iPouya

1. 18 Tir Demonstrations: “Iranian pro-government Basij militia members dispersed crowds of protesters here Thursday — sometimes with force — witnesses said. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people crowded the streets in different locations of the city, and headed toward Tehran University, the site of a student uprising in 1999. Several protesters were hit on the arms and backs by the Basij, pro-government militia members, while elsewhere riot police released tear gas into crowds.”

2. Footage of the Protests: See the video here.

3. “People and Power” and iPouya on Seeking Foreign Approval: See the documentary “People and Power” here. The documentary is actually not very good but it includes some remarkable footage. One part I found annoying was when the interviewer speaks to two young Iranian men and one of them says that he is frustrated by the West’s perception of Iran and that “Iran is not Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iraq.” What does that mean? Well, Iran is also not China, the US, France, and Mars either. And you know what else? The US is not Russia, Mexico, Canada, or Venus. I’m poking fun but in reality, I felt like he was saying that “the West” should not mix Iranians with “those people” implying that Iranians are better. And I don’t think I’m reading into it… I’ve heard similar but more blatant statements from Iranians time and again. And why is it that so many Iranians are always trying to explain themselves to foreigners? It seems as though so many are always looking for foreign approval. Ugh. If they were interviewing me and asked me “What message do you have for the West?” I’d say: “We don’t need your approval for anything. Leave us, our land, and our region alone. Fascism, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and WWI and WWII originated in Europe. You have mastered the art of mass murder, yet we have to explain ourselves to you?” And then I’d conclude by paying a tribute to Michael Jackson by doing the moonwalk, haha.
4. Iran’s Slide to Military Rule: “…That is the culmination of a trend that began as long ago as 1989, when Ayatollah Khamenei succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Lacking the religious credentials, or the charisma, of his predecessor, Mr Khamenei built up a power base in the Revolutionary Guards. Since Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected four years ago, commentators have seen an acceleration of that trend, with the guards now assigned multi-billion dollar contracts to help secure their loyalty. As much as two years ago, some western diplomats were talking about a slow and silent military coup taking place. The power of the clergy has been steadily diminished.”

5. From the TehranBureau – “A loud voice cannot compete with a clear one”: “Iran has experienced two revolutions in the course of less than a century. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was preceded by the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which led to the establishment of a parliament. Will the events of recent days lead yet to another? I certainly do not think so. I think — and hope — that we have learned our lesson. Nowhere else in our recent history have we had so many questions, such a non-violent thirst for figuring things out. Today there is the chance, no matter how confined or restricted, to look back at a century of struggle for independence and freedom. To decipher the weaknesses, the strengths and  explore the demons that led us to our present state of being. The period of relative silence leading up to 18 Tir is perhaps proof that we live in a world where we all crave stability more than chaos, calm more than resistance or revenge. But more than that, I think this also goes to show what we have learned the hard way: A loud voice cannot compete with a clear one, even if it’s just a whisper. This — this bouncing of thoughts and ideas, this constant production of words and stories and our constant struggle — may perhaps have taught us that power lies not only in the images of burnt flags and broken windows. It will be our words, thoughts and ideas that will prove, in the long run, the most powerful.”

6. Protests Made Up of the Middle Class? Professor Dabashi Differs: Read the whole article here. Excerpt: “Of a total Iranian population of 72 million, upward of 70 per cent are under the age of 30. While the total rate of unemployment under Ahmadinejad, predicated on correspondingly high numbers under Khatami’s two-term presidency, is 30 per cent, this rate, according to Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, the most reliable Iranian economist around, for young people between the ages of 15 and 29 (some 35 per cent of the total population) is 70 per cent. So seven out of every 10 people in this age group can scarce find a job, let alone marry, let alone have children and form a family. In exactly what phantasmagoria definition of ‘the middle class’ can they hope to be included? Let me cite other statistics. You must have noticed the overwhelming presence of women in these demonstrations. Right? Now, 63 per cent of university entrants in Iran are women, but they make up only 12.3 per cent of the workforce. In other words, one out of every two women university graduates earn their degrees and then go back to live with their parents, remain a burden on their limited budget, and can only hope to leave their parents’ home if they find a husband among those three out of 10 young men who may be lucky enough to find a job that would enable them to marry. In what Marxist, Keynesian, or neoliberal definition of this blessed ‘middle class’ would they fit?”

