Seoul, South Korea, the President discusses his trip to Asia. He talks about his push to stop nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Iran, and around the world. He talks about promoting America’s principles for an open society in China while making progress on joint efforts to combat climate change. And talks in-depth about the primary objective of his trip: engaging in new markets that hold tremendous potential to spur job creation here at home.”

Three major components of Pres. Obama’s trip to east Asia are securing the international financial system in the interests of a sustained economic recovery —dealing with trade deficits and creating jobs at home (5% more exports to Asia will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs)—, nuclear non-proliferation with specific attention to the proliferation risks and potential security threats regarding North Korea and Iran’s respective nuclear programs, and coordinated action to reduce global carbon emissions and combat climate destabilization.

A court in Iran has sentenced 5 people to death for their role in post-election anti-government protests this summer. At least 81 people have been sentenced to jail terms ranging up to 15 years in prison, for protesting the government’s handling of the election and its violent crackdown on the protesters. The government says all 5 are members of “terrorist and opposition groups”, apparently considering opposition to the ruling party a “terrorist” crime.

There can be no appeal, as the appeals process has been exhausted and the court’s decision is now considered final. According to the BBC’s report regarding an Iranian TV broadcast:

“The legal investigations into the cases of these people took place in the presence of their lawyers. So far 89 of the detainees have been tried, 81 of whom have received jail terms differing from six months to 15 years,” the statement said.

“Also, five people were sentenced to death for membership of terrorist and opposition groups. The jail sentences of three of the detainees have been suspended and three people have been acquitted,” it added.

The news that Iran will execute people for their involvement in organizing protest rallies has outraged the international community. Not only do the death sentences violate international humanitarian law, but Iran’s own constitution guarantees the right to assembly and to free speech, except where it degrades Islam.

The implications of the sentences are that the regime’s bosses, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i, are in fact god-like figures and that criticizing them is equivalent to slandering Islam itself. Opposition figures have criticized the Assembly of Experts, at whose pleasure the supreme leader serves, for not intervening to stop such abuses of the rule of law and religious order.

The prosecution of opposition protest organizers has been a coordinated and far-reaching campaign against dissent. As the Jurist reports, for Pittsburgh University Law School:

Iran began trying some of the arrested protesters [JURIST report] in August. The protesters on trial were charged with crimes [PressTV report] ranging from vandalism and organizing riots to sending pictures of the protests to “enemy media.” In July Iranian officials announced [JURIST report] a plan to either press charges against or release most of those held after the riots. The government released 140 of those initially detained and closed one prison holding protesters after Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] and other groups alleged that some protesters were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with torture in an effort to force false confessions [report text; JURIST report].

There is widespread criticism of the way the prosecutions themselves were carried out. A significant number of international legal observers say from the information available, the trial proceedings do not meet international standards for due process and that they also violate fundamental protections guaranteed under the Iranian constitution itself.

According to the New York Times’ reporting:

Zamani’s trial was a mockery of justice,” the executive director of Amnesty International USA, Larry Cox, said in a statement. “To impose the death sentence is beyond deplorable. Iran should immediately rescind this sentence.”

… There have been many charges of protesters’ being tortured while in prison, and the government has agreed that some prisoners were abused, although it has continued to dispute accusations that some were raped and sodomized.

There is mounting concern for the fate of over 400 people still held, either without charge, without legal representation or totally incommunicado by Iranian security forces. It appears that as time has passed and the opposition has failed to rally substantial support to depose either Pres. Ahmedinejad or the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, their power bloc feels empowered to use the harshest methods possible to crush dissent.

Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani, a young doctor working at the Kahrizak detention facility, was found dead, with the cause of death in dispute. Iranian authorities claim he committed suicide, but have given conflicting stories about how he may have suffered violent injuries, required surgery and eventually presented his dead body to the family.

According to Amnesty International:

Iran’s Chief of Police said on Wednesday that Dr Pourandarjani had committed suicide as a result of depression, as he had been summoned to court and was facing a possible five-year prison term.

His father, Reza-Qoli Pourandarjani has questioned suicide as a cause of death. He told the Associated Press that he was initially told that his son had broken his leg in a car accident and needed his  consent for surgery, only for his family to be confronted with his dead body when they travelled to Tehran.

He said his son had been in good spirits when he spoke to him the previous night.

It is unclear what motive there might have been for Dr. Pourandarjani’s murder, but critics of the security forces have speculated that he may have been unhappy about systematic abuse alleged to have been carried out against detainees, which if true suggests he may have been killed in order to silence him.

Dr. Pourandarjani is reported to have witnessed much of the reported abuse that took place at the facility during the summer, when thousands of protesters and opposition supporters were detained. Amnesty adds that “Before his death he had allegedly received threats to deter him from revealing the extent of the abuse that had taken place at Kahrizak. He was said to have told friends he feared for his life.”

Tehran’s prosecutor’s office claims his death is now being investigated, though the direction of the investigation, or the grounds for suspicion of foul play have not been made public. Rights groups have sought to raise the profile of the Pourandarjani case, and believe it is a clear sign that if he was murdered to keep prisoner abuse quiet, the abuse must have been brutal, far-ranging and in some cases included murder.

Amnesty International demands that any Tehran investigation into the allegations begin immediately and that it meet UN-mandated standards for the investigation of official abuses and violence against civilians, under the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions.

• Ahmedinejad Calls for ‘Merciless’ Prosecution of Political Rivals
• Iran Opens 4th Mass Trial of Opposition Supporters
• Iran Closes Opposition Newspaper, Bans Protest Over Closure
• Iran Opens ‘Riot’ Trials for Opposition Protesters
• Iran Prisoner Abuse Stokes Outrage Against Government
• Khatami Calls for Referendum to Judge Iran Government’s Legitimacy
• Iran Government Attacks Civilians During Friday Prayers
• Rafsanjani Decries Iran Crackdown, Urges Release of All Political Prisoners (updated)
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent

Lebanon has formed a new government of “national accord”, which will include majority leader and prime minister designate Saad Hariri and also representatives of Hezbollah, the militia group seen as a terrorist threat by Israel, and which was the target of an Israeli bombing campaign in 2006. The UN Security Council congratulated Lebanon on moving forward with national unity and wished the new government well.

UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, has since 2006 an expanded mandate, which includes monitoring the cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. Hariri’s cabinet proposal divided key ministries among the majority coalition, the opposition Christian conservatives and Hezbollah. Pres. Suleiman accepted the cabinet line-up, allowing Hariri to move forward with his government after nearly 6 months of wrangling.

According to Voice of America:

Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, was given key positions in the new government, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The international community has welcomed the formation of the unity government. Statements of congratulations came in from the European Union, the United States, the United Nations, Syria, Iran and elsewhere.

Israel is uneasy about Hezbollah controlling the ministry of Foreign Affairs and worries it could permit the militant group to push Lebanon toward a more aggressive security posture. But for now, the cabinet assignments are being treated by both Isreal’s allies and enemies as a sign that Lebanon is moving toward political stability, which is good for the region.

But, the Guardian newspaper reports that:

Hezbollah is rapidly rearming in preparation for a new conflict with Israel, fearing that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will attack Lebanon again prior to any assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Last week, Israeli commandos seized a ship in the Mediterranean loaded with almost 400 tonnes of rockets and small arms – which Israel claimed was being sent from Iran to its Hezbollah allies. In dramatic further evidence of growing tensions, the Observer has learned that Hezbollah fighters have been busy reinforcing fixed defence positions north of the Litani river.

Hezbollah denies the weapons shipment was destined for its arsenal, but admits to rearming, even saying it now has far more rockets than in 2006. The border is now controlled by UNIFIL troops, which keeps Hezbollah further back in the Lebanese interior, one of Israel’s goals in the 2006 bombing campaign. It is unclear whether Israeli security policy is to tolerate a strong Hezbollah deeper inside Lebanon, as a kind of defense force, while making sure the group cannot take an aggressive stance along the Israeli border.

According to the Guardian report, both Hezbollah and Israel are preparing for a new conflict, with new strategies designed to avoid the mistakes of 2006. Hezbollah is thought to fear that failure to arm the Lebanese border may permit Israel to seize land, while Israel is determined to prevent Hezbollah rockets from landing inside Israel.

Due to the involvement of concerns over Iran’s nuclear research program in Israeli security strategy, there is concern that any effort to target an Iranian nuclear facility —if it is thought to be developing nuclear weapons— would first require a strike against Hezbollah, possibly more intense and widespread even than the 2006 bombing campaign. This has both sides bristling, and would put the UNIFIL forces in the middle.

The White House press secretary said the US looks forward to working with Lebanon’s new government, which it hopes will be a partner in negotiating peace in the region. VOA also reports:

Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, Tuesday quoted an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, as saying Tehran believes that a powerful Lebanese government that cooperates with regional countries could help Lebanon’s development.

And Syria’s official news agency, SANA, reported Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a congratulatory note to Lebanese President Suleiman.

Lebanon is entering a new era, politically and on the global stage. But the tense security situation along its border with Israel, and the problem of mutual battle planning, has many worried the period of unity could be short-lived if another conflict breaks out. Hamas is also urging the new government to extend broader civil and political rights to Palestinian refugees living on Lebanese soil.

A suicide bombing yesterday in Pishin killed at least 6 Revolutionary Guards commanders and 37 other people and appears to be an attempt to strike at the leadership of the nation’s premier security forces. Tehran attributes the bombing to what it alleges are “western” efforts to destabilize Iran. There are also concerns the bombing may be related to the possible failing health or death of th supreme leader, raising the possibility of a violent struggle for succession.

The Revolutionary Guards took control of security for the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province last April, and local groups accuse the Guards-backed regime there of “persistent crimes” against the people. A militant group calling itself Jundallah —”soldiers of God”— has claimed responsibility and says the attack was revenge for the Revolutionary Guard’s actions in Sistan-Baluchistan.

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad alleges the bombing is linked to US, British and Pakistani intelligence services, despite Jundallah’s being alleged to have direct ties to al Qaeda and/or the Pakistani Taliban, both of which are enemies of the US, UK and Pakistan. He is quoted by domestic and international media saying “The criminals will soon get a response for their anti-human crimes”, and state media issued a statement saying “revenge” would come “not in the distant future”.

The US State Department condemned the attack and said the allegation of US involvement was entirely false. The official US statement expressed communion in mourning with the Iranian people and the families of innocent victims.

The return to bellicose language, accusations against the west and threats of revenge, is of added concern, because Iran is to sit down with international negotiators, including US diplomats and IAEA officials this week to discuss an inspections and third-party processing regime that could allow Iran to legally obtain nuclear energy and medical-use uranium while preventing the development of nuclear weapons capability.

Some Iran skeptics have floated the idea that Iran’s own regime might be interested in using this attack as an excuse to claim the need for defensive weapons or to stall negotiations on a serious nuclear inspections clampdown, with the aim of getting the bomb or getting close enough to have it “at the ready” if necessary.

UPDATE, 2:40 GMT, 20 October 2009: IAEA chief Mohammed el Baradei says the first day of renewed multilateral talks with Iran, regarding full access to the Qom facility for UN inspectors and joint foreign nuclear fuel processing by Russia and France has gone well and that negotiations are moving in a positive direction.

