Ситуација у Ирану

[karadjordje]

Obama to Iran’s leaders: Stop ‘unjust’ actions

Bluntest language yet on crisis comes amid reports of violence

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Saturday challenged Iran's government to halt a "violent and unjust" crackdown on dissenters, using his bluntest language yet to condemn Tehran's post-election response.

Obama has sought a measured reaction to avoid being drawn in as a meddler in Iranian affairs. Yet his comments have grown more pointed as the clashes intensified, and his latest remarks took direct aim at Iranian leaders.

"We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people," Obama said in a written statement. "The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."

Obama has searched for the right tone in light of political pressures on all sides. On Capitol Hill, Congress pressed him to condemn the Iranian government's response. In Iran, the leadership was poised to blame the U.S. for interference and draw Obama in more directly.

Obama met with advisers at the White House as developments in Iran grew more ominous, with police seen beating protesters.

"Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away," the president said, recalling a theme from the speech he gave in Cairo, Egypt, this month.

"The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government," Obama said. "If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion."

Protests at White House

Obama's comments came as protesters outside the White House waved Iranian flags and denounced Iranian government efforts to suppress the protesters.

Video

Protest video

June 20: Amateur video posted on YouTube shows defiant protesters in Tehran.

MSNBC

Reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says he won and claimed widespread fraud.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there was no ballot rigging. He warned of a crackdown if protesters continued their massive street rallies.

Then on Saturday, police in Iran beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in open defiance of Iran's clerical government. Witnesses described fierce clashes after some 3,000 protesters chanted "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to dictatorship!" in downtown Tehran.

Obama's criticism came one day after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to condemn the actions by the Iranian government against demonstrators and moves to interfere with Internet and cell phone communications. That was seen in part as a veiled criticism of Obama's response, too.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31467080

[karadjordje]

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatens protesters

Powerful force warns of ‘revolutionary confrontation’ if rallies continue

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's most powerful security force threatened Monday to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election, warning demonstrators to prepare for a "revolutionary confrontation" if they take to the streets again. It was the sternest warning yet from the elite Revolutionary Guard.

The warning comes after the country's highest electoral authority, the unelected Guardian Council, acknowledged voting irregularities in 50 electoral districts in the June 12 vote, the most serious official admission so far of problems in the election that the opposition has labeled a fraud. But the council insisted the problems do not affect the landslide re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Revolutionary Guard, in a statement posted on its Web site, warned protesters to "be prepared for a resolution and revolutionary confrontation with the Guards, Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces" if they continue their near-daily rallies.

The Basij, a plainclothes militia under the command of the Revolutionary Guard, have been used to quell streets protests that erupted after the election result was announced.

At least 17 protesters have been killed, according to an official Iranian toll. Police said Monday that 457 people were arrested on Saturday alone, without saying how many have been arrested throughout the week of turmoil.

Searing images posted online — including gruesome video purporting to show the fatal shooting of a teenage girl — hint the true casualty toll may be higher in the clashes with police and the feared Basij militia.

The Guard statement on Monday ordered demonstrators to "end the sabotage and rioting activities" and said their resistance is a "conspiracy" against Iran.

Mousavi: ‘The country belongs to you’

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed Sunday night to keep up the protests, charging the election was a fraud. The 67-year-old Mousavi, who heads a youth-driven movement for reform, claims he was the true winner of the election.

His statement was in defiance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power in Iran. In a sermon to tens of thousands on Friday, Khamenei said demonstrators must stop their street protests or face the consequences and he firmly backed Ahmadinejad's victory.

"The country belongs to you," Mousavi's latest statement said. "Protesting lies and fraud is your right."

Echoing Mousavi, former president Mohammad Khatami said in a statement that "protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that."

Mousavi's Web site on Monday called for supporters to turn on their car lights in the late afternoon as a sign of protest — a somewhat muted response compared with the recent enormous gatherings.

Journalists for foreign media have been put under tight restrictions and assessing the extent of the protests and violence is difficult.

The government has intensified a crackdown on independent media — expelling a BBC correspondent, suspending the Dubai-based network Al-Arabiya and detaining at least two local journalists for U.S. magazines.

