Calls for calm as streets will be filled for the anniversary of 1979 Islamic RevolutionIranian security forces were deploying in strength in Tehran tonight to head off what opposition supporters hope will be massive street protests to challenge the regime as its celebrates tomorrow's anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.Mir Hossein Mousavi, leader of the green movement, has called on supporters to behave peacefully during state-sponsored events including a speech by the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which is likely to be attended by tens of thousands of government loyalists. Green supporters are being asked to chant: "Death to no one, long live everyone" – a reference to the slogans of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" that are traditional staples of Iran's...

Khameini talks of treason as challenge to 'tyranny' goads Tehran hardliners in run-up to anniversary of 1979 revolutionIran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has attacked "dictatorship in the name of religion" at the start of anniversary celebrations of the 1979 revolution, boosting expectations of a new round of mass protests against the regime.Mousavi, who says he should have been declared winner of last June's presidential election, said today that modern Iran showed the "attitude of a historic tyrant regime everywhere" – a powerful challenge to the hardline leadership.His remarks, which came as officials warned that nine more opposition activists had been sentenced to death, were given extra force by the approaching 11 February anniversary of the founding of the Islamic...

Pro-government demonstrators attack vehicle carrying former presidential candidatePro-government demonstrators opened fire on the car of an Iranian opposition leader, shattering its windows, his website reported today.Sahamnews said the shooting happened yesterday as former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi was leaving a building in Qazvin, 90 miles west of Tehran.The report added that some 500 people had been demonstrating outside the building, where he had been staying since the day before. The website described the demonstrators as armed and said police were unable to disperse them.The shooting represents a rare armed attack on an opposition figure. In 1999, pro-reform politician Saeed Hajjarian was shot in the face, paralysing him.The attack is an indication of the political...

Original Home Page All Contents of Site – Index “Ban Blair-Baiting” petition - please sign Comment at end 31st December, 2009 IT’S GOOD NEWS DAY! The dear, generous, put-upon, misunderstood Iraqi hostage-takers have released a hostage captured a month before Tony Blair resigned. (All HIS fault, of course.) Questions now surround our historic “no deals with terrorists” position AND whether or not Iran’s Revolutionary Guard rather than Iraqis were the original hostage-takers of these five men. According to BBC reports the US’s General Petraeus is 90% certain that their capture was Iranian-inspired/directed. Of course, Iran has denied this “masterminding” claim, just as it threatens to punch us in the face for ‘interfering’ in...

• Services for dissident cleric banned amid growing unrest• Former government spokesman who joined opposition jailedThe Iranian authorities have clamped down on memorial services for a dissident cleric amid growing political unrest in the country.Pro-reform demonstrators mourning the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri clashed with security forces yesterday and were planning to hold more ceremonies on Sunday to honour the seventh day of his passing, one of Shia Islam's ritual mourning milestones.But two opposition websites reported that authorities have banned all services except those in his birthplace and the holy city of Qom.In another sign that Tehran is trying to stamp out dissent, a former Iranian government spokesman who joined the opposition movement was sentenced...

Police fire teargas at people paying respects to dissident cleric and confront protesters in at least one other cityIran's smouldering political unrest reignited today when pro-reformist demonstrators mourning the death of a dissident cleric clashed with security forces in at least two cities.More than 50 people were arrested in a mosque in Isfahan, Iran's second biggest city, as police fired pepper spray and teargas at mourners paying their respects to Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died on Sunday.In a related incident, security forces detained and surrounded the home of a local reformist cleric, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, as he attempted to travel to the ceremony.The reports coincided with confrontations in the town of Najafabad, Montazeri's birthplace, as protests that...

• Huge crowds in Qom defy security clampdown• Mourners clash with pro-government forcesHundreds of thousands of opposition protesters openly challenged the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, today by mourning the death of a dissident cleric who had questioned Khamenei's fitness to rule.The mass turnout in Qom for the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who died on Sunday, aged 87, came just a day after Khamenei had dismissed him as a figure who had failed "a big test" and ordered a security clampdown to deter mourners from paying their respects.Instead, the event turned into the opposition Green Movement's biggest show of strength in months. The sheer numbers – including many wearing the opposition's signature colour of green – seemed to...