There are rumors circulating that Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, is dead, or in a coma. The rumors are unconfirmed, which also means not proven false, and this has spurred still further speculation that the rumors might be true and Iran’s government struggling to determine how to see a smooth transition to a successor’s reign. The most prominent cleric after Khamene’i is a staunch opponent of the government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, himself a former president of the Islamic Republic, is the most prominent cleric after the supreme leader and chairs the Assembly of Experts, the panel of clerics tasked with selecting and anointing the supreme leader. He has been openly critical of Ahmedinejad and the 12 June elections in which apparent fraud returned him to power. Were Khamene’i to depart the Iranian political scene, Rafsanjani might be seen as a likely successor.

The rumor seems to have begun when Michael Ledeen, a “neoconservative” American political watcher affiliated with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote in his blog on Tuesday that “Yesterday afternoon at 2:15 pm local time Khamenei collapsed and was taken to his special clinic. Nobody – except his son and the doctors – has since been allowed to get near him. His official, but secret, status is ‘in the hands of the gods’.”

There appear to be reports emerging from Tehran that the atmosphere on the streets is “abnormal”, implying either a gathering mood of intrigue or a new wave of heavy security. Opposition leaders have reportedly contacted the government seeking clarification. Tabnak, a website linked to the government, has said the rumors are a “shameless lie” and part of a plot by the west to “destabilize” Iran.

Ledeen has repeated the claim, citing an anonymous source which he classes as “excellent”. But Ledeen is coming under criticism for past involvement in rumors that turned out to be untrue, and is even being accused of having deliberately spread misinformation or being a career propagandist. The Guardian writes:

Ledeen has a track record in spreading misinformation, according to the US magazine Vanity Fair, which claimed he was linked in the false reports that Saddam Hussein tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger – one of the main pretexts for the invasion of Iraq.

And in January 2007 he falsely reported Khamenei’s death.

Vanity Fair’s article on the false intelligence regarding yellowcake uranium from Niger reported:

To trace the path of the documents from their fabrication to their inclusion in Bush’s infamous speech, Vanity Fair has interviewed a number of former intelligence and military analysts who have served in the C.I.A., the State Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A.), and the Pentagon. Some of them refer to the Niger documents as “a disinformation operation,” others as “black propaganda,” “black ops,” or “a classic psy-ops [psychological-operations] campaign.” But whatever term they use, at least nine of these officials believe that the Niger documents were part of a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public.

Ledeen’s connection to that disinformation campaign certainly raises questions about the credibility of his claims about the Ayatollah Khamene’i. There have long been discussions and rumors about Khamene’i's health, but despite Ledeen’s questionable reporting in the past, news organizations around the world have picked up this story, in part due to the tight media restrictions in Iran which make it difficult to verify or refute such rumors.

Iran’s precarious ruling power bloc, centered around Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, continues to use detention as a means of silencing the opposition. The Green Path of Hope movement started by Ahmedinejad presidential rival, the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, has continued to stage protests and demands the release of leading politicians being held for protesting the legitimacy of the 12 June election.

In the month of September, the arrest of leading dissidents has continued. The clerical establishment has been split by the election controversy, as even some traditionally conservative clerics have decried the election process and the subsequent bloody crackdown against unarmed civilians. Now, it appears there is a concerted effort to attack the families of powerful dissident clerics in the holy city of Qom.

The New York Times reported on 15 September:

Authorities in Iran have arrested at least seven children and grandchildren of senior clerics in the religious city of Qum and threatened to arrest the son of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful cleric and a former president, in what appeared to be fresh pressure on religious leaders who sympathize with the opposition.

The arrests, reported by several opposition Web sites on Tuesday but apparently carried out on Monday, coincided with a harsh rebuke of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from a senior cleric who is an outspoken dissident, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who urged colleagues to support the opposition movement.

The Assembly of Experts is based in Qom, and is comprised of the nation’s leading experts, members of the clerical establishment who are constitutionally empowered to name or to remove the supreme leader. With Grand Ayatollah Montazeri urging fellow clerics to support the republic by supporting the opposition, there has been mounting speculation that he and Ayatollah Rafsanjani might seek to oust the supreme leader himself through a vote among the Assembly of Experts.

Critics say the arrests are a clear sign the regime sees its position as increasingly precarious and is desperate to intimidate the opposition. The Green Path of Hope movement has also spread abroad. This week in New York, thousands of expatriate Iranians gathered to protest the presence and the policies of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, calling him a “dictator”, accusing his government of fraud and calling for his ouster.

Azar Mansouri, a prominent woman reformist, was recently arrested as part of the latest wave of opposition arrests. She is a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), which says that twenty of its members have been arrested of late, and accuses the government of carrying out a “coup” by rigging the June elections then using military force and mass arrests to crush the opposition.

As the AFP has reported:

In the initial post-election crackdown, security forces arrested some 4,000 people. Most have now been released but around 140 including top reformists and political activists have been put on trial at mass hearings.

Other top activists currently on trial and who are members of IIPF are Saeed Hajjarian, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mostafa Tajzadeh.

Iran’s leadership has gained worldwide notoriety again this week, after it was revealed that it had concealed the construction of a secret uranium-enrichment facility on a military base near the holy city of Qom. In fact, under IAEA rules, it appears the revelation came in time to not constitute a violation of international law (Iran says the IAEA was notified one year before the site becomes active, while the rules require 6 months’ notice).

But the issue has again called into question the nature and reliability of the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Under intense pressure not only from the west, but from a UN Security Council that appears ready to push for tougher sanctions, Iran now says it will launch a series of missiles in routine military exercises meant to test its defensive capability.

Reaction in the west has been outrage, saying Iran is testing the international community. Some political analysts, however, say the tests are more of a domestic show, meant to convince the Iranian public that the nation is under threat and the current government is not only capable, but is needed, in order to defend against possible attack. The development could be another sign the leadership views its position as precarious, with opposition still spreading.

• Ahmedinejad Calls for ‘Merciless’ Prosecution of Political Rivals
• Iran Opens 4th Mass Trial of Opposition Supporters
• Iran Closes Opposition Newspaper, Bans Protest Over Closure
• Iran Opens ‘Riot’ Trials for Opposition Protesters
• Iran Prisoner Abuse Stokes Outrage Against Government
• Khatami Calls for Referendum to Judge Iran Government’s Legitimacy
• Iran Government Attacks Civilians During Friday Prayers
• Rafsanjani Decries Iran Crackdown, Urges Release of All Political Prisoners (updated)
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent

The UN General Assembly, which brings together every head of government in the world, to offer their country’s position on issues, their country’s demands regarding trade and conflict negotiations, their country’s hopes for a more harmonious world, this year truly grapples with issues of global consensus. Economic recovery, for many parts of the world, will require an unprecedented expansion of women’s rights and sustained attention to responsible environmental stewardship.

Climate change, or global climate destabilization, has come to the fore as the most severe and pervasive security threat of the 21st century. The G20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month will work in part as a prelude to the Copenhagen climate conference to be held in December. The goal is to achieve worldwide consensus on a comprehensive, binding strategy to reduce carbon emissions and to protect against the unwinding of climate patterns that have remained consistent throughout all of recorded human history.

Women’s rights is now being viewed by more nations and by more major international organizations as key to the economic and political stability of fragile nations. The Obama administration, under the leadership of Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has made women’s rights a priority and has laid out goals for helping to promote women’s rights through economic development, modernization of educational systems, and democratization of the political processes in nations around the world.

A consistent theme of Sec. Clinton’s travels around Africa this summer was the need to end the out of control violence against women that plagues many African nations, and bring women into the fold of the political process and economic structures. She visited the eastern Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where one of the world’s most desperate and protracted civil wars continues to put women in jeopardy of random attacks on a daily basis and where mass rape has been used as a weapon of war.

Her message was clear: the United States does not intend to continue directing aid to regimes that do not combat the extreme conditions of violence and repression in which millions of women find themselves, but aid will be directed toward those policies that are designed to empower and protect women. There will be efforts to persuade China, which strongly backs some of the worst offending nations, like Sudan, to demand better treatment for women.

Pres. Obama has called for a global initiative to move toward the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons, which he admits may not occur during his lifetime. He and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev have already begun the process to establish a new comprehensive strategic arms reduction treaty (StART). Iran, under intense pressure from the international community to cease uranium enrichment, has also proposed a framework for eliminating all nuclear weapons worldwide.

The nuclear question looms large, and will consume a lot of words in open and back-room negotiations. The UN Security Council can be expected to receive new pressure from western powers to threaten sanctions against Iran if it does not halt uranium enrichment. And the recent announcement of the Obama administration’s plans to scrap Bush-era plans for stationing missiles in Poland is thought to be in part a call on Russia to support sanctions against Iran.

In a recent CNN interview, with Fareed Zakaria, Pres. Medvedev sounded tougher on the Iran question than at any time previous: he said Russia would only ever provide Iran with “defensive” weapons equipment and would neither help Iran develop long-range ICBM nor come to Iran’s defense if it were attacked. He called on the international community to come together to secure peace and prevent conflict in the middle east.

Medvedev also confirmed that he had met in secret with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He said the meeting was kept secret at the Israelis request and that he had “honored the wishes of our partners”. He revealed that in that meeting Netanyahu, who has been under intense pressure from the west to tone down bellicose rhetoric, said Israel had no plans to attack Iran or destroy any of its research facilities, adding that he trusted Israel and hoped new partnerships could be created to prevent further conflict in the region.

Pres. Obama has invited PM Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to meet with him to discuss the path to lasting peace, during the UN General Assembly in New York. The two have accepted, setting the stage for what might be breakthrough negotiations on concessions from both sides that could lead to a two-state solution.

As the Wall Street Journal reports:

In a break from the Bush administration, Mr. Obama pressed early in his administration for new, U.S.-brokered talks between the two sides. In another departure, Mr. Obama has ratcheted up pressure on Israel, publicly calling for a total freeze in Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank.

That issue has blocked progress in restarting talks so far. Palestinian negotiators have demanded a total freeze before agreeing to any substantive negotiations. Mr. Netanyahu has refused.

The US and NATO nations may refrain from openly pressing Russia on its interventions in the volatile Caucasus region, but the problem of Georgia and the former Soviet Republics along its borders must be dealt with. Abkhazia has declared independence with Russian diplomatic backing, and Georgia has sought to blockade Abkhazia as a protest against that declaration of independence. There are fears the blockade could lead to another bloody Russian intervention against a state that seeks to join NATO.

There is, however, an opportunity for a new era of cooperation between the Russian Federation and NATO. European leaders have proposed that with the US putting aside missile defense basing plans for Poland, the opportunity may exist to come together and create a unified missile defense system covering all of NATO and the Russian Federation.

But economic empowerment and global financial regulation may turn out to be dominant themes of the General Assembly meetings. The 2008-2009 global economic crisis has shown the vulnerability of poor nations to the unraveling of sometimes delicate international trade pacts and resource flows. The threat from intercontinental climate destabilization could result in the collapse of food supplies to half the world’s population and the migration of hundreds of millions of people, if one year’s monsoon doesn’t materialize.