English-language state television said an exile group known as the People's Mujahedeen had a hand in the street violence and broadcast what it said were confessions of British-controlled agents in an indication that the government was ready to crack down even harder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31481798...ideastn_africa

[karadjordje]

http://www.youtube.com/citizentube?feature=ticker

[karadjordje]

Iran authority won’t annul Ahmadinejad win

Guardian Council finds ‘no major fraud’ in disputed election; new rally looms

Ali Nazanin / AFP - Getty Images

Iranian anti-riot police patrol a street in Tehran on Monday.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's top electoral body, the Guardian Council, found "no major fraud" in the disputed June 12 election and ruled out annulling the the results, Iran's state TV Tuesday quoted a spokesman for the council as saying.

Opposition supporters, who allege systematic fraud, have demanded a new election and have staged near-daily protests challenging the claim that hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election by a landslide.

With Tuesday's announcement, Iran's regime appeared to be closing another door to compromise. Iran's supreme leader had already praised Ahmadinejad as the winner and ordered post-election protesters off the streets. On Monday, the feared Revolutionary Guard threatened a crackdown if protests persist.

Such threats and the deaths of at least 17 people since the start of the protests have prompted growing concern by the international community about the fate of opposition supporters. In New York, U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon urged an "immediate stop to the arrests, threats and use of force," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said at U.N. headquarters Monday.

Discrepancies

The announcement by the Guardian Council came a day after it said — in a rare acknowledgment — that there had been voting irregularities in 50 districts, including local vote counts that exceeded the number of eligible voters. However, the council said the discrepancies were not widespread enough to affect the result. The council agreed last week to investigate opposition complaints of problems in the voting.

The council found "no major fraud or breach in the election," a spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted by Iran's state-run English language Press TV as saying.

"Therefore, there is no possibility of an annulment taking place," he said.

Ahmadinejad's main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has charged the election was a fraud and insists he is the true winner.

In a sign of a growing crackdown, Tehran riot police fired tear gas and live bullets Monday to break up about 200 protesters paying tribute to a young woman, Neda Agha Soltan, whose apparent shooting death was captured on video and circulated worldwide.

A man identifying himself as the woman's boyfriend later said he had tried to dissuade her from attending the protests because of the risk, but that she told him she wanted democracy and freedom for the people of Iran.

NBC News reported that a rally was scheduled to be held in central Tehran Tuesday afternoon in the woman's memory.

In a statement on its Web site Monday, the Revolutionary Guard ordered demonstrators to "end the sabotage and rioting," calling the protests a "conspiracy" against Iran. It told demonstrators to "be prepared for ... revolutionary confrontation with the Guards, Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces" if rallies continue. The Basij, a plainclothes militia under the Guard's command, has been blamed for some of the protesters' deaths.

Severe restrictions on reporters have made it almost impossible to independently verify reports on demonstrations, clashes and casualties. Iran has ordered reporters for international news agencies to stay in their offices, barring them from reporting on the streets.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31499296

[karadjordje]

Iran’s Ahmadinejad: Obama is acting like Bush

Report: Dozens of university professors are detained after meeting Mousavi

NBC News and news services

updated 7:52 a.m. ET June 25, 2009

Editor's note: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Barack Obama of behaving like his White House predecessor and called on him to apologize for what he called U.S. interference following Iran's elections.

Obama has ramped up his previously muted criticism, saying he was "appalled and outraged" by a crackdown on protests which followed Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.

"Mr. Obama made a mistake to say those things ... our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former U.S. President George W.) Bush used to say," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Before the election, the Obama administration had indicated that it was interested in reaching out to Iran, after years of a diplomatic freeze following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has given no clear signal that it is interested in Obama's overture, and in the wake of the election, the U.S. leader has slowly ratcheted up his criticism of Iran.

Meanwhile, 70 university professors were detained in Iran in a widening government crackdown on protesters, according to a Web site affiliated with opposition politician Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says he was robbed of victory in a rigged presidential election.

The professors were detained on Wednesday, immediately after meeting with Mousavi, the Kalemeh site said. The report said it is not clear where the detainees were taken.

Mousavi said for the first time Thursday that he is being isolated by authorities and pressured to drop his presidential election challenge.

In a statement on his Web site, Mousavi suggested he would stand strong. "I cannot modify black as white and white as black," he was quoted as saying. "This is not the solution to expect me to express something in which I don't believe."

