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.

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 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.

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

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

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 embassy staff. Britain’s foreign office said it is “very concerned” about Jannati’s statement suggesting prosecution of the local staff.

The UK has denied that there was any effort by embassy staff to participate in, coordinate or foment unrest at mass opposition demonstrations last month, but has also said it never imposed a policy barring local staff from attending political rallies in their own time. Jannati reportedly told worshipers, “In these developments their embassy here maintained a presence … Individuals were arrested and inevitably they will be tried as they have (made) confessions”.

The issue of confessions is already a contentious one, as numerous Iranians detained by security forces have said there is an orchestrated and persistent effort ongoing to force detainees to make false confessions, especially regarding the regime’s claims that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is spearheading a foreign-backed effort to destabilize the country and overthrow the constitutional system of the Islamic Republic.

Jannati himself made reference to the allegations that the opposition movement critical of election fraud is really a veiled foreign coup attempt, declaring: “The enemy made an effort to poison the people”. His remarks suggest the Guardian Council has now firmly declared its alignment with the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and Pres. Ahmedinejad. Since election night, when Khamene’i declared Ahmedinejad’s contested official victory a “divine assessment”, the Basij militia have publicly declared their siding with Ahmedinejad, and now the head of the Guardian Council has done the same.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Assembly of Experts, the clerics who select —and can remove— the supreme leader, has publicly declared his view that the election results are fraudulent and has backed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Rafsanjani’s family have been detained and questioned, and Mousavi is thought to be under constant, or shifting, house arrest. Former president Mohammad Khatami has also decried the handling of the election and the subsequent brutal crackdown on dissenters.

Anne-Marie Obajtek-Kirkwood, of Drexel University, has said “Irregularities took many forms: voting ballots came in late, mobile voting boxes took fishy itineraries, the number of mobile voting boxes increased to 14,307, ten times more than in 2005″. She added that “The participation rate was 100 percent in 30 Iranian cities, a city like Taft had a rate of 141 percent, Kouhrang 132 percent and Chadegan in the province of Ispahan 120 percent”.

Human rights and election monitoring groups in the west have continually stressed that the US should not get politically involved in the sorting out of Iran’s electoral dispute, but that violations of human rights, like mass arrests and brutality against and even the killing of demonstrators must be condemned. Iran’s conservative clerics have been pushing for a united front against any claims of electoral wrongdoing, using detention and disruption to prevent demonstrations and crush support for the opposition.

Threats of prosecution, claims of confessions to crimes of subversion and the call from the Basij militia to prosecute Mousavi for crimes against the state, appear to be part of a concerted effort to threaten opposition figures with possible capital punishment, in hopes of causing them to give up their push for a new round of elections.

• Iran Election Crisis Intensifies: Basij Call for Mousavi Prosecution
• 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’
• Doctor Who Tended to Neda Soltan Tells BBC What He Observed
• Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked
• Full Obama Press Conference on Iran, Economic Recovery, Healthcare (video + transcript)
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

Citing his goal to undermine 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.

According to the OpenSalon bloggers’ network:

Ahmadinejad’s letter to the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, describes Neda’s untimely death as ‘heartbreaking.’ “Considering the extensive machination over the heartbreaking incident and the massive propaganda by the foreign media,” he states in the letter, “. . .the involvement of the Iranian nation’s opponents and enemies seems certain in order to politically misuse it and mar the pure image of Islamic republic.”

World leaders, rights activists and opposition supporters have been pressing for an investigation into Soltan’s death. But some fear an investigation requested by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, against whom Soltan was demonstrating and whose militia forces are alleged to have shot her, may not be anything more than a flagrant attempt to whitewash the incident and the details surrounding how it unfolded.

Opponents of Ahmedinejad have suggested an array of independent investigations may be needed in order to work out the current political crisis. Panels could be formed that would include respected figures from the government and from the opposition parties, as well as an ideologically diverse array of clerics and jurists, to examine the shooting of unarmed demonstrators like Neda Soltan, the mass detentions of political activists, reported militia break-ins at private homes and university dormitories, and the allegations surrounding possible wrondoing in the overseeing of the election of 12 June.

Pressure from pro-democracy demonstrators and from the international community appears to have succeeded in leading the Guardian Council to offer a recount of 10% of all the ballots cast. Mr. Ahmedinejad called for an official review of the sentence of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi earlier this year, which was reduced, leading to her release.

The Guardian Council’s initial examination of ballots found apparent widespread fraud in 50 districts, where the votes counted outnumbered voters. But the leadership council said it believed the results did not show fraud on a scale wide enough to call into question Ahmedinejad’s victory. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi maintains the election was stolen and the official count must be thrown out.

To date, evidence suggests a probe initiated by the conservatives aligned with Pres. Ahmedinejad, or by request of Mr. Ahmedinejad himself, will not be broad enough or open enough to include the possibility that government agents were involved, either in the election fraud or the shooting of unarmed demonstrators.

Onlookers say the shooter was wrestled down from a motorcycle by the surrounding crowd and that he shouted he had not intended to kill her. The doctor attending to Soltan on the site of her shooting, himself a random bystander, told the BBC members of the public had taken the alleged shooter’s wallet and that his ID card identified him as a member of the Basij militia. He was apparently let go, due to people’s fear of the militia and military police in the area.

UPDATE, 23:15 GMT: The Guardian Council has found that the official results of the 12 June election are “valid” and will stand. The Huffington Post is reporting:

Iran’s election oversight body on Monday declared the hotly disputed presidential vote to be valid after a partial recount, rejecting opposition allegations of fraud and further silencing calls for a new vote.

State television reported that the Guardian Council presented the conclusion in a letter to the Interior Minister following a recount of a what was described as a randomly selected 10 percent of the almost 40 million ballots cast June 12.

The “meticulous and comprehensive examination” revealed only “slight irregularities that are common to any election and needless of attention,” Guardian Council head Ahmed Jannati said in a letter, according to the state TV channel IRIB.

Observers, including US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, have questioned the efficacy of the Guardian Council’s partial recount. The supreme leader and the Guardian Council had both previously announced their initial and renewed support for the official count and for the victory of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. With British embassy employees still in detention and hundreds of opposition supporters detained and/or unaccounted for, efforts to prevent the opposition from having a voice are clear and persistent.

More reporting on Iran’s election crisis, from Café Sentido:

• 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’
• Doctor Who Tended to Neda Soltan Tells BBC What He Observed
• Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked
• Full Obama Press Conference on Iran, Economic Recovery, Healthcare (video + transcript)
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

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.

Mousavi has released an official statement to Iranians living abroad, expressing gratitude for their support and pledging to continue seeking all legal remedies available to challenge the official results of the presidential election, which he maintains was stolen. In that statement, Mousavi noted the weight of the expatriate voting community’s role in the balloting:

Your widespread welcoming of these elections and your green and energetic presence at the ballot boxes was so large that it even forced the government and the organizers of the elections to admit to a 300% increase in the participation of Iranians in the tenth presidential elections outside of the country.

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He pledged, “I remain true to my existing pact with you and all layers of the great people of Iran, and using all legal avenues will demand your deserved rights that have been violated at the ballot boxes.” He criticizes the government for using means “contrary to the letter of the constitution, and the stated freedoms in the Islamic Republic” to block communications with his supporters and with the Iranian people broadly.

Mousavi assails the national media for collaborating in the theft of the election, writing “The national media which is being financed with public funds, with a revolting misrepresentation is changing the truth, and labels the peaceful march of close to three million people as anarchist”.

Mousavi also takes care to note that his understanding is that Iranians abroad who have concerns about the legality of the official count are not being manipulated or funded by people “who do not believe in the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran’s system”. He urges expats to distance themselves from such groups and to join him in calling for means that follow the constitution to be used to seek justice for the will of the people.

Juan Cole reports that some 5,000 people marched silently today in Tehran, “ostensibly in honor of cleric Mohammad Beheshti, who was killed in a bombing by the terrorist organization Mojahedin-e Khalq (Holy Warriors of the People) in 1981″. Cole reports that in fact the march was a silent public demonstration against the government’s handling of the election and its aftermath, framing the government’s actions as a “betrayal of the ideals for which Beheshti died”.

UPDATE, 23:54 GMT: Video from today’s street demonstrations in Iran. Estimates from a wide array of online sources range from 3,000 to 750,000 people participating in marches.

