Updates for Saturday, June 13 and Sunday, June 14.
As our colleagues in Iran, Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi, continue to update their news article with the latest developments on the aftermath of Friday’s disputed Iranian presidential election, The Lede is tracking the debate unfolding on the Web this weekend as to what the election results mean. We will bring you updates and encourage Iranian readers to share their thoughts and experiences with us. Readers can add their comments to the active debate in the thread we opened on Friday or use the space beneath this post to share information or views about the outcome that was announced on Saturday.
Sunday’s updates
Update | 4:48 p.m. A report from Iran’s Press TV says that the country’s most senior cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the country’s election was a great success and “has once again approved its result.” Since Ayatollah Khamenei is the ultimate authority in Iran’s complex governing structure, it seems clear that the regime is digging in against the protests by the opposition. Press TV added that Ayatollah Khamenei said that “psychological warfare aimed at discouraging people from voting failed.”
My colleagues Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi report from Tehran that the opposition’s calls for the election results to be rejected were joined on Sunday by some clerics:
A moderate clerical body, the Association of Combatant Clergy, issued a statement posted on reformist Web sites saying the election was rigged and calling for it to be canceled, warning that “if this process becomes the norm, the republican aspect of the regime will be damaged and people will lose confidence in the system.”
That call seems to have been rejected though, since more than 100 prominent opposition members have been detained and Mir Hussein Moussavi reportedly “remained at home Sunday with the police closely monitoring his movements.”
The Lede will return with updates early Monday morning to follow developments on a day when the opposition has called for rallies across Iran.
Update | 4:29 p.m. At a small protest outside the United Nations in New York on Sunday, about 150 supporters of the Iranian opposition denounced the official results of Friday’s presidential election in Iran and waved signs calling it a “coup.” Many of the protesters wore green, the color of opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi’s movement and chanted “Where is my vote?”
One interesting moment at the demonstration involved a handful of royalists who showed up waving a flag from the era of Shah. They were quickly intercepted and chased away by the supporters of Mr. Moussavi who made up the vast majority of the crowd. After the incident, one of Mr. Moussavi’s green-clad supporters told your Lede blogger that the group gathered today does not oppose the Islamic Republic, but simply wants the votes cast last Friday to be counted fairly.
Update | 1:44 p.m. The Lede is off to observe the protest outside the United Nations, but we will file more updates later today. Here is a report from The A.P. which includes footage of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s press conference on Sunday:
By way of contrast, here’s a video posted on YouTube by a member of the Facebook group Ahmadinejad is NOT my president!
Update | 1:30 p.m. One sign of how effective the disruption of the Internet inside Iran has been is that Iranian Flickr accounts, which were flooded with images of opposition rallies in the days before the election, have, with rare exceptions, remain static since Friday. One British-Iranian blogger we pointed to on Friday, did manage to post this single image of Saturday’s protests on his account, along with this comment:
I’ve missed too many good photos, it’s tricky when you’re on the run from police on bikes with batons. This was really only the beginning though. Things got a lot worse after this. In the shot I’m ahead of most of the rioting. Getting to close means a more distressing run when the weird shot like sounds accompany the revs of the bikes get close.
He added:
Tehran has had a dramatic change in mood from last week to now, between which we’ve voted for our next president.
It was always going to be a tight race that many suspected we lead to a second round of voting. The two favourites being the incumbent Ahmadinejad and the so called reformer candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi. It was also expected that the voter turnout would be high with these two candidates pitched against one another. What wasn’t expected was a “landslide victory” for Ahmadinejad in the first round. He’s much loved in rural Iran and could just have taken it, but the result just read like fiction.
