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Frank Gallagher

Inside the Iranian Crackdown - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • "It wasn't about elections anymore," says Mr. Moradani, a short, skinny man with pitch-black hair and a beard. "I was defending my country and our revolution and Islam. Everything was at risk."
  • They collected rocks, tiles and bricks from construction sites and spilled oil on the roads, an attempt to sideline the Basij's motorcycles. When a Basij rider would go down, the young men would beat him, according to the student. Women stood back, screaming "Death to the Dictator" and stoking bonfires in the street. Older supporters remained indoors, throwing ashtrays, vases and other household items from their balconies and windows onto the Basij motorcycle riders below.
  • He says he hopes one day to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Revolutionary Guard. He has taken the Guard's rigorous entrance exam twice, passing the ideology and the written portions both times. But he failed the final hurdle: an intense interview that lasts six to eight hours. Applicants must discuss why they are loyal to the regime and the Supreme Leader. He intends to try again.
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  • At the height of the street battles, in Sadaat Abad, a middle-class neighborhood in east Tehran, young men and women organized themselves into an unofficial militia to fight the Basij, with a "commander" taking responsibility for each street. Every afternoon, they would meet to prepare for the evening's expected battle, according to a 25-year-old student who was involved with the group.
  • Mr. Moradani remembers field trips to war monuments, Shiite shrines and so-called martyrs' cemeteries, where those who died in the Iran-Iraq war are buried. He received his first military training before he turned 14, learning how to handle a gun and fight from trenches, he says. When he was 14, the Basij forces piled Mr. Moradani and 100 other youths into buses and took them around the dormitories of Tehran University. At the time -- 10 years ago this week -- students had been orchestrating large, antigovernment protests. The demonstrations were among the most significant since the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic. Basij commanders ordered the teenagers to beat up student organizers, Mr. Moradani says. They did. In 2003, when student uprisings erupted again, he rushed to help quash them.
  • A few hours after Mr. Khamenei's sermon, Mr. Moradani got a call at home. The local Basij headquarters was holding an emergency meeting. About four hundred members showed up. A top Basij commander briefed them on the riots and their responsibilities going forward. He called protesters "havoc makers" and accused them of having ties to Western countries aiming to sow chaos in Iran. The commander said the protests were no longer a matter of election unrest, but had become a serious, national-security threat.
  • Mr. Moradani lined up with his comrades to receive an official letter of deployment, signed and bearing the seal of the Revolutionary Guard. He was given new equipment: a camouflage vest to wear over his clothes, a plastic baton, handcuffs and a hand-held radio. Depending on rank, some members received shields and hard hats, and others were given chains and tear gas, according to Messrs. Gholami and Moradani. Mr. Moradani says no one in his division carried knives or guns.
  • A surgeon at Pars Hospital in central Tehran, where many of the fallen were taken, confirmed casualties on both sides. He said the hospital had operated on three young people from the opposition who were shot in the head and abdomen by security forces. He also treated scores who were badly beaten or stabbed, he said. Among them were Basij and government supporters, he said -- including Basij members who had acid thrown on their faces.
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    Interesting article includes interview with a Basiji, description of the nighttime riots, and confirmation of the 'cnaged terms of engagement' after Khamenei's sermon.
Frank Gallagher

Guardian - Mass arrests and campus raids as regime hits back - 0 views

  • hundreds of activists, journalists and intellectuals
  • Four pro-reform newspapers have been closed down,
  • With the exception of Yazdi, the arrests appeared to bypass political leaders and focus on their lieutenants.
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  • Tavassali
  • Nabavi
  • Atrianfar
  • The organisation said security service agents have moved into newspaper offices where they have been vetting articles and censoring content.
  • concerted campaign to link the protests with foreign intervention
  • The wave of detentions has spread beyond the capital to include provincial cities. At least 100 civic figures are understood to have been arrested in Tabriz, where Mousavi has strong support.
  • In Shiraz, in the south of the country, Amnesty cited reports said that a hundred students had been detained after security forces used teargas to storm the university library.
  • members of the Tahkim-e Vahdat, an influential students organisation supporting the other reformist candidate Mehdi Karoubi, had been "systematically targeted".
  • Jalaeipour
  • Soltani
  • Abtahi
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    Covers arrests made 12th-17th June.
Frank Gallagher

July 9: Updates on the Protests in Iran - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • There was no linking of the protests with any of Mousavi’s demands to work within the system or within a new political party - his name has seemed to separate from his corpus for the protesters. However, this was the most raucous 18th of Tir [9th of July] since the original one, so the regime may have been surprised its scare tactics did not completely work.
  • In one of the videos above it has been translated that people are chanting “Death to Mojtaba” Khamanei’s son, but the actual translation is more colorful. For the non-Farsi speakers they are actually chanting “MOJTABA, WE HOPE YOU DIE BEFORE YOU GET THE SUPREME LEADERSHIP” responding to reports that Khamanei is grooming his son to become the next supreme leader after he dies.
  • Hundreds of Republican Guards and Basij at Enqelab, Valiasar and Vanak. At Vanak soldiers every 5 feet around the roundabout. Lots of Basij motorcycle gangs (15-25 in each) swerving around the cars.
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  • Hundreds of Basij have set up camp in Laleh park, which seems to be pretty close to the epicenter. Some fires still burning.
  • The phones are completely out.
  • squads of 25 police would run up the streets with batons beating people
  • Saw two undercover Basij, one was actually a late 40s businessman in a suit, whipped out a collapsible metal baton and started beating someone with a camera. He was beaten until the baton broke, another Basij came on motorcycle to help but crowds started surging and booed them away. Someone threw a water bottle but otherwise crowd is peaceful — keep chanting “Please Stop!” and chased the two Basij away.
  • “I did shoot at people myself. I am a military man I have to obey my orders. The crowd was attacking us like crazy people; throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. We had to protect ourselves; to show we were serious, and we did warn them, shouting several times, before opening fire. But they continued to attack. I don’t remember who I shot, I just tried to shoot at the people’s feet.
  • It’s come back several times, and I can see the faces of the people I was ordered to shoot. I’ve asked a very spiritual mullah to pray for me.
  • I did it for Islam but it wasn’t easy to kill people. We have to remember who they are though - they’re deceitful people who are against the Islamic Revolution. You can’t expect us to stay calm when they want to overthrow our regime.”
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    Running description of the 18th Tir rememberence marches.
Frank Gallagher