Shortly before 23:00 GMT, an Iran-watch Twitter thread posted an unconfirmed rumor that Mousavi had been detained, according to the account of his neighbors. The account was reportedly given in a video commenting on events of the day in Iran, and the allegation has not been independently confirmed.

UPDATE, 2:32 GMT, 29 June: With new rounds of detentions, including some under cover of darkness, reports of mass political arrests suggest Iran is undergoing the most widespread such effort since the 1979 revolution. The arrests have targeted political figures, journalists, foreign nationals, and even family members of at least one leading cleric. The apparent purpose of the mass arrests is to reinforce a campaign of censorship and intimidation aimed at blocking opposition leaders’ ability to communicate with and/or organize their supporters.

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

Trita Parsi and Reza Aslan, two academics who focus on Iran, said in a report on Friday for Foreign Policy magazine, that the regime is apparently achieving its short-term goal of choking off the ability of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to communicate with protesters – and perhaps emerge as a stronger leader for change.

“A source close to Mousavi says that the first and second circle of people around Mousavi have all been arrested or put under house arrest,” they write. “Mousavi himself has limited ability to communicate with his team and his followers. The lack of leadership is visible on the streets, where demonstrators exhibit unparalleled will and courage, but lack direction and guidance.”

Last Friday, a cleric aligned with the views of both Ahmedinejad and Khamene’i, Ahmad Khatami called the pro-democracy demonstrators “enemies of God”, a label that could mean government insiders are considering the idea of using accusations of capital crimes to crush the opposition movement. With at least 5 relatives of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Assembly of Experts —the clerics empowered to install or remove the supreme leader— having been detained, the scope of the campaign of political arrests is unprecedented in post-revolutionary Iran.

• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• Doctor Who Tended to Neda Soltan Tells BBC What He Observed
• Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked
• Full Obama Press Conference on Iran, Economic Recovery, Healthcare (video + transcript)
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

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”.

The shift in mood over the last few days, since the outrage over the death of Neda Soltan galvanized criticism of the election and the post-election crackdown around the world, seems to be one less concerned with striking a balance between legitimacy and brute force and more determined to prevail in the tug of war over the reins of the Iranian state, come what may. Efforts to appear to be legitimized by the democratic process appear to have been abandoned in favor of a strategy that hinges on making sure the public is too afraid of the authorities to demonstrate against them.

The arrests threaten to further exacerbate tensions between Tehran and the international community, as they show a clear attempt by the Iranian authorities to scapegoat foreign governments and accuse Iranians who may not support the Ahmedinejad government of political crimes. Such actions feed public perceptions the Iranian regime is ruling by means not legitimated by constitutional law. (The Iranian constitution explicitly bans all forms of “oppression”.)

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Tensions have been escalating between the UK and the Islamic Republic since the election. Last week, Britain expelled two Iranian diplomats, and Iran did the same to the British diplomatic staff. According to the LA Times:

Though the atmosphere in Tehran’s streets has calmed, the aftershocks of the disputed election continue. All eight British embassy employees arrested were members of its political section. Authorities with a search warrant detained at least one of the embassy staffers at his home Saturday morning. Authorities brought him back to his apartment later in the evening and seized computers and documents.

British foreign secretary David Miliband condemned what he described as the arrest and continued detention of “hardworking” embassy staff. “This is harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable,” he said in a BBC interview. “We want to see (them) released unharmed.”

With Ahmedinejad-linked Basij militia increasingly seen as agents provocateurs and even filmed brutally assaulting unarmed civilians, there is concern the regime consisting of Ahmedinejad and Khamene’i's supporters may be opting for a war of attrition in public brutality to secure its leadership. Such heavy-handed tactics have stirred global outrage and led to the UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon calling for an end to all violence against civilians.

But the Ahmedinejad-Khamene’i camp has sought to aggressively smear all opposition figures as the root cause of any escalation, accusing demonstrators of being pawns in a plot to “overthrow” the government. Independent observers have told the press, including this publication, that there is mounting concern the crackdown could intensify and become more bloody, as the regime sees its grip on power slipping.

There are daily reports of more opposition figures detained, allegations that some political figures, including at least one presidential candidate, may have been threatened personally or through threats to their families, and a growing internet movement to use digital media to identify those responsible for killing demonstrators. There are new reports of midnight Basij raids on private homes, designed to terrify would-be demonstrators.

Human Rights Watch alleges that the night-time raids include property destruction and the confiscation of satellite dishes, aimed at preventing Iranians from having access to foreign news sources. State media began last week broadcasting the rumor that Neda Soltan —the 26-year old pro-democracy demonstrator shot and killed by a Basij militia member— was in fact a Basij agent “martyred” by a foreign conspiracy to smear the regime. Such fabrications are part of a wider effort to establish a dynamic wherein the government is justified in using military force to end the resistance.

Accusations regarding Basij raids under cover of darkness include charges of extreme force, beating of people in their homes, and random attacks, apparently intended to intimidate the entire population into fearing a bloody crackdown against anyone expressing dissent. Abolfazi Fateh, Mousavi’s media chief, has reportedly been barred from leaving Iran. Such a ban is interpreted as a threat of imprisonment or possibly harsh treatment. Fateh told Iranian media, “Such pressures cannot push people like me to change our political stances,” adding that “The imposed ban will not change my political views.”

An unnamed “ally” of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says the reformist candidate has rejected the government’s offer of a recount of 10% of the ballots from the 12 June vote as insufficient. Mousavi was quoted as saying “This kind of recount will not remove ambiguities…There is no other way but annulment of the vote… Some members of this committee are not impartial”. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i has said annulment is not an option, because it would undermine the established legal process for choosing the president.

• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• Doctor Who Tended to Neda Soltan Tells BBC What He Observed
• Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked
• Full Obama Press Conference on Iran, Economic Recovery, Healthcare (video + transcript)
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

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.

According to the UK-based newspaper:

Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi supporters, are reported to have undergone “intensive interrogation” sessions in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since being arrested in a mass round-up of opposition figures following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

The three, who all served in the government of the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, are among several hundred activists, academics, journalists and students detained in a crackdown coinciding with the brutal suppression of street protesters who believe the election was stolen.

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There are reports that other prisoners heard screams of agony from two of the detained opposition figures, both former ministers in the government of reformist president Mohammad Khatami, while the third, Aminzadeh, was heard screaming “I will not give interviews”. Amnesty International broke the story and says the reports come from “very credible sources” inside Iran.

In 2007, this technique is believed to have been used to force three Iranian-American academics to confess on state TV that they had involvement with pro-democracy groups that were plotting the regime’s overthrow. Part of the hardline approach that feeds this brutality is the belief among leadership that any opposition activity related to winning power in the next election is somehow intertwined with foreign governments seeking a change of leadership in Iran.

Instead of defending the Iranian constitution or the virtues of Islam, authorities have used their power to prevent actions against the state to crush dissent and defend those in power or whose views are closer to those of the supreme leader. Throughout this crisis, opposition leaders and supporters have called on prominent figures to recognize that certain of the supreme leader’s actions effectively violate his constitutional obligation to “community” with the people of Iran, by choosing sides and making dissenters into enemies of his power-structure.

This week, state-run media broadcast “interviews” with individuals who are shown confessing to being “terrorists” for taking part in street demonstrations. The power-base that runs between Khamene’i and Ahmedinejad has made it clear their official line is now to accuse pro-democracy demonstrators of terrorism and violence against the public and the state and to accuse reformist politicians of treasonous activities, in order to justify a military crackdown.

According to the Guardian:

[Mostafa] Tajzadeh’s wife, Fakhrosadat Mohtashamipour, told the pro-reform website Emruz that she and a lawyer had been denied access to him since his arrest the day after the 12 June election. “Any quote or remarks made by these people in the current situation has no credibility. My husband’s only crime is his efforts to secure a high turnout,” she said.

Emerging evidence of deep division among even conservative politicians —nearly two-thirds of parliament ministers neglected to attend a victory celebration for Ahmedinejad— show there is disagreement over what the rule of law means for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Opposition leaders say the government has an obligation to reject the official vote-count on the basis of widespread fraud and make sure that every Iranian has a vote in choosing the next president, while the Khamene’i-Ahmedinejad camp is suggesting that abiding by the rule of law means agreeing with the official count.

• Doctor Who Tended to Neda Soltan Tells BBC What He Observed
• Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked
• Full Obama Press Conference on Iran, Economic Recovery, Healthcare (video + transcript)
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

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.

