CafeSentido.com » Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Khamene’i Transported by Helicopter to Secure Location: online reports

staff — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:56:39 +0000

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.

Ayatollah Khamene’i: Is He Dead or Alive?

staff — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:46:16 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iran Continues to Arrest Dissidents, Show Signs of Instability

staff — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:12:31 +0000

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

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

The New York Times reported on 15 September:

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

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

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

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

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

As the AFP has reported:

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

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

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

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

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

Ahmedinejad Calls for ‘Merciless’ Prosecution of Political Rivals

staff — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:33:59 +0000

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

J.E. Robertson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:56:59 +0000

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.

Iran Prisoner Abuse Stokes Outrage Against Government

staff — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:30:31 +0000

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.

Global ‘Day of Action’ Sees Protests Around World to Support Iran Opposition

staff — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:47:18 +0000

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.

Khatami Calls for Referendum to Judge Iran Government’s Legitimacy

staff — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:34:29 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iran Government Attacks Civilians During Friday Prayers

Denver Lessing — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:40:45 +0000

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)

staff — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:18:40 +0000

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

staff — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:52:06 +0000

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”

staff — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:53:40 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opposition Demonstrations in Iran Mark 10 Yrs. Since Student Protests

staff — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:16:36 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iran Regime Accuses Soros, Cheney, Bilderberg of Conspiracy to Subvert System

Anjika Sridhar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:38:06 +0000

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

staff — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:24:46 +0000

A group that is thought to be the most important and influential body of clerics in Iran, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom, has reportedly declared the disputed presidential election of 12 June “illegitimate”. The declaration, made by a body of top theologians, based in the holy city of Qom, confirms a deep and possibly irreconcilable split in Iran’s clerical establishment.

According to the New York Times:

The announcement came on a day when Mr. Moussavi released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president’s supporters, and as a close associate of the supreme leader called Mr. Moussavi and former President Mohammad Khatami “foreign agents,” saying they should be treated as criminals.

The Qom declaration puts supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i at odds with a significant number of those whose recognition he needs in order to govern. The declaration also builds on recent revelations that suggest government supporters allegedly printed as many as 20 million extra ballots and gave cash payments to voters.

While the last week has seen the most aggressive efforts by what is shaping up to be a clear Ahmedinejad-Khamene’i camp, supported by the activities of the Basij militia, to criminalize the opposition and establish a true monopoly on power in Iranian politics. Opposition supporters have long criticized Khamene’i for this tendency toward total government, and Ahmedinejad, whose policies have been criticized as extreme even by conservatives among the nation’s community of clerics, appears to fit into that aim.

The Mousavi movement has brought a new awareness of Iran’s constitutional checks and balances both to the Iranian public and to the clerical establishment, some of whom fear the concentration of power in the hands of only one or two individuals. The Association of Researchers had previously called for the nullification of the 12 June elections, due to the widespread public opposition in Iran itself to the management of the process and the disputed outcome.

But the Qom declaration of illegitimacy puts significant new pressure on Khamene’i and Ahmedinejad to not only find a way to legitimize the electoral process itself, but to defend their own ground as legitimate leaders within the Iranian constitutional system. It could also signal serious tactical gains for the Rafsanjani group, which has lobbied against the official results and is thought to be seeking to challenge Khamene’i's rule through the Assembly of Experts.

Using patriotic and moral language, the Association of Researchers questioned the Guardian Council for so firmly backing what appears to be a questionable election process, suggesting such actions have undermined “the dignity that was earned with the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs”.

The Times report observes a mounting thrust of defiance of government dictates:

With heavy security on the streets, there is a forced calm. But each day, slowly, another link falls from the chain of government control. Last week, in what appeared a coordinated thrust, Mr. Moussavi, Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Khatami all called the new government illegitimate. On Saturday, Mr. Milani of Stanford said, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani met with families of those who had been arrested, another sign that he was working behind the scenes to keep the issue alive.

With populism and the clerical establishment aligning to question the legitimacy not only of the election results but of the government resulting from that election, Khamene’i is facing the most serious challenge to a supreme leader’s authority in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic.