Neda was prepared 'to take a bullet in the heart' in fight against President AhmadinejadNeda Agha Soltan, the young Iranian woman whose face became the international symbol of protest against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told her fiancé she was prepared to "take a bullet in the heart" in the fight against the president's regime. The revelation comes as her boyfriend speaks out for the first time after being imprisoned following Neda's death last June, when she was shot by Iranian police at a demonstration in Tehran. Caspian Makan, a photographer, spent two months in prison for criticising the authorities after her death. In a moving interview, he told the Observer that far from being a bystander caught up in the demonstrations, she was committed to the overthrow of Ahmadinejad. As a result of...

Thousands of opposition supporters took part in protests in Tehran to coincide with the government-backed Quds Day rally...

Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, warned today that continuing divisions would lead to the collapse of the country's ruling elite, after a former president called for a referendum on the government's legitimacy.The referendum call from Mohammad Khatami appeared to be part of an opposition strategy to keep Khamenei and allied hardliners on the defensive over last month's disputed elections.It coincided with a demand from Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading opposition candidate in those elections, for the release of opposition supporters detained for protesting against the official results, which gave a landslide victory to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, gave a speech at Friday prayers in which he said the Islamic Republic was in crisis and the...

Officers planned to attend sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in military uniformThe Iranian army has arrested 36 officers who planned to attend last week's Friday prayer sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in their military uniforms as an act of political defiance, according to Farsi-language websites.The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.Rafsanjani used the sermon at Tehran university to challenge the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by questioning the result in the presence of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and tens of thousands of his...

• Thousands of pro-Mousavi supporters take to Tehran streets• 1999 riots were worst since Islamic revolutionIranian riot police fired teargas at several thousand protesters who gathered in central Tehran today to mark the 10th anniversary of student riots that, until the recent street demonstrations, were the worst unrest since the 1979 revolution.Eyewitnesses said demonstrators gathered at Enghelab Street near Tehran University, a focal point for last month's rallies that brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets. Other protesters were heading for the central rallying point from six of Tehran's biggest squares, witnesses said."Riot police have just blockaded access of protesters to approach Tehran University and are threatening people by beating them up with plastic and...

According to Cohen: Khamenei and Ahmadinejad may begin to unclench their fist, as isolation and sullen defiance grow, in a bid to deliver what they would not allow the reformists to initiate: détente with America. Obama must leave them dangling for the foreseeable future. He should refrain indefinitely from talk of engagement. To do otherwise would be to betray millions of Iranians who have been defrauded and have risked their lives to have their votes count. To do otherwise would be to allow Khamenei to gloat that, in the end, what the United States respects is force. To do otherwise would be to embrace the usurpers. The slow arc of moral justice is fine but Iran is gripped by the fierce urgency of now. Obama, the realist on whom idealism is projected, is obliged to make a course...

Mousavi's criticism of the Iran regime is no longer about the election – it's about the future of the opposition movementNo election since the inception of the Islamic Republic has left the Iranian nation so divided in all its components as the one that took place on 12 June. It has divided the clergy in Qom, the leading political conservative or principalist actors in Tehran and the state institutions. It forced the supreme leader to side with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a great cost to his own position and the ruling clergy, undermining the very agreed consensus among the top officials. Statements issued by losing candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi are a sad reflections of the Iranian reality couched in the language of hope for millions who are waiting in expectation that...

So Aslan thinks Iran is going to become more like a) China or b) North Korea. I wonder if Obama has the same choices in mind, and what his responses to either outcome will be. Having said that, after Ahmad Khatami’s call on Friday for protesters to be executed, it makes you wonder if the stakes haven’t since been raised even further....

Jailed Iranian reformists have been tortured in an attempt to force them into TV "confessions" of a foreign-led plot against the Islamic regime, it was allegedtoday, as the country's guardian council buried hopes for any significant revision of the disputed presidential election.According to Iranian opposition websites, the "confessions" are aimed at implicating Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the defeated reformist candidates, in an alleged conspiracy.Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi supporters, are reported to have undergone "intensive interrogation" sessions in Tehran's Evin prison since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.They are among several hundred activists, academics, journalists and students detained in a crackdown...