One post on Twitter, certain to anger authorities and as yet not independently confirmed, reads “in Baharestan we saw militia with axe chopping ppl like meat – blood everywhere – like butcher”. There is no third-party verification for what is alleged to have taken place there, but numerous accounts allege the Basij militia used brutal force to break up demonstrators who sought to gather and hold any ground in the square.

The intensification of Iran’s media blockade means nearly all reporting coming from Iran regarding ongoing demonstrations is coming from non-institutional sources, bystanders with cell-phones and anonymous online messages. There are news reports the family of Neda Soltan, the 26-year-old woman shot and killed by security forces, has been targeted by authorities.

Soltan’s family has reportedly been forced from their home and her body was never returned to them. Neighbors have reportedly said the funeral has been canceled and the family has been prohibited from making any public display of mourning for her.

The targeting of Soltan’s family appears to be part of a pre-emptive campaign by the leadership to smear Soltan, the demonstrators around her and foreign media, in an effort to prevent opposition groups from rallying around her. The Guardian newspaper reports that:

The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring “thugs” to shoot her so he could make a documentary film.

It also appears that while the family has either been “forced out” or disappeared by the authorities, neighbors have been receiving threatening phone calls. One neighbor reportedly expressed an atmosphere of deep fear and systematic intimidation:

We are trembling. We are still afraid. We haven’t had a peaceful time in the last days, let alone her family. Nobody was allowed to console her family, they were alone, they were under arrest and their daughter was just killed. I can’t imagine how painful it was for them. Her friends came to console her family but the police didn’t let them in and forced them to disperse and arrested some of them. Neda’s family were not even given a quite moment to grieve.

The “stranglehold on media”, as worded by Rachel Maddow, appears by all accounts to be intensifying. It is unclear whether individuals are shying away from online postings out of fear or whether the government has successfully shut down major international online communications. There are also some reports that foreign hackers have caused the website of Pres. Ahmedinejad to crash.

The government’s intensifying blocking of any and all non-official media reports appears to confirm allegations there is a deliberate and sustained attempt to coordinate harsh security actions with a cloak of secrecy. Press organizations and opposition supporters have called on the government to restore media freedoms if it wants to demonstrate it plans to honor the rule of law.

UPDATE, 15:30 GMT: According to the Times of London:

Relatives of several detained protesters have confirmed that the interrogation of prisoners is now being headed by Saaed Mortazavi, a figure known in Iran as “the butcher of the press”. He gained notoriety for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003.

“The leading role of Saeed Mortazavi in the crackdown in Tehran should set off alarm bells for anyone familiar with his record,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.

Mortazavi appears to be an integral figure in the government’s crackdown on dissenters. It is reported he oversaw the arrest of close aides to top opposition figures like former president Mohammad Khatami. He has a history of being involved in religious persecution, detaining women for allegedly “immodest” clothing, and is said to have overseen the detention of Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist detained for purchasing wine, then charged with espionage and sentenced in a secret trial. (Saberi was eventually released.)

The notorious nature of Mortazavi’s reputation as an interrogator and torturer suggests the government plans to use the harshest means possible to crush what is now being called by some in the press “the uprising”. The increasingly hardline stance taken by officials also appears to lend credibility to reports of extreme violence in the streets, the kind “chaos and bloodshed” Ayatollah Khamene’i had promised.

More reporting on Iran crisis, from Cafe Sentido:

• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

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”.

The Guardian Council effectively ruled out its finding in favor of an annulment of the election due to fraud, and also condemned the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, for “meddling” in its affairs. The defiant announcement came after Ban had urged the panel of clerics to honor the basic rights of the Iranian people “especially the freedom of assembly and expression”.

The opposition has been calling for the results of the election to be thrown out as invalid due to pervasive fraud, allegedly orchestrated by the government. Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition candidates, has called for another round of nationwide public demonstrations on Thursday, to mourn those killed in pr0-democracy demonstrations. 

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US president Barack Obama, who has steadfastly held the line that the US will not back a particular faction as Iran’s democratic process plays out, has now strongly condemned the violent crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators. The White House released not only his remarks in video and text form, but also in a Persian translation, aimed at preventing the deliberate mis-translation of his remarks for propaganda purposes. 

Obama said that the US is not interfering in Iran’s affairs or instigating unrest, but that:

The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future.  Some in Iran — some in the Iranian government, in particular, are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the United States and others in the West of instigating protests over the election.  These accusations are patently false.  They’re an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran’s borders.  This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won’t work anymore in Iran.  This is not about the United States or the West; this is about the people of Iran, and the future that they — and only they — will choose.

There are now increasing amounts of analysis available, and questions being raised, about how the massive number of extra votes in at least 50 Iranian cities were generated. According to the BBC’s reporting, a new study by Professor Ali Ansari, of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews and of the London think tank Chatham House, finds that:

… there is “no correlation between the increased turn out and the swing to Ahmadinejad. This challenges the notion that Ahmadinejad’s victory was due to the massive participation of a previously silent conservative majority.”

“If Ahmadinejad’s victory was primarily caused by the increase in voter turnout, one would expect the data to show that the provinces where there was the greatest ‘swing’ in support towards Ahmadinejad would also be the provinces with the greatest increase in voter turnout. This is not the case,” it says.

In Hamedan, for instance, Ahmedinejad won 765,000 votes. That’s 570,000 more votes than the 195,000 he received in 2005, when he won the presidency. According to the Ansari study, there were 97,000 voters who backed conservatives other than Ahmedinejad in 2005, and 218,000 who did not vote. That’s 510,000, not enough to account for Ahmedinejad’s massive increase in support, even if 100% of them switched to support him.

He would, in fact, have required a massive increase in support among reformist voters. This is not impossible, in a strictly mathematical sense, but it is considered statistically and demographically unlikely. Especially as this year has seen a swell in support for opposition candidates. There have also been questions about whether Ahmedinejad really has a base of support in rural areas. 

According to the Ansari study of voting patterns, Ahmedinejad’s base is more the urban poor and suburban areas. The study found that “much of Iran’s rural population is comprised of ethnic minorities… [with] a history both of voting reformist and of voting for members of their own ethnic group”. It is important to note that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is an ethnic Azeri, Iran’s largest minority, and was seen to have massive support among Azeris. 

The study concluded that: 

This increase in support for Ahmadinejad amongst rural and ethnic minority voters is out of step with previous trends, extremely large in scale, and central to the question of how the credibility of Ahmadinejad’s victory has been perceived within Iran.

At least one study, as reported by the Washington Post, found that “The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people”, but there are questions about the pre-election poll’s reliability. For one, well more than half of those contacted either refused to answer (42.2%) or selected no preferred candidate (15.6%). For now, analysis suggests that there is no way to adequately explain the official claims of a 2 to 1 landslide victory for Ahmedinejad, but the Guardian Council’s pronouncements suggest that no change is imminent.

• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

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.

Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, a spokesman for the clerics, said the irregularities were found in “only 50 cities”, though Iran has 360 districts. He suggested the irregularities were less widespread than opposition candidates allege; opposition candidates had submitted statistical evidence to the Council arguing that more than 100% of eligible voters were reported to have cast votes in 80 to 170 cities.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Kadhodaei said voter turnout of above 100% in some cities is a normal phenomenon because there is no legal restriction against people voting in a city or province in which they aren’t registered.” Iran’s official census data shows a higher recognized population than external measures of Iran’s population. A London-based think tank has questioned statistical support for Iran’s official report of high turnout.

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Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has called the entire process illegitimate and has requested a new election. It appears that Guardian Council statements suggesting the irregularities were not equal to the wide official margin of victory for Pres. Ahmedinejad mean the Council is not contemplating ordering a new vote. 

It is also unclear who has ordered the arrest of some 24 journalists and at least 5 members of the Rafsanjani family. Sources inside Iran have told international media that the regime detained Faezeh Rafsanjani because her presence at rallies could boost support for the opposition. Newsweek’s Tehran correspondent Maziar Bahari is among those detained; the BBC’s correspondent is being expelled from the country. 

Protests turned bloody over the weekend, as security forces, backed by plainclothes Basij militia units, raided homes and attacked demonstrators in the streets. Reports of civilian deaths range from 10 (Tehran’s official tally) to 150. International media sources, including CNN, have reported confirming at least 19 killed through sources inside Iranian hospitals. There were reports civilians were “fighting back vigorously against the Basiji”.

