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Entries in Iran Elections 2009 (94)

Tuesday
Nov032009

UPDATED Iran: More 13 Aban Videos

Video: The Announcements for the 13 Aban Marches

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UPDATE 3 November: With 13 hours to go before the marches begin, we've added another video.

Last week we noted the emergence of videos on the Internet anticipating and promoting the demonstrations of 13 Aban (4 November). Helpful readers informed us that, while we had not noticed such videos before previous marches, they are spread inside Iran through various means to build and encourage the Green opposition.

More and more examples are appearing on the eve of the protest. Here are five of the latest:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhTAFaplgnA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NejCbX174Ac[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7rLVMjfRo[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ16mlpLyBE[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qvPS2YD6Hs[/youtube]
Tuesday
Nov032009

Latest Iran Video: Protests at Iran's Universities & A High School (3 November)

Latest Iran Video: Protest & Hunger Strike at Sharif University
Iran: More 13 Aban Videos
The Latest from Iran (3 November): 24 Hours to Go

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Ten videos from campuses across Iran on Tuesday

High School in Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKGYf3zEFJ0[/youtube]

Ferdowsi University, Mashaad

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMWJGtVL5M4[/youtube]

Yasouj University, southwestern Iran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmROUcvrQMM[/youtube]

Sajad University, Mashaad

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGBY4hDE4g[/youtube]

Kashan University

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFXObXTQJ44[/youtube]

Four videos from today's protest at Azad University, Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9U9SM9tuGQ[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUXGQyKrBWo[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G-vVfrzlus[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S63A0U1zLns[/youtube]
Monday
Nov022009

Latest from Iran (2 November): 36 Hours to Go

NEW Latest Iran Video: Protest & Hunger Strike at Sharif University
NEW Iran: A Response to an American Who Asks, “What if the Green Movement Isn’t ‘Ours’?
NEW Iran Nuclear Talks: Tehran's Middle Way?
Video: Sharif and Khaje Nasir Universities Protests (1 November)
Video Flashback: Ahmadinejad v. The Giant Flying Bug
Iran: More 13 Aban Videos
Latest from Iran (1 November): Is This the Opposition’s Moment?

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IRAN 3 NOV DEMOS 42125 GMT: More University Protests. In addition to today's demonstration and hunger strike at Sharif University (video in separate entry), about 400 students at Islamic Azad University of Roodehen, near Tehran, chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein", “We support the brave Karroubi” , “Death to Dictator”, “Courageous student, join us at the November 4th rally” and “Viva Karoubi, Viva Mousavi” (English summary). There is also video of a rally at the University of Kashan, south of Tehran.

1930 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, have visited the family of detainee Feizollah Arabsorkhe and claimed "investigators have been challenged by their daily conversations and dialogues with the children of the Revolution”.

Feizollah Arabsorkhi is a leading member of the reformist Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution and has been in prison since June.

Mr. Mousavi insisted that political activists and youth in the post-election protests are not “sabotaging or destroying”: “If the media were free and people were allowed to have their say, we would not have fallen to this state.”

1915 GMT: Back from a break to find a couple of stories on a relatively quiet day, as various forces prepare for 13 Aban.

Journalist Fariba Pajooh has ended her hunger strike, begun on 26 October, because of serious health problems. Pajooh was arrested on 22 August and has been detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Iranian authorities have barred Emaddedin Baghi from leaving the country to collect the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Baghi is a prominent opponent of the death penalty in Iran and founder of the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights.

1525 GMT: The Facebook site associated with Mir Hossein Mousavi has published an English translation of the account of Mehdi Karroubi's meeting this weekend with the student organisation Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat. Beyond his claim that votes were allocated in advance of the Presidential election on 12 June, Karroubi's speech was a rallying call:

In this circumstance it is necessary that activists maintain their network and use the opportunities for meetings and gatherings, and don’t let people to be pushed to corners. Activists should announce their ideas, and in our ideas and methods we should emphasise those that are based on the national and religious identity of our beloved Iran like the anniversary of the victory of the Revolution, the celebration of Ghorban [one of the Islamic celebrations after Haj], and Ashora [the day Imam Hossein, the third Imam of Shia Islam, was martyred]. Today my advice to you is to maintain forces and ideas and to retain our just position.

1335 GMT: Iran's press supervisory body has banned publication of the leading business daily, Sarmayeh, for "repeated violations of the press law." Sarmayeh's editor Saeed Laylaz has been detained since June.

1325 GMT: More than four months after his detention, the file on former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi's case has been sent to the Revolutionary Court. This raises the prospect of formal charges, possibly this week.