Full coverage on the Iranian election crisis, from Café Sentido:

Guardian Council Chief Says Iran Will Try UK Embassy Staff

staff — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:53:12 +0000

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

staff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:54:11 +0000

The government-linked Basij militia has called for the prosecution of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, alleging that he is responsible for inciting violence in the streets that resulted from clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Mousavi has repeatedly urged his supporters to behave within the law and to practice non-violence; the violence seen since the 12 June election appears to have been consistently the result of security forces attacking unarmed civilians, some demonstrators, some not.

In a letter to Iran’s top prosecutor, the Basij militia organization alleges Mousavi is guilty of no less than 9 offenses against the state, including ”disturbing the nation’s security”. If prosecuted and convicted, Mousavi would face prison time, a sign to some that the Basij letter may be part of an orchestrated effort by the pro-Ahmedinejad camp, possibly including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, to justify the long-term imprisonment of the nation’s most popular opposition politician.

The Basij militia themselves are implicated in the exercise of random acts of brutality against civilians, including the shooting death of Neda Agha Soltan, whose last moments of life as she bled to death from a gunshot wound to the chest were filmed and circulated widely online. The young woman’s death galvanized international condemnation of the government’s use of violence and aggressive tactics to disperse demonstrators and intimidate the opposition.

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Eyewitnesses from the scene of Neda Soltan’s shooting are reported to have identified the shooter, tackled him and taken his Basij militia ID. The Basij have been used throughout the election dispute by the government to interfere with demonstrations and to raid locations where the government suspects the demonstrations were being organized, including university dormitories, private homes and even —according to some accounts— places of worship.

The Basij letter stretched the bounds of legal authority in accusing Mousavi of crimes even the Basij admit he probably never committed: “‘Whether he wanted to or not, Mr. Mousavi in many areas supervised or assisted in punishable acts,’ said the Basij letter, which also accused Mousavi of bringing “pessimism” into the public sphere.”

Pessimism is not a crime in Iran, and some observers believe the letter is a thinly veiled threat of violence against the opposition leader, should he persist in his criticisms of the election process. Mousavi, for his part, today declared that he views the new Ahmedinejad government as “illegitimate”, due to the allegedly coordinated and nationwide fraud that occurred in the presidential election.

Demonstrators have persisted in their attempts to show mass support for Mousavi’s allegations and to demand a new, more transparent democratic electoral process. But staging the huge rallies seen in the early days of the election dispute has been hard, amid an increasingly intense security crackdown. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran:

Uniformed and plainclothes agents of the regime’s police were out in force across the capital Tehran and other cities on Tuesday to prevent any anti-government protests from forming. We received numerous reports that agents brutally attacked small gatherings, beating and arresting people.

In various districts of Tehran people in groups of several dozen tried to gather in major squares such as Vanak, Sadeghieh, Tajrish, Enqelab and Vali-Asr but encountered large numbers of repressive forces.

Mousavi has also demanded the immediate release of all political prisoners detained in the government’s crackdown on opposition protests. Mousavi said in an online statement that the security crackdown was “tantamount to a coup”, as the government is using military force to deny opposition supporters their constitutional rights to free assembly and to call for justice.

Former president and prominent reformist politician Mohammad Khatami today denounced the government’s brutal response to protests and suggested the 12 June election was rigged. With 20 people believed killed by security forces so far, Khatami questioned the government’s response to dissent: “If you want to calm the atmosphere, why are you carrying out mass arrests? Oppressing people will not help end the protests”.

The former president also says the government is denying those detained their constitutional due process rights, including the right to see an attorney and to challenge their detention in court, writing “why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don’t they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven’t they been charged?”

Khatami also suggested the government is attempting to use arrests to coerce false confessions that help it make the argument it must use force to stop the opposition allegations from being thoroughly investigated. Specifically, he took issue with the government’s apparent plan to air taped ‘confessions’. “Obtaining confessions in front of cameras is a useless old method … confessions under pressure are not valid”, wrote Khatami.

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

Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities

staff — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:26:07 +0000

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

J.E. Robertson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:37:15 +0000

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’

J.E. Robertson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:40:46 +0000

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.

Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked

staff — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:33:21 +0000

There is increasing evidence of a brutal campaign of violence and suppression being waged against the opposition and against demonstrators calling for a full accounting of the votes cast on 12 June. Ahmedinejad’s chief rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading reformist candidate, has said “I will not leave the scene in response to the deception, the essence of which has become clear to the people”.

Another reformist challenger, Mehdi Karoubi, who has been increasingly vocal in his support for the pro-democracy demonstrators, released a statement using some of the strongest resistance language yet: “There is strong syndicated electoral mafia in Iran that has interfered and changed the results of the elections. We must locate the cancerous leadership of this syndicate and destroy it”.

Yesterday, demonstrators massing in Tehran’s Baharestan Square were brutally attacked by security forces. A number of unverified reports cite scenes of a woman beaten until she was drenched in her own blood, students assaulted with axes, and security forces shooting live rounds at demonstrators. One woman’s panicked account of what she saw there called the scene “a massacre” and has been widely circulated.

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Reports across the web are citing a CNN interview with an eyewitness to the Baharestan violence, who said:

They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood, and her husband who was watching the scene, he just fainted. I also saw [the security forces] shooting young people. This was a massacre. They were trying to beat people so that they would die. They were cursing… they were beating old men. This was exactly a massacre. You should stop this. You should help the people of Iran who demand freedom. There were thousands of people on the street. I heard the shooting and we just ran away. I didn’t see what happened but I’m sure people are dead there.

One witness is reported to have alleged “In the previous days they are killing students with axes, they put the axe through the heart of young men, and it’s so devastating I don’t know how to describe it”, calling the crackdown a massacre and saying “This is Hitler”.

The “war of words” has intensified as Iranian state television has begun spreading rumors that civilian deaths were caused by protesters. Opposition supporters and rights advocates have said they believe such propaganda is intended to serve as justification for a bloody military operation to end the unrest. There are reports of “hackers” supporting both factions attacking or defacing websites ranging from Iranian government sites to the University of Oregon.

Efforts to crush support for the opposition, which complains the election was rigged, have gone as far as to target the family of Neda Agha Soltan, preventing them from obtaining her body, removing them from their home, and barring any public demonstration of mourning for her death. Neighbors report being directly threatened by unnamed callers and/or agents seeking to stop any public grieving for Soltan’s shooting death.

UPDATE, 23:39 GMT: Even as opposition leaders contemplate how they can rally public support and pursue their charges of electoral fraud, with the system and the security forces aligning behind the supreme leader and Pres. Ahmedinejad, there is evidence of deepening divisions among even staunch conservatives across the Iranian political spectrum.

The New York Times is reporting:

A few conservatives have expressed revulsion at the sight of unarmed protesters being beaten, even shot, by government forces. Only 105 out of the 290 members of Parliament took part in a victory celebration for Mr. Ahmadinejad on Tuesday, newspapers reported Thursday. Although Parliament has often clashed with Mr. Ahmadinejad, the absence of so many lawmakers, including the speaker, Ali Larijani, a powerful conservative, was striking.

While some see the regime leaders as hardening their stance and ramping up the use of violence to suppress dissent, powerful political figures like former president and rival to both Khamene’i and Ahmedinejad, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have yet to announce their strategies for moving forward. Rafsanjani is head of the Assembly of Experts, the body of clerics which has sole authority to install or remove the supreme leader.

Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces

staff — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:30:12 +0000

After a few days of relative calm, opposition demonstrators again sought to organize a rally to demand a full accounting of all ballots cast in the 12 June presidential election. Sporadic reports from the capital, Tehran, say demonstrators were confronted by a heavy security presence when trying to assemble for a pro-democracy rally. An eyewitness has reportedly said security forces were beating people like “animals”.

CNN cites an unnamed source at the site of the demonstration saying “I see many people with broken arms, legs, heads — blood everywhere — pepper gas like war”. One report suggests “500 thugs” stormed onto the streets where demonstrators were massing and began beating people with clubs. Tensions may be worsening as the Guardian Council has announced there is apparent widespread fraud in 50 cities, but the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamene’i, appears to be promising not to cancel or overrule the election result due to fraud allegations.

Khamene’i has said the results will stand and he will “insist on implementing the law”, adding that “Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost”. Khamene’i has sought to paint the opposition demonstrators as the faction that refuses to honor democratic processes or the will of the people, by challenging the official vote count.

