Women’s visibility on the streets of Tehran is not accidental; it illustrates the presence of a movement… |
For many weeks in June, Iran dominated the news. Now it has slipped into the background. One of the remarkable aspects of the huge demonstrations challenging the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the presence of women. Iranian women had been largel
y invisible to the world. Suddenly, there they were, old and young, barely covered and fully shrouded. |
And then young Neda, a music student, was shot dead as she stood on the sidelines of a demonstration. Her dying gasps were captured on camera for the world to see. That tragic moment spoke not just of the mindless assault on ordinary people following the election, but also of the existence of a movement for change that the women of Iran have been conducting for decades now. That story is largely untold. People focus on a country like Iran when there is an event. They rarely know what goes on the rest of the time. Read more at www.hindu.com |
| Disquiet over role of supreme leader’s son |
THE son of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken control of the basiji militia being used to crush the protest movement, according to a senior Iranian source. |
The source, a politician with strong connections to security, said the leading role being played by Mojtaba Khamenei had dismayed many senior clerics, conservative politicians and Revolutionary Guard generals. |
But they are reluctant to challenge the Khameneis openly out of fear that any conflict would destabilise the Islamic Republic and weaken Iran in the region. Instead they will use their positions within the state to make it hard for the supreme leader and the President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to govern. |
“This game has not finished. The game has only just started,” the source said, on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his position in Iran. Read more at www.smh.com.au |
Repression has a familiar face |
For most people around the globe, the images of club-wielding men on motorcycles beating demonstrators on the streets of Iran was just another case of brutality in a far-off land. |
But as he watched the violence of recent weeks unfold on television and YouTube, Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, an exiled Iranian, realized he recognized some of the attackers. |
They were once good friends. |
His life, encapsulating the betrayals and disappointments that followed Iran’s tumultuous revolution 30 years ago, as well as the hopes and fears of Iranians now living abroad, had come full circle. |
The midranking cleric urges the government to reach out to protesters, even as a top military official warns that troops are willing to sacrifice their lives to quell unrest. |
Reporting from Beirut —
A top advisor to Iran’s supreme leader today urged the country’s establishment to be more tolerant of dissent, even as military officials stepped up their rhetoric in the latest signs of divisions created by the marred reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad one month ago. |
Mohammad Mohammadian, a midranking cleric who heads Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office of university affairs, acknowledged simmering discontent over the vote, which sparked massive protests and a violent crackdown last month. |
“We cannot order public opinion to get convinced,” Mohammadian said, according to the Mehr news agency. “Certain individuals are suspicious about the election result, and we have to shed light on the realities and respond to their questions.” Read more at www.latimes.com |
 MikVerbrugge
Rafsanjani is our last hope before total confrontation and a spiraling
escalation. He is not seeking leadership at all. He is trying to create
a commission of Experts in replacement of the 1 Leader system. This is Persian Chess at its best. This current game started in 1990, the first move was made by none other than Rafsanjani himself. He said 25
years would get us to where we rightfully ought to be. It will take a
third generation to see this through. It will require many phases, with
Technical and Scientific progress as pillars. Today this is known as
“the 25 years plan”, it has constitutional character and is declared a high goal of the Regime. The Rafsanjani plan! Read more at twitblogs.com |
Mousavi ordered to vacate Pasteur office |
Defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s office in the presidential complex has been handed over to the government, reports say.
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Upon an order issued by the President’s Office, the office that had been put at the disposal of Mousavi - Iran’s last prime minister - was vacated and handed back to the Properties Department of the President’s Office last Thursday, Jomhouri Eslami daily reported today.
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After a constitutional amendment removed the post of the prime minister in 1989, Mousavi, who served as the premier for eight years, continued to make use of the office located in the presidential compound in Tehran’s Pasteur Street.
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Mousavi had reportedly started the moving out process two weeks ago.
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According to official results, Mousavi came second to the incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election, which gave Ahmadinejad about two-thirds of the votes.
Read more at www.presstv.ir |
Numbering the Days of Dictators |
Ahmadinejad’s accomplishments these past few weeks have been vast and unmistakable. By securing the unconditional support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for his power grab, Ahmadinejad killed three birds with one stone. He ensured that the clerical hierarchy in Qom - which is dependent on Khamenei for its financial stability - acquiesced to his authority. He expanded the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ control over the country by making it the indispensable guardian of the revolution. And he effectively transformed Khamenei from the “supreme leader” into a creature of Ahmadinejad’s will. The moment that Khamenei gave Ahmadinejad his full support and gave a green light to the Revolutionary Guards to repress the protesters, Khamenei tied his own fate to that of his president. |
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| As Iran erupts, the world is in Neverland |
Have you noticed how Iran has dropped off the news cycle and the brave protestors in that hideous dictatorship have disappeared into a nether world we cannot see? One shudders at the fate of the many Iranian champions of democracy who, in the past two weeks, have been dragged off to an unspeakable fate. We stopped knowing about the new Iranian revolution because the world decided to fixate on the death of an imperfect man who, in my estimation, is of little importance in the great scheme of things. Except for those of us keeping in constant touch with Iranian Twitterers and Facebook pals, it is hard to find some real news about what many of us thought would be the stunning ouster of the Ayatollahs. After all, in 1979 these ninth-century Imams told their people to go forth and multiply and now, thirty years later, the babies who became the millions of young people are revolting against those very same mullahs. Read more at www.jewishcomment.com |
Power to the people: Iran’s government showing its true colors at home |
Even after security forces broke bones and spilled blood, thousands of Iranians took to the streets again this week to be met by tear gas, water cannons and worse. |
These brave souls have refused to sit by while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei run roughshod over their right to self-determination. In standing with courage, they have revealed the depths of the regime’s power-mad brutality. |
The internal crackdown is of a piece with Tehran’s approach to the world. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad fund Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraq-based terrorists, the Taliban and radical Islamists throughout the region and beyond, even as far as Sudan. |
The goal is to create a bloc of Muslim states that can expel American influence from the region, weaken Sunni Arab states and - coup de grace - return the map to its contours before that little blemish called Israel so rudely appeared. Read more at www.nydailynews.com |
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A silent revolution