Hundreds of protesters and activists are believed to have been taken into custody since the June 12 vote, in which Iran's ruling clerics declared Ahmadinejad the winner by a landslide. The government has also set up a special court to deal with the cases of people arrested in more than a week of unrest and threatened harsh sentences.

Widespread protests erupted after the election, amid allegations of massive fraud. Since then, at least 17 people have been killed as authorities gradually intensified their crackdown.

The state-owned newspaper, Iran, reported Thursday that in addition to the 17, seven members of the pro-government Basij militia were killed in post-election clashes, and dozens more injured by weapons and knives. The report could not be independently verified.

Elite targeted?

The professors detained Wednesday were believed to be among a group that has been pushing for a more liberal form of government. The detentions signal that the authorities are increasingly targeting members of Iran's elite.

In recent days, demonstrators have found themselves more and more scattered and struggling under a blanket crackdown that Mousavi's wife compared to martial law.

A flood of security forces using tear gas and clubs quickly overwhelmed a small group of rock-throwing protesters near Iran's parliament Wednesday.

Social-networking Web sites carried claims of brutal tactics by police such as savage beatings with batons, but the report could not be independently confirmed.

What began as groundswell protest of alleged vote fraud increasingly appears to be splintering into random acts of rage and frustration against emboldened and well-armed security forces determined to hold their ground.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said the election of Ahmadinejad will not be reversed. He has said the nation's rulers would never yield to demands from the streets.

Mousavi supporters said they would release thousands of balloons on Friday imprinted with the message "Neda you will always remain in our hearts" — a reference to the young woman killed last week who has become an icon of the protests.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31539392...ideastn_africa

[karadjordje]

Arab activists watch Iran with wonder, awe

Protests have triggered soul-searching, with many wondering, ‘Why not us?’

Leading Egyptian opposition politician Ayman Nour, of the Ghad party, is mobbed by supporters following his release from prison in February. He had been jailed on charges of forging affidavits needed to set up his political party.

CAIRO - Mohamed Sharkawy bears the scars of his devotion to Egypt's democracy movement. He has endured beatings in a Cairo police station, he said, and last year spent more than two weeks in an insect-ridden jail for organizing a protest.

But watching tens of thousands of Iranians take to the streets of Tehran this month, the 27-year-old pro-democracy activist has grown disillusioned. In 10 days, he said, the Iranians have achieved far more than his movement has ever accomplished in Egypt.

"We sacrificed a lot, but we have gotten nowhere," Sharkawy said.

Across the Arab world, Iran's massive opposition protests have triggered a wave of soul-searching and conflicting emotions. Many question why their own reform movements are unable to rally people to rise up against unpopular authoritarian regimes. In Egypt, the cradle of what was once the Arab world's most ambitious push for democracy, Iran's protests have served as a reminder of how much the notion has unraveled under President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for 30 years.

"I am extremely jealous," said Nayra El Sheikh, 28, a blogger and Sharkawy's wife. "I can't help but think: Why not us? What do they have that we don't have? Do they have more guts?"

Skepticism over Obama’s policies

The frustration comes against a backdrop of deep-rooted skepticism among pro-democracy activists that U.S. policies under President Obama will help transform the region, despite his vow to engage the Muslim world in a highly publicized speech here last month. Some view Obama's response to Iran's protests, muted until Tuesday, as a harbinger of U.S. attitudes toward their own efforts to reform their political systems. The Egyptian government, they note, is a key American ally, and U.S. pressure on Egypt for reforms began subsiding in the last years of the Bush administration.

"When Obama does not take a stance, the very next day these oppressive regimes will regard this as a signal. This is a test for his government," said Ayman Nour, a noted Egyptian opposition politician who was recently released from jail. "If they can turn a blind eye to their enemy, they can turn a blind eye to any action here in Egypt."

When the Iranian protests erupted, Ahmed Abd el-Fatah wrote on his blog, "We Egyptians are like youth watching pornography because they can't practice sex. Congratulations to Iran for its democracy."

"I was very happy about what was happening. But I was also very sad. I know I can never do this here," the thin, 22-year-old activist said. "You need a far greater movement than in Iran to achieve any change in Egypt."

