Iranian protests - Page 11

On June 15 2009 19:45 Glaucus wrote:

Yes he is basically supporting Ahmadinejad eventhough he voted for Mousavi. He is against a revolution. Even if Mousavi lost there should still be a revolution. Even those that agree with Ahmadinejad on every issue should support a revolution. Imagine the west somehow gets a new puppet in place. How are you going to get rid of it if you have such an oppressive government?

So many new people went out to vote. They didn't vote this time and not last time to vote for Ahmadinejad.

You think denying the holocaust, offending the world and letting the economy get destroying got him so many new votes?

And there are many reported irregularities and no international observers. Then when there are protests they respond the way they do. What can one say? Either it's a coup or they are very Incompetent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-iran-erupts-as-voters-back-the-democrator-1704810.html

An interval here for lunch with a true and faithful friend of the Islamic Republic, a man I have known for many years who has risked his life and been imprisoned for Iran and who has never lied to me. We dined in an all-Iranian-food restaurant, along with his wife. He has often criticised the regime. A man unafraid. But I must repeat what he said. "The election figures are correct, Robert. Whatever you saw in Tehran, in the cities and in thousands of towns outside, they voted overwhelmingly for Ahmadinejad. Tabriz voted 80 per cent for Ahmadinejad. It was he who opened university courses there for the Azeri people to learn and win degrees in Azeri. In Mashad, the second city of Iran, there was a huge majority for Ahmadinejad after the imam of the great mosque attacked Rafsanjani of the Expediency Council who had started to ally himself with Mousavi. They knew what that meant: they had to vote for Ahmadinejad."

My guest and I drank dookh, the cool Iranian drinking yoghurt so popular here. The streets of Tehran were a thousand miles away. "You know why so many poorer women voted for Ahmadinejad? There are three million of them who make carpets in their homes. They had no insurance. When Ahmadinejad realised this, he immediately brought in a law to give them full insurance. Ahmadinejad's supporters were very shrewd. They got the people out in huge numbers to vote – and then presented this into their vote for Ahmadinejad."

On June 15 2009 21:30 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Hahahaha, saying this election wasn't rigged is quite funny.

On June 15 2009 21:30 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Do you still enjoy hanging 18 year old boys for being homosexual?

On June 15 2009 21:30 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Still want to eradicate every last Jew in Israel?

On June 15 2009 21:30 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Got nukes yet to use them against Israel?

On June 15 2009 21:30 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
A person like Masouvi with a broad base among the more educated people of Iran could change things for the better. So if it was a fair election, the results are still rubbish. A holocaust denier, state destroyer, mass gay murderer, intolerant piece of shit should not be president of a nation with more than 70 million people and people rightfully so protest against that.

Ahmadinejad: Now is the time for friendship
TEHRAN, June 14 (MNA) – To heal the rifts between supporters of different candidates, Ahmadinejad, who was declared the winner of Friday’s presidential election, said it is time for “friendship”.

“The elections are over and now it is time for friendship and cooperation,” Ahmadinejad told a press conference on Sunday.

He said in his second term as president he will focus on economic development.

On reports that his rivals have questioned the fairness of presidential votes, he said elections in Iran are held in a “transparent way”.

He added he is asking his rivals why they question the result of the election in which about 40 million people took part and determined the fate of the country in the four years ahead.

“I still have seen no document for their claims,” the president stated.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who came second in the presidential polls, and Mahdi Karroubi have claimed there was election fraud.

That fact that some have protested the results of election is natural since they had launched an intensive campaign and hoped to be the winners of the election, the president explained.

He also said the 24 million people who voted for him in Friday’s presidential election said “no” to foreigners’ interference.

Ahmadinejad went on to say that in the 2005 presidential election, which he won, was held by those persons who are now protesting the results of the elections.

He likened the presidential race to a football match in which there is losers and winners.

President Ahmadinejad said the Guardian Council, as an independent body, is ready to seriously investigate the complaints by the rivals.

He stated the differences in the number of votes that each candidate has received are so great that there is no question about the fairness of election.

In a speech among his supporters who had gathered in Vali-Asr Square in Tehran to celebrate his election victory, Ahmadinejad also said the people’s main demand from the government is to lower inflation, implement justice, and curb corruption.