1320 GMT: It's Official --- Karroubi Marches. Mehdi Karroubi's Tagheer website has just confirmed that the cleric will be at Hafte-Tir (7 Tir) Square in Tehran, at 10:30 a.m. local time, for 13 Aban ceremonies. This supersedes previous claims that Karroubi would join students at Amir Kabir University.

1125 GMT: Video Specials. We've just gotten the footage from today's demonstration and hunger strike at Sharif University and have posted two clips. And an EA reader has pointed us to one of the finest speeches on modern Iran and the Green movement, delivered by a 7-year-old student, that we have had the privilege of hearing.

1100 GMT: I've just posted one of the most difficult articles that I have attempted since 12 June. It's a response to an opinion piece in today's Washington Post that dismisses the Green movement as "Iran's Unlovable Opposition".

0920 GMT: We've posted, courtesy of Iran Review, an analysis by Iranian foreign policy analyst Keyhan Bazargar of a possible "middle way" by Tehran to resolve talks on uranium enrichment.

0810 GMT: Meanwhile, The Internal Battle. Here is how complex the fight inside the Iranian establishment over talks with the "West" has become: the Islamic Republic News Agency is featuring an interview with a "State Department nuclear consultant", who emphasises the guarantees that the International Atomic Energy Agency will put in any agreement on Iran's nuclear programme.

That to me is a pretty clear indication that the Ahmadinejad Government, for internal reasons, wants to spin out discussions. But, given the now open hostility of high-profile members of Parliament and both Ali and Sadegh Larijani, how much support does the President have?

And what does the Supreme Leader think of all this?

0755 GMT: That Latest Iran Move on Uranium Enrichment (see 0700 GMT). Foreign Minister Mottaki's statement, made during a conference in Malaysia, was that Tehran had submitted its response to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday. This was for a technical commission to review the Vienna proposal of the "5+1" powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China, Germany), which was for 80 percent of Iran's uranium stock to be enriched in Russia.

Interpretation? Go no further than Enduring America last Friday:
Given Ahmadinejad’s position, the political advantages of spinning out the talks are there to be grasped. If there are alterations in the plan to reduce the amount shipped below 80 percent and to send it out in stages rather than in one delivery, these will be concession to Iran’s and the President’s strength. If the “West” walks away from the table, this will be an indication of their continuing deceptions and mistakes — despite their apparent request for forgiveness from Tehran — and Iran will be in the right as it maintains nuclear sovereignty.

0700 GMT: 48 hours to go before the demonstrations of 13 Aban (4 November), and what we sense is growing excitement inside and outside Iran is making its way into international news coverage. The New York Times rather staidly notes, "Opposition in Iran Urges Continuing Challenge", while The Observer of London announces, "Iran Students Plan Return to Street Protests".

The coverage, following Reuters' initial lead, is still troublesome with its distortion of the impending rally. The New York Times, perhaps unwittingly, links Green opposition to hostility to the US: "The occasion is the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the United States Embassy in Tehran by hard-line students on Nov. 4, 1979. The day is marked every year with anti-American rallies." And both newspapers are bizarrely cautious about the open challenge of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi in recent days: "Mousavi appeared to back the protests yesterday....Although the opposition leaders...did not openly call for street protests, their remarks were widely seen as a call to arms on a day of considerable symbolic importance."

And "Western" journalists will still be distracted by even the slightest of remarks on the nuclear issue. This morning, for example, all have jumped on the comments of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Iran has requested a technical commission to review the "third-party enrichment" proposal from the Vienna talks. (America's ABC News and even Fox News, which have not printed a word about 13 Aban, have seized on Mottaki's statement as a top story.)

Still, I cannot recall the "Western" media anticipating the last big marches on Qods Day (18 September), and it is interesting to note that The New York Times writes in retrospect, "Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets." With the possibility that 13 Aban will bring out even bigger marches, news organisations --- print and broadcast --- will be on alert Wednesday. Their coverage does not reply or supersede the rallies, of course, but it may support the Green movement in a way not seen since early in the post-election crisis.

It is two days to 13 Aban (4 November).
Monday
Nov022009

Latest Iran Video: Protest & Hunger Strike at Sharif University

Video: Sharif and Khaje Nasir Universities Protests (1 November)
Iran: More 13 Aban Videos
Latest from Iran (2 November): The World Takes Notice?

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Two of ten videos now posted on YouTube

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O2nmg5VAjI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRGiz2wSTCM&feature=channel[/youtube]
Monday
Nov022009

Iran: A Response to an American Who Asks, "What if the Green Movement Isn't 'Ours'?