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The White House has released its own Persian-language (Farsi) translation of Pres. Obama’s remarks on the crisis, to avoid Iranian state media disseminating false translations accusing Obama of seeking to incite riots or overthrow the regime. Observers inside and outside Iran have in recent days criticized the government for seeking to use foreign governments as scapegoats to promote the idea of a military crackdown against demonstrators, backed by the logic of national security.

Iran has been attempting to diminish the opposition by associating its demonstrations with foreign governments considered hostile to Iran and with senseless street violence. Some official statements have appeared to paint the demonstrators as part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government. The UK and Iran both expelled diplomats from the other nation this week, in an increasingly contentious back-and-forth between the Iranian leadership and figures in the international community who have called for calm and for a fair vote count.

Zahra Rahnavard, a former university dean and the wife of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said his supporters will not be cowed by the government’s increasingly hardline security crackdown. Rahnavard said in a statement posted on the web that her husband’s supporters have a constitutional right to free assembly and that the government should not treat them “as if martial law has been imposed in the streets”. Article 27 of Iran’s constitution does guarantee freedom of assembly.

UPDATE, 19:39 GMT: A group of clerics reportedly joined demonstrations calling for an examination of or nullification of ballots cast in the disputed presidential election. CNN reported last night that “In a blatant act of defiance, a group of Mullahs took to the streets of Tehran, to protest election results that returned incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.”

In another development, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, has called for Iranian state television to grant airtime to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, so he can explain the complaints he has about the election process. A spokesman for the committee investigating election irregularities is quoted as saying “the biased behavior of [IRIB] has fueled the current situation and some authorities including the speaker of parliament are critical of this [behavior]“.

More reporting on Iran crisis, from Cafe Sentido:

Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relatives Detained

staff — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:35:09 +0000

UPDATE, 18:43 GMT: Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, has criticized the Guardian Council, alleging that some of the 12 clerics have taken sided with an apparent effort to falsify election results in favor of incumbent pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Larijani said “a majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election results are different than what was officially announced”.

Larijani also said that the fact that this viewpoint corresponds to a majority of the public needs to be considered so that complaints of electoral fraud are not conflated with the scenes of unrest occuring sporadically across the country. The parliament speaker urged the leadership of the government to recognize that “a line should be drawn between them and rioters and miscreants”, and a legitimate process of inquiry undertaken to adjudicate the results.

UPDATE, 18:20 GMT: Iranian state media and the BBC report that security forces have detained five members of the family of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, leader of the Assembly of Experts and rival to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i. Rafsanjani supports opposition claims that the presidential election count was rigged to return hardline president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to power.

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Due to constraints on foreign media inside Iran, it is not yet known whether Rafsanjani’s daughter Faezeh and four other members of the family have been released. Rafsanjani had called for an emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts, possibly to consider whether to remove the supreme leader for alleged involvement in electoral fraud. At least one member of the panel of clerics has released a letter expressing support for Khamene’i and Ahmedinejad and the disputed official tally.

Reporters without Borders (RSF) says it can confirm that at least 20 journalists are currently in detention, while the total number of deaths from violence against demonstrators continues to mount. State media have acknowledged at least 10 deaths, while CNN yesterday confirmed 19 from sources inside hospitals. Other media outlets say as many as 150 people have been killed across Iran:

UPDATE, 13:44 GMT: Today Iranian state television published comments by the government blaming “terrorists” for yesterday’s clashes. With video and numerous eyewitness accounts indicating that government-backed militia attacked unarmed civilians, raided homes and fired live rounds and tear gas at unarmed demonstrators, the use of the word “terrorists”suggests the regime is now classifying all opposition supporters in this way.

There was reportedly a fire at one mosque, and a bombing that is said to have injured police, but the opposition has disavowed any connection to violence. Supporters of the opposition allege that security forces and the Basij militia are responsible for these acts of provocation, designed to justify a military assault on dissidents.

State media said the government’s position is that “The presence of terrorists … in yesterday’s event in Enghelab and Azadi avenues was tangible”. The statement is vague enough to demonstrate the attitude being adopted: in order to stay in power, the leadership are prepared to treat their own citizens as enemies of the state.