This is what Ahmadinejad thinks of women’s rights: The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world. Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said. “We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat,” a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave....

Ahmadinejad is just a pawn – let’s be clear about that. He’s just a pawn in a much larger game of domestic and international power and influence for Iran. For Mir Hossein Mousavi to still be alive suggests a number of things – he knows where the bodies are buried for one, but that there are elements in the theocratic regime who support him. Take Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri: Khamenei also faced a stark warning from another senior cleric and onetime rival, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. “If Iranians cannot talk about their legitimate rights at peaceful gatherings and are instead suppressed, complexities will build up which could possibly uproot the foundations of the government, no matter how powerful,” Montazeri said. He called for an...

• Senior cleric urges neutral committee to resolve crisis• Women singled out for attacks by security forcesIran's embattled opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, today kept up the pressure on the government and blamed those behind the "rigged" presidential election for the bloodshed during two weeks of mass street protests.Mousavi's statement on his website came during a day of relative quiet, attributed in part to the fact that more than 1 million students were sitting their final exams. There was also confusion over whether calls for a day of mourning for the 17 known victims of the protests had been cancelled or ignored. State media reported that eight members of the pro-government Basij militia had been killed."I am not ready to stop demanding the rights of the Iranian people,"...

Iran has cracked down on hundreds of thousands of protesters who have poured into the streets in an act of breathtaking defiance to protest the contested results of last week's presidential election. Let Iran know that the global community is monitoring their every move! TAKE ACTION: http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b;=2590179&aid;=12454The government of Iran swiftly kicked the machinery of repression into high gear over the last several days in response to the largest public demonstrations of opposition that country has seen in 3 decades. Iranian authorities have violently cracked down on the wave of protesters who have taken to the streets since June 13th in an act of breathtaking defiance to protest the contested results of Friday's...

The abuses are continuing in Iran – since the widespread Internet coverage started to diminish they’ve been harder to document, but take a look at this. This young man is 17 and entirely unconnected with the anti-regime protests: “One of them asked me if Mr. Khatami would come save us, while they were breaking my fingers and cutting the finger webs. Although I swore a thousand times that I had not voted and had never participated in any demonstration, they didn’t care and just kept beating me hard. I fainted once or twice but there were some of us who fainted every time their bones were broken, and as soon as they gained their consciousness, the riot police started beating them again. I was trying to contract my muscles to avoid further bone fracture.” To...

The post-election stalemate in Iran continues, as do the casualties as the theocratic regime desperately tries to tighten its grip on power. And people are dying very publicly. Don’t click unless (again) you feel able to see a dead body (albeit briefly). (via The Gay Atheist)...

The Iranian leadership is falling into the same trap that their arch-enemy the Shah of Iran fell into in the 1970s. They are not listening to the people. After a meeting with Shah Reza Pahlavi, the US ambassador William Sullivan complained: "The king will not listen." Soon afterwards, the king had to leave the country, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in triumph. Khomeini's successor as Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed at Friday prayers at Tehran University that "foreign agents" were behind efforts to stage a velvet revolution. This appears to be a classic case of blaming the messenger.I have no regard for the regime of the former Shah of Iran. As a student activist I opposed him and tried to highlight the injustices of his regime. I was particularly horrified...

(Morten Moreland, via Timesonline) The lull which seems to have taken over after the deadly attacks by Iranian security forces on their own people yesterday should in many ways not be surprising. Mir Hossein Mousavi has been criticised for not offering a clear lead today, yet his role in the post-election turmoil in Iran has changed out of all recognition. A former prime minister and a presidential candidate initially implicitly approved of by the Guardian Council, he’s now become a figurehead for resistence against the theocratic regime itself. He’s ridden this wave of dissent for a fortnight, but with the stakes as high as they are now, it doesn’t surprise me that he may be exhibiting uncertainty as to what to do next. Does he challenge Khamenei directly rather than...

