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December 28, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.
December 27, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.
December 24, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: No Comment Yet
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.
December 6, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: No Comment Yet
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.
November 21, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.”
November 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
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.
November 11, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: No Comment Yet
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.
October 19, 2009 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
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 [...]
October 16, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.
September 27, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.
September 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
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.
August 30, 2009 :: staff :: 3 Comments
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 [...]
August 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
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.
August 17, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
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.
August 2, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
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.
July 30, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
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.
July 25, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.
July 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
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.
July 20, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
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”.
July 18, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
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.
July 17, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
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.
July 17, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
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.
July 11, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: No Comment Yet
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.
July 10, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
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.
July 10, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
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.
July 8, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: One Comment
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.
July 6, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
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.
July 5, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
A group that is thought to be the most important and influential body of clerics in Iran, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom, has reportedly declared the disputed presidential election of 12 June “illegitimate”. The declaration, made by a body of top theologians, based in the holy city of Qom, confirms a deep and possibly irreconcilable split in Iran’s clerical establishment.
July 5, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Barack Obama has been observing, researching and critiquing nuclear weapons policy for three decades. He seeks to put in motion the most ambitious global denuclearization effort ever conceived, grounding his approach in a hard pragmatist awareness of what drives the build-up of ever more destructive weapons arsenals. He has said throughout this year that his plans would never remove the US nuclear deterrent capability while any nuclear threat remains in the world. Now, he goes to Russia to seek a bilateral strategic arms reduction treaty.
July 3, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran’s Guardian Council, has told a gathering at Friday prayers that Iran will prosecute British embassy staff accused of fomenting violence against the government. The UK has roundly rejected the allegations, and EU ministers are considering measures to be taken to pressure the Iranian government to release the detained UK [...]
July 1, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The government-linked Basij militia has called for the prosecution of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, alleging that he is responsible for inciting violence in the streets that resulted from clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Mousavi has repeatedly urged his supporters to behave within the law and to practice non-violence; the violence seen since the 12 June election appears to have been consistently the result of security forces attacking unarmed civilians, some demonstrators, some not.
June 29, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: One Comment
Citing foreign “propaganda”, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has formally requested in a letter to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, head of Iran’s judiciary, that an investigation be launched into the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Neda Agha Soltan. Soltan was shot in the chest and died within minutes, while protesting election results that show Ahmedinejad won re-election.
June 28, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
I’d like to thank you again for your peaceful objections which have received widespread coverage across the world, and would like to ask you that by using all legal channels, and by remaining faithful to the sacred system of the Islamic Republic, to make sure that your objections are heard by the authorities in the country. I am fully aware that your justified demands have nothing to do with groups who do not believe in the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. It is up to you to distance yourself from them, and do not allow them to misuse the current situation.
June 28, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
Iranian authorities have reportedly shut down Kalemeh, the official website of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Kalemeh was considered to be Mousavi’s only remaining independent means of communicating directly with supporters or with the world beyond Iran’s borders. The development is an escalation of the government’s efforts to disrupt opposition channels of communication and organizing capacity.
June 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Iranian authorities have reportedly detained at least 8 employees of the British embassy in Tehran, saying they had been “playing major parts” in stirring up anti-Ahmedinejad sentiments. The government of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has taken an extreme hard line on the issue of dissent over the election, accusing unarmed demonstrators of “terrorism” and calling the US president Barack Obama’s criticism of the shooting of demonstrators “unconventional, abnormal and discourteous”.
June 26, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
The Guardian newspaper is reporting that sources inside Iran say there appears to be an ongoing attempt by the government to use torture and street violence to induce detained reformists to give false confessions of conspiracy in a “foreign plot” to overthrow the regime. The aim appears to be to produce videotaped “confessions” that would be broadcast on state TV accusing opposition candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi of complicity in a foreign plot to take over the Iranian government.
