Monday, June 15, 2009

Iranian Election Fraud Riots (Day Three)

Update (6/16/2009): Day Four at Berman Post: Iranian Election Fraud Riots (Day Four). End of Update:

There is growing fear that the demonstration will stop under the brutal crackdown if Western countries, particularly the United States, do not speak up in support of them (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1244371097557).

Savage beatings along with firing into protest crowds with reports of fatalities continue (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/14/iran.eyewitness). Great photos can be found at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html, but be warned that some of them are very graphic. Some reports say the pro-government forces are wielding machetes (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/15/tehran_two/index.html).

Video embedded below. (Be Warned, this is a Graphic Video)



If you want to see another, head to (Extremely Graphic Video) http://www.4shared.com/file/112043663/b4402644/16062009044-001.html.

Despite the brutality and the danger, as many as three million protesters converged on Freedom Square (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904764,00.html?xid=rss-topstories).

Video embedded below.



There is a picture of a demonstrator climbing the Freedom Tower at http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//090615/481/383faf99533649c7bc4b9f2a555f322d.

Mousavi has submitted a legal appeal on the results but is not confident it will do anything (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8101098.stm). Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an investigation into election fraud claims, not many (any?) are satisfied (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/asia/ayatollah-orders-investigation-into-iran-election-14339406.html).

To try to avoid the beatings, people are yelling from to rooftops at night (http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=477877&publicationSubCategoryId=200).

Some are talking about a general strike for tomorrow (http://thespiritofman.blogspot.com/2009/06/marching.html)

A report suggests that the outcome of the election was decided before the voting even began (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/15/iran-election-analysis-figures).

American forces in the Persian Gulf to be vigilant and maintain discipline. There is fear that with the current turmoil a small incident could escalate quickly (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/13/us.military.iran/index.html). I think there may also be some concern with the top brass that Iran may intentionally provoke something to distract the protesters and possibly unify them under the Iranian flag.

More than one person has commented on Obamas deafening silence (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/nile_gardiner/blog/2009/06/15/the_iranian_election_barack_obamas_cowardly_silence and http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/06/he-who-cannot-stop-talking-is-silent-on.html). This includes the State Department's refusal to condemn the brutal Iranian crackdown (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/15/good-news-state-department-refuses-to-condemn-iranian-crackdown).

Obama has since made a statement.

Video embedded below. (from http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33939_Video-_Obamas_Statement_on_Iran_Election_Violence)



Transcript (via http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/15/742814/-Obama:-Iranian-people-should-be-heard-and-respected)

" Q Mr. President, on Iran, does the disputed election results affect -- there's been violence in the street -- in any way change your willingness to meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad without preconditions? And also, do you have anything to say, any message to send to people who are on the streets protesting, who believe their votes were stolen and who are being attacked violently?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football -- or discussions with the United States.

Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process -- free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled.

My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can't state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election. But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it's important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.

Now, with respect to the United States and our interactions with Iran, I've always believed that as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad's statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed diplomacy -- diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries -- is critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon; making sure that Iran is not exporting terrorist activity. Those are core interests not just to the United States but I think to a peaceful world in general.

We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we'll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we've seen on the television over the last few days. And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.

And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.
"

For reasons apparently unrelated to the unrest in, Dennis Ross has been removed as Special Envoy to Iran. This is particularly bad timing though (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2009/06/15/dennis-ross-out-as-special-envoy-to-iran-was-he-ousted-because-he-s-a-jew-or-a-bit-hawkish-on-nukes.aspx).

Head to http://mashable.com/2009/06/14/new-media-iran for a nice overview on how to get real time information on the turmoil harnessing social media (Twitter [Twitter.com/BermanPost], Youtube, Flickr...).

Twitter has been playing such an important part of getting the word out from Iran around the government filters that they have postponed scheduled maintenance after people pleaded with them to delay it. The new downtime was planned on purpose to be 1:30am Iranian time (http://blog.twitter.com/2009/06/down-time-rescheduled.html).

Activists are using Twitter to try to get help launching Denial of Service attacks against official websites and to call for hackers to launch their own attacks (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/activists-launch-hack-attacks-on-tehran-regime).

To conclude I give you Senator Lieberman (D) railing against the stolen election.

Video embedded below. (from http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/15/lieberman-we-should-loudly-and-clearly-stand-with-the-people-of-iran)



Past related posts:
Berman Post: Iranian Election Viewed as Rigged
Berman Post: Iranian Election Fraud Protest (NYC)
Berman Post: Iranian Riots Continue

3 comments:

  1. List of radio tv magazine and newspapers in Iran... http://www.enewsreference.com/newspaper/iran.htm

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