1. Mousavi’s Latest Statement:Â Mir Hussein Mousavi issued a statement today in response to Guardian Council certifying the election results. Mousavi said the majority of the people including him do not recognize the legitimacy of the current government. He expressed his fears about a grave danger facing the country because people no longer trust the government. According to Mousavi, it is not too late to regain people’s trust and reinstate the rule of the law. Denying the fact that people have lost their trust in the government is not beneficial, he said. He requested an end to the militarization of the society, revising the election laws, honoring the article 27 of the constitution (freedom of assembly), freedom of media, reactivating news websites, and a ban of illegal government intervention in restricting communication and monitoring people’s activities among other things.
2. Khatami Weighs in: “In boldly worded statements posted on their Web sites, Khatami accused Iran’s leadership of a ‘velvet coup against the people and democracy,’ and Mousavi said the government’s crackdown on demonstrators was ‘tantamount to a coup.'”
3. My Friend in Iran on the Election Results: “My theory is that pro-Mousavi and anti-Ahmadinejad analysts are generalizing based on anecdotes from areas where Mousavi was indeed in the lead, including, most prominently, in the city of Tehran (Mousavi was 51% in central and south Tehran, and 62% in northern Tehran, according to official results), to conclude that the same must have been the case everywhere else, and since it didn’t pan out that way, the result must be a fake. Frankly, i find that unconvincing. It seems more a case of Tehranis and the intelligentsia refusing to accept that they’ve been upstaged by the provinces. And if indeed the provinces were won by Mousavi, how come we see nowhere near the intensity of the Tehran protests anywhere else in the country?”
4. Secretary of State: Hilary Clinton on Iran: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refrained from comment Monday on the reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but pointed to a “credibility” gap for Iran’s leadership. “I’m not going to speculate on, you know, what happens with their internal regime,” the top US diplomat said. “Obviously, they have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process, and I don’t think that’s going to disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively small number of ballots,” Clinton added.
5. Basij militia calls for Mousavi to be prosecuted over post-election unrest: Iran’s opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi today became the target of the notorious Basij militia as it called for him to be prosecuted for his role in the greatest political unrest in Iran since the Islamic revolution. In a letter to the country’s chief prosecutor, the Basij accuse Mousavi of involvement in nine offences against the state, including “disturbing the nation’s security”. That charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
6. ‘Hacktivists’ target Iran’s leadership online: A sharp clampdown by Iranian authorities may have quelled street protests, but the fight goes on in cyberspace. Groups of “hacktivists”- Web hackers demanding Internet freedom – say they are targeting Web pages of Iran’s leadership in response to the regime’s muzzling of blogs, news outlets and other sites. It’s not clear how much the wired warriors have disrupted official Iranian sites. Recent attempts by the Associated Press to access sites for state news organizations, including the Islamic Republic News Agency and Fars, were unsuccessful – with a message saying the links were “broken.”
7. Battle for Iran shifts from the streets to the heart of power: In a move with even greater potential significance, according to several reports Rafsanjani has been lobbying fellow members of the powerful 86-strong Assembly of Experts, which he chairs, to replace Khamenei as the supreme leader with a small committee of senior ayatollahs, of which Khamenei would be a member. If Rafsanjani were successful, the constitutional change would mean a profound shift in the balance of power within Iran’s theocratic regime. “Although Hashemi Rafsanjani is not a popular politician in Iran any more, he is the only hope that Iranians have … for the annulment of the election,” said an Iranian political analyst who asked not be named. “He is the only one who people think is able to stand against the supreme leader.” The membership of the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to appoint the supreme leader, is split between those supporting Rafsanjani and those who have gravitated around the highly influential ultra-hardline cleric Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, who is widely seen as both a supporter of Ahmadinejad and the president’s religious mentor. Yazdi is also believed to have his own ambitions to succeed Khamenei as supreme leader. Like Ahmadinejad, he is fiercely opposed to the push by reformists for more democratic representation in Iran.
