1. Guardian Council rules out vote nullification: “Iran’s Guardian Council rules out the possibility of nullifying the country’s June 12 Presidential election, saying there has been no record of any major irregularity.”
2. Today’s Strike: So there were rumors that a public strike was supposed to go into effect today but I haven’t received any news about it and I’ve looked all over. I’m assuming it didn’t go through. All sources, however, agree that a national day of mourning and protests will happen this Thursday.
3. Iran to create special court to try election protesters: “Ebrahim Raisi, a top official in Iran’s judiciary branch, said tribunals will be set up after a preliminary investigation to process hundreds of “rioters” and “thugs” caught in security sweeps during the unrest. ‘The judiciary will set up special courts for those cases which are passed on to the judiciary,’ he said in comments broadcast on state television. ‘Hopefully, they will receive their legal punishments and our dear people will be informed of their punishments.'”
4. Iran bans election protest footballers: A”ccording to the pro-government newspaper Iran, four players – Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka’abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32 – have been ‘retired’ from the sport after their gesture in last Wednesday’s match against South Korea in Seoul.”
5. Obama Succumbs to Right-wing Pressure: “Mr Obama said: “The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.’ He said: ‘The United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran’s affairs. But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society.’ Mr Obama said of the allegations of meddling: ‘This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won’t work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States and the West. This is about the people of Iran, and the future that they – and only they – will choose.’
6. Slight majority approves of Obama’s handling of Iran [before he buckled to right-wing pressure]: “According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 52 percent give the president high marks for his response to the crisis in Iran while 36 percent disapprove. The poll is the first survey to come out in the wake of the country’s disputed election just over a week ago.”
7. In Iran, everyone thinks their view represents the view of the majority: “‘Look who supports Ahmadinejad, it’s just sectarian groups, a minority,’ said Parisa, a 26-year-old woman at a rally for Mr. Moussavi last week. At a rally the next day for Mr. Ahmadinejad, Muhammad Ali, a 49-year-old English teacher, said with equal sincerity: ‘Ahmadinejad belongs to all the people, not just one group. But Moussavi and the others, they are just from a narrow sector.'”
8. The UK-Iran Diplomatic Row: “In a fresh diplomatic move, Britain is expelling two Iranian diplomats in response to Tehran’s decision to order two UK diplomats to leave Iran following allegations UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called ‘absolutely without foundation’.”
9. iPouya on Reza Pahlavi… again: So Reza Pahlavi recently spoke about the uprising in Iran over the disputed presidential election at the National Press Club in Washington. If I was there, I would have thrown a shoe at him, especially when he put on a show by crying. I said this before and I’m going to say it again: “He has nothing to do with this movement and I have not seen a single image of him on the streets in Tehran. I’ve seen people hoisting up pictures of Mousavi and Khatami among the opposition and Ahmadinejad, Khomeini, and Khamenei among the regime supporters, but absolutely nothing of Pahlavi. Does he know that he’s doing more harm than good? People who want the protests to continue should not smear the demonstrators by tagging their constroversial and absolutely irrelevant selves to the movement.”
10. Professor As’ad AbuKhalil on the Washington Post’s Suicide Bombing Double-Standard: The Washington Post: “In an act fraught with symbolic significance, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the mausoleum of the father of Iran’s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, while unrest continued across Tehran in defiance of a ban on demonstrations.” As’ad AbuKhalil: “I wonder if Palestinian bombings were ever described as ‘fraught with symbolic significance.’
11. Googoosh’s New Song in Solidarity with Protesters: See the music video for “Man hamoon Iranam” here.
12. Conan O’Brien on Iran’s efforts to legitimize the elections: Watch the entire video here.
As terrible as Reza Pahlavi is, John McCain’s exploitation of Neda on the Senate Floor was especially appalling. “Next Stop: IRAN!” is not “Hoory for Iranians!”
As terrible as Reza Pahlavi is, John McCain’s exploitation of Neda on the Senate floor was especially appalling. Remember his position about Iran during the ’08 election: “Next Stop: Iran!” He also laughed that “killing Iranians slowly by selling them cigarettes is good!”
Sorry for the typos. You can delete the other comment Pouya.
But by design or accident, Mousavi’s actions from the day of the vote until today have been exactly what the US would have ordered to get the most possible destabilization of Iran out of the election. There is nothing a party interested in harming Iran could have asked Mousavi to do that Mousavi has not done. There are many things Mousavi could have done, if he was primarily motivated by a genuine concern that there had been electoral fraud that he has not done. In my opinion, Mousavi has joined the Shah and Sadat as great betrayers of the interests of their people. Hopefully, unlike the Shah and Sadat, the damage Mousavi does will be contained.
http://mideastreality.blogspot.com/2009/06/hopefully-wrap-up-of-my-thoughts-on.html
Interesting follow up question to Obama at the press conference
“1:45 PM ET — HuffPost asks Obama a question about Iran at press conference. My colleague Nico Pitney was given the opportunity to ask a question at Obama’s press conference today that came directly from an Iranian. His question for the president was: “Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?”