Another Flickr account, Mousavi1388, which may be maintained from outside Iran, posted a few images that look like they were taken on a mobile phone camera earlier today, including this one, from Tehran’s Vali Asr Boulevard, where the victory rally for Mr. Ahmadinejad was held:
Update | 1:23 p.m. Tehran Bureau reports that their Web site, which is based in the U.S. but is taking in feeds from Iran, is back up. Here is a brief text report they have just psoted from an anonymous correspondent in the Iranian city of Isfahan:
From Isfahan, where there was a massive crackdown on a university dormitory (along with arrests): I am safe, yet in desperate need for sleep. Not only did they steal the vote but they are rubbing it in our faces, Ahmadinejad is holding “Thank You Ceremonies”!!! all over the country, they are giving away ice cream and cakes…Isfahan is almost quiet today, but in Tehran & Ahwaz unrest continues, the people have devised a clever method of hit & run, although I am against destruction and anarchy, but that’s the only way left to voice an opposition. The protests have become localized, in the neighborhoods small contingents of protestors gather, chant, throw stones and before the police can react they retreat to their houses only to emerge when the police is gone. In response security forces have deployed thousands of motor riding forces, one drives the other one slings his club right & left, a sort of quick response task force. Today I witnessed a motorcade of at least 30 of such odd couples!!!!
That report is followed by another sobering thought on how disillusioned many reformist voters are today:
you know the worst thing about all of this is that now there is no refuge left for the people, if someone from within the government does any wrong doing, there will be no higher authority to go to, if you are beaten up, and want to press charges, they will imprison you instead.
I am very angry at myself for being fooled so easily, they got us to vote, which gave them legitimacy, and then they manipulated the results, many are vowing never to vote again.
Update | 1:17 p.m. Earlier on Sunday one Iranian Twitter user, using the name Change_For_Iran, tweeted: “according to rumor mousavi requested all people to gather near his office at 12:30 pm today.” That was quickly shot down by the Tehran Bureau’s Twitter feed which replied: “@Change_for_Iran this is a trap! if you dont believe me then check with mousavi sites. order is to hold back till word. pls RT” The sign-off “pls RT” is Twitter lingo for “please re-tweet” or pass on the message.
For all the reported power of the Internet and social-networking tools to mobilize support for political movements, the regime in Iran may be counting on the fact that the opposition’s “green wave” will have trouble emulating the success of the “orange revolution” in Ukraine if the Internet and text messaging continues to be disrupted inside Iran.
Update | 1:14 p.m. Protests on Sunday and Monday are being scheduled via Facebook by Iranian opposition supporters in other countries. The Lede is heading up to observe a protest outside the United Nations in New York at 2 p.m. Information on other events is being posted at a site called Where Is My Vote?
Update | 1:08 p.m. A new post on the Tehran Bureau Twitter feed, reports a slightly earlier time for Monday’s opposition rallies across Iran:
Mousavi’s wife today called for a united, peaceful demonstration across 20 cities from 4pm tomorrow Monday, and a national strike on Tuesday.
The late afternoon timing of the rallies may be an indication that Mr. Moussavi’s campaign wants to show its strength during daylight hours in the United States and Europe.
Update | 1:05 p.m. The BBC has video of the large victory rally for Mr. Ahmadinejad on Sunday in Tehran. Earlier, Tehran Bureau’s Twitter feed objected that Western media organizations were giving too much air time to these officially-sanctioned video images from Iranian state television: “It’s too bad CNN’s cameras are focused on the staged sham, while protesters being brutally beaten (and God knows what) elsewhere.”
Update | 12:59 p.m. Press TV, Iran’s state-supported satellite news channel, confirms the report that Mr. Moussavi is calling for rallies across Iran on Monday:
In a statement, defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi says he has asked Iranian authorities to issue a permit for staging rallies in cities around the country. “These rallies will give the Iranian people an opportunity to express their opposition to election process and its result,” Moussavi said in a statement on Sunday.
He added that he has asked the Guardian Council, the body that supervises elections, to cancel the result of the Friday’s poll in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared victor by a landslide.
In his statement, the former prime minister said that Iranian authorities have made no response to the request for rallies. “If the officials agree with the request, it will be the best way to control the current sentiments,” he added.
Moussavi also criticized communication disruption in Iran over the past two days and said, “This will provoke reaction. It is concerning that it will turn into blind moves.”
The Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) earlier confirmed that text message (SMS) services had been shut down just hours before the opening of the 10th presidential election on Friday.
Update | 12:57 p.m.
Before the site went down, Tehran Bureau reported that the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi has called for rallies across Iran
to protest the results on Monday and a general strike on Tuesday. Here is the last update we read on Tehran Bureau this morning before the site went down:
Just in from Tehran (9:32 am EST) Zahra Rahnavard gave a speech at Tehran University today, Sunday, June 14. To a large audience of students, Ms. Rahnavard announced the latest official statement issued by Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has pledged he will not back down from contesting the fraudulent 22 Khordad election results.
Mousavi calls on all Reformist supporters to take part in a PEACEFUL MARCH & MASS DEMONSTRATION in 20 cities across Iran on Monday, June 15 (doshanbeh, 25 Khordad) at 17:00 to denounce the election results as fraud. He has applied for a license to protect the safety of protestors.
The Tehran location is Valiasr Avenue, from Valiasr Square to Tajrish Square. The locations in other cities are listed below.
Mousavi has also called for a NATIONAL STRIKE on Tuesday, June 16 (Khordad 26) and asked all those who contest the results to close their shops, businesses, etc. and for employees to not go to work that day.
Communication is critical to success for a large turnout, so please forward this to every Iranian you know. The statement is verified on Ghalam News (ghalamnews.ir), the official site of the Mousavi campaign (site rasmi setad).
UPDATES:– Ghalamnews, Mousavi’s official setad site, has officially confirmed the march along Valiasr tomorrow (Monday) and a national strike on Tuesday. PLEASE FWD THIS NEWS TO ALL. Also, pls post on Facebook – it is blocked, but many can bypass filter and access it.
– There is another rumor going around that the basij has stationed SNIPERS on valiasr … this may be a scare tactic rumor, but it is not unlikely … which makes things so much more deadly. This should also be warned so people see how brutal the regime is prepared to be – worse than the Shah’s army.
Update | Sunday, June 14 | 12:43 p.m. Here is a quick update of what we know of events on Sunday. As my colleagues Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi report in their latest dispatch from Tehran, Iran’s President held a press conference on Sunday in which he dismissed protests by opposition supporters and accusations that the election had been stolen:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Sunday likened the protests disputing his election victory, the most intense disturbances in Tehran in a decade, as well as the possible arrests of his opponents to the passions of soccer.
Dozens of reformist politicians were said to have been arrested at their homes overnight, according to news reports on Sunday and a witness who worked with the politicians. There were also reports of politicians and clerics being placed under house arrest.
In a wide-ranging news conference with domestic and foreign correspondents, Mr. Ahmadinejad said that his re-election was “real and free” and accused foreign media of launching a “psychological war” against Iran.
The Associated Press reports that communications remain disrupted inside the country:
Iran restored cell phone service that had been down in the capital since Saturday. But Iranians could not send text messages from their phones, and the government increased its Internet filtering in an apparent attempt to undercut liberal voices. Social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter were also not working.
The restrictions were likely intended to prevent Mousavi’s supporters from organizing large-scale protests. But smaller groups assembled around the city. About 300 Mousavi supporters gathered outside Sharif University, chanting ”Where are our votes?”
It appears that direct attacks on Web sites passing on messages from the opposition have continued.
The Iranian-American Web site Tehran Bureau reports on its Twitter feed: “tehranbureau.com down. we got hacked and have to repair.”
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Saturday’s Updates
Update | 7:20 p.m. We’re signing off for the evening. Please check the home page of NYTimes.com for any developments that may take place overnight. The New York Times Op-Ed columnist Roger Cohen has filed a video report from Tehran, discussing the election and Saturday’s protests.
Here is an unlikely but good source of photographs and video of protests in Iran earlier on Saturday: a discussion board on the Web site Big Soccer.com. Thanks to the reader who pointed it out.
Update | 7:05 p.m. Time magazine’s Nahid Siamdoust reports that the protests continued late into the night:
It’s way past midnight in Tehran, but this city is not sleeping. Outside on the streets, people are honking their horns in protest and stretching their hands out of cars making peace signs — a sign of support for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate apparently defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s presidential election on Friday.