8. Professor Hamid Dabashi: U.S. dollars could kill Iran’s protest movement: Obama can help this budding seed of hope for civil liberties even more emphatically by altogether cutting the budget “to promote democracy in Iran,” evidently channeled through the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ken Dilanian of USA Today reports, “the Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents.” This financial aid is not only a waste of taxpayer money under these severe economic circumstances, but is in fact the surest way to kill that inborn and grassroots movement. It mostly will be abused by expatriate and entirely discredited opposition groups ranging from the monarchist supporters of Reza Pahlavi to the members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, and it will in turn strengthen the hand of the regime to denounce the Green Movement as funded by Americans.
http://mideastreality.blogspot.com/2009/06/tehran-bureau-possibly-ground-zero-for.html
I do believe your friend is right, cuz in my conversations with my family in Iran, They have basically said the same thing. Anyone who sees the crowds the Ahmednijad generates as he travels around the country. Remember he would make a point to visit the provinces. And he even helds cabinet meetings in the provinces. I think he calculated long ago, he can never win in Tehran, and so he banked on the outside of Tehran. The opposition candiates new line is you cant trust the recount, and imagine if thier is new election.. and they still lose? what then? I have followed Iran’s politics and history very deeply and intensly since i was seventeen. And if it is true, the results where genuine, wich i do believe is the truth. (Nobody question Khatamies even bigger landslides), yet Ahmednejad cant win with sixty percent? Give me a break. A month before the election nobody was predicting anyone would be able to compete with him, Mossawi succeded in rallying Tehran.. but in the process he lost the rest of the country.
Only a completely insane person would defend this state, right?
Amnesty International found that the victims of the attacks it investigated were not caught in the crossfire during battles between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces, nor were they shielding militants or other military objects. Many were killed when their homes were bombed while they slept. Others were sitting in their yard or hanging the laundry on the roof. Children were struck while playing in their bedrooms or on the roof, or near their homes. Paramedics and ambulances were repeatedly attacked while attempting to rescue the wounded or recover the dead.
“The deaths of so many children and other civilians cannot be dismissed simply as ‘collateral damage’, as argued by Israel,” said Donatella Rovera. “Many questions remain to be answered about these attacks and about the fact that the strikes continued unabated despite the rising civilian death toll.”
More than 3,000 homes were destroyed and some 20,000 damaged in Israeli attacks which reduced entire neighbourhoods of Gaza to rubble and left an already dire economic situation in ruins. Much of the destruction was wanton and could not be justified on grounds of “military necessity”.
The Israeli army has not responded to Amnesty International’s repeated requests over the past five months for information on specific cases detailed in the report and for meetings to discuss the organization’s findings.
Oh, and the report finds that Israel used human shields, there is no evidence of Hamas using human shields during Operation Death and murder.
It will be interesting to watch Arash’s irrational thought process go through the mental gymnastics in order to again, be presented with massive evidence of war crimes, and then try to dismiss it. I imagine he did the same mental gymnastics when his girlfriend left him.
Among other conclusions, Amnesty said it found no evidence to support Israeli claims that Gaza guerrillas deliberately used civilians as “human shields”, but it did, however, cite evidence that Israeli troops put children and other civilians in harm’s way by forcing them to remain in homes taken over by soldiers.
Arash will deny this, just as he is still in denial about why…
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Drawing on her experience growing up between Iran and the United States, award-winning filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz directed her first documentary, The Color of Love, an intimate intergeneration portrait of the changing landscape of love and politics in Iran. Turning from documentary to fiction, Maryam wrote and directed the short film The Day I Died, about an adolsesent love triangle set in a sleepy Argentine seaside town, which won the Golden Teddy and Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Developed at the FIND and Sundance Filmkakers Lab, Circumstance, Maryam’s upcoming feature film, combines the thematic interest of Color of Love and The Day I Died while delving further into how social and political repression affects the already delicate nature by which young people discover and express their budding sexuality.
Arash, no offense, but her name was Azadeh? How apropos! She’s free from a Zionist nut! Go Azadeh!