LATEST Iran: A Response to “What If the Green Movement Isn’t Ours?” (The Sequel)

Iran Nuclear Talks: Tehran’s Middle Way?
Latest from Iran (2 November): The World Takes Notice?

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IRAN GREENI want to be careful here. I don't want to be too emotive, and I don't want to be seen as taking a cheap shot at a US journalist. However, I have just read an opinion piece which is one of the most unsettling I have encountered since 12 June.

In today's Washington Post, Jackson Diehl frets about "Iran's Unlovable Opposition". This is his opening:
Iran has been controlled since June by a hard-line clique of extremist clerics and leaders of the Revolutionary Guard who believe they are destined to make their country a nuclear power that dominates the Middle East. It follows that their opposition -- a mass movement that has been marching to slogans such as "death to the dictator" and "no to Lebanon, no to Gaza" -- is bound to be a more plausible partner for the rapproachement that the Obama administration is seeking.

Or maybe not. The enduring nature of Iran is to frustrate outsiders who work by the usual rules of political logic or who seek unambiguous commitments.


What has disturbed Diehl to the point where he rejects the Green Wave? Apparently it is a single encounter "with one of the leading representatives outside of Iran of the 'green revolution', who seemed determined to convince would-be Western supporters that they were wasting their time".

That representative is Ataollah Mohajerani, a Minister of Culture in the Khatami Government and an ally of Mehdi Karroubi. In mid-October, Mohajerani was a speaker at the annual confernence of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where --- in Diehl's words --- "the mostly pro-Israel crowd was primed to cheer what they expected would be a harsh condemnation of Ahmadinejad and his bellicose rhetoric, and a promise of change by the green coalition".

Unfortunately, Mohajerani didn't deliver what many in his audience wanted. He condemned the US for its involvement in the 1953 coup in Iran. He said "the green movement has no expectations whatsoever" on Western support for its cause. Most importantly, he refused to concede that Iran should not have a nuclear programme, pointing instead at Israel's undeclared atomic weapons, and "asked whether Israel had a right to exist, he refused to respond".

The point here is not to defend Mohajerani on these hot-button issues. Instead, it is to ponder how this one speech can be re-framed as a make-or-break movement for Iran's opposition when it comes to American support.

I knew at the time, from discussions with colleagues and contacts, that many in Washington were disturbed by what they saw as the former Minister's brusque and undiplomatic approach. But I couldn't see how Mohajerani was a spokesman for the "Green movement". I especially did not see him as an envoy asking for the endorsement of WINEP, given that the agenda of that organisation can often be seen as Israel-first and that some of its leading members have endorsed regime change, rather than reform, in Tehran.

And Diehl's article doesn't change that perception. It is based on two and only two people. There's Mohajerani. Then there's Mehdi Khalaji of WINEP, who dismisses the speech's importance, "The true leaders of this movement are students, women and human rights activists, and political activists who have no desire to work in a theocratic regime or in a government within the framework of the existing constitution." That's an argument Diehl immediately dismisses:
The fact remains that, were Karroubi and fellow opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi somehow to supplant Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the main changes in Iranian policy might be of style.

I'm not sure how Diehl knows that, since he has not spoken to Karroubi or Mousavi or Mohammad Khatami or Alireza Beheshti or Ayatollah Dastgheib or Mohammad Ghoochani or anyone involved inside Iran. I'm not sure how Diehl knows that because there is no evidence that he has read any of the political positions of the post-12 June movement apart from "statements last week by green-movement leaders attacking the uranium swap plan".

But I don't think Diehl wants to spend all his time dealing with complexities such as Iran's judicial system and the abuses of detainees or the concept of clerical leadership under velayat-e-faqih or accountability for Iran's economic policies or even rights to free expression and assembly.

Because even though Diehl positions himself as a staunch advocate of "democracy", often criticising the US Government for putting other political and economic interests ahead of the promotion of freedom, in this case his priority has nothing to do with the concerns of the Green Movement. Instead he is fixed on 1) Iran's position towards Israel and 2) Iran's nuclear programme. All else for him is window-dressing.

I don't think Diehl is as well-connected with the US Government as his fellow columnists David Ignatius or Jim Hoagland and he is not as influential as a Thomas Friedman. Yet he is still writing for one of the weather-vanes of the American political mood.

And doing so, he brings out all my fears about those who feign concern for what happens inside Iran but who seem --- forgive me here, but I must be honest --- to have an apparent lack of knowledge, understanding, or even appreciation about and for Iranians. I worry that these writers of opinion, who are not "neo-conservative" activists but self-styled "liberals", reduce all that has happened before and after 12 June into a little box that fits political agendas far removed from Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Mashaad.

I worry that, for these defenders of freedom, Green is only a distracting colour.