Officially the government will not confirm the allegations that Basij militia have been breaking in to people’s homes and abducting members of the opposition under cover of darkness. Efforts by citizens’ groups to use the fabric of their communities to watch out for, single out and evade or protect against the secret members of the Basij are now being characterized by some as “Basiji hunting”, a development the regime might use to claim a right to military defense.

Reports from Saturday include allegations that a “chemical agent”, possibly something stronger than tear gas, was used against demonstrators. Overnight, online messaging suggested an effort spreading around Iran to help communities defend themselves, by strength of number or by reconnaissance and organization, against the militia gangs.

Earlier updates can be found here…

Café Sentido’s complete coverage of the Iranian election and aftermath:

Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)

staff — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:39:27 +0000

UPDATE, 13:44 GMT: Today Iranian state television published comments by the government blaming “terrorists” for yesterday’s clashes. With video and numerous eyewitness accounts indicating that government-backed militia attacked unarmed civilians, raided homes and fired live rounds and tear gas at unarmed demonstrators, the use of the word “terrorists” suggests the regime is now classifying all opposition supporters in this way.

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Throughout the day on Saturday and late into the night, the internet was buzzing with rumor and conjecture, anecdotal reports and amateur video footage showing evidence of security forces attacking, beating and even shooting unarmed civilians. The following video shows police attacking students and opposition supporters at Shiraz University, on Saturday:

UPDATE, 2:52 GMT: Online sources are posting warnings that Basij militia gangs are “breaking into homes”. There are specific warnings that the militia are heading for Shiraz, or are there already. One feed urges readers in the area “Basiji’s are breaking into homes! Gather with your neighbors in large groups!” These are not the first reports of Basij raiding private homes, but there is not yet independent evidence to show the breakins or what amount of force has been used.

UPDATE, 2:41 GMT: Unconfirmed reports are emerging from Shiraz that Hale Yousefian, a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign and a former minister of the Iranian parliament, has been detained. The arrest has not been independently confirmed, but such news is being disseminated via online messaging sites like Twitter. Sporadic reports from unnamed bystanders and foreign media suggested the night could be a dangerous time for opposition supporters.

Videos have also emerged that appear to show unarmed victims of gunshot wounds, allegedly from shots fired by security forces. Here are two examples; be warned, the images are very graphic and may be disturbing:

One site that is collecting videos from links posted to Twitter is CastTV. Some sites, like TweetFeed’s RT Iran page, are showing live updates as new messages with eyewitness accounts, likes, video or transcripts of politicians’ statements, come in. Reports of violence are numerous and coming from a wide range of sources, so figures for the number of demonstrators, number of detained, or dead and injured, are hard to verify.

According to AHN, “Unconfirmed reports put the death toll in Iran at 150 on Saturday from violent clashes in Iran over the recent presidential elections, it was the worst violence there since the 1979 revolution.” CNN reports that hospital officials have confirmed at least 19 deaths.

The Huffington Post kept a live blog throughout the day, tracking online, anecdotal and wire service reports of incidents across Iran. Sometime after midnight Iranian time, the news began to spread that an Iranian state TV report claiming the Assembly of Experts had published a letter supporting the supreme leader and backing Mr. Ahmedinejad was in fact false. The letter had been signed by only one member of the Assembly, a hardline cleric who is described as close to Khamene’i, a rival of Rafsanjani and a staunch supporter of Ahmedinejad.

Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)

staff — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:48:04 +0000

This article is an update to an earlier report on shots fired at pro-opposition demonstrators in Iran. Throughout the day on Saturday and late into the night, the internet was buzzing with rumor and conjecture, anecdotal reports and amateur video footage showing evidence of security forces attacking, beating and even shooting unarmed civilians. The following video shows police attacking students and opposition supporters at Shiraz University, on Saturday:

Unconfirmed reports are emerging from Shiraz that Hale Yousefian, a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign and a former minister of the Iranian parliament, has been detained. The arrest has not been independently confirmed, but such news is being disseminated via online messaging sites like Twitter. Sporadic reports from unnamed bystanders and foreign media suggested the night could be a dangerous time for opposition supporters.