On June 15 2009 22:26 LG)Sabbath wrote:

No, it's not... it's exactly in times like this when noone knows the whole truth, and things have to be taken with a grain of salt. Remember the venezuelan election.


I don't like this, but listing it together with other statements doesn't make them true. Like this doesn't mean the election was rigged, for instance.


This was never what he said, read up on it. It was mistranslated (purposefully?) by the western media AFAIK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#.22Wiped_off_the_map.22_or_.22Vanish_from_the_pages_of_time.22_translation


You do know that Israel has way more nukes than Iran could ever make, don't you? And that they've thretened their neighbours with military attacks many times?


I don't really like how he is handling this situation at all, or the hanging of homosexual people, but the fact that someone like him can get elected if the people want him (and the hanging of homosexuals seems to be an accepted part of the iranian culture) still gives me hope in democracy.

It is possible this election was rigged by false counting of the results.

It is also possible that Ahmadinejad is significantly more popular than Mousavi and the vote count is broadly accurate.

The latter is the prima facie position because we have election figures to support it, and it's perfectly consistent with the anecdotal evidence available, given the obvious pro-Mousavi bias in the sources used and reported by our press and media. If we are to declare that there has been a false count, we need a reasonably strong case to base it upon, particularly as the consequence is likely to be violence. There is no such strong case made out as yet, and the Iranian opposition and our press and media are profoundly irresponsible (or in many cases undoubtedly maliciously motivated) in declaring fraud proven and inciting hotheads to go out and riot.

The strongest indication towards possible fraud seems to be the speed of the count. That needs to be explained (and quite possibly can be - I don't know).

Other arguments put forward for rigging are more doubtful and require considerable research and analysis: -

- statistical regularity or otherwise in results or reporting (much more information and analysis required, if trustworthy bodies can be found to do it)

- speculation that Ahmadinejad's results were too good in particular areas, or too consistent across the nation (but he was Mayor of Tehran and won it in 2005, and had very strong supporters' rallies in both Tehran and Tabriz, I understand, plus this was a highly polarised, high turnout election reportedly more on class lines than reformer/hardliner lines, and it wouldn't be at all surprising if voting patterns shifted a lot to become more consistent nationally, based upon class distinctions rather than past ethnic or reform/hardliner lines)

- surprisingly poor numbers for the two minor candidates (but you would expect them to get "squeezed" in such a highly charged contest)

Many of the claimed pieces of "evidence" for fraud are simply based upon either subjective fantasy (the idea that most of the 2005 non-voters were mostly pro-reform people who would be expected to vote for Mousavi this time round) or simple error (all the minor repressive actions - closing off SMS etc before the elections, post election security measures such as arresting opposition figures, banning demonstrations, etc, are sensible precautions against the inevitable US-funded attempt to organise post-election "colour revolution"-style unrest to destabilise the regime).

On June 15 2009 22:36 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Democracy sucks and should not exist in underdeveloped countries, such as Iran who have too many uneducated people. Democracy only worked in western Europe at the start, because voting was limited to the upper class and gradually everyone was allowed to vote. This should be the start for other countries as well. Giving popular vote all at once usually has disastrous consequences. It results in people like Ahmynazijad getting elected. It's for example when you suddenly give the entire uneducated black population voting rights in South Africa. Look what good that did lolz.

On June 15 2009 22:36 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Democracy sucks and should not exist in underdeveloped countries, such as Iran who have too many uneducated people. Democracy only worked in western Europe at the start, because voting was limited to the upper class and gradually everyone was allowed to vote. This should be the start for other countries as well. Giving popular vote all at once usually has disastrous consequences. It results in people like Ahmynazijad getting elected. It's for example when you suddenly give the entire uneducated black population voting rights in South Africa. Look what good that did lolz.

On June 15 2009 22:36 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
Democracy sucks and should not exist in underdeveloped countries, such as Iran who have too many uneducated people. Democracy only worked in western Europe at the start, because voting was limited to the upper class and gradually everyone was allowed to vote.This should be the start for other countries as well. Giving popular vote all at once usually has disastrous consequences. It results in people like Ahmynazijad getting elected. It's for example when you suddenly give the entire uneducated black population voting rights in South Africa. Look what good that did lolz.