The empowerment of poorer nations to be capable of competing for internationally trade resources, including food and water, is vital to preventing mass climate migration and the resulting destabilization of nation states in coming years and decades. The beginnings of these negotiations, to prevent protectionist measures and expand the internationally accessible resource base, will be taking place as world leaders meet in New York.

Rights and democracy as such will also be highlighted. The election of 12 June 2009 in Iran has stirred a global firestorm of opinion over what measures might be taken to guarantee transparency and prevent massive fraud engineered by leaders of government. More than 100 nations whose leaders will be in attendance have significant voting rights issues that must be addressed in order to legitimate their electoral processes and improve transparency.

The US will seek to lead on this question, even as dozens of its own states struggle to clarify election process and balloting laws, to ensure manipulation is not possible and guarantee the transparency of upcoming elections. New Jersey might be held up by some foreign states as an example of a state that still won’t guarantee its voters paper proof of their votes, while Venezuela may claim legitimacy on this point, a contrast that is sure to make for contentious negotiations on standards for international voting rights and ballot-counting transparency.

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has thrown off the veil of pretending to honor democratic constitutional process, calling for the prosecution of opposition candidates for their criticism of his policies and the handling of the election. Even as Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, the supreme leader, acknowledged Wednesday that opposition leaders are not in league with any foreign power, Ahmedinejad has said they should be prosecuted for crimes against the state.

Calling on the state to prosecute his political opponents “decisively” and “mercilessly”, Ahmedinejad’s rhetoric radicalizes the clash between the government’s handling of the elections and the pro-democracy position of those who say the process lacked transparency and ignored rampant irregularities. While Ayatollah Khamene’i said he did not believe opposition leaders had conspired with foreign powers to destabilize the country, he maintains that some of the protests were spurred by organizing efforts abroad.

Khamene’i's position would seem to be at odds with Ahmedinejad’s claim that the opposition leaders themselves were co-conspirators in a plot to destabilize the Islamic republic. Khamene’i also seems to be more sensitive to public opinion, which still supports the view that the election was not wholly transparent and the final count possibly flawed. Prosecution of major party leaders would strip away any semblance of democratic legitimacy for the 12 June vote, and Khamene’i seems to understand this better than Ahmedinejad.

According to Ali Akbar Dareini’s reporting for the Huffington Post:

While there were calls for unity in the weeks following the disputed June presidential election, the confrontation between the clerical leadership and the opposition has begun to look increasingly like an all-or-nothing fight.

Hard-liners in the leadership paint the entire reform movement as a tool of foreign enemies bent on overthrowing the cleric-led Islamic Republic. The opposition counters that the ruling system – beyond just Ahmadinejad’s elected government – is losing its religious and political legitimacy because of the harshness of the postelection crackdown.

High profile prosecutions have already put over 100 opposition leaders on trial for conspiring to bring down the conservative government through a “velvet revolution”, which the Ahmedinejad-Khamene’i power bloc says is illegal. In fact, Iran’s constitution guarantees the right to free assembly, except in cases where the aim is to “undermine Islam”.

The opposition leadership has been careful to demand that all protesters remain non-violent and that they rely on the moral integrity demanded by their faith to critique the allegedly corrupt election process. Government critics continue to decry the violent and bloody crackdown that took an unknown number of protesters’ lives as militia and security agents fired into crowds of unarmed civilians, and some say the entire process of prosecutions is nothing more than an attempt to distract attention from those alleged government-backed crimes.

There has been mounting talk of an ideological and tactical split between Pres. Ahmedinejad and Leader Khamene’i, though the veil of legitimacy they both seek to maintain seems inextricably linked to a perception of common cause. While Ahmedinejad wants to see his opponents “decisively” eliminated from Iranian politics by way of prosecution, Khamene’i may be wary of violating the constitution by using state power to jail opposition figures.

The Iranian constitution specifically notes that the supreme leader is, like all other citizens, equal before the law and subject to all of the constraints of the constitution. Should his conduct specifically violate any one constitutional principle, his arch-rival, the Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a leading cleric and former president, might be able to marshal support in the Assembly of Experts of the holy city of Qom to vote for his removal as leader.

The use of the powers of the leadership of the democratic Islamic republic to jail legitimate democratic leadership could be the proverbial last straw, pushing sentiment among skeptical clerics toward Khamene’i's removal as head of state. Ahmedinejad appears to be taking a harder line in order to raise the stakes and put himself at the head of the spear, so to speak, in hard-line conservative circles, daring others to follow him into the breach.

• Iran Opens 4th Mass Trial of Opposition Supporters
• Iran Closes Opposition Newspaper, Bans Protest Over Closure
• Iran Opens ‘Riot’ Trials for Opposition Protesters
• Iran Prisoner Abuse Stokes Outrage Against Government
• Khatami Calls for Referendum to Judge Iran Government’s Legitimacy
• Iran Government Attacks Civilians During Friday Prayers
• Rafsanjani Decries Iran Crackdown, Urges Release of All Political Prisoners (updated)
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

Iran has put on trial a fourth group of leading opposition supporters, including some who served as ministers in the reformist government of former president Mohammad Khatami. The prosecution alleges the accused are guilty of conspiring with foreign powers to sow civil unrest in Iran and destabilize the republic. Opposition leaders and independent observers say the accused are being put on trial for nothing more than being in the opposition, within a democratic system.

According to the LA Times’ Borzou Daragahi:

Hard-line supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad employed the nation’s judiciary against two major moderate political parties in their boldest attempt to excise Iran’s reform movement from the political scene.

The prosecution at the fourth session of an extraordinary legal proceeding, derided by international and domestic legal experts as a “show trial,” put a severely disabled reformist leader on trial and urged the judge to outlaw the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedin Organization, two pillars of the reform movement that took control of the country’s presidency and parliament during a liberal era that began in the late 1990s and ended earlier this decade.

That the ruling conservative hard-liners are using the judiciary to not only clamp down on the opposition, but to rig Iran’s democracy by banning leading opposition figures and parties from the political process, is widely reported as fact in the international media. Opposition leaders within Iran say the government is using the trials as a means to capitalize on what they say was a fraudulent election process designed to override the votes of ordinary Iranians.

The Iranian system of democracy has come under unprecedented scrutiny in the the months since the vote of 12 June 2009, as its complex layering of direct and indirect democratic structures is implicated in the jockeying for power among leading clerics and politicians. Iran’s constitution is very explicit in guaranteeing the right to free assembly and to free speech, both of which are being treated by the current government as threats to the republic.

The constitution is also explicit in specifying that even the supreme leader is equal before the law, just one citizen among all. And, the constitutional process specifies that the supreme leader serves at the suffrage of the Assembly of Experts of Qom, a group of leading clerical intellectuals who determine the moral and theological fitness of an individual to serve in that post, equivalent to head of state. The Assembly of Experts is headed by Ayatollah Khamene’i's arch-rival, the Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, himself a former president.

Even as Pres. Ahmedinejad, whom many believe did not win the June elections, selected his new cabinet, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi announced the founding of a new movement called the Green Path of Hope or Green Way of Hope. His website specified that the Green Path of Hope is not a political party —which would require government permission— but rather a “grass roots and social network” aimed at fostering democracy and transparency.

The government’s attitude toward the grass-roots opposition movement has been uniformly hostile: after Mousavi and fellow opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi joined in criticism of the mass prosecution of opposition figures, the government announced it would prosecute anyone who questioned or spread negative statements about the trial process itself.

Mousavi and former president Khatami have both voiced strong moral indignation over the trials and the brutality of the security offensive against opposition supporters. Khatami said the trials are an “insult” both to Iran and to Islam, and suggested that they endanger the republic itself. He said “Such play-acting … damages the system and reduces public trust”.

CNN reports that protest leaders and opposition figures are facing charges including:

Attacking military facilities using firearms and firebombs … Attacking government facilities and setting fire to them … Destruction of public property … Creating panic in public … Beating up members of the security forces…

In each case, opposition figures claim to have video evidence and direct testimony that the violence was carried out exclusively by members of the security forces and the Basij militia. The government claims that such footage was orchestrated in order to sow international outrage and destabilize the government. There is video evidence showing security forces and Basij militia assaulting unarmed protesters and even shooting them.

The government of the Islamic republic has tended to be more authoritarian than its constitution would suggest it should be, but the events of the summer of 2009 have seen the leadership move toward a position that anyone questioning individuals, policies or actions of the conservative establishment should be treated as enemies of the republic worthy of jailing or prosecution.

At a time when the Iranian public seems to be liberalizing, the government is trying to establish the singular dominance of one power bloc over the entire Iranian political system. Early rumors that Ayatollah Rafsanjani might organize the Assembly of Experts in the holy city of Qom to vote out the supreme leader seem now to have faded, and some observers sympathetic to the opposition are expressing concern that the brutal violence and indiscriminate jailing of the post-election crackdown may have broken the opposition’s strength.

But there are reports from Tehran suggesting the opposition leadership is biding its time, waiting for the government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and/or the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, to make mistakes that will ignite popular sentiment against them and favor the opposition’s cause. Some believe they may be planning to mount a legal challenge to the legitimacy of the trials, the crackdown and the election, seeking charges against members of the current leadership.

Pres. Ahmedinejad’s power in office may be significantly reduced by the political struggles of the summer and the perception that his re-election was brought about by manipulation and the use of force against civilians. Already, there appears to be opposition in the parliament to some of his cabinet picks. Both conservatives and reformists may be setting up a challenge to Ahmedinejad’s nominees, and stiff opposition could limit his governing authority.

The trials of opposition supporters and former government officials are being viewed by both sides as a test of whether the current government can demonstrate its legitimacy or win public support for its leadership and its initiatives. Ahmedinejad may be lending fodder to critics who say his 2nd term is not legitimate, by naming inexperienced but strong allies to major posts, like the position of oil minister.

The Iranian government has ordered the closure of an opposition newspaper which was to publish a statement by opposition candidate Medhi Karoubi —3rd in the June election tally—alleging Iranian security forces were raping political prisoners. Karoubi had made the claim previously, and says there is evidence to support the claim; his statement was to defend himself against criticism from the government and might have included evidence. The paper’s closure effectively stops the publication of his statement in the Iranian press.

Mr. Karoubi had refused government efforts to persuade him to abandon the chief opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and was allegedly himself assaulted by government-linked militia after emerging from a prayer service delivered by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, a reformist former president. Opposition figures and human rights groups have alleged there is a concerted and violent intimidation effort ongoing in Iran to break up the opposition and force its leaders out of the public eye.

Mohsen Rezai, the one conservative who opposed Pres. Ahmedinejad in the June vote, agreed not to join opposition protests against the outcome, but the son of one of his top aides was detained and killed while in custody. Rezai has called the prosecution of opposition leaders, including some prominent political figures, illegitimate “show trials” and denounced the brutal treatment of people detained for supporting calls for electoral transparency.

The allegations that security forces have been raping female prisoners added to the popular outrage about revelations they had tortured and brutally beaten prisoners, killing an unknown number. The revelations were concrete enough and the popular and institutional outrage so severe that Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i was forced to close the main prison camp where the abuses were allegedly taking place.