Mousavi’s Potential Next Step: “Mousavi hinted on Monday that he may move away from the tactic of protests and create a political party to work in what he called ‘a legal framework.’ Late Monday, he met with the other top stars of the reform movement — former president Mohammad Khatami and Mahdi Karroubi, another election candidate — in a show of unity. The three warned Iran’s clerical leadership that if the security crackdown continues, it ‘will only lead to radicalization of political activities,’ Mousavi’s Web site reported on Tuesday.”

Iran is world’s top jailer of journalists: “With at least 30 journalists currently in prison, Iran replaces China as the world’s worst jailer of journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ called on the Iranian authorities to release all journalists who have been detained following the country’s disputed June 12 presidential elections.”

Obama Clarifies Biden’s Iran Comment: “Obama was asked on CNN this morning, ‘Are you giving Israel a green light?’ ‘Absolutely not,’ the president replied. ‘And I think it’s very important that I’m as clear as I can be, and our administration is as consistent as we can be on this issue.’ ‘I think Vice President Biden stated a categorical fact which is we can’t dictate to other countries what their security interests are,’ Obama added. ‘What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels. That is our policy, I have been talking about this for the last two years, we are going to continue to pursue this, and you know we have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and solve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East.”

Khamenei’s Son Mojtaba, His Control Over the Basij, & the Internal Power Struggle: “The son of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken control of the militia being used to crush the protest movement, according to a senior Iranian source. The source, a politician with strong connections to the security apparatus, said that the leading role being played by Mojtaba Khamenei had dismayed many of the country’s senior clerics, conservative politicians and Revolutionary Guard generals.”

‘500 protestors to stand trial in Iran’: “Iran’s Prosecutor General says some 500 individuals arrested in the course of the post-vote unrest will be subject to court action.”

Iran opposition urges release of detainees: “During the meeting, they said that the ‘wave of arrests’ in the country must be brought to an immediate end, calling for the release of those kept in custody without being found guilty. The three opposition figures also called for an end to what they described as the ‘ultra security situation’ in the country, warning that the very continuation of such conditions could result in and benefit extreme political acts.”

1. Exploiting Iranian Poet Sa’adi: I’m not gonna lie, it sort of annoys me to see so many Iranians using Sa’adi’s humanistic poem to get non-Iranians to care about Iran, but they themselves fail to recognize the poem’s meaning and disregard the rest of the world. Do these same Iranians who are posting this poem all over the net care about human suffering elsewhere, like in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Palestine or do they not matter because they are not Iranian?
2. Mousavi Details Alleged Fraud: In a 24-page document posted on his Web site, Mousavi’s special committee studying election fraud accused influential Ahmadinejad supporters of handing out cash bonuses and food, increasing wages, printing millions of extra ballots and other acts in the run-up to the vote.

3. Iran clerics defy election ruling: A group of clerics in Iran has called Iran’s presidential vote invalid, contradicting official results. The pro-reform group’s statement pits it against the top legislative body, which last week formally endorsed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On Saturday, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that post-election events had caused bitterness.

4. Top Reformers Admitted Plot, Iran Declares:  Iranian leaders say they have obtained confessions from top reformist officials that they plotted to bring down the government with a “velvet” revolution. Such confessions, almost always extracted under duress, are part of an effort to recast the civil unrest set off by Iran’s disputed presidential election as a conspiracy orchestrated by foreign nations, human rights groups say.The government has made it a practice to publize confessions from political prisoners held without charge or legal representation, often subjected to pressure tactics like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture, according to human rights groups and former political prisoners. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of people have been detained.

5. Fears grow for Iranian detainees: First the mass protests were suppressed by force, then came the mass arrests. Three weeks after Iran’s disputed presidential election, scores – possibly hundreds – of opposition supporters and prominent reformists remain in prison. Their families have had little or no information about their fate. Most are too worried to speak to the press now. They describe a climate of terror in Tehran.