June 26, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: 5 Comments
Dr. Arash Hejazi is one of the bystanders who attended to Neda Agha Soltan when she was shot and killed at a demonstration in Tehran. Hejazi lives and works in England, and he was in Iran visiting. He told the BBC, after returning to Britain, of how the shocking events of that day transpired, and says bystanders seized an armed Basij militiaman who admitted he had shot Soltan.
June 25, 2009 :: staff :: 3 Comments
There is increasing evidence of a brutal campaign of violence and suppression being waged against the opposition and against demonstrators calling for a full accounting of the votes cast on 12 June. Ahmedinejad’s chief rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading reformist candidate, has said “I will not leave the scene in response to the deception, the essence of which has become clear to the people”.
June 25, 2009 :: staff :: 5 Comments
First, I’d like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.
June 25, 2009 :: staff :: 7 Comments
Reports from Wednesday protests in Tehran include harrowing though unconfirmed accounts of axe-wielding thugs, brutal assaults against civilians and mass detentions. Baharestan Square was reportedly the scene of a messy attempt to stage a pro-opposition rally, but accounts of what took place are hard to verify. At least one victim’s family may have been taken into custody and bans on public mourning have been reported.
June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 6 Comments
After a few days of relative calm, opposition demonstrators again sought to organize a rally to demand a full accounting of all ballots cast in the 12 June presidential election. Sporadic reports from the capital, Tehran, say demonstrators were confronted by a heavy security presence when trying to assemble for a pro-democracy rally. An eyewitness has reportedly said security forces were beating people like “animals”.
June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 10 Comments
I’d like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.
June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 5 Comments
The Guardian Council, which conceded on Monday that at least 50 cities saw counts that exceeded the eligible number of voters, has reportedly rejected the idea of re-running the election, due to the disputed validity of the official count. Despite an admission that would seem to suggest massive, nationwide, organized fraud, the Guardian Council, through a spokesman, said there was “no major fraud or breach in the election”.
June 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 8 Comments
As Iran’s presidential election has morphed into a massive international spectacle, with opposition protesters demanding justice and a full accounting of how votes were tallied, the regime has used every technological advantage at its disposal to obstruct online communications and mobile phone traffic. The government now has a wealth of powerful technologies, from western firms, it can use to spy, block communications, and even alter messages before they are delivered.
June 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 11 Comments
Iran’s Guardian Council announced today for the first time that it has found irregularities after reviewing some of the ballots cast in the disputed presidential election. According to state media, the Guardian Council has found that in at least 50 cities across Iran, the number of votes counted exceeded the total number of eligible voters. The Council also has said it would recount all ballots for the effected districts, if the candidates request it.
June 22, 2009 :: staff :: 11 Comments
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
June 21, 2009 :: staff :: 7 Comments
Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, has criticized the Guardian Council, alleging that some of the 12 clerics have taken sided with an apparent effort to falsify election results in favor of incumbent pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Larijani said “a majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election results are different than what was officially announced”.
June 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
As concerned people inside and outside Iran try to get a grip on what is taking place in the anti-government demonstrations, pro-democracy rallies and security crackdown, following the presidential vote of 12 June 2009, social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have been useful to those trying to get word out about abuses and harsh security measures; the use of proxy servers has allowed journalists, activists and concerned citizens, to circumvent controls on media freedom.
June 21, 2009 :: staff :: 16 Comments
Today Iranian state television published comments by the government blaming “terrorists” for yesterday’s clashes. With video and numerous eyewitness accounts indicating that government-backed militia attacked unarmed civilians, raided homes and fired live rounds and tear gas at unarmed demonstrators, the use of the word “terrorists” suggests the regime is now classifying all opposition supporters in this way.
June 20, 2009 :: staff :: 12 Comments
This article is an update to an earlier report on shots fired at pro-opposition demonstrators in Iran. Throughout the day on Saturday and late into the night, the internet was buzzing with rumor and conjecture, anecdotal reports and amateur video footage showing evidence of security forces attacking, beating and even shooting unarmed civilians. The following video shows police attacking students and opposition supporters at Shiraz University, on Saturday…
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