Cruelbreed
06-28-2009, 04:17 PM
June 29, 2009
Crackdown in Iran Continues Focus on Foreigners
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Iran (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.html?inline=nyt-geo)’s leadership continued Sunday to cast blame for the internal battle over its presidential election onto foreign nations and journalists, while struggling to restore an elusive sense of normalcy to a nation left badly bruised and divided by weeks of conflict.
The government arrested nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy, charging they played a significant role in organizing protests that reached across the country and across social and economic lines. The government also continued to charge journalists with working as agents of discord, publishing one editor’s “confession” while continuing to keep others behind bars without charge or barred from working.
The arrests, detentions and restrictions added to Iran’s growing international isolation, as European Union (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org) foreign ministers meeting in Corfu, Greece, warned in a statement that there would be a “strong and collective EU response” to the arrest of embassy employees. The British foreign ministry said some of its personnel had been released, but declined to provide details.
In the past, international pressure was enough to rally the nation behind its leaders and silence critics. But this time, that did not seem to be the case. Instead, the leadership’s actions, coupled with renewed calls for national unity, added to a growing sense of uncertainty over where Iran was headed as its leaders tried to pull out of a crisis that has undermined its legitimacy and divided the political and clerical elite.
“I think no one can predict Iran’s political future,” said an Iranian intellectual who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. “I do believe some things have changed after this recent upheaval and that events will play out in months and years to come.”
Iran’s leadership seemed to recognize that ending the street demonstrations was far easier that turning the clock back to the days before the election, when there was still some degree of trust in a system that sought to marry religious authority with popularly elected institutions, political analysts said.
In spite of all the threats, the overwhelming show of force and the nighttime raids on private homes, protesters still flowed into the streets by the thousands on Sunday to join a demonstration at a mosque in support of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mir_hussein_moussavi/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
Mr. Moussavi, who has had little room to act but has refused to fold under government pressure, had earlier received a permit to hold a ceremony at the Ghoba mosque to honor Mohammad Beheshti, one of the founders of the 1979 revolution who died in a bombing on June 28, 1981, that killed dozens of officials. Mr. Moussavi used that as a pretense to call a demonstration, and by midday the streets outside the elaborately tiled mosque were filled with protesters, their arms up into the air, their fingers making a V symbol, for victory.
The demonstrators wore black, to mourn the 17 protesters killed by government-aligned forces, and chanted “Allah Akbar,” or God is great. Witnesses said the police fired tear gas into the crowd.
“There was a sea of people and the crowed stretched a long way onto the main street on Shariati,” said one witness, who remained anonymous because he feared retribution.
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/ali_khamenei/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who has ruled out any compromise with the opposition, said Sunday that the only solution to the crisis was to follow legal procedures. And he urged political leaders not to be what he called tools of foreign influence, returning to a theme of foreign intervention that historically has resonated across Iran but that so far has so far failed to silence the opposition.
“If the nation and political elite are united in heart and mind, the incitement of international traitors and oppressive politicians will be ineffective,” he said.
In spite of the unrelenting pressure of the state, including threats that protesters should be jailed and even killed, there were still high-ranking insiders who refused to endorse the government’s narrative. They were not agitating for the opposition — or even for defiance — but by carefully not endorsing the leadership, were seen as challenging it, political analysts said.
“As one colleague said, the train has left the station, and I don’t think even the leaders of the country know exactly where it is heading,” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
The former two-time president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ali_akbar_hashemi_rafsanjani/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a bitter opponent of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/mahmoud_ahmadinejad/index.html?inline=nyt-per), made his first public remarks on Sunday, also under cover of a ceremony honoring the martyrs of 1981. His comments suggested support for the public’s actions.
“The recent events were a complex plot by suspicious elements that wanted to create a gap between people and the establishment and was aimed at people to lose their confidence in the establishment,” he said, according to the ILNA news agency.
He added: “Whenever people have entered the scene such plots have been neutralized.”
The leadership has maintained its two-track approach to the national disturbance that began shortly after the polls closed June 12. It has ordered its security forces, including the police and the basiji militia, to frighten, beat and detain opposition figures — as well as independent-minded citizens and journalists not involved in the protests or political activities. It also has tried to offer an alternate route for resolving the dispute by asking the Guardian Council (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/guardian_council_iran/index.html?inline=nyt-org), responsible for monitoring the elections, to set up a review committee to include representatives of the opposition candidates.
But the opposition, led by Mr. Moussavi, has rejected the call, noting that the Guardian Council has earlier indicated its support for Mr. Ahmadinejad — and has twice said that there were no signs of rampant fraud and that it would not nullify the outcome. The council is scheduled to certify the election as valid any day.
Instead, Mr. Moussavi sent a letter to the Guardian Council calling for the creation of an arbitration committee to probe what he says are widespread irregularities. He repeated his belief that nullifying the disputed vote would be the most “appropriate” solution and “a means to rebuild public confidence.”
This article was written by Michael Slackman in Cairo based on reports from Tehran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?ref=global-home
Yep it's all our fault.