The weekend’s unrest elicited the strongest response to date from the US administration. Pres. Obama has repeatedly warned that he would like to see democracy play out and not to choose sides to the detriment of Iranian reformers. But this weekend, Obama directly criticized the security crackdown, saying in a written statement “We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people”.

He added that “The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.” Obama also addressed the leadership, saying that “suppressing ideas never makes them go away” (a message from his Cairo speech), and calling on the Iranian government to “respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.”

• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• 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
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

The Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has called for an end to massive public demonstrations against the disputed results of last week’s presidential election. He reiterated his view that the results are legitimate and said the Islamic Republic would never cheat. He also declared his personal support for some of the views of Pres. Ahmedinejad. Today it appears security forces have responded by using force. 

Some are interpreting Khamene’i's remarks as an open threat to use violence against demonstrators. He suggested that anyone violating his unilateral ban on protesting the election results would be responsible for what his security forces do to end the demonstrations. He said that any leaders of the opposition who did not cancel scheduled protests “would be responsible for bloodshed and chaos”.

Khamene’i said the opposition was threatening the state, by “flexing muscles on the streets” and that this behavior amounted to “challenging the elections and democracy”. Yesterday’s address appeared to leave clear the supreme leader’s intention to adhere to his assertion that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had in fact won a landslide victory in a legitimate and fair democratic process.

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As reported by the New York Times:

During the tough sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei tried to tamp down factional disputes among the elite, at one point even chastising pro-government militias and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for their role in the crisis. But he hardened his stance on the election results. On Monday, a crowd that the mayor of Tehran estimated at three million rallied for the first of four days, and Ayatollah Khamenei ordered an investigation into the election results…

But now, Khamene’i says there is nothing left to dispute, suggesting that the Islamic Republic is too virtuous to have cheated. He went as far as to mock the opposition’s allegations, saying “Perhaps 100,000 votes, or 500,000, but how can anyone tamper with 11 million votes?” But there is a darker tone to Khamene’i's crackdown on dissent: on Thursday, it was reported that paramilitary Basij militia were found by Parliament to have been responsible for killing 5 students in an attack on a Tehran dormitory. 

In a statement from Amnesty International, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, who is deputy director of the group’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, has said “We are extremely disturbed at statements made by Ayatollah Khamenei which seem to give the green light to security forces to violently handle protesters exercising their right to demonstrate and express their views”. 

Amnesty warns that Khamene’i's comments on Friday appear to be a green light to security forces to use extreme violence to end mass rallies in favor of the opposition. His use of the word “bloodshed” suggests that killing will be part of the state’s strategy for silencing the opposition. Noting the right to free assembly, as protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory (free assembly is also protected in the Iranian Constitution), the statement warns: 

They must not use firearms unless strictly unavoidable and then only in order to protect life. Law enforcement personnel must exercise restraint, minimize damage or injury and respect and preserve human life.

“For a Head of State to put the onus of security on peaceful demonstrators and not on the security forces is a gross dereliction of duty and a license for abuse,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

Eyewitnesses are reporting that security forces have responded to the gathering of thousands in central Tehran’s Revolution Square by attacking protesters with tear gas and water cannon. Eyewitnesses also report thousands of security personnel, both plainclothes and in uniform, massing in the streets of Tehran to prevent demonstrators from staging rallies. 

Ansar Hezbollah, one of the leaders of the Basij paramilitary militia, accused demonstrators of taking part in a “seditious conspiracy”, and has promised to intensify Basij vigilante violence against the opposition. Neil MacFarquhar, writing for the New York Times, reports: 

The daytime protests across the Islamic republic have been largely peaceful. But Iranians shudder at the violence unleashed in their cities at night, with the shadowy vigilantes known as Basijis beating, looting and sometimes gunning down protesters they tracked during the day.

Efforts to trace what the Basij have done throughout this week have been blocked by a general communications crackdown, which prevents certain types of messaging and the use of certain web sites. It is suspected that members of the press have been targeted as well, including students who sought to report on atrocities carried out by the Basij in an effort to put an end to the opposition demonstrations. 

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has accused the Basij of trying to provoke violence to open the way for a bloody crackdown by security forces. In one of two letters posted Thursday on his website, Mousavi alleged that “Just before the police show up they attack the demonstrations,” adding: “They try to provoke the demonstrators and they destroy people’s property and vehicles”. Security forces have not intervened to stop this activity. 

Numerous sources allege the Basij are openly using violence to intimidate opposition supporters. Reports from earlier in the week cited examples of security agents not in uniform randomly attacking bystanders with heavy truncheons in order to prevent them from joining protest marches.

Meanwhile, the Basij planned massive public demonstrations of their members and supporters for Friday and Saturday, which some observers say is a de facto military occupation of the streets of Tehran, organized by the government. Mr. Hezbollah’s public statements decrying the opposition protests also openly called for vigilante action to suppress the opposition, whom he referred to as “agitating hooligans”. 

The Guardian Council has announced plans to recount 10% of the ballots from last Friday’s election, but the opposition says that is not enough. The margin of victory, which is widely disputed, is 30% of the overall vote. It is unclear what results might emerge from a recount, as the supreme leader has declared his belief that the election was not stolen and has reiterated his position that Ahmedinejad won a legitimate and “historic” victory.

• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned Iran that illegal violence by militia groups could sow unrest. Pillay called for the regime to exercise restraint and cease its attacks on demonstrators and organizers. With the legal basis for recent arrests “not clear”, Pillay called on Iran to explain “Why have some of those who have been arrested been denied access to lawyers and members of their families? And why is the whereabouts of others unknown?”

Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, reiterated Pillay’s concerns, saying: ”We are gravely concerned that the recent arrests and use of excessive police force against opposition supporters may be a direct attempt to stifle freedom of assembly and expression in the country.”

Pillay had the support of five UN experts on freedom of opinion, human rights campaigners, arbitrary detention, arbitrary executions and torture, who voiced concern the security forces’ crackdown could undermine Iran’s political structure and human rights. She has called on Iran’s government to respect all of the rights of its people and to engage in credible due process in order to determine whether there was wrondoing in the management of the election.

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She warned that attacks against civilians would inflame “feelings of injustice” and cautioned the leadership not to “provoke a serious deterioration in the security situation”. The UN Rights chief directly admonished the leadership of the government to rein in security forces, reminding them “It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that militia members and regular law enforcement agencies do not resort to illegal acts of violence”.

Pillay also went as far as to praise the “peaceful and dignified conduct of the huge demonstrations that have been taking place”. Maintaining a defense of constitutional and universal rights, while refraining from violence, lends credibility and weight to the opposition, was the clear indication. Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said she had urged Pillay to speak out, as the government’s response had been “very violent”.

The comments come as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i has made a public appeal for calm, and made comments suggesting he does not intend to accept the validity of claims of electoral fraud. Unconfirmed reports say Khamene’i has given Mousavi an ultimatum to either accept the victory of Ahmedinejad or go into exile. As reports mount of students and activists detained, beaten and/or held in undisclosed locations, fears are spreading of a possible military crackdown.

• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

Tens of thousands of Iranians have gathered at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Square to mourn demonstrators killed by security forces in opposition rallies earlier this week. The day of mourning was called for by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says the election was stolen by pro-Ahmedinejad forces. As the demonstrations have persisted, over the last week, a range of prominent political and religious figures have joined Mousavi’s calls for a probe into the alleged fraud and establishment of transparency in the democratic process.

While international press are barred from covering rallies, and many have been expelled, with reports security forces have interfered with or detained Iranian journalists, reports are emerging from Tehran saying tens of thousands of people, wearing black in memory of those killed by security forces, are gathering in Imam Khomeini Square, the same site where the mass demonstrations against the Shah began 30 years ago. Opposition figures are increasingly suggesting the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i violated his constitutional “community” obligation to keep faith with all of the people of Iran and engaged in prohibited “autocracy”.

There is word the Majma’-e Rowhaniyun-e Mobarez (Association of Combatant Clerics),  a group of pro-reform clerics with its roots in post-revolutionary populist republicanism, has aligned itself with the opposition and called for a mass demonstration for Saturday, effectively extending the protests into the weekend and taking a clear stance against the supreme leader, who has banned all public rallies. The rally will move from Enqelab (Revolution) Square to Azadi (Liberty) Square and will protest the official results of last Friday’s election, which give the presidency to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad by a 2 to 1 margin.