In response to the newspaper’s closure, protesters gathered and began chanting slogans critical of the regime. According to Reuters:

Dozens of opposition supporters chanted “death to the dictator” on Monday after police prevented a protest rally in front of the building of a reformist daily which says it has been temporarily closed down, a witness said.

Police at the scene in central Tehran prevented the demonstrators from gathering outside the offices of the Etemad-e Melli newspaper of leading reformist Mehdi Karoubi, the witness said.

Mehdi Karoubi said in response to the closure that “this behaviour and intimidation will not silence me and I will raise the issues I deem necessary”. He added that “I will only shut up when all the dimensions of these incidents have been examined and the people are told the truth.” Though the supreme leader and the president have pushed forward as if to establish a new administration, there is still a major and telling absence of clerical support for the new administration.

According to the LA Times, “A statement purportedly signed by a group of Tehran judges condemned the treatment of prisoners and the televised confessions of suspects allegedly mistreated and held in solitary confinement for weeks without lawyers.” Authorities also revealed they may release French researcher Clotilde Reiss, who was detained and prosecuted for sending photos of opposition protests to friends via e-mail.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has announced he is founding a new opposition movement called the Green Path of Hope. The movement may encompass a broader coalition of opposition parties, and may even win support from some more conservative clerics who are angry about the brutality of the government’s crackdown on reformists.

Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, the supreme leader, has been maneuvering to consolidate control over state institutions for an ever tighter circle of trusted allies. His own son Mojtaba Khamene’i was named to head the shadowy government-linked Basij militia, alleged to be responsible for some of the most brutal elements of the crackdown, including summary executions. Now, he has named Sadegh Larijani, son of Speaker Ali Larijani, as the new chief justice.

The apparent efforts to consolidate power and establish an effective hereditary authority over the Iranian constitutional system is seen by some as a shrewd attempt to rule out all dissenting views or opposition-linked political figures. Others view it as a sign of mounting desperation among the circle of leaders including the supreme leader, the president and anyone who may have had a hand in alleged efforts to manipulate the June vote count.

• Iran Opens ‘Riot’ Trials for Opposition Protesters
• Iran Prisoner Abuse Stokes Outrage Against Government
• Khatami Calls for Referendum to Judge Iran Government’s Legitimacy
• Iran Government Attacks Civilians During Friday Prayers
• Rafsanjani Decries Iran Crackdown, Urges Release of All Political Prisoners (updated)
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

The Iranian government has begun trials in which it alleges some 100 participants in the post-election opposition protests were violent rioters and terrorists seeking to overthrow the government. A number of officials in the government say the trials were begun without their being notified and may already be in violation of fundamental due process laws.

The New York Times, citing the AP, reports:

More than 100 opposition political activists and protesters stood trial in Tehran Saturday on charges of rioting and conspiring to topple the ruling system in the country’s first trial since the disputed presidential election, Iran’s state media reported.

Opposition leaders have said the trials are part of a concerted effort to crush dissent and fragment the reform movement. There are also allegations that the prisoners being tried are being targeted because they may have specific information about the alleged systematic and widespread mistreatment of prisoners detained at anti-government rallies.

Today’s trials have been called illegitimate, on the grounds that demonstrators had staged non-violent protests and had been assaulted by the security forces detaining protesters en masse. Allegations of mistreatment of prisoners have been so widespread, the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i was compelled to order the closure of a prison camp made notorious by revelations about prisoner abuse.

Under Iran’s constitution, all citizens are equal before the law and all have a right to peaceable assembly and to dissent. Opposition leaders and clerics ranging from reformist to conservative have criticized the government for using fuzzy legal reasoning for calling demonstrations a threat to the republic or a defamation of Islam.

The more than 100 opposition supporters facing trial include top political figures and opposition leadership. As reported by the Times:

The accusations read out in the courtroom were a broadside against virtually every major figure associated with reform in Iran, going well beyond those actually arrested. State television broadcast images of the defendants, who included a former vice president and a Newsweek reporter, as well as some of the reform movement’s best-known spokesmen, clad in prison uniforms and listening as prosecutors outlined their accusations in a large marble-floored courtroom. Some were shackled.

Opposition leaders outside the process have said the defendants have been given no access to legal counsel and have been barred from preparing a defense. The trial process may in fact be under manipulation, and there is no evidence that due process laws have been followed. Many of the defendants were “disappeared” after detention, before appearing at trial.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, opposition leader and main rival to the president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, has called on all Iranians to continue and expand protest chants of “God is great” from rooftops after nightfall. The chants are associated not only with religion in Iran, but with the Islamic revolution. Authorities are wary that the chants signal a spreading national disapproval of the regime and the possible beginnings of a new popular revolution.

Basij militia have reportedly been deployed throughout Iranian cities to use force if necessary to halt the chanting. The opposition wants these incidents to demonstrate that the regime is “unislamic” and “irreligious” and is calling on top clerics to say so.

The former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi is among those being put on trial for what amount to charges of crimes against the state. The trial is alleged to be part of a complex strategy by the government to frame all opposition to Khamene’i and Ahmedinejad, to their policies or their security clampdown or the disputed “divine assessment” that they claim returned the latter to the presidency, as a foreign plot to weaken Iran or undermine Islam.

According to the Guardian:

During yesterday’s hearing, prosecutors read out an indictment outlining what they said was a plot by the main pro-reform political parties to carry out a “velvet revolution” to overthrow the Islamic Republic, similar to the largely peaceful popular revolts that ended communist rule in eastern Europe.

State lawyers alleged that three of the biggest opposition parties took money from foreign non-governmental organizations, but Mousavi’s website denied any overseas aid or foreign connections.

In what could be a troubling escalation of international tensions related to the crackdown, it has been reported Iran has detained three American hikers who apparently lost their way while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan. The New York Times reported yesterday:

The Kurdish regional government, in a statement issued late Saturday, said the Americans had “lost their way due to their lack of familiarity with the location, and entered Iranian territory.”

The statement said they were part of a group of four Americans who entered Kurdistan on Wednesday by land from Turkey and spent the night at a backpackers’ hotel in Sulaimaniya. Kurdish security officers said that the Americans were students, ages 27 to 36, and that two of them had been studying Arabic in Damascus, Syria.

A fourth hiker reportedly turned back before crossing the border into Iranian territory and was turned over by Kurdish officials to the American embassy in Baghdad. It remains unclear if the arrests are part of an ongoing attempt by the Iranian government to raise fears about foreign activities to destabilize the Islamic Republic or an attempt to pressure the US diplomatically, or whether they are in fact part of a routine border patrol and will result in the Americans’ uncontested release.

The alleged violent, even lethal brutality which Iran’s security forces have used against detained opposition supporters has mushroomed into a full-blown prisoner-abuse scandal that is sowing anger and shock among the people of Iran. The alleged abuses run the gamut from mass beatings in darkness, ripping off of finger and toe nails and forcing detainees to lick the inside of dirty toilets. At least 150 people are estimated to have been killed in the crackdown, since the 12 June vote.

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have organized a mass rally in memory of those killed, for today, Thursday 30 July. The government rejected a request for permits to hold the gathering, but opposition websites have reported the two reformist candidates would hold the mourning events anyway. Today marks 40 days since Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed, allegedly by a member of the Basij militia.

Recent revelations about the huge number of opposition supporters killed by security forces, and the brutal manner in which they were killed, has outraged the Iranian public and given momentum to the opposition. After a political controversy which pitted Supreme Leader Ali Khamane’i against his ally Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, which ended with Khamene’i ordering the dismissal of Ahmedinejad’s choice for First Vice President, his replacement in case of incapacity, and Ahmedinjad’s resisting, then relenting, the prison-abuse revelations have put increased pressure on the government.

In response to the revelations, Ayatollah Khamene’i has ordered the closing of the Kahrizak prison camp, where many of the opposition supporters detained without news of their welfare or access to due process are believed to have been held. The closure has been treated as an admission that atrocities were committed at the site and is seen by some as a conciliatory gesture, by others as part of a massive, concerted cover-up of official crimes.

The torture and killing of prisoners has outraged some in the clerical establishment, who have openly denounced the abuse as “unislamic” or violating the foundations of the Islamic republic. In an apparent effort to show he is on the side of both the republic and the moral integrity of Islam, as conceived by the clerical establishment, Khamene’i has also ordered the release of prisoners from Tehran’s Evin prison.

According to Reuters, “Lawmaker Kazem Jalali said 140 detainees were released from Evin prison after members of a parliamentary committee visited the prison on Tuesday, ISNA reported. ‘Those with minor charges have been released on bail,’ said Jalali.” Jalali also reportedly said the Kahrizak prison camp was closed because it was not adequate to safeguarding the “rights of detainees”. Opposition websites allege prisoners held there were subjected to “severe physical and mental pressure”, what many take as a euphemism for torture, systematic deprivation and even lethal beatings.

The Guardian is live-blogging today’s demonstrations for the dead, and providing updates on newly identified opposition supporters who were killed in the security crackdown. At 11:15am today, London time, the Guardian’s website reported:

The identify of another dead protester has been revealed, according to the reformist website Mowjcamp.com, writes Robert Tait.

He is Amir Hossein Toufanpour who died – apparently in custody – after being shot and wounded in the massive Tehran demonstration of June 15.

The Guardian is also building an interactive feature designed to help identify and keep track of those who have lost their lives in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed election. There are rumors the family of Neda Soltan has been banned from attending a ceremony to honor her. Jim Sciutto, of ABC News, has posted the following report on Twitter: “Neda’s mother pressured not to attend: ‘for reasons I can’t say, I cannot attend the ceremony of my own daughter’”.

A severe crackdown has been imposed to attempt to prevent mourners from gathering near Ms. Soltan’s grave. Reuters cites one witness as saying “Hundreds have gathered around Neda Soltan’s grave to mourn her death and other victims’ deaths … police arrested some of them … dozens of riot police also arrived and are trying to disperse the crowd”, while there are also reports Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader, was surrounded by police and forcibly returned to his vehicle, in an attempt to keep him from participating in the gathering at the cemetery.

The Guardian is also citing epersian radio as relaying voice reports that appear to be delivered live, via mobile phone, from the cemetery. Also according to the Guardian, “The film makers Mahnaz Mohammadi and Jaafar Panahi were among those arrested at the cemetery, according to the women’s rights website Women’s Field.”

CNN’s correspondent Rezah Sayah has reported at least one mourner was seen bleeding from the head, while police received water from (another?) mourner. Mobile phone video of crowds massing and confronted at the cemetery has also emerged, and is posted online by the BBC.

Hajatoleslam Mohammad Motahhari, son of one of the most esteemed leaders from the revolutionary period, has denounced the violence against opposition supporters and the prisoner deaths: “Defending an Islamic regime by implementing non-Islamic and inhumane methods is as effective as trying to preserve the words and deeds of the Holy Prophet Mohammad through drinking alcohol”. Reports of ongoing brutality against unarmed civilians continue to emerge.

By 4:43 pm London time, it was reported that over 10,000 people had attended the mourning ceremony at Behesht e-Zahra cemetery, to mourn the death of Neda Agha Soltan and the loss of life among slain opposition supporters. Saeed Kamali Dehghan has reported from the site:

Two groups of riot police turned out to quell the demonstration: regular police who were not attacking people, and the riot police from the revolutionary guards – dubbed “special guards” – who attacked demonstrators with plastic and electric batons and launched tear gas.