Videos have also emerged that appear to show unarmed victims of gunshot wounds, allegedly from shots fired by security forces. Here are two examples; be warned, the images are very graphic and may be disturbing:

UPDATE, 2:52 GMT, 21 June: Online sources are posting warnings that Basij militia gangs are “breaking into homes”. There are specific warnings that the militia are heading for Shiraz, or are there already. One feed urges readers in the area “Basiji’s are breaking into homes! Gather with your neighbors in large groups!” These are not the first reports of Basij raiding private homes, but there is not yet independent evidence to show the breakins or what amount of force has been used.

Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators

staff — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:15:54 +0000

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has declared he is “ready for martyrdom” and has urged his supporters across the nation to strike if he is detained or harmed. Responding to the supreme leader’s vocal support for the use of violence to suppress the demonstrations, security forces have reportedly fired shots at or over a crowd of demonstrators in central Tehran. Mousavi has written a letter to the nation’s highest electoral authority, demanding a re-run of the election; the move is being seen as the most overt show of defiance to date against the supreme leader.

With the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i having promised “chaos and bloodshed” should demonstrations continue, today’s reports suggest that clashes between security forces and demonstrators have intensified. The Associated Press called today’s confrontations “fierce”, reporting:

Police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied Saturday in open defiance of Iran’s clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s English-language state TV said as reports of street clashes became public that a suicide bombing at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini south of Tehran had killed one person and wounded eight. The report could be not independently evaluated due to government restrictions on journalists.

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Foreign observers and pro-democracy activists have suggested Khamene’i could quell the unrest if he were to take a quieter public posture and side with the proposed partial recount. Those inside Iran who say the vote was rigged have begun to express their belief that the supreme leader is violating his constitutional obligations by not backing a full and thorough investigation of the charges.

There is increasing speculation that the two sides in this crisis have been hardening their positions throughout the week and that conflict may be likely, if the supreme leader does not act to find a negotiated solution. He has vowed to do anything within his power to stop an Iranian “velvet revolution”. As protesters today faced armed militia and uniformed security forces, many have reportedly been beaten or fired upon. The San Francisco Sentinel reports:

In some places, the protesters pushed back, rushing the militia in teams of hundreds, pitching at least three basijis from their motorcycles and setting the vehicles on fire. The protesters included many women, who even berated as “cowards” men who fled the basijis.

In all, there seemed some restraint on both sides. The protesters did not appear in the same huge numbers as earlier last week, and while the police fired shots, they appeared — so far — to be in the air.

“If they open fire on people and if there is bloodshed, people will get angrier,” said one protester, Ali, 40. “They are out of their minds if they think with bloodshed they can crush the movement.”

Police have reportedly blockaded the Tehran University campus, in an effort to prevent demonstrations organized by student groups from joining the opposition rallies. The Hindu newspaper is also reporting “heavy clashes” and security helicopters overhead:

Witnesses reported heavy clashes on Saturday between protesters and riot police, which used tear gas and water cannons to disperse around three thousand people at Revolution Square.

Agency reports said police and plainclothes militia beat up 50-60 protesters, who were taken to the Imam Khomeini hospital in central Tehran. Helicopters hovered overhead to take pictures of the scene while ambulance sirens could be heard in the streets.

The sound of ambulances has been reported throughout the city center, and foreign embassies in Tehran are reportedly opening their gates to aid the wounded.

US pres. Barack Obama has expressed deepening concern over the handling of the crisis, warning the Iranian leadership that “the world is watching”. Reacting to Khamene’i's forecast of “chaos and bloodshed”, Obama warned that “how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard will, I think, send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and — and is not”.

Obama also said he would not fall into the trap set by some in the Iranian leadership who would like him to get involved in the crisis in order to cast the opposition as US pawns. His press secretary Robert Gibbs said “We’re not going to be used as political foils and political footballs in a debate that’s happening by Iranians in Iran”.

An unknown number of dissidents have been detained, most of them held without charge in as-yet undisclosed locations. According to the Guardian newspaper:

The violent interventions of the Basij militia – one of Ahmadinejad’s bases of electoral support – armed with bicycle chains, batons and Kalashnikovs and dressed in a mixture of civilian clothes and fatigues, is an increasingly significant factor in the crisis.