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Former president Mohammad Khatami and members of the Association of Combatant Clerics will participate, according to reports on the announced rally. Yesterday, it was reported that Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri had joined in opposition criticism of the official results. After 6 days of sustained and mounting opposition pressure, the Guardian Council has announced it has invited the three opposition candidates who are challenging the official results and alleging fraud to talks to air their grievances.

The AFP reports that the Guardian Council acknowledges receiving 646 distinct allegations of electoral fraud and “irregularities” from the three candidates alone. Whether there are other allegations from around the country has not been reported or verified. Some reports have suggested that millions of voters were denied the vote due to lack of ballot papers. There are also allegations of falsified ballots and ballots summarily discarded or destroyed.

Mehdi Karroubi (one of the other opposition candidates) has also applied to hold a rally on Saturday, setting the stage for what could be a day of multiple massive rallies across the capital. The various groups organizing protests could eventually merge their demonstrations into one massive opposition rally, a prospect which suggests the government will seek to deny permits. Today’s Mousavi rally for mourning is reported to include doctors in white coats who are available to treat anyone wounded, should security forces again fire on demonstrators.

UPDATE, 23:18 GMT: An estimated 100,000 people took part in a rally in Tehran to honor those killed earlier this week by security forces. Amateur video footage has leaked out of Iran, despite strict controls on journalists, internet use and media outlets. This video shows new footage of demonstrators, marching peacefully, to avoid provoking a violent reaction from security forces:

UPDATE, 23:44 GMT: Ebrahim Yazdi, foreign minister to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and now head of the Iranian Freedom Movement, a leading dissident organization, was reportedly detained by armed men who did not identify themselves, and who transferred him from a hospital ICU to an undisclosed location, according to interviews with Mehdi Noorbaksh, his son-in-law. 

News reports suggest Yazdi was in fact held in the Evin prison in Tehran, despite being incapacitated in intensive care, undergoing cancer treatment. The arrest appears to have been an attempt to prevent him participating in the opposition rallies. He was reportedly returned to hospital after suffering complications due to his ongoing struggle with prostate cancer. 

• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

On Tuesday, as opposition demonstrations calling for a full accounting for all votes cast in Friday’s election spread, authorities revoked press credentials for foreign journalists and warned media not to report from the protest marches. Opposition leaders, protest organizers and some media staff have reportedly been rounded up and held in undisclosed locations.

The Ministry of Culture reportedly issued this warning to foreign journalists: “Hereby we inform all foreign media representatives to avoid any news coverage which has not been coordinated or authorised by this bureau”. The government has brazenly undertaken a nationwide crackdown to prevent the protests, and has promised to use any means necessary to block a “velvet revolution”.

There is mounting evidence of a power struggle between the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and the former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, once considered a candidate for the post Khamene’i now holds. One report suggests the choice of candidates for the election actually amounted to a “proxy war” between the two old rivals. And Rafsanjani now appears to have called for an emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts, the panel of clerics who have the power to seat or unseat the supreme leader.

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The BBC has shown scenes from the Tehran metro where passengers “spontaneously break into anti-government chanting”. The regime has sought to block foreign media sources, including efforts to shut down websites like the BBC’s, or foreign newspapers and blogs, or the messaging service Twitter. With opposition leadership figures like former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi and Said Hajjarian (a Mousavi backer) reportedly detained, the effort to clamp down on organized opposition is clearly escalating.

Mir Hossein Mousavi has called for a national day of mourning on Thursday, in recognition of those killed by security forces during yesterday’s demonstrations. Saying “A number of our countrymen were wounded or martyred,” the opposition leader called on ”the people to express their solidarity with the families … by coming together in mosques or taking part in peaceful demonstrations”.

Last night, opposition demonstrators carried out a massive “silent march” in order to demonstrate the peaceful nature of the opposition and legitimate their calls for credible investigations of electoral fraud. Mousavi has stressed that Thursday’s rallies should remain non-violent and seek to honor those killed so far. With all non-state media barred from reporting from rally sites, only limited pictures are emerging from Tehran today, but some observers estimated another rally of 500,000 in central Tehran, in support of the opposition.

UPDATE, 15:54 GMT: A new report suggests thousands of Revolutionary Guard troops are being deployed in Tehran, entering the capital from three sides, to expand the government’s crackdown on the opposition movement. While Mousavi is calling for nationwide peaceful demonstrations to honor those killed by security forces since the election, fear is growing that the government is contemplating a military solution.

UPDATE, 18:04 GMT: An image is now circulating that alleges to include two video captures of Iranian state-run television, reporting the election results on Friday. In the image, it appears that one of the opposition candidates, Mohsen Rezai, is listed as having amassed a total of 587,913 votes as of 13:53.

That total is 45,135 votes fewer than Rezai was reported to have four hours earlier, at 9:47, when he had 633,048, suggesting the numbers had been manipulated in the intervening time. Bloggers are suggesting the image is “proof” of vote-rigging, but the authenticity of the video captures has not been independently verified, nor has any official reason been given for the apparent modification in vote tallies.

UPDATE, 19:47 GMT: The sourcing of this video is not independently confirmed, but it alleges to show the shooting of an unarmed opposition supporter. The images are graphic, and some viewers may find them disturbing (posted to YouTube on the 15th):

Online discussions are suggesting Ahmedinejad “supporters”, possibly plainclothes security agents, took to the streets openly assaulting unarmed civilians and breaking into buildings. It has been repeatedly alleged today that the authorities want to “provoke” Mousavi supporters, in order to justifiy a brutal military crackdown, but unconfirmed online sources are saying it is pro-Ahmedinejad elements that are engaging in street violence.

• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamene’i 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
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

An Iran observer last night told CNN that sources inside Iran report Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most pre-eminent political figures, and a powerful leader of the Expediency Council —which resolves disputes between Parliament and the Guardian Council—, cleric and former president, has called for an emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts, in Qom. The Assembly of Experts is a group of clerics who are the only body in the Islamic Republic able to select or unseat the supreme leader of the Guardian Council.

The news suggests an effort by Rafsanjani to charge that Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i may have violated the Iranian Constitution and participated in or condoned the rigging of the election. Rafsanjani himself is the current head of the Assembly of Experts, and is formally referred to as Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Some say the political tide began to shift away from Pres. Ahmedinejad when Rafsanjani, a conservative but a fierce critic of the hardline president, when Rafsanjani was named speaker of the Assembly of Experts in 2007. 

As we reported yesterday:

Article 3 [of the Iranian Constitution] lists as one of the principle goals of the state “the elimination of all forms of despotism and autocracy and all attempts to monopolize power”, as well as “the participation of the entire people in determining their political, economic, social, and cultural destiny”. Article 8 establishes on religious grounds a community principle, a “universal and reciprocal duty that must be fulfilled by the people with respect to one another, by the government with respect to the people, and by the people with respect to the government”.

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Rafsanjani could press for reprimand of or removal of the supreme leader on the grounds that he violated his duty to the people, or that he engaged in prohibited despotism, or that he obstructed the right of “the entire people in determining their political, economic, social and cultural destiny”, should it be shown he had a hand in or knowingly condoned the adoption of a falsified count in Friday’s election. While the supreme leader’s title and the reputation of the office holders has always suggested expansive almost unchecked power, there are constitutional constraints that could be brought to bear, and Khamene’i has apparently made serious errors in judgment over the last week.

His immediate and unconditional approval of the dubious official vote-count favoring Ahmedinejad implicated him in any scandal that may emerge if wrongdoing is publicly confirmed and uncovered. Rafsanjani resigned his post as head of the Expediency Council, which has often sided with the supreme leader, thus distancing him from the potential misdeeds of the current leadership. 

Pictures and video are emerging reporting that the Basij militia have raided university dormitories, seizing and destroying computers, arresting students and opposition supporters, and threatening and using violence. There are reports that as many as 7 people were killed yesterday when security forces opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. Another man was shown dead in the street, appearing to have died after being attacked by security forces over the weekend. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has called for a national day of mourning to honor those who were killed demonstrating in favor of a fair election.