In neighborhoods across north and central Tehran, shouts of “Death to dictator!” fill the air, mostly in female voices, coming from house windows. There are also shouts of “Allah-o Akbar!” — reminiscent of the revolution — on the urging of a communique from Mousavi’s office.
Some of Tehran’s main streets have been turned into urban battlegrounds. Groups of mostly young men have set large garbage bins on fire in the middle of streets, torn out street signs and fences, broken the windows and ATM machines of state banks, and burnt at least five large buses in the middle of streets.
“They have totally fooled us,” said one sad man, a 32-year-old state employee, standing by the roadside. “This time they went too far. They just want to eliminate ‘republic’ and turn this into an Islamic dictatorship,” he said with a sigh.
On Ghaem-Magham Street, a lone chadori woman stood by the roadside, making a peace sign with her index finger wrapped in a green ribbon, saying “Mousavi” to every passing car. Out of 50 cars that passed, all but 5 either honked, rolled down their windows to shout their support, or made peace signs in solidarity. […]
Then a man in a car moving in the other direction rolled down his window and shouted at her in anger, “You whore! Why are you creating conflict between people?” A basiji (a member of the volunteer paramilitary aligned with Ahmadinejad) charged at her from nowhere with a metal rod and was about to beat her when he was held down and beaten himself by five or six men streaming out of nearby cars.
“I mean, just look at this! If Ahmadinejad won 25 million votes, which they claim, we should be celebrating, right?” an onlooker commented.
Update | 6:50 p.m. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf said on Saturday that officials from Iran’s Interior Ministry had contacted Mir Hussein Moussavi’s campaign after the polls closed on Friday night, saying that he had won the election, but asking that he not make any announcement. Mr. Makhmalbaf, who is currently in Paris, said, “After security forces attacked and shut down the press offices of Moussavi’s campaign in Gheitarieh yesterday, I was asked to act as their spokesperson abroad.”
He added that he was asked to spread the word that “last night Interior Ministry officials told Moussavi and his staff that he has won the elections but they should not make it public yet. Moussavi’s campaign, accordingly, began preparations for a public celebration on Sunday.”
Of course Mr. Moussavi ignored the Interior Ministry request and did announce that he had won. Soon after that, the Interior Ministry made what even Iranian state media reported was a “surprise” early declaration that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won, after less than 20% of the ballots had been counted.
In what looks suspiciously like a related incident, Mr. Makhmalbaf’s personal Web site seems to have been attacked. A Google search for “Makhmalbaf Film House,” leads to a warning saying that within the past 24 hours Google had spotted “malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent” from the filmmaker’s Web site. As Google’s warning explains: “In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.”
Your Lede blogger has visited the Web site Makhmalbaf.com many times in the past and never come across any such warning.
Update | 6:27 p.m. Before we sign off for the day, it is worth noting that the reader who claimed that Iranians in Boston had voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to have been wildly off the mark. According to a report for the Global Post from Shirin Jaafari:
Mir Hossein Mousavi won the vote of Iranians in Boston with 89.5 percent of the votes cast at polling stations in Boston and Cambridge. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got 3.3 percent, while Mehdi Karoubi took 6.6 percent and Mohsen Rezai got 0.33 percent.
Update | 6:13 p.m. The Tehran Bureau Web site has posted what it says is a letter from Mir Hussein Moussavi, in the Farsi original and English translation. Unfortunately, they make no mention of how they got it, or why they believe it to be authentic, but it does track closely to the statement from Mr. Moussavi Channel 4 News quoted from earlier on Saturday. If the letter is authentic, it is evidence that Mr. Moussavi has no intention of giving in. The letter reads, in part:
I am obliged, due to my religious and national duties, to expose this dangerous plot and to explain its devastating effects on the future of Iran. I am concerned that the continuation of the current situation will transform all key members of this regime into fabulists in confrontation with the nation and seriously jeopardize them in this world and the next.