I am hereby declaring an end to my personal attacks on Arash. Of course, he deserves all the scorn and disdain that the world can muster, but I find it much more effective and embarassing for him when I merely ask him for evidence for his lies, and he whimpers away like the coward he is. Enough is enough.
I am not denying that Ahmadinejad might be very well liked by the people who are coming from the socioeconomically disadvantaged parts of the country, but I believe that the extent of his support is often exaggerated. In the past few months, Ahmadinejad has “bought votes†by “helping†the people who live in the underprivileged parts of the country. However, since he has failed to deliver many of his 2005 campaign promises, he is also detested among many of the people who come from such areas. The following 5 factors should be considered when evaluating Ahmadinejad’s support in economically disadvantaged areas:
1. Around 33% of Iran’s population lives in rural areas and 67% of the population lives in urban areas. Approximately, more than 20% of the population lives in the Province of Tehran.
2. The 2008 Parliamentary election in Iran was won by the conservatives who were extremely critical of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies. The 2008 election did not include any of the major reformists and the voter turnout of the “elite Northern Tehranis†was very low. Ahmadinejad had lost part of his support base among the poor mainly because the deepening of the economic crisis had affected both the “elite†and the “poorâ€.
3. Reformists are also well liked among the poor (refer to Eric Hooglund’s research, an expert on the Iranian rural politics) and in fact compromised a huge percentage of Khatami’s votes.
4. If the economy hasn’t gotten worse during Ahmadinejad’s presidency, it certainly has not improved. The inflation and unemployment rate are both higher than what they were during Khatami’s presidency. Therefore, it is not unlikely to see a significant number of people in rural areas who are dissatisfied with Ahmadinejad’s handling of the economy.
5. Moussavi does not have a “right wing economic agenda†and some people are hugely mistaken if they think that these two candidates have completely different economic ideologies. Furthermore, Moussavi is often praised for successfully managing the economy during the Iran-Iraq war. He was much more successful in handling Iran’s economy during the war than Ahmadinejad has been able to manage the economy in a non-wartime period.
Therefore, the notion that Ahamdinejad had the full support of the people from low SES backgrounds is not completely true.
As for why the protests seem to be more intense in Tehran, there could be many reasons of which include:
1.There were relatively intense protests in other provinces, although they did not receive as much media attention. In fact, Isfahan is one of the first places where Basijis murdered people.
2.It is much harder to protest in smaller towns because it is much easier for the government to control and to repress the movement.
3. When compared to the other provinces, the pre-election atmosphere in Tehran was more energetic, lively and exciting with many supporters of all 4 candidates actively participating in the campaigns. Therefore, when faced with the possibility of a rigged election and a huge betrayal, Tehranis were more active in protesting just like they had been more active during the pre- election period.
Here is an excerpt from an Analysis of the 2009 Voting Figures which questions whether rural voters support Ahmadinejad:
“Many commentators have suggested, before and after the presidential election, that Ahmadinejad is very popular in rural areas where some 30% of the population live and that this explains his high levels of support. However,
the data from the 2005 presidential election does not support this contention. Instead, it confirms that what support Ahmadinejad did gain in 2005 was mainly from urban and suburban areas. This data supports the contention of a prominent academic expert on rural Iranian politics that rural voters have not been the dedicated Ahmadinejad
supporters occasionally described in western media. This is supported by the fact that much of Iran’s rural population is comprised of ethnic minorities: Lors,Baluch, Kurdish, and Arab amongst others. These ethnic minorities have a
history both of voting reformist and of voting for members of their own ethnic group. For example, they were an important segment of Khatami’s vote in 1997 and 2001 and voted largely for Karrubi and Mostafa Moin in 2005. The 2009 data suggests a sudden shift in political support with precisely these
rural provinces, which had not previously supported Ahmadinejad or any other conservative, showing substantial swings to Ahmadinejad. At the same time, the official data suggests that the vote for Mehdi Karrubi, who was extremely popular in these rural, ethnic minority areas in 2005, has
collapsed entirely even in his home province of Lorestan, where his vote has gone from 440,247 (55.5%) in 2005 to just 44,036 (4.6%) in 2009. This is paralleled by an overall swing of 50.9% to Ahmadinejad, with official results suggesting that he has captured the support of 47.5% of those who cast their ballots for reformist candidates in 2005. This, more than any other result, is highly implausible, and has been the subject of much debate in Iran. This increase in support for Ahmadinejad amongst rural and ethnic minoritiy
voters is out of step with previous trends, extremely large in scale, and central to the question of how the credibility of Ahmadinejad’s victory has been perceived within Iran.â€
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/14234_iranelection0609.pdf
Again, very impressive.