The result of Ayatollah Khamene’i's administration of security forces and the election has led to the most widespread public demonstrations since the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic Republic. Beginning on the night of the election, when Khamene’i claimed a “divine” victory for Ahmedinejad only hours after voting had ceased, in an election with 40 million ballots to be hand-counted, the supreme leader has made almost no effort whatsoever to demonstrate personal allegiance to the constitutional requirement that “the entire people” have their say in electing the president.

What’s more, his pronouncement that the less than credible process was a “divine assessment” could be interpreted by the Assembly of Experts as “detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam”, the one category of media freedom banned by the Iranian Constitution (Article 24). Should he be found to have degraded Islam by his actions or statements, that might be enough to disqualify Khamene’i from continuing as supreme leader, even if he is not demonstrated to have conspired in the rigging of the vote or the killing of unarmed civilians.

Since Friday evening, when Khamene’i declared an absolute victory by landslide to Ahmedinejad, his preferred candidate, the supreme leader has agreed first to a thorough investigation of all allegations of vote-rigging, then to a partial recount, which was rejected by the opposition as an attempt to justify an illegitimate process. Now, his legitimacy is being called into question, an escalation in the campaign for legitimacy in the democratic process that puts Khamene’i at a significant disadvantage politically.

It has been reported that the struggle between Rafsanjani and Khamene’i, rival candidates for the succession to the nation’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, is really about the republican structure of the state. According to a report by the Guardian newspaper, Khamene’i enjoys the support of a network of “radical mullahs, revolutionary guards and intelligence officers who may not have been in the vanguard of the Islamic revolution but cut their teeth in Iran’s bloody 1980-88 war with Iraq”.

In this account of Iranian political affairs:

[Khamene'i's camp] which has coalesced around Ahmadinejad, harbours dreams of transforming Iran from an Islamic republic to an Islamic government, a distinction which would do away with elections and the need to observe the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s invocation to respect the “people’s will”. By this vision, Iran would forever take its guidance only from the divine, in the form of an all-powerful spiritual leader.

This then would explain the emergence of a powerful coalition of cross-party opposition figures, including reformists, conservatives, clerics and former military officers, whose critical voices have permitted a vastly expanded public space for open dissent and criticism of the nation’s top political leaders. 

It may be that the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to strip the supreme leader of all political authority and replace him, is contemplating with concern the massive nationwide opposition to the official results of the election and is preparing to make a choice between continuing to back Khamene’i personally, or replacing him in order to overturn the discredited election and reaffirm the constitutional legitimacy of the Islamic Republic as such.

Though the Assemby of Experts has never yet exercised strict supervision of the activities of either Khamene’i or his only predecessor in the post, Ayatollah Khomeini, it is also true that Iran has not seen such widespread anger at official misdeeds or open dissent since the revolution of 1979. Khamene’i may have handed the reformers their most significant victory, by robbing them of it.

UPDATE, 21:22 GMT: McClatchy reported yesterday that the Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, another of the founding circle of revolutionaries and one of the most prominent religious figures in Iran, has said that “No one in their right mind” can believe the official results declaring Ahmedinejad the winner of Friday’s vote. 

Montazeri’s online statement reportedly suggested official endorsement of the current count would call into question the legitimacy of the regime, saying  ”A government not respecting people’s vote has no religious or political legitimacy”. He also admonished security forces not to resort to brutality in order to silence dissent: “I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to ‘sell their religion,’ and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God.”

Montazeri’s statement also urged the reformist movement to continue their calls for full electoral fairness in peace and non-violence, saying “I invite everyone, specially the youth, to continue reclaiming their dues in calm, and not let those who want to associate this movement with chaos succeed.”

He is not the only establishment figure to side with the opposition against Ahmedinejad and Khamene’i. Reports from Tehran also suggest at least 16 senior members of the Revolutionary Guards have been detained for communicating with the army to possibly join the opposition movement. Some or all of those detained are reportedly being held at an undisclosed location in or near the capital. 

• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamene’i to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinajad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, who had already declared the victory of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad fair and legitimate, and most importantly, final, has agreed to investigate allegations the vote was rigged. He reportedly met yesterday with opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom many believe actually received more votes than Ahmedinejad, to give his allegations a hearing at the top level of Iran’s revolutionary government. 

The announcement of the pending inquiry is a sign that the supreme leader’s power is not in fact absolute, as many contend, as a serious and organized national opposition movement has demonstrated unprecedented resistance to the revolutionary leadership. Despite threats of arrest and even violence, hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters have rallied over the weekend and today. Today, Mousavi himself appeared in public for the first time since declaring victory on Friday.

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The New York Times is reporting:

Gathering in the early hours of Monday afternoon in defiance of a government ban on demonstrations, the broad river of people — young and old, dressed in traditional Islamic gowns and the latest Western fashions — marched slowly from Revolution Square to Freedom Square for more than three hours, many of them wearing the signature bright green ribbons of Mr. Moussavi’s campaign, and holding up their hands in victory signs. When the occasional shout or chant went up, the crowd quickly hushed them, and some held up signs bearing the word “silence.”

The demonstrators have been adamant about their intent to contest the election results and fight to have their votes counted legitimately, via non-violent means. Despite the non-violent nature of the demonstrations, reports are emerging Tehran suggesting that “armed men” have begun firing on the huge crowds of unarmed demonstrators. There are also reports that government forces “stormed university dormitories”, possibly using explosives or tear gas and arresting up to 900 students suspected helping to organize the opposition to Ahmedinejad. 

The German government has “summoned” the Iranian ambassador to demand an explanation for the reports of violence against civilians and to press for a comprehensive investigation of alleged electoral fraud or assault against unarmed civilians. The US government says it will react to the facts, that the facts at present remain unclear, that official results are “not credible”, and the administration is still gathering facts.

Observers say the size of the opposition rallies and the persistence of support for Mousavi is an unprecedented challenge to the near limitless power held by the supreme leader of the Guardian Council of revolutionary clerics. But others suggest the investigation is just an attempt to “save face” in the international community, and that Khamene’i will not reverse his judgment that Ahmedinejad’s victory is a “divine assessment” of the direction of Iranian politics. 

What is clear is that something has changed in Iranian politics with this election, whatever the outcome. The hardliners have lost credibility, and the supreme leader’s call for an inquiry into allegations of electoral fraud suggest recognition that the opposition must have a voice.

• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinajad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

Skepticism of the results of Friday’s Iranian presidential vote, which run wildly counter to polling that showed challenger Mousavi with a commanding lead in the days before the vote, is now the accepted reaction across the world. Yet the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i almost immediately declared the dubious figures a “divine” mandate for Ahmedinejad, without any review or investigation into alleged irregularities whatsoever. Reaction to opposition supporters’ calls for an investigation or a new round of voting has been a swift and violent crackdown on demonstrators.

The New York Times reports today that “The authorities closed universities in Tehran, blocked cell-phone transmissions and access to Facebook and some other Web sites, and for a second day shut down text-messaging services”. Pres. Ahmedinejad has suggested those who oppose the official vote-count may be detained. Yesterday, unarmed civilians were beaten in the streets, as security forces charged into crowds of demonstrators. Reports suggest at least one person was shot and killed.

The Times is also reporting that:

Dozens of reformist politicians were said to have been arrested at their homes overnight, according to news reports on Sunday and a witness who worked with the politicians. There were also reports of politicians and clerics being placed under house arrest.

Reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has decried the official count as a fraud, is thought to have been arrested to keep him from attending public gatherings supporting his allegations. He has not been seen in public since the night of the election.

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A statement was posted on his website, however, reading “I wrote a letter to the Guardian Council asking them to cancel the result of the recent (presidential) election”. Mousavi also addressed his disillusioned supporters in the statement, saying: “I again emphatically advise you to continue the civil and legal opposition throughout the country peacefully and observe non-confrontation principle”.

Rumors are now circulating of how the count may have been manipulated. One claim, allegedly made by a someone related to a government insider, argues that direct orders were given that 1,000 votes for Ahmedinejad should be recorded as 3,000. There are also allegations the ballot was designed to trap opposition voters into choosing Ahmedinejad. According to Times reporter Bill Keller, “Voters were obliged to choose a candidate and fill in a code. Though Mr. Moussavi was candidate No. 4, the code No. 44 signified Mr. Ahmadinejad.”

An unnamed source in the Interior Ministry reportedly told international press that the fraud was in the works for weeks. The source explicitly speaks of a “purge” of any and all staff members who might not be in agreement with the fraud, and their replacement with “pliable” officials willing to carry out the nationwide vote fraud. Mousavi has called for a cancellation of the election results and a new round of voting, but the Guardian Council is unlikely to act in any way contrary to the will of the supreme leader.