Update | 5:51 p.m. Nate Silver, on his blog FiveThirtyEight.com, pours a lot of cold water on the statistical analysis we mentioned earlier, in this post. Mr. Silver makes a clear case against the idea that a consistent two to one margin is evidence of fraud, leading to this observation:
I am not suggesting that any and all statistical analysis purporting to show tampering in Iran’s election results will turn out to be fruitless. I am merely suggesting that this particular analysis is dubious; it is not a smoking gun.
Although it has nothing to do with statistics, this comment from an Iranian named Darius on FiveThirtyEight.com suggests how much the Internet has been disrupted in Iran:
I’m sitting in my grandparents’ house in Tehran right now and I’m hearing mini-explosions, there’s helicopters flying around, it smells like smoke, and it took fifteen minutes for this website to load because they’ve slowed down the internet so much here. On top of that they’ve basically blocked parts of Iran from the international phone network so I can’t even call my mother. 80% of the Iranian people did not enthusiastically turn out in order to re-elect someone who has ruined this country both economically and culturally. The Iranian people know that this election was rigged. How could it have been possible for Moussavi to lose Tabriz when he is from Iranian Azerbaijan and Ahmadinejad has abysmal approval ratings amongst Turkic speaking Iranians? […]
Facebook does not work, YouTube does not work, basically all communications are down. You tell me sir, if they did not rig the elections where are all the people who supported Ahmadinejad? Why aren’t they celebrating? Why is the mood in Tehran, even southern Tehran so gloomy? Why is the government so scared?
Update | 5:38 p.m. Al Jazeera reports that a speech by Mr. Ahmadinejad earlier today seems to have done little to quell the uproar at his election:
The protests intensified following a televised speech by Ahmadinejad in which he said the vote had been “completely free” and the outcome was “a great victory” for Iran.”
“Today, the people of Iran have inspired other nations and disappointed their ill-wishers,” he said. “This is a great victory at a time when the … propaganda facilities outside Iran and sometimes inside Iran were totally mobilized against our people.”
Ahmadinejad praised the country’s youth, but made no direct mention of the protests.
Update | 5:28 p.m. The National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper, reports that a statement on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site said that he wrote to senior clerics asking them to intervene, arguing that not doing so could harm the regime:
“With all ways to secure their rights blocked, the innocent people are confronted with the silence of the clerics and this will bring more damage than a change in votes,” he said in a statement on his website.
My colleagues in Tehran, Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi, report that those hopes seem to be have been dashed:
Ayatollah Khamenei closed the door to any appeals for intervention in a statement issued on state television on Saturday afternoon, congratulating Mr. Ahmadinejad on his victory and urging the other candidates to throw in the towel. “Our respected president is the president of all the people, including those who were his rivals yesterday, and they should all help and support him,” he said.
Update | 5:24 p.m. Al Jazerra also reports that “with each updated count, Ahmadinjad’s lead did not waver from a very stable range of 66-69 per cent, irrespective of which districts were reporting.”
Update | 5:02 p.m. A reader writes that people are still on the streets in Iran:
We lost our hopes today. The fraud election 2009 has made ppl disappointed and hopeless that any change could happen under the current regime. Ppl are on the streets chanting “death to the petite dictator” and riot police is firing gun shots and beating them up with batons, but how long could this go on? — Yoones
Update | 4:54 p.m. My colleagues in Tehran, Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi, note that Mr. Moussavi is not the only candidate to dispute the results:
“The results of the 10th presidential election are so ridiculous and so unbelievable that one cannot write or talk about it in a statement,” said Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist cleric and candidate. He came in last with 300,000 votes — much fewer than analysts had predicted. “It is amazing that the people’s vote has turned into an instrument for the government to stabilize itself.”
Update | 4:49 p.m. Reports posted on the Web site of the Tehran Times, an English-language newspaper, seem to support the mathematical analysis of the results we mentioned earlier — it looks like Mr. Ahmadinejad, maintained a roughly two to one lead over Mr. Moussavi throughout the vote counting.