• Mousavi fails to offer direction after clampdown• Injured demonstrators and journalists detainedA deadly crackdown on opposition demonstrators appeared tonight to have punctured the most serious protest movement in Iran since the 1979 revolution, as an eerie quiet settled on Tehran and the regime turned its attention to more familiar enemies overseas.Protesters who have shaken the authorities by venting anger en masse at the "stolen" elections that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office spoke of a hiatus, even a despair, settling on the movement after yesterday'sSaturday's clashes killed at least 10 and wounded scores more. State television blamed the casualties on clashes between police and "terrorist groups".Tonight, sporadic gunfire was heard in northern parts of Tehran, yet...

Teargas and water cannon are turned on the crowds as Tehran's security forces and militiamen outnumber protesters on streetsThe momentum of Iran's "green revolution" - triggered by allegations of electoral theft earlier this month - appeared to stall yesterday, as thousands of plain clothes and uniformed security officials swamped Tehran, using tear gas and water cannon on a hard core of about 3,000 demonstrators.The latest clashes on Tehran's streets came as defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi released a letter he had sent to the Guardian Council - Iran's top legislative body - insisting that the results of the election be annulled and claiming that a plan to rig the 12 June poll in favour of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been planned months in advance. Eyewitnesses said that...

Video of a protester murdered in post-election violence in Iran. Hidden behind the cut because it is quite horrific. Be aware if you click you’ll see video of a dead body, killed by the Iranian Basij militia. Today pro-Mousavi protesters have been drenched in acid. Where will the violence lead?...

• Thousands of security offficials block main roads in Tehran• Reports of attack near shrine of revolutionary founderIranian riot police beat protesters and fired tear gas as violence erupted in Tehran today when thousands of members of the opposition movement took to the streets in open defiance of the country's supreme leader.Thousands of plain clothes and uniformed security officials blockaded Tehran's main throughfares but it seems many of the demonstrators who had previously turned out in their hundreds of thousands stayed away, for fear of official reprisals.The crackdown on supporters of the reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi confirmed fears that authorities would carry out their threat to suppress protests in the aftermath of the disputed presidential...

I’ve been wondering for a few days now whether history has taken ahold of events in Iran and fundamentally undermined the Islamic revolution. Whilst it’s almost certainly (barring a surprise) impossible to tell at this stage, Axworthy believes Mousavi is now needed by the theocratic regime in order for it to survive: There are rumours already that some senior clerics (not just long-term opponents like Ayatollah Montazeri, but also less obvious critics like Ayatollahs Samei and Golpayegami) are calling for the election to be annulled. There are also rumours of a split within the security forces – that some Basiji militia have refused to act against the demonstrators, and that elements within the Revolutionary Guard are also unhappy at the regime’s behaviour. These are...

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei continues to grasp at straws: In an uncompromising address at Friday prayers, Khamenei claimed that the high turnout at the elections showed how much the Iranian people supported the regime, and warned protesters to keep off the streets. The reformist presidential challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was conspicuous by his absence from Friday prayers at Tehran University, where Khamenei was making his first public appearance since controversially endorsing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election as president. Khamenei praised the president as “hardworking” and dismissed the idea that the election might have been rigged. “The Islamic republic will never manipulate votes and commit treason,” he said. “The legal structure in...

When it was uttered it was meant as a ­biting put-down to the thousands who dared to question his re-election as president of Iran."The nation's huge river would not leave any opportunity for the expression of dirt and dust," said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a rather elliptical reference to the surging protests on the streets of Tehran.For good measure he followed up with some more earthy language comparing claims of massive election fraud in last week's poll to the passions of supporters of a beaten football team after a match.He then went on to accuse his opponents of "officially recognising thieves, homosexuals and scumbags" in exchange for their votes.But, just as street protests the world over seize upon a poignant image to convey their message, so Ahmadinejad's contemptuous phrase "dirt...

• Ayatollah to call for calm at Friday prayers address• Mousavi urges supporters to repeat protest marchesIran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is expected to combine a call for calm tomorrow with a warning of severe consequences if protests continue over last week's "stolen" presidential election.Khamenei's address, to be made during Friday prayers at Tehran University, will be carefully scrutinised for clues as to how the Islamic regime plans to proceed a week after the disputed poll triggered the worst unrest since the 1979 revolution.It follows another day of massive protests in the streets of the capital, with tens of thousands of supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he won the election, marching silently to mourn those killed since the shock announcement last...