Observers inside and outside Iran are now forced to face the question of whether the regime is openly professing its hostility to the democratic processes mandated by the nation’s revolutionary constitution. The planned use of force against civilians, the president’s promise to detain opposition leaders, reports from insiders about a planned, systematic electoral fraud, and the supreme leader’s immediate declaration of a “divine” mandate for Ahmedinejad, all suggest a flippant and callous use of power —even a blasphemous and cynical use of religion— to impose the will of regime hardliners.

US vice president Joe Biden today said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that “There’s an awful lot of questions about how this election was run”. One example is the analysis that found that of the record 85% turnout, over 70% of the voters were from urban centers, which should heavily favor opposition leader Mousavi. Another anomaly cited by the US is the fact that the official results show Mousavi losing even in his own hometown.

With a young population of passionate opposition supporters, non-violent rallies may continue, and security forces may be ordered to disperse the crowds. Disapproval of the hardline taken by Pres. Ahmedinejad is mounting, and the ruling clerics have now clearly aligned themselves with arguably the most reviled political figure in the country, who may have received only one-third as much support as they claim. The democratic credibility of the regime is now firmly in question and the problem of public consent will now be increasingly pressing. The question is: is there any way the Guardian Council can reverse course on the Ayatollah’s endorsement of the results, and if not, what will be done to balance the regime’s interests against those of the people?

After a contentious and sometimes ugly election campaign, with accusations of corruption, “undermining” the nation, and incompetence, flying between the two main rivals for the presidency, Iranian officials have declared incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad the outright winner, and by an astonishingly wide margin. The results have immediately been called into question by the opposition candidates, and by foreign governments and international observers barred from monitoring the polls.

The New York Times is reporting:

The Iranian government declared an outright election victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday morning, and riot police officers fought with supporters of the opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who insisted that the election had been stolen.

Thousands of opposition supporters, who back the reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, have flooded onto the streets of Tehran, many of them wearing the reformist campaign’s signature green as scarves, headscarves, wristbands and as other items of clothing or banners. Mousavi’s supporters chanted his name and declared they would fight to see him recognized as the winner, as he had urged them to do Friday night, alleging widespread polling “irregularities”.

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Mousavi was prime minister from 1981 to 1989, when the post of prime minister was dissolved. The current supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hoseyni Kh?mene’i, was president during Mousavi’s term as PM, and there was friction. Khamene’i has a record of blocking the political aspirations of those he disagrees with. In 2005, reformist president Mohamad Khatami’s entire party was barred from presenting a presidential candidate. It is thought the supreme leader might have ordered the results be swayed in Ahmedinejad’s favor, though no hard evidence has yet been shown to demonstrate this.

The Iranian system of government is more open than many in the region, with regular elections, a republican constitution and an independent judiciary, but that republican constitution establishes a virtual theocracy to oversee the smooth functioning of the republic, and the near absolute authority the supreme leader can exercise as head of the revolutionary Guardian Council —empowered by Vel?yat-e faqih, or the guardianship of Islamic jurists— means the entire political system lacks the adequate checks and balances to afford real transparency. 

With passions running high in an unusually open political season across Iran, the authorities appeared to have plans in place for crushing rallies in favor of opposition candidates, as noted by New York Times reporter Robert Worth:

But the Iranian authorities, already on alert, moved quickly to head off any concerted street demonstrations. Thousands of police officers could be seen moving into central Tehran, wielding riot batons and charging straight into the biggest concentrations of protesters. It was unclear whether there were any serious injuries.

Video reports emerging from Iran show state security forces, on motorbikes and on foot, chasing down unarmed civilians, beating them about the head and body with batons, and using other forms of blunt force. While it seems some demonstrators have set fires, either in protest or as makeshift barricades, it is unclear whether security forces have fired smoke grenades and/or tear gas at crowds of demonstrators. In some cases, it appears the “demonstrations” —declared illegal by the ruling clerics— are actually spontaneous gatherings including bystanders.

The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i has said the victory declared for Ahmedinejad is a divine endorsement of the government and must be honored. He personally threatened opposition supporters, warning them the full force of the state would be brought to bear against anyone who challenges the results. Mir Hossein Mousavi has called the official endorsement of an Ahmedinejad victory a ”dangerous charade”, and promised to oppose it, in the interest of the Iranian people.

An official speaking for US president Barack Obama said the administration finds it “not credible” that Mousavi could have lost the balloting even in his own hometown, where he is a revered political leader, or that another candidate of national stature, Mehdi Karoubi, could have received less than 1% of the vote. According to FOX News:

There already are reports of violence outside Mousavi’s campaign headquarters and of huge demonstrations for both sides in central Tehran, with Mousavi trying to make his way to the one organized by his supporters. Even if widespread violence occurs, analysts see no prospect that this event would lead to a full-scale attempt at revolution or the toppling of the regime.

Speaking in terms which suggest a potentially long struggle, through legal and/or extralegal means, Mousavi said late last night in a press gathering: “I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin,” calling into question the regime’s official findings. He went on to say: “It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back.”

Mousavi had campaigned on a platform of comprehensive social and political change, including the expansion of individual liberties and of opportunity for women. Some observers felt that even before the election, there was aversion among the ruling clerics that a Mousavi win could mean the marginalization of certain revolutionary principles in government policy.

Last night, Afshin Molavi told Margaret Warner, of PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, that:

The election commission has — I mean, has pointed out that, of the 45 percent of the vote, Ahmadinejad is ahead. This is what is different from the 2009 — the 2005 elections. Because, in 2005, they just announced the election results early in the morning. They didn’t do this kind of rolling results.

And this is what many of Moussavi supporters feared. This is why we are seeing some rioting already.

With suspicion so widespread about official manipulation of the results, the ruling clerics might still be forced into recognizing the need for an examination of the ballots, through a judicial process, or  potential runoff between the two leading vote-getters. But friction between the reformist agenda and the Guardian Council means such accommodation remains unlikely, barring widespread unrest.

BBC World Service Radio: “Ahmadinejad election victory sparks violence in Iran”

After a long day of voting and possibly record voter turnout, Iran’s presidential election has ended in deep uncertainty. Reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi has reportedly announced that he has won by a substantial margin, while state media are reporting that incumbent Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has won, with over 67% of the votes counted so far. Both candidates say they will contest the results if they are not declared winner.

The 67% figure claimed for Ahmedinejad is considered to be possible only as a result of a very incomplete count, as his popularity had waned substantially and hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters had demonstrated against him. His standing in public opinion, and even in the halls of power, had been considered so shaky that this election saw the most direct and relentless criticism of a sitting conservative president since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Turnout is projected to possibly surpass the record 80% that swept reformist Mohammad Khatami to power 12 years ago. The high turnout is considered to be a sign that Mousavi has gained widespread support and could have a similar showing, potentially ousting the controversial hardline president.

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With an electorate of 42.5 million, and huge swaths of rural territory, counting all of Iran’s ballots precisely might not be as quick as either camp would like. An election contest could drag on for some time, and wind up being adjudicated by a court or by the Guardian Council itself, some fear. Recent weeks have seen mounting concern among observers that Iran’s 2009 presidential vote could be an echo of Florida’s 2000 recount debacle, with no clear or universally accepted winner.

According to Mohammad Bazzi, adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an online discussion with the Washington Post:

In some ways, Iran is more democratic than many other countries in the Middle East, where elections are not held or there is often one name on the ballot — that of the current leader. But Iranian elections are not entirely fair and open.

Only a small group of candidates are allowed to run by the Guardian Council, which is an unelected body of 12 clerics that have the authority to veto all electoral candidates and parliamentary decisions. Half of the members of the Guardian Council are directly appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The other half are appointed by him indirectly.

Bazzi also noted that it is Khamanei, as supreme leader, who decides issues such as how to approach the US or whether Iran will continue its nuclear research and development. There is concern that Khamanei could seek to undermine the democratic process, due to his perceived preference for Ahmedinejad. Bazzi told the Washington Post that:

Khamenei, the supreme leader, has had contentious relations with all three of Ahmadinejad’s opponents. In the 1980s, when Khamenei was president of Iran, he frequently battled with Mousavi, who was prime minister at the time. Khamenei also tussled with Rezaii when he was commander of the Revolutionary Guards. In 2005, when Karroubi publicly made allegations of electoral fraud, the supreme leader denounced him.

