2100 GMT: The Assault on Zahra Rahnavard. More on the alleged attack on Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife this afternoon at Tehran University: Persian2English has an English summary.
2055 GMT: Britain Leads, Will US Follow? British Foreign Minister David Miliband has taken notice of today’s events in a statement:
I share the concern of many people about the use of force to stifle demonstrations on Students’ Day. This follows the large scale abuses of human rights that have taken place since the presidential elections on 12 June.
Freedom of speech and freedom of political expression are fundamental values which all governments should respect. We look to the Iranian authorities to up-hold the freedoms of their own citizens, not stifle them.
Will Britain’s allies in Washington also issue a declaration of concern over “human rights”? Read the rest of this entry »
Former President Mohammad Khatami, in a meeting with a group of faculty members of Iran University of Science and Technology, has strongly criticised the continuation of the militarised environment and the security measures enforced on Iranian society. He added that one of the problems of the society is the lack of understanding and not taking advantage of the role of academia: “In the current situation, unfortunately the [academic] environment is getting more restricted, and regretfully the losses that the country will suffer because of these limitations are unrecoverable.”
The former reformist president, emphasising the necessity of independence of the universities, said:
In our reformist administration, the concern of the government was for the universities to be independent and respected, and we tried so that the ‘outside forces’ would not get the authorisation to intervene and enforce their views by any means.
An intellectual is someone who recognises the expectations of his/her time….Our time is the time that no one accepts tyranny and dictatorship and rejects it in all forms….Today the dictators of our time are claiming to be from the people; these are the problems of our time and are not related to East or West. Today criticising Government and freedom of expression should be accepted as rights. Read the rest of this entry »
2150 GMT: To end the day, we’ve posted a review by Josh Shahryar of the day’s events.
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