Crisis of leadership, vision

For years, Egypt's democracy movement has used Internet technology, banners and slogans to galvanize its supporters, rallying often against U.S. policies and taking the lead in championing core Arab causes such as the plight of Palestinians or opposition to war in Iraq. Today, the movement is facing a crisis of leadership and vision and is torn by internal disputes, activists said.

Meanwhile, the government has taken advantage of the void to crush the opposition through arrests, beatings and round-the-clock surveillance. Dissent, even online, is not tolerated. Egyptian security officials routinely monitor cellphones and social networking sites such as Facebook and hack into the e-mails of anyone they deem suspicious, activists said.

"We have a very weak opposition. We don't have a civil society. The police are very powerful," said Fahmy Howeidy, a columnist for Ahram, an independent newspaper. "In Iran, at least there are real elections. We've never had any real elections here in 50 years. Our society has been weakened. We have not allowed political groups to grow."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31559156

[karadjordje]

Authoritarian regimes censor news from Iran

China, Cuba and Burma fear activism could spread to their countries

BEIJING - Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the authoritarian governments of China, Cuba and Burma have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand democratic reforms.

Between 1988 and 1990, amid a lesser global economic slump, pro-democracy protests that appeared to inspire and energize one another broke out in Eastern Europe, Burma, China and elsewhere. Not all evolved into full-fledged revolutions, but communist regimes fell in a broad swath of countries, and the global balance of power shifted.

A similar infectiousness has shown up in subtle acts of defiance by democracy advocates around the world this week.

In China, political commentators tinted their blogs and Twitters green to show their support for Iranians disputing President Ahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection. The deaths of at least 20 people in violent clashes in Tehran have drawn comparisons online to "June 4," the date of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing in 1989. And a pointed joke about how Iranians are luckier than Chinese because sham elections are better than no elections made the rounds on the country's vast network of Internet bulletin boards.

"The Iranian people face the same problems as us: news censorship and no freedom to have their own voices," 28-year-old blogger Zhou Shuguang said in a telephone interview from the inland province of Hunan. Zhou said he and several friends were among those who had colored their online pictures green, the signature color of the Iranian opposition.

‘Tomorrow it could well be us’

In Cuba, President Raúl Castro's government has imposed a complete blackout of news surrounding the Iranian elections. But word of developments is trickling through, anyway.

Havana-based blogger Yoani Sánchez, 33, who e-mails friends outside Cuba to get her entries posted online, said the Iranian protests -- in particular, the reportedly widespread use of Twitter, Facebook and cellphones -- have served as "a lesson for Cuban bloggers."

"Seeing those young Iranians use all the technology to denounce the injustice, I notice everything that we lack to support those who maintain blogs from the island," Sánchez wrote. "The acid test of our incipient virtual community has not yet arrived, but maybe it will surprise us tomorrow."

"Today it's you," she told the Iranian protesters in one posting. "Tomorrow it could well be us."

In Burma, the junta's mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, has drowned out news from Tehran with articles on bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan. But some of the nearly 200 journals published privately in Rangoon and Mandalay have seized on the topic as a way to pass subversive messages to readers.

"What we, the private media, are trying to do was to put in as much stories and pixs of what's going on in Teheran in our papers. So far we were successful," the editor of a Rangoon-based weekly publication said in an e-mail. "The upcoming paper of mine . . . will carry, albeit if it's not censored, news stories of the events in Teheran and a feature on 'Elections and Democracy,' trying to draw some parallels between the one in Iran and the upcoming one here," a reference to elections, scheduled for 2010, that many critics dismiss as a sham.

Unlike in Iran, however, the experience of past failed protests has yielded a measure of pragmatism in Burma. Overtly political opposition groups, such as Generation Wave, and numerous apolitical networks have in recent months focused on a more evolutionary strategy of change, reaching out in particular to Burma's rural masses.

"We cannot go directly to our goal," said a graphic designer who co-founded a group that teaches social management and governance in Rangoon and remote towns under the cover of English classes.

Moe Thway, founder of Generation Wave, said Iran's citizens do not appear to be as depressed or despairing as Burma's. Even the most hard-bitten Burmese activists see little hope in taking to the streets for now.

"About Iran, I can't say whether their current movement will change the political trend or not," he said. "Iran and our Burma are still different."

