Ahmadinejad re-election sparks Iran clashes

[Smurf-Herder]

Looks like people are getting pissed with their leadership.

Ahmadinejad re-election sparks Iran clashes

Thousands of opposition supporters have clashed with police after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's presidential poll.

Secret police have been attacked, while riot police used batons and tear gas against backers of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who called the results a "charade".

Correspondents say the violence is the worst seen in Tehran in a decade.

The official results gave Mr Ahmadinejad 63% of the vote against just 34% for Mr Mousavi.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the high turnout of 85%, described the count as a "real celebration" and called for calm.

"Enemies may want to spoil the sweetness of this event... with some kind of ill-intentioned provocations," the ayatollah said.

Mr Mousavi has also claimed victory, as his supporters said the election had been stolen and vowed to appeal for a re-run.

But observers say this would have little chance of success.

Some of the protesters in Tehran wore Mr Mousavi's campaign colour of green and chanted "Down with the dictator", news agencies report.

Four police motorbikes were set on fire near the interior ministry, where votes had been counted, the BBC's John Simpson in Tehran says.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli warned that any demonstrations needed official permission, and none had been given.

One opposition newspaper has been closed down and BBC websites also appear to have been blocked by the Iranian authorities.

Mr Mousavi was hoping to prevent Mr Ahmadinejad winning more than 50% of the vote, in order to force a run-off election.

Danger of 'tyranny'

Mr Mousavi, a former prime minister, dismissed the election result as deeply flawed.

"I personally strongly protest the many obvious violations and I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade," the Reuters news agency reported him as saying.

"The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny."

Mr Mousavi had said there was a shortage of ballot papers and alleged that millions of people had been denied the right to vote.

His election monitors were not allowed enough access to polling stations, he added.

The head of the Committee to Protect the People's Votes, a group set up by all three opposition candidates, said the group would not accept the result, alleging fraud.

They have asked Iran's Guardian Council - a powerful body controlled by conservative clerics - to cancel the results and re-run the elections. A second opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, declared the results "illegitimate and unacceptable".

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Tehran says the result has been greeted with surprise and with deep scepticism by many Iranians.

The figures, if they are to be believed, show Mr Ahmadinejad winning strongly even in the heartland of Mr Mousavi, the main opposition contender.

The scale of Mr Ahmadinejad's win means that many people who voted for a reformist candidate in the previous presidential election four years ago have apparently switched their votes to Mr Ahmadinejad, he adds.

However, the president does enjoy the support of many of the urban poor and rural dwellers.

"I am happy that my candidate has won - he helps the poor and he catches the thieves," sandwich seller Kamra Mohammadi, 22, told the AFP news agency.

The opposition gain much of their support from the middle classes and the educated urban population.

Surge of interest

BBC Iranian affairs analyst Sadeq Saba says the result means that hope for peaceful reform in Iran may die for a long time.

There had been a surge of interest in Iran's presidential election, with unprecedented live television debates between the candidates and rallies attended by thousands.

There were long queues at polling stations, with turnout reaching 85%.

Four candidates contested the election, with Mohsen Razai and Mehdi Karroubi only registering about 1% of the vote each.

Iran is ruled under a system known as Velayat-e Faqih, or "Rule by the Supreme Jurist", who is currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It was adopted by an overwhelming majority in 1979 following the Islamic revolution which overthrew the autocratic Western-backed Shah.

But the constitution also stipulates that the people are the source of power and the country holds phased presidential and parliamentary elections every four years.

All candidates are vetted by the powerful conservative-controlled Guardian Council, which also has the power to veto legislation it deems inconsistent with revolutionary principles.

Story and video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8098896.stm

[MintJulep]

Unfortunately, none of the people have access to anything except the state-run media. It would be like we had nothing to watch or access except MSNBC. :lmao2:

[disrupter]

I wish i knew the facts.
I don't trust the Iranian theocratic police state,

nor the dishonest corporate American media.

If this is a stolen election i hope those tyrannical bastards get what is coming to them. I do fear for the lives of those Iranians standing up against them.

I only wish Americans had that much concern for our elections.

[MintJulep]

I only wish Americans had that much concern for our elections.I agree....

http://donkeyridingcommies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/acorn-obama-logo.jpg

[disrupter]

Flipping the vote by 6.5% overnight in 2004 Ohio.

Went to bed with it 4% for Kerry,

Woke up with it 2.5% for Bush,

after a half dozen radical zealot GOP criminals had their hands all over it,

but i guess the hundreds or thousands of exit pollers all 'conspired' to rig it for Kerry. They must have called hundreds of others & said,
"Let's all 'rig' the election for Kerry,
Won't that be such a hoot!"

