Policemen from Venezuela and Lebanon?
There are lots of rumors about what’s going on in Iran now. I just heard that Ahmadinejad’s government is preparing for the use of guards from Lebanon and Venezuela. It seems that the Iranian police is not going to do whatever they are asked to do. I hope this stays just a rumor. Iran’s police is not a professional one and most of the people we see in the streets as policemen are poor soldiers who spend their mandatory military service. They are just like the other people. Many of them probably do now support the government, and Ahmadinejad in particular.
June 14, 2009 Leave a Comment
IRAN: Ahmadinejad Victory Sparks Protests and Claims of Fraud
SAN FRANCISCO, Jun 13 (IPS) - Just a few months after a right-wing government gained power in Israel, Iran’s hardliner president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was declared the winner in Friday’s election, although his main rival has not accepted defeat and reformist supporters were skirmishing with security forces in the capital Tehran Saturday.
According to Iran’s Interior Ministry, Ahmadinejad took 62.6 percent of the vote, with leading reformist candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi receiving 33.7 percent – thus averting a widely anticipated run-off. The ministry says turnout was a record 85 percent of eligible voters. Read more
June 13, 2009 7 Comments
AP: Election Battles Turn Into Street Fights in Iran
A video by AP on Tehran’s protests:
June 13, 2009 Leave a Comment
“It was the result of an organized fraud”
Here is the like to a ABC7 show on Iran’s election. On this show, I said that, “it’ a result of an organized fraud. You can watch the video here.
“This is the result of an organized and engineered fraud,” said Omid Memarian.
Memarian worked as a journalist in Iran and just graduated from U.C. Berkeley’s journalism school. He’s been perusing the web all day and bloggers are crying foul.
“Iran’s electoral system is not that fast to be able to announce the results that fast. It’s a big country, tons of different villages and small cities which are not computerized,” said Memarian.
June 12, 2009 Leave a Comment
The Head Assembly Of Experts’ Wife: “Protest in the streets!”
“If people see that [the government] has cheated, they should protest in the streets,” said Effat Marashi, the wife of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president and the head of Assembly of Experts, which officially monitors the Supreme Leader’s performance. (Also read my story about the result of the election here)
June 12, 2009 Leave a Comment
Iran on the move
OpenDemocracy.org-Iran has experienced of one of the most exciting presidential elections since the Islamic revolution of 1979. All of the four candidates who appear on the ballot-paper in the first round of voting on 12 June 2009 may be handpicked by Iran’s Guardian Council, and each can be considered either a father or a child of the revolution. But two are reformists who embrace progressive agendas, and whose popular campaigns suggest that millions of Iranians - 70% of whom are under 30 years old - believe that Iran needs reform.
For Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. The leader elected in June 2005 expected an easy contest from opposition candidates who could be easily discredited for past failures or outflanked on nationalist rhetoric. Instead, he has been forced to grapple with harsh criticism of his economic policy, foreign policy and human-rights record - and is resorting to extreme denunciation of his rivals as a way of shoring up his core support. Read more
June 11, 2009 2 Comments
IRAN: Reformist Candidates Complain of Too Many Ballots
SAN FRANCISCO, U.S., Jun 9 (IPS) - Fears that the state apparatus controlled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is laying the groundwork for possible fraud in Friday’s presidential election appear to be growing among his two reformist challengers and their supporters.
While an incumbent has never lost a re-election bid since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, many analysts believe Ahmadinejad will at least be forced into a run-off with his closest rival, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is supported by Ahmadinejad’s popular predecessor, former President Mohammad Khatami.
The poll is being closely watched around the world, since the results could have a major impact on Iran’s relations both with its neighbours and the West, where Ahmadinejad’s more provocative statements, notably his repeated questioning of the Nazi Holocaust, have made him an easy target for rallying public opinion against Iran. Read more
June 9, 2009 2 Comments
Q&A: Notes From Iran’s Underground Music Scene
BERKELEY, California, Jun 4 (IPS) - As Iran’s conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fights for his political future against two reformist challengers in the June elections, Arash Sobhani, a lead figure in the country’s underground music scene, says it’s a very tough time to be an artist in Iran.
“At the beginning of his [Ahmadinejad’s] first term [in 2005] there were still a few notable musicians who thought they should stay and try to work inside Iran and try to make things better little by little, like they had done for the past 26 years, but Ahmadinejad proved them wrong,” Sobhani told IPS.
Sobhani is the lead singer and songwriter of Kiosk, a band that is widely popular among Iranians inside and outside of the country. With its Mark Knopfler musical style and politically sharp and ironic lyrics, Kiosk is considered one of the most influential underground rock bands to emerge since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Read more
June 6, 2009 3 Comments
Obama Egypt Speech: Venue Choice Draws Fire
President Obama’s decision to address the Muslim World in a speech on June 4th in Cairo, Egypt — one of the most authoritarian Muslims countries in the Middle East - begs the question: is Egypt the right place to address such issues or not?
On May 8, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called Egypt “the heart of the Arab world,” and the trip “an opportunity for the President to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world.”
In March 2009, Ipsos conducted a poll of 7,000 people across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. According to the polling outfit, Egypt has the least favorable approval rating compared to the other Arab countries in the Middle East. And President Obama received 48 percent of average favorability ratings as a whole, while Egyptians gave him a favorability rating of 35 percent. Read more
June 3, 2009 3 Comments
Nuclear Iran
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June 2, 2009 Leave a Comment
What Should President Obama Tell the Muslim World in Cairo?
President Obama’s decision to give a speech in Egypt on June 4th, one of the most authoritarian regimes and unpopular governments in the Middle East, was surprising, no doubt. Many thought he would choose Indonesia, the biggest moderate Muslim country. But what should the President say, and do, in Cairo to make the best of his trip?
First of all, President Obama has to show that Egypt is the right choice. Many say it’s not. On May 8, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, called Egypt “the heart of the Arab world”. That’s right. But Arabs constitute approximately 10 percent of the Muslims worldwide. Also, as Olivier Roy, the prominent French scholar of Islam told me, “Muslims belong to different nationalities and have different interests. From Indonesia, as the biggest Muslim country, to Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia and Muslims in the United States and Europe, they have different interests and concerns.” Plus, all Arabs are not Muslim. Obama should clarify whether he meant to address the issues of the Arab World, which Egypt is rightly the biggest and certainly the most influential country amongst them, or the Muslim world?
June 1, 2009 19 Comments