Seumas Milne seems to think so: While Mousavi promised market reforms and privatisation, more personal freedom and better relations with the west, the president increased pensions and public sector wages and handed out cheap loans. So it’s hardly surprising that Ahmadinejad should have a solid base among the working class, the religious, small town and rural poor – or that he might have achieved a similar majority to that of his first election in 2005. That’s what one of the few genuinely independent polls (the US-based Ballen-Doherty survey) predicted last month, when the Times reported Ahmadinejad was “expected to win”. But such details have got lost as the pressure has built in Tehran for a “green revolution” amid unsubstantiated claims that the...

(via Guardian) Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Iranians who voted for Mir Hossein Mousavi – without much doubt the legitimate president of Iran – are still protesting. Yet rather than singing their praises, championing the new approach from the Obama administration which has allowed it to happen or appreciating the unique position which the US is in in relation to Iran historically, neocons are on the attack: Far from showing the brilliance of Obama’s foreign policy approach, what has happened has dealt a stunning blow to his strategy of reaching out to the wrong people. Having assumed wrongly that Hezbollah would win in Lebanon, his administration let it be known that it would deal with Hezbollah in government. The response of the Lebanese people to this...

(via Guardian) The campaign by those whose votes were stolen in the Iranian presidential election is hotting up. Millions of them faced bullets yesterday: But despite the seven officially reported deaths, the protests continue. Reliable sources also suggest the crowds which have been attacked have been far from supine. One woman was apparently killed by gunfire, and the crowd then killed the shooter. It’s a volatile situation, no doubt masking a vicious power struggle at the very heart of the theocratic regime, and the irony is a form of revolution is building. Mir Hossein Mousavi’s candidacy as president was never to change the regime itself, yet he is now coming to represent fundamental change in the Iranian political settlement. A new, ‘Seven Point Manifesto‘...

Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for ongoing developments in the aftermath of the Iranian presidential election. In the meantime I’ll work on some of the trends which appear here, the first one being how terrible the BBC’s and other terrestrial news stations’ ongoing coverage remains of this saga. From Nicholas Owen presuming days ago that the election was settled, to referring to Ahmadinejad as the President of Iran when visiting Russia, to presuming that they have no means of querying the validity of the election results, something is seriously wrong with the BBC’s editorial viewpoint of events in Iran. Twitter of course has shown the disparity between fast moving events on the ground, and even newspapers’ coverage, which is often wildly inaccurate, often...

Tens of thousands of Iranians yesterday defied a ban to protest (above) against last week’s hotly-disputed presidential election result as the authorities struggled to contain increasing anger amongst the reformist opposition. Chanting crowds, many wearing green campaign colours, greeted Mir Hossein Mousavi, the (allegedly) defeated candidate in Friday’s poll, as he slowly moved through the streets of capital Tehran on the back of a 4-wheel drive car. Scufflles broke out as supporters of  “President” Ahmadinejad, riding motorbikes and armed with sticks, attacked the demonstrators along the route. “The vote of the people is more important than Mousavi or any other person!” said Mr Mousavi, standing on the car roof in Revolution Square and speaking...

A very interesting, sudden turn of events: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered an investigation into claims of vote-rigging and fraud in last week’s presidential election, Iranian state TV reported today. The report said Khamenei had told the guardian council, the clerical body that oversees elections, to examine the pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s claims of widespread rigging in Friday’s poll. The government declared the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to have won in a landslide victory. Today’s news represents a surprising turnaround for Khamenei, who had previously welcomed the results. Curiouser and curiouser. Khamenei, as Supreme Leader, was the first to sign off the electoral fraud. For him to change his...

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown (pictured above, with his wife Sarah – where did she get that hat?) will this week formally announce an inquiry into the Iraq war. In a move designed to draw a line under one of the most controversial actions of the New Labour government, the PM will set out the terms of reference of an investigation into the decision to go to war in 2003 and its protracted and bloody aftermath. But he is expected to announce the probe, delayed until the final British combat troops returned from Iraq last month, will be held in secret (surprise, surprise), behind closed doors, as opposed to a full public enquiry which is being demanded by many of the public and many parliamentary backbenchers. So Mr Brown will set out the details of the inquiry in the House...