6. Iranian hardliner calls opposition leader US agent: A top aide of Iran’s supreme leader called the country’s main opposition figure a U.S. agent and accused him of committing crimes against the nation in an editorial Saturday. The editorial represents the first time that Mir Hossein Mousavi, who ran for president in Iran’s June 12 elections, has been publicly called a U.S. agent. “It has to be asked whether the actions of (Mousavi and his supporters) are in response to instructions by American authorities,” said Hossein Shariatmadari in an editorial appearing in the conservative daily Kayhan. Shariatmadari, who holds no official position but is a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, added that Mousavi was trying to “escape punishment for murdering innocent people, holding riots, cooperating with foreigners and acting as America’s fifth column inside the country.”

7. U2 Goes Green: See the concert video here.

1. Iran ‘lifts block on SMS texting’: Reports from Iran say that SMS text messaging services have been unblocked for the first time since disputed presidential elections. However, Iranian news agencies say there are still technical problems. Text messaging and social networks were widely used by protesters in mass rallies following the election. 

2. Hardline Pressure Mounts to Arrest Mousavi: “A group of hardline Iranian members of parliament want the judiciary to prosecute defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi over post-election unrest that rocked the Islamic Republic last month. “Those who hold illegal rallies and gatherings should be legally pursued,” MP Mohammad Taghi Rahbar was quoted as saying by the hardline Javan newspaper on Thursday. It said Rahbar was among several MPs preparing to write to the judiciary complaining about Mousavi’s activities after the disputed June 12 election. It did not say how many lawmakers backed the petition. In another sign of mounting hardline pressure, state television said a student branch of the pro-government Basij militia, which helped police suppress pro-Mousavi street protests, had urged the attorney-general to take him to court.”

3. Iran Now Harder To Bomb: “This is not a minor issue for Israel, nor for American military planners who might have harbored hopes of reviving the idea of a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear sites. A former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, Meir Dagan, let slip the dilemma facing anti-Iranian hawks when he told journalists recently: ‘If the reformist candidate Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat, since Mousavi is perceived internationally arena as a moderate element.’ In effect, Dagan said, Ahmadinijad was Israel’s choice because it would have been a lot easier to send a wave or two of F-15s to bomb Iran if the world knew that Iranians had, indeed, overwhelmingly reelected such a cretin. Now, images of street protests vastly complicate that calculus. Imagine the revulsion if such air strikes, as they regularly do in Afghanistan, led to the unintended deaths of dozens or more of the very Iranians who are being cheered in the streets today?” [I think you can also make the argument that it is now easier to bomb Iran. The disputed election results and the post-election crackdown has seriously discredited the regime in the eyes of the international community, so much so that an Israeli attack on its nuclear facility will not be condemned the way it would have been if Israel attacked before the post-election fall out.]

4. Ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar on Post-Election Iran: “This Iranian form of theocracy has failed. The rights of the Iranian peoples are trampled upon and my homeland is heading towards a military dictatorship. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad behaves like an Iranian Taliban. The supreme leader, Mr. Ali Khamenei, has tied his fate to that of Ahmadinejad, a great moral, but also political mistake.”  

“When he [Khamenei], together with Ahmadinejad, speaks about foreign countries being behind the protests in Iran, he very much reminds me of the king (the Shah). He used the same arguments and could not recognize that he was witnessing a national and democratic protest movement of his own people. Towards the end, the shah only thought of holding up his regime. Today, Mr. Khamenei does not think any differently.”

5. Selling Iran: Ahmadinejad, Privatization and a Bus Driver Who Said No: Since his election in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under the guidance of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has overseen a regime dedicated to the privatization of state-controlled industries. The intention of the regime, as stated by the newly appointed Governor of the Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Seyyed Shams Al-din Hosseini, is to privatize 80% of state-owned industries by 2010. This mandate was made real just prior to the disputed elections as a state-owned bank, Saderat, announced it would offer 6% of its shares to private investors (Press TV, 6/8/09). Other significant privatizations during Ahmadinejad’s reign include the postal service, two other state-run banks, Tejerat and Mellat, and, in February 2008, a 5% bloc of shares in the publicly owned steel maker, Foulad-e Mobarakeh, was sold out in eight minutes (Iran Daily, 2/14/08). In total, since 2005, 247 enterprises have been processed by the Iran Privatization Organization, the state-ministry specifically charged with overseeing privatizations (Iranian Privatization Organization website).