Cemeteries are considered sacred places, and ordinarily police are forbidden from entering, but today I saw at least 20 people bleeding from head from beatings at the hands of riot police.

Officials and unnamed sources inside the government are now being quoted as having revealed to media that they have witnessed the brutality and have condemned the brutality. One riot guard with regular police riot units is quoted, saying:

The police who are attacking people are not normal riot police, they are the special guards who have the permission to attack people under any circumstance. We won’t attack our own people. We won’t attack our brothers and sisters.

I’m encouraging people and assuring them that we are with them, we are not content with this situation and we are not the police who killed Neda and Sohrab. They were killed by the revolutionary guards.

With increasing numbers of people inside government and reportedly among police and security forces denouncing the use of force against unarmed civilians, today’s combat-style raid on the cemetery, during a ceremony of mourning the dead, may further escalate tensions and put the government on the defensive. Opposition groups are reportedly bracing for a still more intense crackdown, even as they plan for further demonstrations.

The Iranian opposition has grown resurgent as top clerics decried the government’s crackdown on civilian demonstrators and called for the release of political prisoners and accountability and legitimacy among the leadership. Now, a global day of action has been organized by Iranian opposition groups in exile, with demonstrations in Manila, Seoul, Brussels, Berlin, London, New York and elsewhere.

A candlelight vigil in Japan sought to honor those killed in government attacks on demonstrators and demanded an end to oppression. Demonstrators across Europe called for accountability for post-election violence against civilians and a legitimate election process. New York’s Times Square saw a gathering of green-clad supporters of the Iranian opposition calling for justice and for the release of political prisoners.

Last Friday, Grand Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a cleric some say is more powerful than the supreme leader and a former president himself, denounced the government’s violent crackdown against dissidents and defended the right of Iranians to free assembly and to protest the results of the disputed election. He and other top opposition supporters have called for a law-based solution to the disputed election.

Former president Mohammad Khatami, a top reformer, has called for a national referendum to adjudicate the legitimacy of the sitting government and possibly stage new elections. The worldwide day of protest is aimed at bolstering support for the opposition among Iranian exiles and at pressuring clerics inside Iran to demand the release of all political detainees.

According to the AFP:

Some of the biggest rallies took place in Amsterdam, London and Stockholm, with more than 4,000 alone taking to the streets of the Swedish capital.

Among the 1,000 people in Amsterdam was Iran’s Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi who led the crowd in chanting: “We want to live in peace. Long live peace”.

The leaders of Iran’s opposition have sent an open letter to the top clerics in the nation, charging that the government had used “illegal, immoral and irreligious methods” to crush dissent and impose a corrupt outcome to the 12 June elections. The letter is part of an effort by the opposition to pressure Iran’s leadership to release all opposition supporters detained for political reasons or involvement in protests against the election outcome.

Over 70 opposition leaders, including reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, and former president Mohammad Khatami, signed the letter. The last week has seen a growing, and now global, call for Iran’s leadership to make known the whereabouts and the state of health of all those detained in the government’s crackdown on dissent leading up to and since the 12 June election.

One high-profile detainee and opposition supporter, Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of Abdolhossein Ruholamini —a top aide to defeated candidate Mohsen Rezai—, has reportedly been killed while in custody at Evin Prison. He was detained on 9 July for participating in an opposition rally. He was to be released soon, according to official statements to his family, but now an opposition website reports that on Thursday night, his family was informed he had lost his life while at the prison.

The circumstances of Ruholamini’s death remain unclear, but as the state’s violent attack on demonstrators hits closer and closer to the opposition leadership, resistance to the security crackdown is spreading among top clerics. Thousands are reported to have been detained since the night of the disputed election, with hundreds still in prison. Rights groups say families of those detained have been having difficulties finding out where their loved ones are held, if they have been charged with any crimes or what their health status might be.

Mir Hossein Mousavi has said he will not his slain supporters “blood to be trampled” by a campaign of oppression. He plans to organize a broader base of resistance to the governing power bloc led by Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i. With increasing numbers of top opposition leaders speaking out, and powerful clerics denouncing the government’s use of violence against civilians, the opposition is now openly calling Ahmedinejad’s government “illegitimate”.

Of the nine top clerics in the holy city of Qom known as the marja’ taqlid, the spiritual leaders to be emulated, only one has so far endorsed the re-election of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Traditionally, the nine keep apart from politics and matters of state, and so normally all nine congratulate the winner of the presidential elections. The holding out of eight of the marja’ taqlid suggests their displeasure with the handling of the crisis.

Three of the marja’ taqlid in Qom have denounced the violence used against demonstrators. Turning up the rhetoric against the regime, opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi, himself reportedly assaulted outside Friday prayers one week ago, has written to the nation’s intelligence establishment denouncing the government’s use of force against unarmed civilians, saying “Everyone has seen how women have been beaten with batons and thrown to the ground” and suggesting it is worse than Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

That point is an extremely sharp barb in Iranian politics, as the Islamic Republic treats as a matter of foundational principle its opposition to Israeli security policies, both in Palestine and in the region. Pres. Ahmedinejad’s own appointee to the post of First Vice President, his replacement should he be unable to serve, was forced to resign when the supreme leader issued a direct order that he be fired, due to his statement last year that Iran is friends with all peoples, including the people of Israel.

The letter took up the link between democratic and religious language customary of the revolutionary period, urging the clerics to stand up for Iranians’ constitutional rights and to denounce and oppose “oppression”. Protesters massed in various sections of Tehran today, demanding the release of prisoners and chanting “death to the dictator” and “we want our vote back”. Police and pro-government militia are reported to have attacked demonstrators in order to disperse the crowds.

Access to the internet must be a basic human right, across the globe, for a number of reasons. First of all, legitimate, transparent democratic processes of government require in today’s world that information flow freely and that citizens be empowered to share information and to find information, according to their choices and their needs.

Socio-economic barriers to such free flow of information are just another kind of information control that establishes dangerous demographic stratification into privileged and marginalized groups. Governments across the world are using web filtering technologies to censor the information available to their citizens and crack down on dissent.

In China, in Iran, in Cuba, aggressive web filtering measures and electronic spying technology have been used to prevent the spread of information unfavorable to the government leadership, to obscure corruption, and to hunt and persecute members of a would-be democratic opposition. In China, web filtering censorship has perhaps reached its zenith, with major multinationals collaborating in the “Great Firewall of China”.

Web searches routinely rule out links that contain information banned by the government, and the government has explored barring any website not entirely in Mandarin from being viewed inside China. Talk of the parallel Chinese internet has given way to concerns the government has opted for a technologically more realistic total filtering program.

“Cyber dissidents” are now an entirely new area of press targeted by government censors and security forces. In China and Iran, cyber dissidents are jailed simply for linking to materials that the government has sought to keep away from the public eye. Iran’s government has repeatedly shut down opposition websites in order to prevent democratic assembly, to cover up violence against civilians or to obscure challenges to official diktat.

China recently delayed plans to implement a draconian filtering system based on a new “green dam” software platform. The government is believed to have been taken aback by the broad-based and persistent expressions of anger over the plans, as the nation’s population continues to move into contact with the online medium and is demanding more transparency.

But Pres. Hu Jintao came to office promising a “smokeless war” against the press and cyber dissidents, and China has been criticized across the world for efforts to manipulate the information made available to its citizens, including distortions of the unrest a year ago in Tibet and Sichuan and now in Xinjiang, which many say could foment violence against people of Tibetan or Uighur ethnicity, depending on the case.

Efforts to use internet filtering to cover up the massacre of unarmed civilians at Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989 are part of that ongoing war against the free press. The Beijing government fears acknowledging what took place there could delegitimize the current regime and sow political unrest. Pro-democracy advocates say that like any government in a free democracy, China’s government could acknowledge its mistakes, promote electoral reform, and liberalize its political process, without destabilizing the country.

In remote regions like Darfur in western Sudan or North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, conditions of extreme danger for aid workers and violence against journalists means information filters very slowly through the population, worsening already catastrophic situations of persistent conflict and human suffering.

Violence against women in Darfur is persistent in part owing to the fact that Darfuri women have virtually no access to information distribution systems. They are almost never able to report crimes against them to any public authority or international group. And medical service workers are often unable to locate people in need of help, as the remote region is plagued by lack of communicative media.

There is also concern about the effects of internet usage on the development of human cognitive abilities. Social cognitive structures are thought to be directly affected by use of communicative media, and the internet as achieved fundamental alterations in the communicative structure of society; facing that reality, it must be a universal right of all people to participate in the direction and development of that medium in reference to their own daily lives.

In May, I reported on this for The Hot Spring Network:

“Cognitive science has revealed a human brain notable for its plasticity. It is not unreasonable to speculate that the Internet not only shapes itself to the mind but shapes the mind to itself”, writes Ana Menéndez in this month’s Poets & Writers magazine.

What can we do to impede the erosion of some of our most prized social-intellectual habits of mind, rooted in organic brain structure and in social networking (from campfire to empire, parliament to newsprint, to Twitter and The Hot Spring Network), while taking advantage of the power of the web?

The internet and attendant communications technologies have a visible decentralizing effect that enhances the democratic influence average people can exert in the public sphere. In the US election of 2008, that was evident in online information sharing and organizing. In the Spanish election of 2004, it was evident in the popular outcry that was so ably communicated by sms, that helped uncover a government disinformation campaign.

Clay Sharky, of the TED initiative, explains in a video address how social networking services and a new generation of web applications and smart phones, are coming together to empower individuals across the world and bring about the end of “top-down” controls in the political sphere. This effect is operating even in authoritarian societies, where in some cases the best information available comes from individuals posting anecdotal reports online.

Perhaps the world’s most developed and advanced campaign for net neutrality, or legal constraints on internet service providers’ (ISP) ability to plan or carry out systematic filtering of content, has taken root in the US. Motivated by a fierce defense of First Amendment rights and an understanding of the democratizing effects of open flows of information, the net neutrality movement has won important victories both in Congress and among federal regulators.

In March 2008, I reported for Cafe Sentido that “We are on the verge of a major communications and global economic revolution, in which major media, technological advances, cloud computing and dispersed optimization, adapt to and take over new models for living and producing in human society.” But that moment is being met with stepped up efforts by governments and businesses to control the freedom of ordinary people to access and control information.

Such efforts are a direct assault on democratic freedoms, and measurably impede the ability of people to gather information related to risks to their health or safety or to orchestrate the dissemination of information that may favor their social, economic or ideological interests. As the US Bill of Rights‘ commitment to a first-order freedom of the press shows, all other democratic rights are built on the foundation of a free and independent media culture. So access to the web must begin to be treated as a basic measure of human rights everywhere.

Follow these links for more information on:

• Press Freedom & Persecution of Journalists
• Net Neutrality & Internet Freedoms
• Human Rights & Democratic Freedoms

Former president and leading reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami has urged that Iran hold a nationwide referendum to allow voters to judge whether the 12 June election was legitimate or whether the government has sought to stay in power through mass fraud and other illegal means. Several reformist websites have reportedly carried the news, with Khatami saying “Durability of order and continuation of the country’s progress hinge on restoring public trust”.