On June 15 2009 23:09 Jibba wrote:
The most ridiculous thing about this is Hezbollah's loss in Lebanon was a surprise to everyone, in a voting system that we know for a fact is unfair, yet there's barely any coverage of what went on or that those "dirty Islamists" peacefully accepted defeat. In Iran, where the expected happened, 200,000,000 unqualified sources have come out of nowhere to declare voter fraud.

You people are so disgusting drawing at any straw to defend a totalitairian regime from your nice western country. Even launching into ad hominim attacks to be able to do so.

And you are underestimating the Iranian voters. The people of Iran are paying the price for Ahmadinejad's image. Then he can brag while the people suffer the consequences. Yes, people vote against their interests.

When journalists went out of Tehran secret prolice was sure to stage interviews so they would talk to only Ahmadinejad supporters.

You people don't deserve the freedom you have here in the west.

Iran's political coup

If the reports coming out of Tehran about an electoral coup are sustained, then Iran has entered an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history. One characteristic that has always distinguished Iran from the crude dictators in much of the rest of the Middle East was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear.

In 1997, Iran’s hard line leadership was stunned by the landslide election of Mohammed Khatami, a reformer who promised to bring rule of law and a more human face to the harsh visage of the Iranian revolution. It took the authorities almost a year to recover their composure and to reassert their control through naked force and cynical manipulation of the constitution and legal system. The authorities did not, however, falsify the election results and even permitted a resounding reelection four years later. Instead, they preferred to prevent the president from implementing his reform program.

In 2005, when it appeared that no hard line conservative might survive the first round of the presidential election, there were credible reports of ballot manipulation to insure that Mr Ahmadinejad could run (and win) against former president Rafsanjani in the second round. The lesson seemed to be that the authorities might shift the results in a close election but they would not reverse a landslide vote.

The current election appears to repudiate both of those rules. The authorities were faced with a credible challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who had the potential to challenge the existing power structure on certain key issues. He ran a surprisingly effective campaign, and his “green wave” began to be seen as more than a wave. In fact, many began calling it a Green Revolution. For a regime that has been terrified about the possibility of a “velvet revolution,” this may have been too much.

On the basis of what we know so far, here is the sequence of events starting on the afternoon of election day, Friday, June 12.

* Near closing time of the polls, mobile text messaging was turned off nationwide
* Security forces poured out into the streets in large numbers
* The Ministry of Interior (election headquarters) was surrounded by concrete barriers and armed men
* National television began broadcasting pre-recorded messages calling for everyone to unite behind the winner
* The Mousavi campaign was informed officially that they had won the election, which perhaps served to temporarily lull them into complacency
* But then the Ministry of Interior announced a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad
* Unlike previous elections, there was no breakdown of the vote by province, which would have provided a way of judging its credibility
* The voting patterns announced by the government were identical in all parts of the country, an impossibility (also see the comments of Juan Cole at the title link)
* Less than 24 hours later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene`i publicly announced his congratulations to the winner, apparently confirming that the process was complete and irrevocable, contrary to constitutional requirements
* Shortly thereafter, all mobile phones, Facebook, and other social networks were blocked, as well as major foreign news sources.

All of this had the appearance of a well orchestrated strike intended to take its opponents by surprise – the classic definition of a coup. Curiously, this was not a coup of an outside group against the ruling elite; it was a coup of the ruling elite against its own people.

It is still too early for anything like a comprehensive analysis of implications, but here are some initial thoughts:

1. The willingness of the regime simply to ignore reality and fabricate election results without the slightest effort to conceal the fraud represents a historic shift in Iran’s Islamic revolution. All previous leaders at least paid lip service to the voice of the Iranian people. This suggests that Iran’s leaders are aware of the fact that they have lost credibility in the eyes of many (most?) of their countrymen, so they are dispensing with even the pretense of popular legitimacy in favor of raw power.

2. The Iranian opposition, which includes some very powerful individuals and institutions, has an agonizing decision to make. If they are intimidated and silenced by the show of force (as they have been in the past), they will lose all credibility in the future with even their most devoted followers. But if they choose to confront their ruthless colleagues forcefully, not only is it likely to be messy but it could risk running out of control and potentially bring down the entire existing power structure, of which they are participants and beneficiaries.