Special units of the Army of Mohammad Rasulallah, part of the Revolutionary Guard noted for its iron fist tactics, have also reportedly taken over law enforcement in the capital.

While opposition leaders call for calm and for ongoing demonstrations, ordinary Iranians are beginning to express more fear about what actions the regime will take to prevent a re-run of the election or an investigation of alleged fraud. Tehran is being overtaken by military police units, and an aide to one of the opposition candidates, Mehdi Karoubi, has said for security reasons, he cannot speak to the press. Moderate clerics that had called for massive rallies today postponed them to avoid the “bloodshed” Khamene’i promised.

UPDATE, 23:40 GMT: Reports emerging from Tehran say 30 to 40 people have been killed as security forces seek to repress spreading protests. Clashes between unarmed demonstrators and security forces, both uniformed military and plainclothes Basij paramilitaries, have been videotaped in Shiraz and Isfahan. There are also unconfirmed reports of security forces raiding homes, removing people by force, and government agents taking the names of wounded demonstrators seeking hospital care.

UPDATE, 2:41 GMT, 21 June: Unconfirmed reports are emerging from Shiraz that Hale Yousefian, a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign and a former minister of the Iranian parliament, has been detained. The arrest has not been independently confirmed, but such news is being disseminated via online messaging sites like Twitter. Sporadic reports from unnamed bystanders and foreign media suggested the night could be a dangerous time for opposition supporters.

The following video shows police attacking students and opposition supporters at Shiraz University, on Saturday:

These updates continue here…

Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand

J.E. Robertson — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:20:54 +0000

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.

UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence

staff — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:43:53 +0000

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

staff — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:45:01 +0000

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.

Yazdi has vocally criticized the official results of the election, accusing the government of stealing the vote. According to the Guardian newspaper:

In the run-up to the election, Yazdi called for stringent measures to protect the integrity of the ballot, and his party secured commitments from reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to press for more open democracy if elected, Noorbaksh said.

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.

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Yazdi is reported to be close to reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who has called the official election results unbelievable and has voiced support for the opposition demonstrators. The BBC reports that other prominent figures have been detained, including:

Mohammad Tavasoli: Director of political office of Freedom Movement
Mohammad Ali Abtahi: A former vice-president of Iran
Mustafa Tajzadeh: A former deputy interior minister
Saeed Hajjarian: A reformist strategist, badly wounded in a shooting attack in 2000
Abdullah Ramazanzadeh: A former government spokesman and provincial governor
Mohsen Mirdamadi: Secretary General, Islamic Iran participation Party
Mohsen Aminzadeh: A former deputy foreign minister
Behzad Nabavi: Former first deputy speaker of parliament

Human Rights Watch is calling on Iran to cease all use of violence against peaceful demonstrators and to launch a criminal investigation into the deaths of at least 7 people earlier this week. Iranian state television reported on Tuesday that 7 people had been killed the night before in clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Witnesses have reported widely that unarmed demonstrators were attacked by security forces using live ammunition.

According to the watchdog group:

Several witnesses told Human Rights Watch that on June 16, special police forces randomly attacked persons in the streets of Tehran close to the silent gathering in support of the reformist candidates whom, according to the contested official account, Ahmadinejad defeated.

“We were not doing anything wrong but walking toward the crowd,” said one of the witnesses. “The [policemen] wanted to terrify the people who were about to join the protesters.”

The arbitrary violence against unarmed civilians, even those who were not participating in the marches, has clearly added to the anger among Iranians who feel their election was hijacked. Efforts to document the security forces’ use of violence have had to depend heavily on amateur video footage, the use of overseas proxy servers and the will of individuals inside Iran to defy the government’s ban on media coverage and send their reports out to the world wide web.

Rights groups are in the process of trying to verify the authenticity of numerous tapes and eyewitness accounts of the reported acts of repression. It appears the government believed that Ebrahim Yazdi’s participation, however indirect, in the protests could help disparate opposition groups coalesce around recognized leaders and broaden their support inside and outside the halls of power.

Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators

staff — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:44:40 +0000

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.