The announcement comes on the heels of an embarrassing display of brutality by the government, which attacked opposition supporters with tear gas, while Friday prayers were ongoing, and then assaulted one of the opposition candidates, Mehdi Karoubi, when he emerged from Tehran University, where the powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a sermon denouncing the government’s use of violence to intimidate dissenters.

Rafsanjani’s address, Karoubi’s being bloodied by pro-government militia and now Khatami’s call for a referendum, appear to be crystallizing public sentiment against the government and breathing new life into the opposition protest movement. Rafsanjani, himself a leading cleric and former president, said the nation is now in “crisis” and urged all parties to find a way to work together to emerge from the crisis with a legitimate democratic process and without the use of force to resolve political disputes.

He urged the government to release all political detainees. Khatami says the current leadership, which would include the president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, betrayed the principles of the Islamic republic and threatened democracy by backing an election process so marred by fraud and manipulation.

“From the start,” said Khatami, “we said there is a legal way to regain that trust. I openly say now that the solution to get out of the current crisis is holding a referendum”. Iran’s constitution requires that any national referendum be called by the supreme leader himself and monitored by the Guardian Council, a committee of jurists and clerics that normally supports the supreme leader. Since Khamene’i has so visibly chosen sides, Khatami proposes a more independent body, like the Expediency Council.

Last week, opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi sent a letter to Iran’s chief judiciary officer, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, accusing the government of effecting a military coup d’etat in order to stay in power. Karoubi enumerated crimes like raiding homes, destroying property, kidnapping people and murdering young people in the streets. He warned that failure to take some legal action against the leaders of the government could result in further abuses:

Assuming that government officials and perpetrators can silence this wave temporarily thought violence, imprisonment, and coercion, what will they do with the smouldering ashes? What will they do in the face of their lack of domestic and international legitimacy?

Karoubi also accused the regime of mistreating prisoners. He said:

A great number of the detainees are ill and even include pregnant women. A number of them have held posts within the system at various points in recent decades. None have been given the right to legal representation or consultation. The locations where a majority are being held have not been made clear to their families, and even the state of the health of many of them is still shrouded in mystery for their families.

Karoubi also attended a rally last week, in which he is reported to have said the alleged manipulations of the electoral process mean the government is “illegitimate”. He repeated the opposition’s call for the vote to be annulled and a new election held. Whether Khamene’i could be forced by popular support or pressure from influential clerics to call a referendum on the legitimacy of the party he favors is unclear, but Friday’s crackdown is being treated as a sign by many who believe his days as supreme leader may be numbered.

• Iran Government Attacks Civilians During Friday Prayers
• Rafsanjani Decries Iran Crackdown, Urges Release of All Political Prisoners (updated)
• Mousavi, Karoubi to Attend Friday Prayers Led by Rafsanjani
• Iran Security Forces Rush Demonstrators, Who Chant “We are Not Afraid”
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

Pictures and video from Tehran yesterday showed government forces storming into huge crowds of unarmed civilians, many of them gathered to support the opposition leaders who had gone to Tehran University to listen to Ayatollah Rafsanjani, a leading cleric and former president, deliver a sermon at Friday prayers. The security forces rode motorcycles into crowds of demonstrators and used teargas and batons to assault those assembled.

Even as Rafsanjani was denouncing the government for violence against unarmed civilians, recalling how the Prophet Mohammed had “respected the rights” of the people and how revolutionary leader Khomeini had said the legitimacy of the system must be rooted in the consent of the governed, even as he warned that such brutal oppression as followed the disputed election could destabilize and embarrass the Republic, the Ahmedinejad/Khamene’i bloc ordered security forces to gas civilians.

That this reportedly occurred while Friday prayers were ongoing suggests the government will even attack and reject Islam itself in order to enforce the logic of intimidation and of undemocratic expressions of power. Rafsanjani urged that in order to return to a state of consensus and to found the role of government on a sense of legitimacy, all restrictions on the freedom of the press and the freedom of assembly be lifted and all political prisoners be released.

The immediate crackdown appears to be a sign that the power bloc represented by Pres. Ahmedinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i is ever more conscious that its leadership is democratically unsustainable. The crackdown was so extreme and indiscriminate that one of the opposition candidates, Mehdi Karoubi, was reportedly physically assaulted and beaten about the head as he emerged from Friday prayers.

A direct physical assault on one of the leaders of the reformist movement suggests the government has either lost control of its paramilitary militia or has decided to abandon constitutional processes and use violence to dissuade any continued dissent from the opposition. Rafsanjani said the nation is now in “crisis” and criticized the powerful Guardian Council for not adequately investigating evidence of election fraud.

He said the Council “did not use wisely the time the supreme leader gave it to investigate”, suggesting that the processes used by the government to affirm the legitimacy of the disputed vote-count have only further increased the widespread “doubt” across Iran about whether the election was free and fair.

As the New York Times reports:

He said he had discussed a possible solution with members of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts, two powerful state institutions he leads. He said his proposal was based on two principles: that everything must be done within a legal framework; and that there must be a free and open debate.

Rafsanjani did not address the specifics of his proposed solution, but many have speculated the Expediency Council could reverse the findings of the Guardian Council and call for a new process to resolve the election dispute, or that Assembly of Experts might open hearings into the constitutional legitimacy of the supreme leader, given his brazen support for one candidate in a vote-count so fraught with irregularities and alleged fraud.

Khamene’i has been so vehement in his support for Ahmedinejad, calling his re-election a “divine assessment” within minutes of the polls being closed on election night, that he is seen to have lost the air of impartiality that was integral to his having the support of ordinary Iranians. Rafsanjani was critical of the government, but mostly on points of process, and his demand for a process based in law and open debate suggests he seeks to take the high ground of impartiality vacated by the supreme leader.

In what is perhaps the boldest and most high-profile defense of the opposition cause, and language so heavily pro-democracy that it must offend the very logic of the current leadership, Rafsanjani said “Everything in our Islamic republic is based on votes”, adding that “Without the people’s vote, things cannot go on”. He is clearly urging the government to recognize its mistakes in the dispute and join a serious, national process to resolve the facts of the presidential election in a way that is transparent and demonstrable.

• Rafsanjani Decries Iran Crackdown, Urges Release of All Political Prisoners (updated)
• Mousavi, Karoubi to Attend Friday Prayers Led by Rafsanjani
• Iran Security Forces Rush Demonstrators, Who Chant “We are Not Afraid”
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

Wearing green wristbands indicative of support for Mir Hossein Mousavi’s opposition movement, a large but undetermined number of protesters gathered outside Tehran University, after prayers led by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to express their support for the defeated presidential candidate and his charges of election fraud. The Ayandeh news web site estimates that between 1.5 million and 2.5 million people gathered around Tehran University, either to get a glimpse of Friday prayers or show support for the opposition.

Xinhua is reporting that eyewitnesses spoke of police action to disperse the demonstrators. According to one witness, protesters were “chanting slogans and wrangling with supporters of President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad”. There had been fears leading up to Rafsanjani’s appearance at Friday prayers that government backers would clash with opposition supporters or that security forces would seek to make large numbers of arrests.

Reza Taghavi, organizer of the Friday prayers, which are broadcast across the nation on live radio, admonished Rafsanjani to toe the government line in his speech, but said that the cleric had never been instructed what he should say at prayers. The Guardian reports that Taghavi has said Rafsanjani “should give a speech inside the regime’s political frame”, adding that ”The imam of the Friday prayer should be a follower of the supreme leader in his speech”, an apparent reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i's hard-line speech on the election outcome.

Rafsanjani took care to equate the rights of dissenting minorities to the virtues of Islamic society. He decried China’s violent crackdown on the muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang province, to which he received chants of “Down with China!” Iran’s state-run news agency censored reports on the unrest in Xinjiang, calling the Uighurs “hooligans”, and not referring to them as muslims.

The AP reported that during the service itself, opposition and government supporters were chanting competing slogans. Opposition supporters were reportedly wearing green clothing and/or had brought green prayer mats. Hardliners were reportedly overheard chanting, prior to the sermon, “Death to America”, while opposition supporters chanted “Death to Russia”, an echo of Cold War tensions regarding Iran’s leadership and an open criticism of the government’s ties to Moscow.

Rafsanjani cited a story of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, in which Khomeini declared “The legitimacy of the country comes from its people’s consent.” He added to that sentiment the criticism that the government has lost “the people’s trust” and suggested ”We need to have an open society in which people can say what they want to say… We should not imprison people. Let them rejoin their families.”

Those remarks were a direct and undeniable criticism of the government and its security crackdown. He continued to voice the opposition position that there is a connection between mourning the lives of those lost in the violence and the right to free and open dissent against the government, saying: “We need sympathy for the people who are in mourning or have been injured.”

He criticized the government’s wave of arrests, saying such tactics “let our enemies laugh at us”. One source on Twitter, considered “reliable” by international media, said Rafsanjani was visibly upset when addressing the issue of prisoners. Several members of Rafsanjani’s family, including his daughter Faezeh, were detained by security forces in an apparent effort to intimidate even powerful figures supporting the opposition.

Rafsanjani alerted the public to the government’s censorship of leading clerics in the holy city of Qom, some of whom, like Rafsanjani himself, could form a power bloc that would be empowered to remove the supreme leader, if crimes are found to have been committed. According to the Guardian, he was quoted by the website bahmanagha, saying ”Why should we offend our prominent clerics [in Qom].”

The powerful cleric said the post-election dispute had “created bitter conditions” between political groups in Iran, and urged unity, tolerance and dialogue. According to the LA Times’ reporting, Rafsanjani told worshippers gathered for Friday prayers:

“We could have taken our best step in the history of the Islamic revolution had the election not faced problems … We are in doubt today. Today, we are living bitter conditions due to what happened after the announcement of the election result. All of us have suffered. We need unity more than anytime else.”

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters massed for the prayer service, seeking to show persistent strong support for opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the charges that the 12 June election was in fact hijacked. Mousavi was in attendance, as was Mehdi Karoubi, another of the opposition candidates in the disputed vote. Karoubi himself was reportedly attacked in a security crackdown that followed the sermon.

As reported by Bloomberg:

Videos posted on Facebook showed crowds gathered around Tehran University, chanting “Coup d’etat government: Resign!” “Political prisoners should be freed,” and “Death to a people-deceiving government.” At least 15 Mousavi supporters were arrested, Istanbul-based NTV news channel reported.

Mehdi Karrubi, a former Parliamentary Speaker and a defeated candidate in the June 12 ballot, was attacked by plain- clothed forces on his way to Friday prayers, his party said on its Web site. Karrubi didn’t require hospital treatment after the incident and later returned home.

Shadi Sadr, a prominent women’s rights activist, was reportedly abducted by unidentified men aligned with security forces, on her way to attend Friday prayers. The BBC’s Farsi-language service reported that Sadr had been detained while walking along a busy street, when a group of plainclothes men leapt from a car and grabbed her.

Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program director, Malcom Smart, issued a press statement via email condemning the arrest: “This was an illegal, arbitrary and violent arrest in which no attempt was made by the authorities to show identification or provide any explanation for their action”.