Which is a 'conspiracy' & which one makes common sense?

[Bill Cosby]

Unfortunately, none of the people have access to anything except the state-run media. It would be like we had nothing to watch or access except MSNBC. :lmao2:

They control life & media.......... Much like some here would like to do...

It appears he has done better than he did previously so what would you say is the reason for that??

[MintJulep]

He and his thugs are in control of everything. His "opponent" never stood a chance. He is a dictator.

[Zebulon0351]

I agree....

http://donkeyridingcommies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/acorn-obama-logo.jpg

Wow.. guess what woman? No matter what you Rush fans have heard or not, ACORN had no influence on the election itself. Yeah, they had individuals who committed voter registration fraud, but none of those numbers transpired on election day.

[MintJulep]

Wow.. guess what woman? No matter what you Rush fans have heard or not, ACORN had no influence on the election itself. Yeah, they had individuals who committed voter registration fraud, but none of those numbers transpired on election day.Oh, but of course not! ACORN is one scrupulous operation.

[Zebulon0351]

Oh, but of course not! ACORN is one scrupulous operation.

Maybe, but they did not influence the results of the election as you are trying to imply

[foxbaron]

I wish i knew the facts.
I don't trust the Iranian theocratic police state,

nor the dishonest corporate American media.

If this is a stolen election i hope those tyrannical bastards get what is coming to them. I do fear for the lives of those Iranians standing up against them.

I only wish Americans had that much concern for our elections.



We do, it is why we keep asking Obama to provide his "real" birth certificate and prove he is legally eligible to be our President. So far he continues to fight the release of his "long form" birth certificate as well as any documents concerning his past. Yeah, we are concerned.

[Bill Cosby]

Legally eligible..... Back on this again........ (shakes head smiley here)

I guess you are so much mO' smarter than our government. These naughty illegals just sneak in here & the next thing yea know they are our president.. WTF???

Were is your grandpa's papers??? Or his grandfathers???

Grow up & get over it.............

[Smurf-Herder]

Why can't anyone discuss the topic?

This could be Obama's foot-in-the-door as an alternative to eventual war - internal revolt in Iran, possibly changing their own regime.

But the White House is not saying anything in support of the Iranian people, or what looks like a obvious stolen election:

The top two were neck and neck - now Ahmadinejad wins 2-1; with the opposition not even winning in his own home town.

So it appears Obama is more concerned about not wanting to offend the Authoritarian leaders, to get his "dialogue", than supporting the people and taking advantage of an internal Iranian political revolt.

[Smurf-Herder]

Looks like the beginning of a revolution.

Iran: "Government banks and buildings were torched"
Written by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Published Sunday, June 14, 2009

http://www.themedialine.org/test/UplImg/NEWS_090614_IRAN_PROTESTS2.jpg

Iranian cities were awash with riots and sporadically violent demonstrations on Sunday in the second day of clashes following the declaration of hard line President Mahmud Ahmadi Nejad's landslide reelection.

The unrest comes as reformist candidates Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karoubi were reportedly placed under house arrest. Reports in the Persian media say that Interior Ministry officials responsible for administering the elections professed not to have started counting the votes when Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli announced the results.

Reza Shoja, The Media Line's correspondent in Tehran, reported widespread demonstrations throughout the city. "Parents were throwing bricks with their children," Shoja said. "Lots of government banks and buildings were torched and another night of violence is expected."

"After dark, Basiji mobs toured the city with riot police and were used to break up demonstrators," Shoja added, referring to a volunteer paramilitary force serving the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Car horn protests could be heard throughout the city, as could chants of "Bye bye dictator", "Ahmadi Nejad is the biggest liar in Iran," and "The president is committing a crime and the supreme leader is supporting him".

While access to social networking sites, the chief campaigning tool of reformist candidates, was blocked several times over the weekend, several photos and videos of riot police attempting to break up the protests have been sent around the Iranian blogosphere.

Tens of millions of Iranians took to the polls on Friday in Iran's 10th presidential elections, a record 85% turnout. Turnout in the last election was around 60%.

Many analysts expected Moussavi to beat Ahmadi Nejad if there was a high voter turnout. Regardless of the exact result, given the small gap between Ahmadi Nejad and Moussavi in the polls, neither camp expected to receive more than 50% of the vote, a result which would have automatically triggered a second round.

Soon after the polls closed on Friday evening, Moussavi claimed he was contacted by Interior Ministry officials to inform him he had won the elections. The officials allegedly asked Moussavi to hold off on a public announcement until the results could be confirmed.

Moussavi ignored that request, announcing his victory the same night, only to be trumped by a "surprise" declaration from the Interior Ministry that Ahmadi Nejad had won. It is understood that less than 20% of the ballots had been counted at that point.