Document - Iran: Ensure free presidential election | Amnesty International - 0 views

  • . In December 2008, the Office of the Tehran Public Prosecutor announced the formation of a “special office to review Internet- and SMS-related crimes and violations”, stating that the office would review election campaign violations and “offensive remarks”made by SMS. These measures may in part be intended to stifle debate, prevent the organization of peaceful demonstrations, and to silence critics of the authorities in advance of the election.
  • The arrest on 19 April 2009 by officers of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran of Mehdi Mo’tamedi Mehr, a member of the Committee to Defend Free, Healthy and Fair Elections and a member of the Freedom Movement, a banned political party. Prior to his arrest he had been telephoned by a Ministry of Intelligence official and told that publication of a statement entitled “Civil Society Institution as Election Observers: An Assurance toward Free, Healthy and Fair Elections” by the Committee would be an act against national security. The statement was published anyway, and he was arrested. He has been accused of “acting against state security”. On 29 April, security forces prevented other members of the committee from holding a meeting in the “Raad” Legal Institute which belongs to Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent lawyer and member of the High Oversight Council of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). The CHRD was forcibly closed in December 2008 and has not been allowed to reopen.
  • At least three Amir Kabir University students who remain detained without trial in Section 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran following their arrests in February 2009. O
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  • Over 100 people arrested in Tehran and Sanandaj in the run-up to, during, and after peaceful gatherings planned to celebrate May Day 2009. Although some have been released, dozens are believed to remain in detention,
  • Sajad Khaksari, a reporter for the weekly Qalam-e Moalem (Teacher’s Pen) and the son of Mohamad Khaksari and Soraya Darabi, both leaders of the Iran Teachers Trade Association (ITTA), was arrested on 26 April 2009 in front of the Ministry of Education. He was covering protests by teachers
Frank Gallagher

Iran protests: live |News |guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • 6.15pm: Iranian filmmakers Marjane Satrapi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf just held a press conference in Brussels to say they have a document proving election fraud, Adnkronos news agency reports.The document, seen here, says that Mousavi won the election with 19m votes, with cleric Mehdi Karroubi coming in second and Ahmadinejad coming in third. Satrapi and Makhmalbaf said the document had come from the Iranian electoral commission, and is dated June 13, the day after the election.
    • Frank Gallagher
       
      Makhmalbaf is Musavi's Spokesman.
  • Saeed reports that Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard today joined injured students at Tehran University, and condemened violence by the government and riot police.
  • A friend of the Guardian in Tehran writes that her Gmail account has been filtered, and that her internet service provider said it has been ordered to cut all emails, messaging software and many websites, especially foreign news outlets.
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  • 11am: The man who leaked the real election results from the Interior Ministry - the ones showing Ahmadinejad coming third - was killed in a suspicious car accident, according to unconfirmed reports, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Tehran.Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in Tehran. Asgari had reportedly leaked results that showed the elections were rigged by government use of new software to alter the votes from the provinces. Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19 million votes, and should therefore be president.
Frank Gallagher

Asia Times Column on Neo-Cons and Haqani - 0 views

  • Amid talk that the recent election was a silent coup carried out by elements of the hardline Revolutionary Guard after eight years of reformist rule, Western embassies have been scrambling to understand what the Hojjatieh stands for and to what extent the influence of its teachings will be felt in the new government's domestic and foreign policies.
    • Frank Gallagher
       
      Ascribing something they dont understand to a liekely looking organisation from the past? Ahmadinejad and Mezbah-Yazdi's chiliastic ideology is hardly consistent with Hojjatieh's traditionalism. Not convinced.
  • The Islamic society he belonged to at Alm-u Sanat University where he attended was an extreme traditional and fundamentalist group that contained a large number of students from the provinces and maintained grass-roots links with the Hojjatieh. The society's anti-leftism also chimes with reports that Ahmadinejad was pushing for a takeover of the Soviet Embassy alongside or instead of the US compound in Tehran during the 1979 revolution.
  • Haqqani theological school
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  • Grand Ayatollah Saanei
    • Frank Gallagher
       
      To be fair, no-one listens to Sana'i.
  • Baztab
    • Frank Gallagher
       
      Run by anti-Ahmadinejad conservatives.
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    Slightly alarmist. probably trying to explain something they cant see properly with reference to something more obvious. Good background on Haqani though.
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