In Venezuela, a South American country that is increasingly polarized, protests against President Hugo Chávez's administration are common. Juan Mejía, 22, said he found the protests in Iran stirring, partly because he felt that opponents of the government in Tehran want the same thing as protesters in Caracas.

"The fact that people have gone out onto the street, that they demand their rights be respected, means to us that they felt there was no liberty and that they want a different country," said Mejía, a student leader who opposes Chávez. "We believe that if the people of the world raise their voices loudly enough -- in Iran, as we do it here in Venezuela, and hopefully one day in Cuba -- then surely we will have a better world."

Venezuela, as opposed to countries such as Cuba and China, holds frequent elections, and dissent remains a part of the political discourse. But in a decade in power, Chávez has taken control of the Congress, the courts and the state oil company, and his opponents charge that he is a dictator in the making.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31580087...ashington_post

[karadjordje]

Leading clerics defy Ayatollah on Iran election

Act against supreme leader is most public sign of split in establishment

CAIRO - The most important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult — if not impossible.

“This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”

'Foreign agents'

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 documents, published on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site, accused supporters of the president of printing more than 20 million extra ballots before the vote and handing out cash bonuses to voters.

Since the election, the bulk of the clerical establishment in the holy city of Qum, an important religious and political center of power, has remained largely silent, leaving many to wonder when, or if, the nation’s most senior religious leaders would jump into the controversy that has posed the most significant challenge to the country’s leadership since the Islamic Revolution.

With its statement Saturday, the association of clerics — formed under the leadership of the revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — came down squarely on the side of the reform movement.

The association includes reformists, but Iranian political analysts describe it as independent, and it did not support any candidate in the recent election.

The group had earlier asked for the election to be nullified because so many Iranians objected to the results, but it never directly challenged the legitimacy of the government and, by extension, the supreme leader.

The earlier statement also came before the election was certified by the country’s religious leaders, who have since said that opposition to the results must cease.

Could fizzle

The clerics’ decision to speak up again is not itself a turning point and could fizzle under pressure from the state, which has continued to threaten its critics. Some seminaries in Qum rely on the government for funds, and Ayatollah Khamenei and the man he has declared the winner of the election, incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have powerful backers there.

They also retain the support of the powerful security forces and the elite Revolutionary Guards. In addition, the country’s highest-ranking clerics have yet to speak out individually against the election results.

But the association’s latest statement does help Mr. Moussavi, Mr. Khatami and a former speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, who have been the most vocal in calling the election illegitimate and who, in their attempts to force change, have been hindered by the jailing of influential backers.

“The significance is that even within the clergy, there are many who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the election results as announced by the supreme leader,” said an Iranian political analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

While the government could continue vilifying the three opposition leaders, analysts say it was highly unlikely that the leadership would use the same tactic against the clerical establishment in Qum.

The backing also came at a sensitive time for Mr. Moussavi, because the accusations that he is a foreign agent ran in a newspaper, Kayhan, that has often been used to build cases against critics of the government.

The editorial was written by Hossein Shariatmadari, who was picked by the supreme leader to run the newspaper.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31745151...new_york_times

[karadjordje]

Iranian police charge at defiant protesters

Security forces wield batons as hundreds chant ‘death to the dictator’

TEHRAN, Iran - Hundreds of young men and women chanted "death to the dictator," confronting police wielding batons and firing tear gas in the capital Thursday as opposition activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities' vows to "smash" any new marches.

For days, supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been calling for new protests in Tehran and other cities on Thursday, their first significant attempt to get back on the streets since security forces crushed massive demonstrations nearly two weeks ago in Iran's postelection turmoil.

Tehran governor Morteza Tamaddon warned that any new march Thursday would meet the same fate.

"If some individuals plan to carry out any anti-security actions by listening to calls by counterrevolutionary networks, they will be smashed under the feet of our aware people," he said, according to the state news agency IRNA in a report late Wednesday.

Thursday afternoon, a stepped-up number of uniformed policemen along with plainclothes Basiji militiamen stood at intersections all along Revolution Street and at nearby near Tehran University, some of the sites where protests were called.

'Death to the dictator'

Still, a group of around 300 young people gathered in front of Tehran University and began to chant, "Death to the dictator," witnesses said. Many of them wore green surgical masks, the color of Mousavi's movement.