Update | 3:53 p.m. Several readers have pointed to this mathematical analysis charting the share of the vote for Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi as it was reportedly announced by the interior ministry. It is not clear who made this chart, or if it is accurate, but it is informing the debate online at the moment. We are trying to find out more about it and will let you know what we discover. Tehran Bureau attributes the analysis to an Iranian Web site, JameJamonline.ir. Muhammas Sahmi argues on the Tehran Bureau Web site that it is fishy:
The best evidence for the validity of the arguments of the three opponents of the President for rejecting the results declared by the Interior Ministry is the data the Ministry itself has issued. In the chart below, compiled based on the data released by the Ministry and announced by Iran’s national television, a perfect linear relation between the votes received by the President and Mir Hossein Mousavi has been maintained, and the President’s vote is always half of the President’s.
One of our readers comments:
If one reads the specifics of the vote results (i.e. Ahmadinejad supposedly won in Tehran and Tabriz), how the count progressed and combine it with what people on the ground are saying, there is no way you would believe that this election was fair and square. There was blatant fraud. They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were rigging the election. They didn’t even try to make the numbers look believable. — Sarvi
Update | 3:51 p.m. The updates from Iran on the Tehran Bureau Web site can also be followed on this Facebook wall, which now includes video of protests in Shiraz as well as Tehran.
Update | 3:14 p.m. Under the headline “Congratulation Messages Pour In,” Iran’s state news agency reports, with an apparent lack of irony, that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory has been hailed abroad — by the leaders of three groups of Islamic fundamentalists and the government of Syria:
Tehran, June 13, IRNA – Following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory in the 10th Presidential Elections, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian leaders cabled messages of congratulation on Saturday on his re-election.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Leader of Egyptian Ikhwan al-Muslimin Mohammad-Mehdi Akef, Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement in separate messages congratulated President Ahmadinejad on his victory. They wished him success and prosperity.
That Iran’s President is basking in the glow of support from the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suggests that we may be waiting a long time for the “new greeting to the world” Mr. Moussavi promised on his campaign posters.
Update | 3:03 p.m. Lindsey Hilsum of Britain’s Channel 4 News filed this video report from Tehran, in which she said “I feel like I went to sleep in one country and woke up in another,” as the peaceful rallies staged by opposition supporters in the last week gave way to violent suppression of dissent on Saturday. Her report includes footage of Mr. Moussavi’s defiant press conference on Friday night, and the text of his statement on Saturday, in which he said: “The result of what I see from such a performance by dishonest people is shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic and the rule of deception and dictatorship.”
Update | 3:00 p.m. Here is the full report from Iran’s IRNA news agency of what the country’s ruler had to say about the election:
Tehran, June 13, IRNA — Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Saturday that the voter turnout of over 80 percent and the 24 million votes cast in favor of the president calls for real celebration.
In an important message, issued after the 10th Presidential Elections on June 12, Ayatollah Khamenei said that the enemies are creating provocations out of ill-wish in order not to let the Iranian nation be joyful and happy about the election results.
The Supreme Leader thanked the public for their heroic and powerful turnout in the elections and congratulated them on the big victory. “I congratulate … the people on this massive success and urge everyone to be grateful for this divine blessing,” declared the Ayatollah.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that the Iranian people at large, especially dear youth, and supporters of the elected candidate and of other candidates should be fully alert and avoid any provocative and suspicious actions and speech.
If you haven’t already seen it on the home page of NYTimes.com, you should have a look at this slide show of the protests, and celebrations, in Tehran on Saturday:
Update | 2:44 p.m. A reader using the Web alias “Iranian Voter” reminds us that the repeated warnings from Iran’s intelligence service that opposition movements in favor of reform in Iran are nothing more than foreign government plots are believed by some Iranians:
Color revolutions were masterminded by the West to turn former Soviet states into western satellite states, thus encircling Russia with hostile pro-Western states. Iran is of course the missing gap, the vulnerable underbelly of Russia. Yet, is that all you westerners conceive of us, your stooges? You have not learned the historical lessons then. A few days before the election the Moussavi camp turned green, made human chain, simulated 1978 street clashes, their puppet masters at CIA headquarters & MI6 in rapture. Soft green-colored coup turned to be a putsch and a grief to its organizers.