Ahmadi Nejad was officially declared the victor on Saturday with 63% of the vote to Moussavi's 34%.

Moussavi supporters immediately accused the Interior Ministry, under the control of Ahmadi Nejad, of fixing the results. "People in the Interior Ministry are staying they did not even start counting when the interior ministry spokesperson announced the result," Kamran Ashtary, founder of the influential youth website voteforiran.com, told The Media Line. "There are a lot of different theories about what happened but the majority of people are talking about a political coup d'etat."

"The Persian media has totally different information than the English media because there are a lot of reformist people in government who are trying to get information out about what happened."

Moussavi has made a public appeal to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade," Moussavi said. "The result will jeopardize the pillars of the Islamic republic and establish tyranny."

Khamenei supported the results and called on supporters of the three defeated candidates to avoid "provocative" behavior. "All Iranians must support and help the elected president," he said. Iran's Guardian Council meanwhile declared the election the most transparent in 30 years.

Ashtary spoke of the profound shock felt by many of Iran’s youth. "We expected the elections to be fixed to a degree but we were not expecting it to be fixed on this level," he said. "I know hundreds of people who had never voted but did this time, and 90% of everyone I spoke to said they were voting for Moussavi. It is almost impossible to believe that Ahmadi Nejad won."

Ashtary, who initiated a campaign encouraging young Iranians to arrange romantic dates around the elections, symbolizes the unprecedented effect youth had on the elections.

With over 75% of the Iranian population under the age of 30, the success of Moussavi's modernized, Internet-driven campaign in attracting young Iranians was seen by many as a sign that the candidate would win a landslide victory.

"Nobody can win the elections without young people," Hossein Bastani, an influential Iranian blogger on the editorial board of the Iranian journal Rooz Online, told The Media Line. "It's young people managing all these reformist campaigns."

Moussavi campaigners used various social networks, viral messages and mobile text message jokes about Ahmadi Nejad to attract youth all over the country.

"The reformist candidates' strategy is using Internet forums like Facebook to publish news and information," Bastani added. "They have been quite successful and this is why the Iranian government tried to filter Facebook and Twitter in Iran."

Protesters were mobilizing for another night of protests. Whether the youthful anger and protest will submerge the country or settle into a disheartened resignation remains to be seen. As one young Iranian, Mehri912, wrote on Twitter, “If Iran sleeps tonight, it will sleep forever”.

http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=25420

[Bill Cosby]

Why can't anyone discuss the topic?

This could be Obama's foot-in-the-door as an alternative to eventual war - internal revolt in Iran, possibly changing their own regime.

But the White House is not saying anything in support of the Iranian people, or what looks like a obvious stolen election:

The top two were neck and neck - now Ahmadinejad wins 2-1; with the opposition not even winning in his own home town.

So it appears Obama is more concerned about not wanting to offend the Authoritarian leaders, to get his "dialogue", than supporting the people and taking advantage of an internal Iranian political revolt.

Well IMO the USA has played a role in their affairs in the past & that is the major reason for the present difficulties in our relationship..

Perhaps the affairs of the Iranians should be worked out by them.. W/ maybe some quite behind the scenes cooperation. YOu don't want them messing in our affairs perhaps- do unto others as you would have them do unto you???

[kres24GT]

So funny on these things. Both sides cheat, and if one side was actually powerful enough to cheat enough to influence results, they'd win every election. Of course the sheep on both sides just like to scream and cry about the cheating on the other side. Yet more proof people will ignore all reason and common sense, and even the simple power of observation all in the name of being a partisan sheep.

No way to know what is going on in Iran. A shame a lot of enlightened Iranians are going to die though.

[disrupter]

"Obvious stolen election" Smurfy?

based on what? YOUR tea leaves?

The US corporate media that told us about WMDs in Iraq & the soundness of the financial system?

I would not be at all surprised if the election was stolen by the torturing police state theocrats, but since it is a very closed off country that is not easy to determine.
It is not impossible he was legitimately elected, i don't know of any exit polling that would give credible evidence either way.

The way the state so heavily surpresses people & media does imply if not prove some dishonestly.

It may be a beginning of anger & unrest that does create revolution or government overhaul, but if thousands die at the hands of brutal oppressors, i would hope there would be some less violent alternative to constructive change. But tyrants are want to give up power so there may be no alternative.

[Smurf-Herder]

Foreign media say Iran blocking coverage of protests
5 hours ago

BERLIN (AFP) — Several foreign news organisations complained Sunday that Iranian authorities were blocking their reporters from covering protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

German public television channels ZDF and ARD said their reporters were not allowed to broadcast their reports, while the BBC said the signals of its Persian services were being jammed from Iran.