Crackdown in Iran Continues Focus on Foreigners
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Iran (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.html?inline=nyt-geo)’s leadership continued Sunday to cast blame for the internal battle over its presidential election onto foreign nations and journalists, while struggling to restore an elusive sense of normalcy to a nation left badly bruised and divided by weeks of conflict.
The government arrested nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy, charging they played a significant role in organizing protests that reached across the country and across social and economic lines. The government also continued to charge journalists with working as agents of discord, publishing one editor’s “confession” while continuing to keep others behind bars without charge or barred from working.
The arrests, detentions and restrictions added to Iran’s growing international isolation, as European Union (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org) foreign ministers meeting in Corfu, Greece, warned in a statement that there would be a “strong and collective EU response” to the arrest of embassy employees. The British foreign ministry said some of its personnel had been released, but declined to provide details.
In the past, international pressure was enough to rally the nation behind its leaders and silence critics. But this time, that did not seem to be the case. Instead, the leadership’s actions, coupled with renewed calls for national unity, added to a growing sense of uncertainty over where Iran was headed as its leaders tried to pull out of a crisis that has undermined its legitimacy and divided the political and clerical elite.
“I think no one can predict Iran’s political future,” said an Iranian intellectual who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. “I do believe some things have changed after this recent upheaval and that events will play out in months and years to come.”
Iran’s leadership seemed to recognize that ending the street demonstrations was far easier that turning the clock back to the days before the election, when there was still some degree of trust in a system that sought to marry religious authority with popularly elected institutions, political analysts said.
In spite of all the threats, the overwhelming show of force and the nighttime raids on private homes, protesters still flowed into the streets by the thousands on Sunday to join a demonstration at a mosque in support of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mir_hussein_moussavi/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
Mr. Moussavi, who has had little room to act but has refused to fold under government pressure, had earlier received a permit to hold a ceremony at the Ghoba mosque to honor Mohammad Beheshti, one of the founders of the 1979 revolution who died in a bombing on June 28, 1981, that killed dozens of officials. Mr. Moussavi used that as a pretense to call a demonstration, and by midday the streets outside the elaborately tiled mosque were filled with protesters, their arms up into the air, their fingers making a V symbol, for victory.
The demonstrators wore black, to mourn the 17 protesters killed by government-aligned forces, and chanted “Allah Akbar,” or God is great. Witnesses said the police fired tear gas into the crowd.
“There was a sea of people and the crowed stretched a long way onto the main street on Shariati,” said one witness, who remained anonymous because he feared retribution.
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/ali_khamenei/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who has ruled out any compromise with the opposition, said Sunday that the only solution to the crisis was to follow legal procedures. And he urged political leaders not to be what he called tools of foreign influence, returning to a theme of foreign intervention that historically has resonated across Iran but that so far has so far failed to silence the opposition.
“If the nation and political elite are united in heart and mind, the incitement of international traitors and oppressive politicians will be ineffective,” he said.
In spite of the unrelenting pressure of the state, including threats that protesters should be jailed and even killed, there were still high-ranking insiders who refused to endorse the government’s narrative. They were not agitating for the opposition — or even for defiance — but by carefully not endorsing the leadership, were seen as challenging it, political analysts said.
“As one colleague said, the train has left the station, and I don’t think even the leaders of the country know exactly where it is heading,” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
The former two-time president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ali_akbar_hashemi_rafsanjani/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a bitter opponent of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/mahmoud_ahmadinejad/index.html?inline=nyt-per), made his first public remarks on Sunday, also under cover of a ceremony honoring the martyrs of 1981. His comments suggested support for the public’s actions.
“The recent events were a complex plot by suspicious elements that wanted to create a gap between people and the establishment and was aimed at people to lose their confidence in the establishment,” he said, according to the ILNA news agency.
He added: “Whenever people have entered the scene such plots have been neutralized.”
The leadership has maintained its two-track approach to the national disturbance that began shortly after the polls closed June 12. It has ordered its security forces, including the police and the basiji militia, to frighten, beat and detain opposition figures — as well as independent-minded citizens and journalists not involved in the protests or political activities. It also has tried to offer an alternate route for resolving the dispute by asking the Guardian Council (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/guardian_council_iran/index.html?inline=nyt-org), responsible for monitoring the elections, to set up a review committee to include representatives of the opposition candidates.
But the opposition, led by Mr. Moussavi, has rejected the call, noting that the Guardian Council has earlier indicated its support for Mr. Ahmadinejad — and has twice said that there were no signs of rampant fraud and that it would not nullify the outcome. The council is scheduled to certify the election as valid any day.
Instead, Mr. Moussavi sent a letter to the Guardian Council calling for the creation of an arbitration committee to probe what he says are widespread irregularities. He repeated his belief that nullifying the disputed vote would be the most “appropriate” solution and “a means to rebuild public confidence.”
This article was written by Michael Slackman in Cairo based on reports from Tehran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?ref=global-home
Yep it's all our fault.