1. Mousavi’s Latest Statement: 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.

1. Guardian Council Confirms Ahmadinejad’s Victory: “The secretary of the Guardian Council in a letter to the interior minister announced the final decision of the Council… and declares the approval of the accuracy of the results of… the presidential election,” the state broadcaster said. A partial recount of the election carried out on Monday showed no irregularities in the vote, Iran’s English-language Press TV television station added, according to Reuters news agency.

2. Rafsanjani Falls in Line: Associated Press: For the first time since the election, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani spoke publicly about the unrest, claiming that “suspicious hands” were trying to open rifts between the people and the Islamic system. Professor Juan Cole: “Rafsanjani has clearly decided to defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on handling the outcome of the elections, and has come out as critical of the crowd politics and occasional turbulence they produced. As a multi-billionaire and man of the establishment, he may well have been frightened that the massive street rallies for Mousavi a week ago signalled a danger to the status quo, which he is attempting to preserve. From Rafsanjani’s point of view, Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and others have been making a slow-motion coup, reducing the sigificance and openness of the of the system by excluding the reformists from running for office. Wanting to go back to 1997 is not the same as wanting a revolution.”

3. Sunday, First Demonstration “in days”: “About 5,000 protesters marched slowly and silently through Tehran on Sunday near a mosque where the government was allowing a demonstration for the first time in days. Authorities were riding on motorcycles alongside the marchers, who are telling each other to walk slowly and drag their feet. Police were telling the demonstrators to move faster. Some of the protesters were telling the police that they have the legal right to protest in peace. The marchers are walking from north to south down a major street, Shariati Street, near the Ghoba Mosque, where a memorial is being held in honor of a hero of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The gathering is officially meant to honor Mohammad Beheshti, who was killed in a bombing on this date 28 years ago. It follows two weeks of protests against the official results of the June 12 presidential elections, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.”

4. Sunday Demonstration Broken Up: “Witnesses said riot police used tear gas and clubs to break up a crowd of up to 3,000 protesters who had gathered near north Tehran’s Ghoba Mosque in the country’s first major post-election unrest in four days.”

5. Don’t Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost: [Baer, a former CIA field agent with much field experience in the Middle East is usually a good source which is why I wanted to post this piece of his.] “For too many years now, the Western media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran’s liberal middle class — an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press, including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a terrific book, but does it represent the real Iran? (See pictures of Iran’s presidential election and its turbulent aftermath.) Before we settle on the narrative that there has been a hard-line takeover in Iran, an illegitimate coup d’état, we need to seriously consider the possibility that there has been a popular hard-line takeover, an electoral mandate for Ahmadinejad and his policies.”

6. More Focus on the Revolutionary Guards: “Eight of the 21 posts in the president’s cabinet are held by former members, according to Ali Alfoneh, an analyst at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute. Among them are Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, whose agency ran the election, and Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar. Another five places are occupied by past Basij commanders. The state broadcasting arm is headed by Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former guard. At least one-third of Iran’s parliament members are former guards, according to Nader. Under Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, 65, only three ministers had belonged to the guards or Basij.”

7. Bon Jovi and Andy in Solidarity with Protesters in Iran: “Stand by Me”

8. iPouya on the UCI Teach-in: I went to Saturday’s UCI teach-in and there was one thing during the open mic session near the end that I think specifically warrants address. An Iranian man went up and said that he was baffled at the fact that all those Americans who were honking in the streets of Irvine in solidarity with the street vigils and demonstrations on Irvine’s street corners failed to show up to the teach-in. He argued that all of the world’s population should be concerned about what’s happening in Iran and that, at the least, those people who expressed concern through their car horns should have attended the teach-in at UCI.  I don’t mean to generalize (actually I do), but this is such typical Iranian rubbish. They expect the world to care about what they care about, but refuse to participate in anything that doesn’t concern Iran. In other words, these same people are indifferent about human rights in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, China, you name it, but their egos tell them that the world should focus on Iran!  If they want non-Iranians to pay attention to Iran, then they must also form coalitions with other people struggling in the world.