Archives for June 2009

An authoritative study from Chatham House (pdf) , the renowned UK think tank, finds that with regard to the official statistics on the recent presidential election in Iran released by the Interior Ministry, something is rotten in Tehran. The authors compared the provincial returns in the 2005 and 2009 elections against the 2006 census and […]

Update This video posted by BBC is worth watching all the way to the end. Update: A friend passed on this further eyewitness account of Saturday’s events: ‘ “it was a real mess yesterday..but the real feel of a start of something big…made it to Tohid Sq by 4.30……by 5 there were already large stream […]

The death toll caused by the state’s crackdown on the demonstrations in Iran on Saturday has risen to 10-13, with 100 injured. The regime has arrested Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, daughter of the former president, who spoke at a pro-Mousavi rally, along with 4 other members of that family. This step is typical of an old […]

The USG Open Source Center puts into English the gist of an interview in the official Iranian press with Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani in which he admits that a majority of Iranians doubts the officially announced election results, and says that their views should be respected. However, he does not himself bring the […]

The below is not my translation but was sent by a kind friend.- JRIC Mir Hossein Mousavi has published on his Web site “Kalemeh” (The Word) a letter addressing the people. Below is a full translation, with annotations. The original Persian text is here UrgentPress Release No. 520 June 2009 From: Mir Hossein MousaviTo: The […]

A truck bombing at a Shiite mosque in Taza, Iraq, near the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed 70 and wounded 170 just after noon as they were leaving after `asr prayers. The press is saying that the bombing came only a day before US troops were to cease patrolling major cities, but this sort […]

Mir Hosain Mousavi issued a powerful implicit denunciation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday, and insisting again that the results of the presidential election be annulled in favor of wholly new elections. ABC reports: ‘ Mr Mousavi hit back at a speech by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which the Ayatollah […]

AP reports that Iranian riot police have deployed tear gas and water cannons against protesters who were gathering for another big demonstration in Tehran. Aljazeera is reporting that a suicide bomber blew himself up near the shrine of Imam Khomeini. Hard to interpret, since I don’t take the reformist camp for seedy terrorist types. My […]

Reformist presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi said Saturday morning that the 4 pm GMT rally on Saturday against the alleged stealing of the presidential election in Iran would go ahead. This despite the threats made by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in his Friday prayer sermon to crack down on “chaos.” Karroubi, a cleric, is not a […]