UPDATE, 18:47 GMT: There are reports the security crackdown in which government forces sought to disperse pro-opposition demonstrators outside Ayatollah Rafsanjani’s Friday prayers included the firing of tear gas at opposition supporters, while prayers were ongoing. According to the Associated Press:

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 charged 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.

Rafsanjani is reported to have used careful phrasing so as not to be seen as sowing unrest. He said government actions had led to widespread “doubt” about the integrity of the election process and that action should be taken to arrive at a legitimate determination of the final vote count. While worshippers chanted “azadi, azadi” (freedom, freedom), Rafsanjani is said to have had tears in his eyes as he said the Prophet Mohammed had “respected the rights” of the people that followed him.

• Mousavi, Karoubi to Attend Friday Prayers Led by Rafsanjani
• Iran Security Forces Rush Demonstrators, Who Chant “We are Not Afraid”
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

Opposition presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi will reportedly attend Friday prayers in Tehran, to be led by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, their most powerful supporter in the clerical establishment, seen as a chief rival to Pres. Ahmedinejad and Ayatollah Khamene’i. The event will be the opposition leaders’ first public appearance since the disputed presidential election of 12 June.

Former president Mohammad Khatami is also expected to attend, showing support for the mounting opposition to Ahmedinejad’s re-election. Ayatollah Rafsanjani, himself a former president who presides over the Assembly of Experts, which determines the status of the supreme leader, has not delivered Friday prayers since the election, and is making his most high-profile appearance since the anti-government demonstrations began.

Rafsanjani will be leading Friday prayers at Tehran University, a sermon broadcast live on national radio, which may afford the most serious opportunity to influence national opinion regarding the election since the day of the vote. The AP reports that “hard-liners probably will attend, raising the prospect of a highly public confrontation during the prayers”, but other observers have suggested a confrontation is unlikely.

Mousavi’s page on Facebook quotes the Daily Beast, which reports “Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the second most powerful man in Iran, is delivering the Friday Sermon in Tehran. Will it be the end of the protests, or a new challenge to the regime?” It is clear the government would prefer the opposition not have so powerful a platform, but many believe Rafsanjani’s influence makes it difficult to oppose the event being organized.

Opposition supporters are reportedly planning a rally afterward, to support the candidacy of Mir Hossein Mousavi and decry alleged fraud during the election. Supporters were urged by Mousavi’s Facebook page to attend in large numbers, though his official Iranian page did not carry such an invitation. There are concerns security forces and/or Ahmedinejad supporters could again attack demonstrators gathering after the prayers, even if the prayers themselves occur without incident.

At least 20 people are believed to have been killed in security forces’ actions against opposition demonstrators, during the June rallies. The death of 19-year old Sohrab Arabi, missing since 15 June, has only now been confirmed to have been at the hands of security forces, who allegedly shot him in the chest.

Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the Iranian army, has blamed demonstrators, calling them “rioters” and accusing them of firing into crowds to produce “fake dead” whom they could use to smear the authorities with murdering civilians. The opposition has sought to link the moral underpinnings of their pro-democracy cause to the moral tragedy of the deaths of innocents like Sohrab Arabi and Neda Soltan.

• Iran Security Forces Rush Demonstrators, Who Chant “We are Not Afraid”
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

As part of its deal to transition major security operations in Iraq to the Iraqi military and civil authorities, the United States has released 5 Iranian officials it had been holding on charges of engaging in covert operations inside Iraq. The officials —whom Iran calls diplomats— were released into the custody of Iraqi authorities, were met personally by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and were officially freed by Iraq.

The move comes amid mounting concerns over a “covert war” between the US and Iran on what CNN calls “battlefield Iraq”. With both the US accusing Iran of covert operations in Iraq and Iran accusing the US of covert operations against Iranian interests in both Iraq and Iran, concerns over the regional meaning of the Iraq conflict are shifting to the political climate in Tehran and the risk of nuclear proliferation.

Iranian authorities have accused the US of fomenting resistance to government authority in Iran, while the US accuses Iran of interfering in Iraq, seeking to destabilize the conflict-ridden multi-ethnic nation, in order to expand its sphere of influence. With no evidence against the 5 detained Iranians ever made public, the prolonged detentions were a source of severe diplomatic tension between the two rivals for regional influence.

Pres. Obama had promised a new era of engagement with Tehran, and some see the linking of the diplomats’ release to the handover of security powers to Iraqi authorities as a way of keeping the detention itself and/or release from dominating discussions about difference in US and Iranian policy. Iran had released Iranian-American reporter Roxana Saberi, after a sustained global campaign of pressure for her release, and Many had compared the two cases as symptomatic of the rift and the suspicion between Washington and Tehran.

As the LA Times reported, “Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he had met with the Iranians and described them as ‘happy and safe.’” Zebari also said that no deal had been made in order to secure their release. All detainees in Iraq are to be turned over to Iraqi authorities by the end of the year. In Zebari’s words: “This has been there for some time that this would happen. It was part of the agreement for the Americans, part of withdrawing and handing over security responsibilities”.

The release has not, however, enabled a much friendlier atmosphere. Just a couple of days after the Iranian detainees were released by the US, there is news that Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar, has been detained by Iranian authorities for the second time in two years. Tajbakhsh has been accused in the past of fomenting unrest in Iran. Authorities appear to have detained him as part of an effort to crack down on dissent across the nation.

Post election demonstrations in Iran are getting more confrontational, as smaller numbers of angrier demonstrators continue to suffer physical assaults at the hands of militia and security forces. With conservative clerics stepping up their questioning of the legitimacy of both Pres. Ahmedinejad’s re-election and the continued rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, demonstrators have reportedly been heard chanting “Death to Khamene’i” for the first time.

It remains unclear from translations in foreign media whether the demonstrators have been chanting “Down with Khamene’i” or “Death to Khamene’i”. Another new chant that has been widely reported is “We are not afraid”, sometimes coupled with “We are all together”. The demonstrators confronting security forces in recent days are being described as a “hard core”, but it is also unclear what degree of organization there is in the most recent rallies. Opposition leaders remain defiant, but have urged demonstrators not to risk personal harm.

Increasingly, observers note the atmosphere of real fear among Iran’s rulers that their power is in jeopardy. The Star Ledger reports:

The consensus they fashioned around a religion-republican form of government is cracking under the pressure of what has become theocratic tyranny.

The re-election of Ahmadinejad was fatally tainted; results were broadcast even while ballots were still being cast. And the claimed two-to-one victory margin for Ahmadinejad seems especially incredible considering the massive pre-vote street support for Mousavi.

The election was used as a legitimizing device, not as a measure of the people’s will, and it was done in so panicked a way as to be obviously manipulated to any who observed the actions of top officials, like the supreme leader himself. What followed was a sublime awakening in which Iranians, in the millions, demanded respect for the republican underpinnings of their revolutionary constitution.

For decades, the tension between republicanism and theocracy has been a constant source of division among top officials. In the late 1980s, those around the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini warned him not to diverge from republicanism, lest his government come to be seen as illegitimate, due to tyrannical practices. Some believe Khamene’i —the current supreme leader— was among those who viewed those moderating voices as a threat to the revolutionary system, and that with his rise in 1989, a long struggle for the soul of the Islamic Republic began, with opposing forces pitted against each other in the current turmoil.

Salon.com has reported that the first page of school history books quotes Khomeini: “Omid e man ba shoma javanha hast”, meaning “My hope is with you, the youth”. In fact, the youth are now seen as being at the root of the opposition movement, forming a kind of wall of conscience against the abuses of the powerful. The Salon author, who conceals his last name for security reasons, writes:

That the vote was against Ahmadinejad there can be no doubt. Consider this: Over the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, some 30 percent of the population has never voted. These are the true disbelievers, citizens who take pride in having a blank shenasname, or identity booklet. They are the friends and family members who take every opportunity to remind the rest of us, at the dinner table, caught in traffic, sitting in the park, that voting is a mistake, that you ought not participate in a system that is at its core rotten.

The question of whether a vote against the ruling clerical establishment could be of any use has morphed into a demand that all votes be counted. Millions of new voters turned up to reject the questionable policies of the hardline president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and demand moderating, modernizing reforms. Iran’s system is in practice authoritarian, but rooted in the idea of national historical greatness in which the Persian dream is not to be denied.

There is, in this ancient idea of Persian greatness, a strikingly similar root of righteous individualism to what motivates American civic and political defiance. The people are more concerned now with their right to speak truth to power and to govern through the government, not to be commanded by tyrants.

That popular ideal has bled away from Ahmedinejad’s authoritarian populism to the growing opposition movement, which has brought major clerical figures like former president and Khamene’i rival Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to its cause. There are persistent rumors of a behind-the-scenes effort to build consensus among the Assembly of Experts to possibly sanction or recall Khamene’i.

The New York Times blog, The Lede, has posted multiple videos and the accounts of an eye-witness, who writes:

I was immersed in a crowd of around 300-400 people who had obviously intended to head to Enghelab and were turned around – I am unsure if they came from Vali Asr square (one of the original meet points according to the vague and scatted “calls to action”). They were shouting, mostly “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein” and “We are all in this together.” This was after 5 pm. From the South (Enghelab St.) the police came north, buttressed with a phalanx of black clad riot police with rubber batons. I saw them swing at many individuals to move them along.

The witness goes on to write “I then realized the bad medicine was coming our way. I stepped out for a preemptive move and it looked like whack-a-mole. Every 5 yards some riot cop was swinging like it was T-ball tryouts.” Though signs of non-violence and peaceful protest were offered, the eye-witness account suggests security forces simply assaulted the demonstrators indiscriminately.

The Basij militia are reported to be directly involved in the physical attacks on opposition demonstrators, and the Guardian’s Julian Borger has reported that Ayatollah Khamene’i's son Mojtaba is now in direct control of the Basij. That news signals for many Khamene’i's abandoning of the republican principles of the Iranian constitution, wherein even the supreme leader is equal before the law, a possible attempt to establish a family-run circle of power at the top of the Iranian security forces.

• Iran Regime Accuses Soros, Cheney, Bilderberg of Conspiracy to Subvert System
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

Thousands of opposition demonstrators gathered today in Tehran to mark the 10th anniversary of student pro-democracy demonstrations. Anecdotal reports cited widespread chants of “God is great”, “Death to the dictator” and “Down with Khamene’i”, a sign that the supreme leader has been stained by his actions in the disputed election. Security forces fired tear gas at demonstrators who joined the march to Tehran University.

After weeks of decreased visibility of strong opposition demonstrations, today’s rally appeared more heated and more determined. Demonstrators were reported to have called on the government to step down, accusing them of effecting a coup by rigging the vote last month. Defiance appears to have re-emerged, and supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have reportedly called for new demonstrations around Tehran and in other cities.

There are fears of more violence against unarmed civilians, as the governor of Tehran has said any new opposition protests will be crushed, implying the use of military force. Morteza Tamaddon has said security forces will “smash” any renewed anti-government demonstrations, and accused pro-democracy groups complaining of electoral fraud of being part of a foreign plot in league with “notorious” counter-revolutionaries.