3. With regard to the United States and the West, nothing would prevent them in principle from dealing with an illegitimate authoritarian government. We do it every day, and have done so for years (the Soviet Union comes to mind). But this election is an extraordinary gift to those who have been most skeptical about President Obama’s plan to conduct negotiations with Iran. Former Bush official Elliott Abrams was quick off the mark, commenting that it is “likely that the engagement strategy has been dealt a very heavy blow.” Two senior Israeli officials quickly urged the world not to engage in negotiations with Iran. Neoconservatives who had already expressed their support for an Ahmadinejad victory now have every reason to be satisfied. Opposition forces, previously on the defensive, now have a perfect opportunity to mount a political attack that will make it even more difficult for President Obama to proceed with his plan.

In their own paranoia and hunger for power, the leaders of Iran have insulted their own fellow revolutionaries who have come to have second thoughts about absolute rule and the costs of repression, and they may have alienated an entire generation of future Iranian leaders. At the same time, they have provided an invaluable gift to their worst enemies abroad.

However this turns out, it is a historic turning point in the 30-year history of Iran’s Islamic revolution. Iranians have never forgotten the external political intervention that thwarted their democratic aspirations in 1953. How will they remember this day?

Rise of the Military
Brian Ulrich Jun 13 2009 - 4:06pm Iran

This account by Iranian film director and Mousavi spokesman Mohsen Makhmalbaf makes a great deal of sense:

"According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, in the early hours after voting had ended, the Interior Ministry had called Mr. Mousavi’s campaign headquarters to inform them that Mr. Mousavi would be the winner and, therefore, Mr. Mousavi must prepare a victory statement. Mr. Mousavi was, however, asked by the Ministry not to boast too much, in order not to upset Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters. Many of the president’s supporters are among the ranks of the Basij militia, and thus armed.

"According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also informed of the developments. He also recommended a 'good management' of the victory statement, meaning not boasting greatly about the victory, because that would be in Iran’s national interests and stability.

"At the same time, the reformist newspapers were also informed that they can prepare their Saturday edition to declare Mr. Mousavi the winner, but were not allowed to use the word pirouzi (victory) in their articles, in order not to upset Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters. One reformist newspaper prepared its front page with the title, 'People took back the flag of their country [from Mr. Ahmadinejad].'

"But, just a few hours later, a center that had been set up by Mr. Mousavi in Gheytarieh (in northern Tehran) for monitoring the election and vote counting, was attacked by armed security agents. They ransacked the center, destroyed computers, and attacked the staff. Supporters of Mr. Mousavi intervened and arrested 8 security agents. The police was called to take them to prison, but the police released the attackers.

"According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, the central headquaters of Mr. Mousavi’s campaign was also surrounded by security forces, as was the Interior Ministry building. Then, new data began to be released by the Ministry, indicating that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won the elections decisively."

A coup that originated with the military rather than the clerical or lay political leaders resolves what I saw the the main flaw with Juan Cole's reconstruction. It also dovetails well with Interior Ministry employees' warnings that Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, who is influential in the military, issued a fatwa authorizing manipulation of the elections.

A coup led by the military is also easier to explain than one ordered by Ayatollah Khamene'i. I had been thinking about the implications of a Mousavi victory, and concluded that, given the continuing conservative dominance of Parliament, the most important changes for Iranians would be a different economic policy and the replacement of someone hostile to the old revolutionary establishment embodied by the likes of Rafsanjani with someone who was actually a part of it. With that in mind, let's go to Walter Posch's election backgrounder:

"On the other hand, if Ahmadinjed wins, the relatively broad scope of political participation for various ideological and political trends will be dramatically reduced, as the reformists will be pushed aside and purged. This in turn will lead to an ideological monopoly for Mesbah-Yazdi and the Haqqaniye network, where a new generation of political clerics is trained. This also means a final legitimization of the Revolutionary Guards’ control over the economy, complementing the tax-free cash cows of the 'pious' foundations and further suffocating free enterprise. Finally, it would mean the strengthened
indirect and direct control of the Revolutionary Guards over the executive branch. Former IRGC members already control most of the Parliament, are present in the government, and, of course, in the Higher National Security Council (HNSC)."

In other words, the often anti-democratic and militarily inclined forces which have been rising in Iran were threatened by the more traditional establishment, and acted to preserve their interests. We already saw, starting in 2005, how this movement had pushed together reformists and centrist pragmatists, resulting in Mousavi's alliance with the likes of Rafsanjani and Khatami's conservative 1997 opponent Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri. If so, this was not a coup perpetrated by the clerical establishment, but by a rising hard-line counter-establishment that did not want a repeat of the 2006 elections for the Assembly of Experts.