The power wielded by the supreme leader could tempt him to simply “find a way” to hand a victory to Ahmedinejad, but Khamanei has sought to legitimate his rule and that of the elected government by staging elections that he insists are free and fair, within the confines of loyalty to the Islamic Revolution. 

That both leading candidates might declare victory is considered not unreasonable, as it is possible neither will win a majority, leading to a runoff between Ahmedinejad and Mousavi. Mousavi has already alleged voting irregularities, alleging that millions of people had been denied the right to vote due to a shortage of ballots and that his election monitors had been denied access to the polls, raising the question of why they were barred. 

Mousavi called on election officials to do their work properly in regard to the counting of all votes as well as the thorough investigation of his allegations of the “irregularities”. A high turnout among women and ethnic minorities could boost Mousavi’s chances. Himself an ethnic Azeri, Mousavi, like the other moderates, has pledged more freedoms for women.

US president Barack Obama welcomed the vigorous campaigning and contentious policy debates seen in this year’s race. He said his Cairo speech was intended to show the US was ready to enter a new era, adding that “ultimately the election is for the Iranians to decide. But just as has been true in Lebanon, what can be true in Iran as well is that you’re seeing people looking at new possibilities.”

Iran’s government has opted to keep polls open for several hours, to accommodate the huge number of citizens still waiting to vote. There is suspicion, perhaps legitimate, that the ruling clerics or the office of the president would like to enable a swing toward Pres. Ahmedinejad in late polling, but no hard evidence so far to support such suspicions. The official reason given for extending polling is massive and historic voter turnout.

Reports from Tehran say officials suggest turnout may be as high as 70 or 80 percent. One NBC reporter said that at a polling station at a mosque in the center of Tehran, the line just to enter the building was still down the street fully one hour after polls were scheduled to close. Some are openly questioning whether an election organized by the ayatollahs or a government run by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who seems to see all political opponents as enemies to be dealt with remorselessly, could be transparent and legitimate.

Alex Harrowell, in A Fistfull of Euros, compares Ahmedinejad to George W. Bush in style of electoral politicking, calling him:

An ambitious but limited regional politician who has spent time in the air force, he achieved election through a campaign for vague “reform” - whether with results or not is a good question – heavily tinged with religion or at least religiosity. In office, his term has been marked by a string of spectacular gaffes and crowd-pleasing rhetoric aimed at the hard right of the political spectrum, as well as a deliberately provocative foreign policy. Coming up to the election, Ahmedinejad leaves the Iranian economy in considerable trouble after over-spending on the belief that the boom would go on forever, and passing out considerable sums in favours to his clientele. Politically, he relies on low-information rural voters in parts of the country where the integrity of the ballot is frequently in doubt.

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But Iran has had surprise victories for reformists before, and might again. It is largely thought that there is an ongoing “struggle for the soul of Iran”, between fundamentalist hardliners who want to train the majority young electorate to adopt their views and the reformists who want to address the needs of the people. And from recent rallies, it appears increasingly clear that the young majority is leaning toward the moderates and reformers.

Several fundamental questions remain to be answered: 1) in a nation with so many poor, as compared to the well-traveled or university-educated professional class, how much will that reformist appeal really win in votes? 2) will Ahmedinejad manipulate the vote? 3) will the ayatollahs find a way to exclude the possibility of a reformist win? 4) is the economic environment and the mood of dissent so dire that even the ayatollahs will welcome a government chosen by the people?

Once those questions are settled, and some measure can be taken of the transparency of the vote, it will remain to be seen what the policy outcome of the election will be. Ahmedinejad has been severely criticized by opponents and dissent has spread openly among the voting public; he might find increased engagement with the West to be politically beneficial, should he win.

Mousavi, who calls for a kinder, gentler —or to put it otherwise, better thought and more serious—

Iranian foreign policy, might find himself under intense pressure to prove his loyalty to the revolutionary clerics, and be less moderate than is expected. Whatever the outcome, it is unlikely that Iran will not change course in some way in its domestic and foreign policy.

Rarely has a post-revolutionary leader seen such widespread disapproval of his policies, so if Ahmedinejad has to face the music of the public mood, even if he survives this vote. As it stands, the Iranian election of 2009 looks to be an historic moment in the Islamic Republic’s flirtation with representative democracy; if the results are transparent and credible, it could be a landmark moment, after which popular government and Islamic rule find a way to negotiate some key differences.

Iranians go to the polls today, to choose between extremist hardliner Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and a popular reformist and former premier, Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi has said he was compelled to enter the race by the dangerous “mismanagement” of Ahmedinejad’s, whose policies he says are characterized by “adventurism, instability, exhibitionism and extremism”.

In a televised debate, Mousavi said Ahmedinejad “has undermined the dignity of our nation”. He added that the president’s hardline policies, threats against neighbors and nuclear posturing have “inflicted heavy damages on us and created tension with other countries. It has left us with not a single friend in the region.” Mousavi served as Iran’s last prime minister, a post which was eliminated in 1989.

In the debate, Ahmedinejad complained that he had been repeatedly “attacked” by the reformist opposition, including former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. He quipped that “I have tolerated insults against me and my government over the past four years. I have been called a dictator” and defended his claim that the Holocaust was a “deception”.

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Ahmedinejad repeated his complaint that criticisms of his government were unfair, saying that the election campaign had turned into an attack by three candidates “against one person”. Three rival candidates —Mousavi, along with former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai, former leader of the Revolutionary Guards—have been critical of the sitting president and his policies, leading some to say his days are numbered.

Mousavi has inspired widespread support among young Iranians, with a message of change and outreach. He has said “I am coming to change the situation… to change this mentality, so that nobody suffers from public accusation.” He addressed Ahmedinejad directly saying “You [Ahmadinejad] are endangering the country” and calling on the people to go to the polls to choose a better future.

Mousavi has also accused the president of basing his entire foreign policy on the imagined reality in which he claims that both the US and Israel are “collapsing”. A massive street rally backing Mousavi marched through the center of Tehran in a powerful show of support for the reformist message.

The Wall Street Journal reported “Tens of thousands of demonstrators formed a 12-mile human chain across Iran’s capital city Monday, chanting for change, in scenes reminiscent of the 1979 revolution.” Some have estimated as many as a million attended the rally.

According to the Journal:

“The people of Iran have clearly spoken, they want change and not listening to them will be a great injustice,” wrote Mohamad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and political analyst, on his blog on Monday night.

Demonstrators sang “Ey Iran,” a pre-revolutionary national song that was banned for years, and “Yar Dabestani,” a communist song adapted by student activists. They chanted slurs at Mr. Ahmadinejad, calling him a “dictator” and “liar.”

The president rallied supporters as well, some of whom are reported to have had minor clashes with the large pro-reform crowd. All seem to agree that the election has inspired deep passions and awakened a new awareness of the diversity of opinion across Iran. Supporters of Mousavi’s “green wave” say the atmosphere is reminiscent of Khatami’s 1997 landslide victory for the reformers.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that in the city of Birjand “wildly cheering supporters draped in green welcomed their candidate in a sports arena with deafening cries of support and ‘Death to the dictator.’” Mousavi invoked his supporters to “change the atmosphere of lies and treachery”, saying “The worst corruption is to lie to the people in the name of Islam” and attacking the government for snooping “in people’s private documents and private lives”.

Today, Iran will vote to decide the future course of the nation. The reformists, as always, face the challenge of persuading not only the public, but also the revolutionary clerics, the ayatollahs, who control the country and who banned their incumbent from the last round of elections, in what many observers called a naked effort to rig the outcome of the election. This time has been different, with much more debate and open politicking, but transparency is not guaranteed.

• From Wikipedia: “Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh (??????? ????? ?????) (born 29 September 1941) is an Iranian conservative reformist politician, painter and architect who served as the fifth and last Prime Minister of the Islamic republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Mousavi is currently the president of the Iranian Academy of Arts.”
• Also: “Mousavi is well remembered by many Iranians for managing the country during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and for his very effective steering of the country out of an economic recession. He has stated that his main goals are: to institutionalise social justice, equality and fairness, freedom of expression, to root out corruption and to speed up Iran’s stagnant process of privatization and thus move Iran away from what he calls ‘an alms-based economy’.”