Obama’s response:
” Well look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground, we can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country. What we know is that a sizeable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, considered this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There [are] significant questions about the legitimacy of the election. And so ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States. And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government. What we can do is to say unequivocally that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with peaceful dissent, that spans cultures, spans borders, and what we’ve been seeing over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports, violates those norms and violates those principles. I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.”
Second, is it realistic – or even desirable – to demand a rerun of the election just because it did not yield a particular result? What if the election was rerun and Mousavi lost again? Would they keep on demanding reruns until he won?
Third, from a geopolitical point of view, I do not believe it is in the interest of the downtrodden peoples of the Middle East to destabilize the Islamic Republic. A strong Iran, with a potential nuclear capability and a courageous, “hard-line†leadership is a vital potential counterweight to U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the region and a challenge to America’s Arab lickspittles.
Finally, as a realist and as an Arab I have a deep aversion to something the Iranians seem to have in common with us Arabs: the inability to accept defeat in a free and fair election. Could it be that, as with Fatah in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, Mousavi and his supporters simply cannot accept defeat?
For all these reasons, I cannot side with the demonstrators in Iran. I hope their leaders – if that’s what Mousavi and Rafsanjani are – see sense and act with responsibility, for the sake of Iran and the rest of the Middle East.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/A_realist_s_view_of_the_protests_in_Iran.html
The question is that can Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and the rest of A robs allow this kind of things for two weeks? You bit that these things will not even last more then just ONE hour and less than few minutes headlines in the West. Now which country has democracy? Now people on those countries should rise and ask the same demand that Iranians did. Now you know the rest of the story. Peace upon us.
Pouya, why aren’t you selling T-shirts of reza pahlavi’s whiney face? FAIL!
Some people show their true color a little soon.
http://alef.ir/1388/content/view/48170/
Has anyone noticed how BBC coverage has changed after the allegations made by the government. They are using less “reports” and rumors. Unlike CNN, but yeah their whole tone has changed. Am I the only one thats noticed this?
UK seeks ‘constructive’ ties with Iran
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:38:02 GMT
Brown said UK expelled two Iranian diplomats in a tit-for-tat action.
The British government has criticized Iran for seeking to downgrade relations with the UK as tensions continue to grow between the two countries.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain wanted ‘constructive’ ties with Iran, but added that Tehran’s decision to review its relations with London was ‘deeply regrettable’.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said earlier Wednesday that Tehran was reviewing its ties with Britain, because of London’s ‘interference’ in Tehran’s affairs.
“We are monitoring the situation… We have always been clear that we seek a constructive bilateral relationship with Iran based on mutual respect,” the spokesman said.
In recent days, the US and some of European powers — namely Britain, France, Italy and Germany — have lashed out at the Iranian government for the nature of the measures it has taken to deal with the street protests following the June 12 presidential election, in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared victor by almost two-thirds of votes.
Iranian officials have accused Western powers of interfering in the country’s internal affairs.
“Iran’s decision to try to turn what are clearly internal matters for Iran into a conflict with the UK and others is deeply regrettable and without foundation,” said Brown’s spokesman.
In his Wednesday remarks Mottaki also confirmed earlier reports of the expulsion of two British diplomats from Iran in protest at ‘interfering’ remarks by British officials. In a tit-for-tat action, Brown said on Tuesday that London was expelling two Iranian diplomats.
AKM/MMN
UK seeks ‘constructive’ ties with Iran
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:38:02 GMT
Brown said UK expelled two Iranian diplomats in a tit-for-tat action.
The British government has criticized Iran for seeking to downgrade relations with the UK as tensions continue to grow between the two countries.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain wanted ‘constructive’ ties with Iran, but added that Tehran’s decision to review its relations with London was ‘deeply regrettable’.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said earlier Wednesday that Tehran was reviewing its ties with Britain, because of London’s ‘interference’ in Tehran’s affairs.
“We are monitoring the situation… We have always been clear that we seek a constructive bilateral relationship with Iran based on mutual respect,” the spokesman said.
In recent days, the US and some of European powers — namely Britain, France, Italy and Germany — have lashed out at the Iranian government for the nature of the measures it has taken to deal with the street protests following the June 12 presidential election, in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared victor by almost two-thirds of votes.
Iranian officials have accused Western powers of interfering in the country’s internal affairs.
“Iran’s decision to try to turn what are clearly internal matters for Iran into a conflict with the UK and others is deeply regrettable and without foundation,” said Brown’s spokesman.
In his Wednesday remarks Mottaki also confirmed earlier reports of the expulsion of two British diplomats from Iran in protest at ‘interfering’ remarks by British officials. In a tit-for-tat action, Brown said on Tuesday that London was expelling two Iranian diplomats.
AKM/MMN
Z, can you talk about what role/interest china has in stopping these protests? They import more oil and gas from Iran than anyone else. They obviously won’t let all that money go to waste on a revolution?
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