🙂 Thanks for your comment.
Well one thing that should be noted , is Khatami was voted in massively because he was seen as the anti establishment canditate. Just as Ahmedinjad was seen in 2005. Most of my family and friends in Iran, when they talk negativily about the establishment they focus on one person or group. and that Rafsanjani. Mossawi was really Rafsanjani canditate, and Ahmedinjad made that link clearly during the debate. Ahmedinjad is not a “conservative” in fact mayn of his proposed reforms were blockd by conservative factions alligned with Rafsanjani. People like to view Iranian politics like we view americna politics. You are a democrat or a republican.. you are a liberal or a conservative. You cannot apply the same paradigm to Iran, wich the Chatham house does. It assumes, everyone who voted for Khatami is a reformist. Therefore sinec mossawi is supposdly a reformoist. All those people would vote for him. I came back from Iran early june right before the elections, and i was outstanded by the termendous support people had for Ahmedinejad. Its not just the rural.. or super religious people. He has broad support, wich i saw in all the cities I visited. People talked about how the other “forces” in the goverment are blocking him from doing what needs to be done. And another point. before the election all the talk was how even Khamenie dissaproves of Ahmedinjad policies, in fact Khamenie last speech was first time he came out stronly in support of him. . He is a polarizing figure, you either like him or you hate him. From my experience the majority of Iranians like him. On another note. Roxanna Saberi was allegeged to be a spy by IRan. The facts are she did have classified documents on her. wich she sid she had for research purposes for her book. She aslo had gone on numerous trips to Iraq and Isreal unrelated to her journalism career. She got those documetns while she worked as a translator in the expediancy council. Who is headed by who??? Rafsanjani.. and who is a member of this council?? Moussawi. Who else? Rezai Coincidence? Granted their are also lots of other powerfull figures on this council. And this council has supervisory roles on all branches of government, at least since 2005. How can an elabroate scheme such as rigging elections go so undetected. Ahmednijad reperesetns the second generation of the revoulution, who are tired of the way the first generation ran the country. The first generation seems unwilling to cede power to the second generation. The second generation where the foot souldiers of the 1979 revolution, the first ( mossawi, Rafs, Khamenie, Khatami, Jannati, etc) the leaders of the revolution. Some of the first generation, cant accept the fact that thier time is over.. that my opinion anyow 🙂
dear z
excelent,
Z – do you believe the debates had a major part in Mousavi’s defeat? During the debate, I noticed that Mousavi seemed aimless and solely on the offensive. No plans, no organization. I don’t even live in Iran and I got the sense that the guy on the left, Ahmadinejad, was more concerned about Iran and Iranian merchants, etc. He used specific examples of people whom he counted as a priority in saving and maintaining the economy, whereas Mousavi just kept attacking him and bringing up the Holocuast. I understand that he’s not popular with a segment of the population, but between the two, I think he represented stability and organization. I also don’t think that it’s just “poor provincial devout Iranians” who voted Ahmadinejad. Many families, I guess you’re brave enough to admit yours, voted for Ahmadinejad to protect themselves against destabilizing Iran and the vulnerable economy.
With Mousavi, you not only knew you had a corrupt dog backing him, but you had no clear idea of what these men had in mind! If I am wrong, I apologize, but that’s just the basic idea I got from watching those debate videos, which I think Ahmadinejad performed well in.