Police charged at them, swinging batons, but the protesters fled, then regrouped at another corner and resumed chanting, the witnesses said. Police chased them repeatedly as the protesters continued to regroup, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared government retribution.

Within an hour, the number of protesters grew to about 700 and marched toward the gates of Tehran University, the witnesses said. A line of policemen blocked their path, but they did nothing to disperse the gathering as the protesters stood and continued to chant, the witnesses said.

At another location, on Valiasr Street, around 200 protesters gathered, and police fired tear gas to disperse them, but the demonstrators sought to regroup elsewhere, the witnesses said.

Soon after the confrontations began, mobile phone service was cut off in Tehran, a step that was also taken during the height of the post-election protests to cut off communications. Mobile phone messaging has been cut in the country for the past three days.

They were the first such protests in 11 days, since the crackdown — though it did not compare to the hundreds of thousands who joined the marches that erupted after the June 12 presidential election, protesting what the opposition said were fraudulent results.

Calls circulating on Web sites

The calls for a new march have been circulating for days on social networking Web sites and pro-opposition Web sites. Opposition supporters planned the marches to coincide with the anniversary Thursday of a 1999 attack by Basij on a Tehran University dorm to stop protests in which one student was killed.

Mousavi and his pro-reform supporters say he won the election, which official results showed as a landslide victory for incumbent hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the results valid after a partial recount and warned that unrest would not be tolerated.

In the crackdown since the election, at least 20 protesters and 7 Basijis were killed.

Police have said 1,000 people were arrested and that most have since been released. But the state-run English language news network Press TV quoted prosecutor-general Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi saying Wednesday that 2,500 people were arrested and that 500 of them could face trial. The remainder, he said, have been released.

Top reformists under arrest

Among those still being held are top figures in the country's reform movement, including a former vice president and former Cabinet members. Arrests have continued over the past week, with police rounding up dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers.

In the latest detentions, prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah was taken away by security forces from his office Wednesday along with his daughter and three other members of his staff, the pro-opposition news Web site Norouz reported. A former deputy commerce minister in a previous pro-reform government, Feizollah Arab-Sorkhi, was also arrested at his Tehran home, the site reported.

A large number of top figures in Iran's reform movement, including a former vice president and former Cabinet members, have been held for weeks since the election.

Iranian authorities have depicted the postelection turmoil as instigated by enemy nations aiming to thwart Ahmadinejad's re-election, and officials say some of those detained confessed to fomenting the unrest. Opposition supporters say the confessions were forced under duress.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31828921

[Баба]

Данас сам гледо на ЦНН-у нешто што мислим да се којим случајем код нас сада појавило било би без обзира на сарказам протумачено као говор мржње, јелте. А за време комунизма таквих ступидних приказа о својим противницима је било и превише.

Наиме прво приказују Обаму како приликом неког разговора у студију убија муву.

Затим приказују Неџада (иранског прешједника) - Ахмединеџада( у даљем тексту Неџада) , како му приликом неког говора пролеће неки лептир поред главе а он само нако махинално махне да га отера.

Затим следи коментар како је то ко зна каква буба , јелте такве само расту у Ирану и највероватније су неки акрапи.

Следи поново снимак Обаме , где показује мртву муву на патосу (нашки речено патосирану).

Па опет Неџада који само маше а ништа не убива, што би јел требало да у том наметнутом контексту значи да није способан да убије Иранску "муву".

Затим приказују Неџада опет у неком студију како приликом устајања закопчава потпуно откопчан шлиц- ово је стварно смешно  0104_cheesy.

И падају коментари 2 : 0 за Обаму , наравно.

И на крају као шлаг на торту а заправо појашњење за ону публику која још није схватила поенту целе сторије поново исти снимак Обаме који убива муху , само овом приликом монтажом је муха претворена у главу Неџадову са крилцима, Обама брзим покретом вештог америчког командоса спљеска ову Мухудинеџада и ту је крај клипа.

Дакле Обама ће да спљеска Иран, пардон Иранског диктатора тог недемократичног Муханеџада.

[karadjordje]

Биће густо ако зарате САД и Иран  crvenilo

[Баба]

Па знаш како не верујем да ће одмах да зарате.

То Амери, после Вијетнама, више не раде.