UPDATE: Khamene'i's role in this affair is emerging as a key issue within analysis. Above, I followed Makhmalbaf's account, in which the Leader initially accepted the results. Gary Sick, however, credibly suggests that the Mousavi camp was lied to so as to make them complacent.

UPDATE: Just a quick clarification: "Military" in this case refers to the IRGC
and basij militias.

...

From 3:30 P.M. until 4:15 P.M., the scene at the Hyatt was festive, despite the news earlier in the day that the reformist headquarters had been sacked and prominent reformists arrested. Everyone had a story about a relative who had never voted before, who was a royalist or an all-purpose skeptic, who was wearing green in the streets or simply casting a vote for Mousavi. There was only one way this could go. Turnout, we heard, was over eighty per cent.

But then the first ominous Facebook update came in. The Ministry of Interior had announced that of twenty-five million votes counted thus far, sixteen million were for Ahmadinejad. The time, in Tehran, was just past midnight. The polls in the cities had just closed. It was not time to panic yet; maybe this was just the rural vote. But the mood in our little circle darkened. It wasn’t true, came another update; only five million had been counted, and of them, both candidates were claiming sixty per cent. Then the tally reached ten million, with sixty-seven per cent for Ahmadinejad. And then the most sinister news of all: the public had been told that if anyone approached the Interior Ministry, which would be the obvious site for a protest of the vote count, the police had orders to shoot.

There can be no question that the June 12, 2009 Iranian presidential election was stolen. Dissident employees of the Interior Ministry, which is under the control of President Ahmadinejad and is responsible for the mechanics of the polling and counting of votes, have reportedly issued an open letter saying as much. Government polls (one conducted by the Revolutionary Guards, the other by the state broadcasting company) that were leaked to the campaigns allegedly showed ten- to twenty-point leads for Mousavi a week before the election; earlier polls had them neck and neck, with Mousavi leading by one per cent, and Karroubi just behind. Historically, low turnout has always favored conservatives in Iranian elections, while high turnout favors reformers. That’s because Iran’s most reliable voters are those who believe in the system; those who are critical tend to be reluctant to participate. For this reason, in the last three elections, sixty-five per cent of voters have come from traditional, rural villages, which house just thirty-five per cent of the populace. If the current figures are to be believed, urban Iranians who voted for the reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and 2001 have defected to Ahmadinejad in droves.

What is most shocking is not the fraud itself, but that it was brazen and entirely without pretext. The final figures put Mousavi’s vote below thirty-five per cent, and not because of a split among reformists; they have Karroubi pulling less than one per cent of the vote. To announce a result this improbable, and to do it while locking down the Interior Ministry, sending squads of Revolutionary Guards into the streets, blacking out internet and cell phone communication and shuttering the headquarters of the rival candidates, sends a chilling message to the people of Iran—not only that the Islamic Republic does not care about their votes, but that it does not fear their wrath. Iranians, including many of the original founders and staunch supporters of the revolution, are angry, and they will demonstrate. But they will be met with organized and merciless violence.
Already, Youtube clips are streaming out of Iran, many of them showing riot police savagely beating protestors.

...

That the reformists, who urged participation in the system in order to change it, have been so thoroughly shown up this June is depressing on many levels. For all its failings, the reform movement has been the most constructive and effective channel for Iranian frustrations and desires under the Islamic Republic. While Iranian opposition activists have fiercely debated the efficacy of voting—whether it provided a fig leaf for dictatorship or a necessary choice among evils—hardly anyone in Iran’s opposition wants a bloody uprising. That road has been too well traveled in Iran, and so the contemporary debate has been among nonviolent tactics, some with longer timelines than others. But now the regime has forced the issue, leaving Iranians who oppose strong-arm tactics and hard-line policies with just two cards in their hands. One is passivity, and the other is revolt. The outcome depends in part on how high a price the regime is willing to extract from its people.

In the days before the vote, my Iranian contacts breathlessly compared the atmosphere in Iran to that of 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution. In the last twenty-four hours, the unavoidable analogy has become 1989. The big question is where we are: Wenceslas Square or Tiananmen.