The Dubai-based Arab news channel Al-Arabiya in Tehran was forbidden from working for a week and Dutch broadcaster Nederland 2 said its journalist and cameraman were arrested and ordered to leave the country.

Foreign media converged in Iran to cover Friday's presidential election, whose official result sparked violent protests in Tehran after Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a landslide.

Violence erupted for a second day on Sunday as supporters of Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police. Mousavi denounced the election as a fraud and called for the vote to be annulled.

The editors in chief of German public television channels ZDF and ARD sent a letter to the Iranian ambassador in Berlin accusing Iranian authorities of barring their reporters from doing their work.

ARD correspondent Peter Mezger can no longer leave his hotel while ZDF journalist Halim Hosny and his colleagues have not been allowed to report on the events, their chief editors wrote.

"We see a breach of freedom of the press and democratic principles," their editors said in their letter.

Iranian authorities had already barred the journalists from filming and broadcasting their images in recent days, the editors said.

ARD and ZDF insisted that they would "continue to report on the events in Iran" in a "critical, fair and independent" manner.

The British Broadcasting Corporation said the satellites it uses for its Persian television and radio services had been affected since Friday by "heavy electronic jamming" which had become "progressively worse."

Satellite technicians had traced the interference to Iran, the BBC said.

"Any attempt to block BBC Persian television is wrong and against international treaties on satellite communication. Whoever is attempting the blocking should stop it now," said BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks.

"It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by the Iranian authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of the disputed election," he said, noting that BBC world affairs editor John Simpson and his cameraman were briefly arrested after filming a report.

Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2 said NOVA journalist Jan Eikelboom and cameraman Dennis Hilgers, who had been in Iran for several days covering the election, "were filming in front of the headquarters of Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main rival, when they were arrested by police," the channel said in a statement.

"They were pushed against a wall and their tapes were seized. Their filming permits were withdrawn and they have to leave the country immediately," it said.

The Arab news channel Al-Arabiya said that its correspondent, who has been in Tehran for the past four months, had been "informed verbally" of the decision to shut down his office for a week.

"We are not allowed to do any coverage. No reason was given, and there was no earlier warning," executive editor Nabil al-Khateeb told AFP. "I believe it is due to the current state of unrest."

Belgian radio stations RTBF and VRT said their reporters were briefly detained and ordered not take pictures, Belga news agency reported.

The correspondent of Spanish public channel TVE said during a live broadcast Saturday that police had confiscated a video of one the protests.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hpy1TiemIsKmu6FEgv42JU5swSxw

[Dale escondido]

The strongest rule and thats it in Iran.
If the youth are willing to fight they may prevail.
But the power that be, will not go easily.

[Bill Cosby]

That is the same everywhere.......

Having the religious fanatics getting rid of the American installed Shah Puppetalavia seemed like a good idea @ the time to their parents..

The youngsters don't care what those folks did way back before they were born........ They want more & hopefully will get it some day........

[disrupter]

You don't want them fighting if they only 'think' the election was stolen, but it wasn't actually stolen,

not if one believes in actual democracy.

I personally think the Iranian theocracy are scallywags. They have torturing secret police just like the Shah did.

But we have allowed similar scallywags of the Bush gestapo to operate with torturing, war criminal impunity here, so maybe it is better than we clean our own house first, before egging these outraged students & citizens of Iran,

especially when we know the facts here & are only making guesses there.

[MintJulep]

Iran govt now blocking access to cell phones and the Internet...........

I'm sure Bammy is taking notes.

[MintJulep]

Iran govt has opened fire on protesters and killed one person.

[xav8terx]

Iran govt has opened fire on protesters and killed one person.

Didn't the American government kill a couple of protesters back in the 60's? What was that called again???

[Smurf-Herder]

Hey, hollow-heads, ever think about this in terms of dealing with the whole Iran thing? How this plays into that?

[foxbaron]

Legally eligible..... Back on this again........ (shakes head smiley here)

I guess you are so much mO' smarter than our government. These naughty illegals just sneak in here & the next thing yea know they are our president.. WTF???

Were is your grandpa's papers??? Or his grandfathers???

Grow up & get over it.............



Uh. NOPE, Ain't gonna happen. I want to know beyond a doubt and as long as he resists, there will be doubt.

[Bill Cosby]

Doubt al you want then. If it makes you feel better.....

The USA gov seems happy w/it........... When he filed it was the bad boy rep in office. I am sure they could have found the truth...... Like they did them WMD is IraQ....................... lol

[disrupter]

It was called Kent State.
National Guardsman started firing live ammunition on student protesters.
Several were killed.