Али ће практично опколити Иран , а онда следи оно што су успешно већ изводили и на другим местима, прво разне санкције, па онда слабљење националног јединства, а то је бар лако у свакој држави постоје разне мањине као курди у ираку на пример, па тако редом.

Сада су Амери тренутно у Авганистану , Ирак су средили , и тако полако опкољавају Иран .

...

[karadjordje]

Ја мислим да ће бити координисана акција са Израелом.

Не знам....Ирна има око 70 милиона становника.Довољно би било да имаш макар милион људи који су спремни да буду самоубице и амери су га угасили.Мада у Ирану мислим да има макар 5 милиона који су спремни на тако нешто.

[karadjordje]

Iran’s post-election death toll still unknown

Dozens of families camp outside a prison to learn the fate of loved ones

CAIRO - Several dozen families camp outside Iran's daunting Evin prison, trying to learn the fate of loved ones who vanished in post-election turmoil. A month into the government crackdown, the number of killed and arrested remains unknown, but human rights groups believe the death toll is far higher than the official figure of 20.

Many of at least 500 known to have been arrested have disappeared in prisons, held in secret locations and barred from contact with families. Rights groups say perhaps dozens of others have not been heard of since the protests and their relatives still cannot determine whether they are now locked in a cell or dead.

Over the weekend, about 50 men and women held vigil in Tehran before the gates of Evin, the main prison for political detainees, waiting for news on whether their relatives are inside, a witness told The Associated Press. Some of the women read aloud softly from the Quran, others chanted "God is great" from time to time. But mostly they stood silent, the witness said.

"They will call you soon. Go home and wait for the phone to ring," a police officer told them. But the families remained in place. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution from authorities, and government restrictions imposed on the media barred photographing the gathering.

The crackdown on the gigantic rallies that broke out after Iran's disputed June 12 presidential election was chaotic. Not only regular police, but also plainclothes Basiji militiamen linked to the elite Republican Guards were involved in beating or firing on protesters, dragging some away in covered trucks to unknown locations.

The protests were sparked when opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed he was the victor and that official results showing a victory for hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were fraudulent.

Security forces continue sweep

At the same time, security forces launched a sweep that continues weeks later against pro-reform politicians, lawyers, journalists, women's rights and other activists. Many were arrested from their homes or offices and the roundup effectively stripped away a senior level of the reform movement's political leadership.

It took 26 days for the family of Sohrab Aarabi to learn his fate after the 19-year-old disappeared during a June 15 protest. After weeks of asking at courts and prisons for him, his family was told Saturday that he had been shot in the chest during the protest and died, the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported.

Aarabi was buried Monday in the vast Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran.

But confirmation of his death only raised more questions. His body did not appear before the coroner until June 19, and it was not known if he died immediately of his wounds, was hospitalized or was detained at any point, the group said, citing the family

Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the rights group, said there could be "dozens or even hundreds" of missing people like Aarabi, based on accounts from inside Iran that his group is investigating.

"They are people who simply went off the radar screen. They could be in detention, because the government has not released a list of detainees. There's no confirmation if they are in prison or dead. Their families are searching everywhere and not getting answers."

Iranian police said 20 protesters were killed in Tehran during the crackdown. The country's general prosecutor said last week that 2,500 people were arrested around the country, and that of those 500 remain in prison. He promised the 500 would be brought into the judicial system soon — meaning they would be removed from secret locations and either put on trial or processed for release.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31909617...ideastn_africa

[karadjordje]

Iranian airliner skids off runway, killing 17

Tires of plane caught fire as it was landing in northeast, official says

This passenger jet skidded off a runway and crashed into a wall at the airport in Mashhad, Iran, on Friday.

TEHRAN, Iran - Seventeen people died when an Iranian passenger plane caught fire as it was landing and skidded off the runway in the northeast of the country, according to a local official.

Provincial official Ghahraman Rashid told the state news agency that the tires of the plane from the private Aria airline caught fire during its landing Friday in Mashhad and it crashed into walls near the runway.

Another 19 people were injured in the crash in which the cockpit also caught fire.

There were 153 passengers on the Russian-made Ilyushin plane.

On July 15, an Iranian passenger plane crashed soon after take off, killing 168 people aboard.

Iranian airlines, including state-run ones, are chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32126448...ideastn_africa