In fact, force was used today to put down the most serious new round of demonstrations seen in 11 days, since the crackdown turned bloody. According to the New York Times:

As tear gas canisters cracked and hissed in the middle of crowds, and baton-wielding police officers chased up and down sidewalks, young people, some bloodied, ran for cover, and there was an almost festive feeling on the streets of Tehran, witnesses reported.

A young woman, her clothing covered in blood, ran up Kagar Street, paused for a minute and said, “I am not scared because we are in this together.”

Tensions between Tehran and Paris are escalating, as Paris demands the release of Clotilde Reiss, a 23-year-old teaching assistant, detained by Iranian authorities and accused of espionage. The French president and foreign minister have demanded her release, in no uncertain terms, and the French ambassador to Tehran was permitted to visit Ms. Reiss at the Evin prison, where she’s being held.

The case is reminiscent of the detention of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was detained on charges of possession of wine, then accused of reporting without a license and finally tried and convicted in secret on charges of espionage. She was held at the same prison where Ms. Reiss is now being held. US officials, including Pres. Obama and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, demanded her release; Swiss embassy officials sought to mediate.

Ms. Saberi was eventually released, after Pres. Ahmedinejad ordered the court to review the process by which Saberi was tried and to hear her full defense argument. Some have alleged that Saberi’s detention and the detention of Ms. Reiss have been part of a deliberate strategy to shift blame for the opposition to the government to an alleged foreign plot.

There are fears authorities may be planning not only more rounds of mass detention, but the disappearance and/or execution of opposition figures. Numerous backers of the Ahmedinejad-Khamene’i camp have accused opposition leaders of crimes against the state for openly criticizing the official results of the election, and Iran is said to execute more prisoners than any nation other than China, which has a population 18 times greater than Iran’s.

The burning of trash cans and other strategies used by demonstrators today in Tehran showed an attempt to prevent security forces from getting close enough to use force. But security forces were quick to intervene and moved aggressively to disperse demonstrators before anything resembling flaming barricades could be erected. There were reports of shots fired, but some reporters said the sounds could also be the report of teargas canisters being fired.

• Iran Regime Accuses Soros, Cheney, Bilderberg of Conspiracy to Subvert System
• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

In an ongoing quest to sideline or incarcerate opposition figures, the leadership of Iran’s government continues to defend the disputed official results of the 12 June election and is now blaming Hungarian-American financier and open society activist George Soros, Liz Cheney —the daughter of the former US vice president— and the secretive Bilderberg group of a conspiracy to overthrow the Iranian government by backing opposition protests.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i has now reportedly put his own son in charge of the paramilitary militia being used to attack, intimidate and round up, those who would participate in opposition rallies. Reports suggest that conservative clerics are increasingly concerned about what appears to be an escalating grab for power by Khamene’i and those close to him.

Mojtaba Khamene’i's role in the crackdown is said to be sowing concern and anger among even conservative clerics, who see the supreme leader’s behavior as deligitimizing clerical rule. Some Revolutionary Guard generals and conservative politicians have also begun to join the dissident clerics in questioning the legitimacy of the methods being used to decide the election and establish the next government.

An unnamed source told the Guardian newspaper that this growing alliance of clerics, conservative politicians and security officials, may not openly challenge the legal legitimacy of Khamene’i or Ahmedinejad, but may be working to formulate a cohesive strategy for making it difficult for either of the two men to exercise real authority through the government.

As the AP reports:

Khamenei’s political strategy since taking his position in 1989 has been to maintain a consensus among competing factions. But now to preserve power he may have to rely on a far narrower base of hard-line ayatollahs — and more than ever before on the security services, particularly the Revolutionary Guards, the elite protectors of the system.

A major question looking ahead will be whether discontented clerics will aggressively push their criticisms behind the scenes, and whether their followers who look to them for spiritual guidance will rally behind the reformist political opposition.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate with the most votes, and who claims he won the disputed election, has pledged to continue his resistance to the incoming Ahmedinejad government. He calls on supporters to stage peaceful protests and to use non-violence. And there are signs that top clerics are not willing to support either the supreme leader or Pres. Ahmedinejad, given the deep divisions across the nation.

The AP also reports that only one of nine Iranian clerics holding the highest possible rank —”marja’ taqlid,” meaning “model for imitation”— has congratulated Pres. Ahmedinejad for his return to power. Three of the nine have spoken out openly against the election results and the brutal security crackdown.

Grand Ayatollah Youssef Saanei, one of the nine marja’ taqlid, said on Friday that “due to the lack of public support, the government may face legal and civil problems and a lack of competency”. Other clerics have also begun directly questioning the legitimacy of the Khamene’i-Ahmedinejad power bloc: Ayatollah Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, one of the leaders of the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom, said “The least we can say is that this government’s legitimacy is in doubt. A majority of the people don’t believe that Ahmadinejad was their vote”.

Pres. Ahmedinejad has said on national television that he plans to implement broad changes to the system of government and to the policy goals his administration will pursue. Ahmedinejad praised the election as the “cleanest” in Iran’s history and said he would establish an entirely new team for his second term, oriented toward addressing the concerns of young people, many of whom have been openly hostile to Ahmedinejad throughout the campaign.

• Iran Association of Researchers & Teachers of Qom Declares Vote-count Illegitimate
• Iran’s President Ahmedinejad Orders Probe into Shooting Death of Neda Soltan
• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election

Pres. Obama has arrived in Moscow to negotiate with Russian leaders a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (StART). He faces a complex process of navigating the politics of a nuclear superpower with two leaders. Some expect Obama to work with Pres. Medvedev, keeping PM Vladimir Putin more to the sidelines, or to proffer an arms control center-ground, rooted in pragmatism, which neither of Russia’s political leaders could walk away from.

The New York Times notes Pres. Obama’s optimism about the possibilities of negotiations rooted in the ideas discussed in US-Russia talks in London earlier this year:

“We are confident that we can continue to build off the extraordinary discussions that we had in London,” Mr. Obama said, “and that on a whole host of issues — including security issues, economic issues, energy issues, environmental issues — that the United States and Russia have more in common than they have differences, and that if we work hard during these next few days, that we can make extraordinary progress that will benefit the people of both countries.”

The Obama administration has been working from the president’s swearing in to maneuver diplomatically toward a “reset” in relations between the two Cold War superpowers. Relations had soured severely in recent years over hardline policies adopted by then president Vladimir Putin (now prime minister). The last two years of the Bush administration’s dealings with Pres. Putin spurred talks of a “new Cold War”.

In a joint press conference and signing ceremony today in Moscow, the US and Russia agreed to reduce their respective stockpiles of active nuclear weapons from over 2,000 each to 1,500 each. Pres. Medvedev was gracious in his appraisal of the budding working relationship with the new administration of Pres. Obama and spoke of a range of “mutual interests”, including energy policy and diplomatic tensions in the middle east.

Pres. Medvedev said that negotiations relating to not only nuclear warheads, but also on the specific number of “carriers of strategic arms” each nation can maintain. He also said there are discussions ongoing, relating to the Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, and announced a “joint presidential commission” to work on formulating the most favorable conditions for arms reduction and mutual cooperation between the United States and the Russian Federation.

Pres. Medvedev concluded his remarks, saying “our country would like to reach such a level of cooperation with the United States that would be worthy of the 21st century, which would guarantee international peace”. Pres. Obama thanked him and called the meeting “very productive”, reiterating that the two men agree that US-Russia relations should be “reset” to “cooperate more effectively”.

Pres. Obama announced that a joint-statement signed by both presidents would build on the existing StART agreement and would reduce both nations’ nuclear stockpiles by up to 1/3 by the end of this year. He noted Pres. Medvedev’s support for US efforts at the United Nations Security Council to oppose North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, and said the two presidents had signed an agreement of understanding on opposition the weaponization of Iran’s nuclear research program.

Perhaps among the most significant developments announced, Pres. Obama said the two had signed an agreement permitting the transit of military equipment through Russian territory to Afghanistan, allowing for better supply to coalition forces there and saving money and time for the US security and humanitarian operations in the region.

Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Min. Sergey Lavrov will collaborate in the implementation of broad cooperation agreements relating to global security and preventing the spread of pandemics, like the influenza A/H1N1 virus. He also said that “Pres. Medvedev and I are committed to leaving behind the suspicion and rivalry of the past”, and that they had discussed the US president’s wishes that the territorial integrity of Georgia be respected.

The first question, from the AP, to Pres. Obama was “who do you think is in charge”, referring to the powerful PM Putin and Pres. Medvedev, Obama’s counterpart in the Russian government. Pres. Obama did not mention PM Putin initially, but said that he had confidence in Pres. Medvedev, whom he judged an effective leader and committed negotiating partner, to follow through on the pledges made in bilateral negotiations.

He said he would meet Mr. Putin for the first time the following morning, and that his understanding was that the prime minister and the president divide power according to the Russian system of government. He reiterated his belief that Pres. Medvedev is his direct counterpart and an effective negotiating partner, adding that he believes the president and prime minister are committed to working effectively together.

Pres. Medvedev was asked, by the same AP reporter, what Pres. Obama can do to sow good will among the broader Russian public, which may harbor some suspicions. Pres. Medvedev said he believed an effective personal relationship for cooperation, between the two presidents, can do a lot to show that the two powers can work together. He spoke of building good will and “empathy” and said the United States and Russia joined together in WWII “to save the world”.

The first Russian question to both men was about nuclear weapons, specifically, noting that the US and Russia account for 95% of all nuclear weapons in existence. Pres. Medvedev said he agreed with the questioner’s assertion that “there are negative trends in the world” and that the two great nuclear powers, beyond securing and reducing their own arsenals, must work together to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons elsewhere, citing the middle east and the Korean peninsula specifically.

Another question challenged both men to deal with the complex issue of the linkage of missile defense and nuclear non-proliferation. The US favors delinking the two issues, while Russia has said the two are inextricably linked. Pres. Obama said that defensive ballistic missile capabilities are part of any discussion of offensive nuclear weapons talks, but reiterated that US plans for missile defenses in Europe would be oriented toward Iran and toward a “stray missile … from a third source”, and would not be sufficient for opposing a massive arsenal like Russia’s.

Obama predicted that the US and Russian positions on missile defense “can be reconciled” and that both sides will see a mutual benefit to developing adequate protections for “both our populations” from ballistic missile strikes from a hypothetical “third source”.

Pres. Medvedev suggested that Pres. Obama’s understanding of how missile defense plays a role in Russia’s concerns regarding overall nuclear weapons negotiations is a sign of real progress. Medevedev went on to speak of a “global anti-ballistic missile defense” capability, the details of which are not yet known.

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• Against the Good Nukes / Bad Nukes Fallacy, or: David Frum’s Prophecy Problem
• Eliminating All Nuclear Weapons More Realistic than Selective Non-proliferation
• Bush-era Policies Have Put Nuclear Weapons within Reach of Taliban
• ‘6 Powers’ (including US) invite Tehran to Denuclearization Talks
• Obama Calls for Coordinated Global Effort to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons
• Obama Prague Speech on Global Denuclearization (video + transcript)
• US, Russia to Discuss Improving Ties in Geneva Meeting