Tag: Iran

The New York Times reports that in his Friday speech, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, offered no concessions at all to the demonstrators and threatened leaders of the pro-democracy demonstrations with reprisals if the demonstrations do not stop:

In his first public response to days of protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opponents Friday to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged, praising the ballot as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.”

In a somber and lengthy sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran, he called directly for an end to the protests by hundreds of thousands of Iranians demanding a new election.

“Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “This is challenging democracy after the elections.” He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.

As to the claims of the protestors and numerous analysts that the election was rigged, Khamenei absolutely denies any irregularities:

…he endorsed the president’s policies and insisted that the margin of victory – 11 million votes – accorded to Mr. Ahmadinejad in the official tally was so big that it could not have been falsified. “How can 11 million votes be replaced or changed?” he said.

He went on: “The Islamic republic state would not cheat and would not betray the vote of the people.”

Oh no.  Not cheating.  Some kinds of cheating are so huge that they’re impossible.  Not.   According to the ever cautious Times, “The ayatollah’s remarks seemed to show that the authorities were growing impatient with the street protests.  ‘It would be wrong to think that turning out on the street would force officials to accept their demands,’ he said.”

And, of course, the entire speech couldn’t be complete without this:

He blamed “media belonging to Zionists, evil media” for seeking to show divisions between those who supported the Iranian state and those who did not, while, in fact, the election had shown Iranians to be united in their commitment to the Islamic revolutionary state.

“There are 40 million votes for the revolution, not just 24 million for the chosen president,” he said, referring to the official tally that gave Mr. Ahmadinejad more than 60 percent of the vote.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the election ” was a competition among people who believe in the state.”

The speech explicitly threatens a wave of repression.

This morning’s Twitter at #iranelection says that more large demonstrations will be held tomorrow.

Iranians angry at the results of last week’s election pushed their protest forward on Wednesday, from tens of thousands who again flooded the streets here to six soccer players on the national team who wore opposition green wristbands at a World Cup qualifying game.

But there were signs of an intensified crackdown: The government worked on many fronts to shield the outside world’s view of the unrest, banning coverage of the demonstrations, arresting journalists, threatening bloggers and trying to block Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have become vital outlets for information about the rising confrontation here.

The senior prosecutor in the central province of Isfahan, where there have also been tense demonstrations, went so far as to say protesters could be executed under Islamic law.

If you read the Twitter posts to #iranelection you see that Iran’s government is trying mightily to suppress communication.  Foreign journalists have been forced to leave the country.  Writers have been arrested. A photographer was stabbed. Cell phone service is sporadic.  The Internet has been slowed.  Disinformation and stalking abounds.  Arrests of bloggers and university students are common.  Violence continues in the streets.  Many have been killed and injured.  And many more have been threatened.  

Despite all of this, defiance of the government continues.  Twitter posts from Iran continue to describe the demonstrations. Six members of the Iranian football team wore green wrist bands for the first half of today’s game in protest.  Youtube is filled with photos of the massive, non-violent demonstrations by the pro-democracy opposition and the repressive violence of the government and its thugs.

The Iranian Democracy movement is absolutely worthy of our personal (as opposed to governmental) support.  Support and solidarity at this point require, indeed permit only the simplest of things.  As I said yesterday.  There are only simple things we can and should do:

Things like changing our location and time zone on Twitter to Tehran and GMT +3.5 hours.  Things like making our avatar green.  Things like reading the posts of those who are there.  Things like posting and distributing their videos on youtube.  Things like writing blogs and asking others to link arms with them in solidarity.  Things like talking about what ideas we might have that could be of help to them.

These are things that might be completely ineffective to help Iranians achieve democracy, to get a new, fair election, to overturn the sham outcome of their last election.  I realize that.  But that’s not what’s important.  That’s not what’s important now.

What’s important, I think, is our solidarity with their struggle, our saying, however we can say it, “Brothers and Sisters, we’re with you.  We want you to succeed.  We want you to be safe, and free.  We want you to obtain the change you seek.”

I am full of admiration for the courage of the Iranian movement.  I applaud and support these people.  Please join me in solidarity with them.  Sign the available petitions.  Take the small steps.  It’ll make you feel great.  And it’s the right thing to do.

How do we support those people, half the world away, in their struggle for democracy?  How do we say just as people (and not a government) that we support their efforts to demand democracy?  That they’re right, they deserve their democracy and we want them to have it?

We can only do simple things.  Things like changing our location and time zone on Twitter to Tehran and GMT +3.5 hours.  Things like making our avatar green.  Things like reading the posts of those who are there.  Things like posting and distributing their videos on youtube.  Things like writing blogs and asking others to link arms with them in solidarity.  Things like talking about what ideas we might have that could be of help to them.

These are things that might be completely ineffective to help Iranians achieve democracy, to get a new, fair election, to overturn the sham outcome of their last election.  I realize that.  But that’s not what’s important.  That’s not what’s important now.

What’s important, I think, is our solidarity with their struggle, our saying, however we can say it, “Brothers and Sisters, we’re with you.  We want you to succeed.  We want you to be safe, and free.  We want you to obtain the change you seek.”  Will they see it?  Will they hear about it?  Will they know that we are saying this about them?  Of course they will.

I say it by posting in green.  You might have other ways of saying it.  It’s important to me to say, aloud, to whomever can hear it, “I support the struggle in Iran for democracy.”

Please join me.  Please join me in giving to the Iranian people who are struggling for democracy the same support we’d like to receive in our struggles for democracy and equality and peace.