For a longer discussion of this theory, see an earlier post on The Lede, which includes a link to a remarkable public service announcement from Iranian television warning that opponents of the regime are all murderous stooges of the American government.
A colleague at The Times asks if any readers in Iran might be able to explain how it is that Mr. Moussavi’s campaign came to use the color green as its symbol. The British-Iranian blogger at Going Green offered this explanation earlier this week:
Mousavi is a Sayed, meaning via his male lineage, he’s related to the prophet Mohammad. To symbolise this, Sayeds use a certain shade of green, also shown in the national flag. Establishing this within his identity was great strategy, but also total luck, for each candidate was assigned a colour by which the state broadcasting group selected at random.
Update | 2:19 p.m. The Tehran Bureau’s live blog on events in Iran’s capital has several clips of videos uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, showing some of the protests by opposition supporters — including these clashes with riot police in Vanak Square this afternoon:
Reuters reports that one of its reporters was injured in these clashes:
A Reuters reporter said she and others were beaten by police with batons as police chased and arrested demonstrators staging a sit-in at Tehran’s Vanak Square, one of the capital’s busiest intersections.
At least three people were injured in the clash, which broke out after the Interior Ministry announced the hardline incumbent’s resounding victory in Friday’s vote.
Reuters adds:
Up to 2,000 of his supporters staged a sit-in protest in the middle of the road, clapping hands and chanting: “Moussavi take back our vote! What happened to our vote?” They also chanted at security forces: “Police, brother, you’re one of us.”
Update | 2:12 p.m. Tehran Bureau also has a remarkable live blog with updates from inside Iran. The report includes a lot of video of protests on Saturday in Tehran and these interesting observations:
After election results were announced, the election committee must wait for three days to accept any grievances for any irregularity before certify the results. The results of election needs to be certified by the Council of Experts before it goes to the Leader for final approval
Today neither of these two rules were followed and the Leader in his speech approved the results of the election and asked all parties involved to work with Ahmadinejad.
BTW, according to the news only 173000 Iranians voted outside of Iran and Mousavi got most of the votes (around 83000 votes).
Update | 1:53 p.m. On the Web site Tehran Bureau, which is based outside Iran, but relies on bilingual journalists to help make sense of what is happening inside the country, Mea Cyrus argues on Saturday that “What happened at the polls today was sadly predictable. One strong indication right from the start was that the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made his decision to put all his power behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Ms. Cyrus points out that the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad felt comfortable attacking a former President, and senior cleric, was a sign that he had the support of the unelected Ayatollah Khamenei, who really runs Iran’s government:
Ahmadinejad continued his highly controversial verbal attacks on former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, even though some claim Khamenei blasted him in public after a particularly heated televised debate between him and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi.
While some believed the supreme leader has called on all the candidates to tone down the attacks on one another—for instance, he was crystal clear when he chided Mousavi for saying Iran’s image has been tarnished in the world by Ahmadinejad—Mr. Khamenei did not use his authority to show he meant business.
One of the supreme leader’s favorite channels of communication with other politicians, apart from his sharp speeches, is Kayhan newspaper. It is widely known in Iran that Hossein Shariatmadari, Khamenei’s representative at Kayhan Press Institute, has not only the Ayatollah’s ears, but also serves as his mouthpiece.
When Kayhan, in its first edition after the debate, criticized only Mousavi for his comments during the debate, and afforded Ahmadinejad the right to defend himself, it was a clear signal that the controversial attacks would continue.
Update | 1:39 p.m. Here are more perspectives from the streets of Tehran, in an article written by Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, just published on our Web site:
Iranians who hoped for a bit more freedom, a better managed economy and a less reviled image in the world wavered between protest and despair on Saturday.
On the streets around Fatemi Square, near the headquarters of the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, riot police officers dressed in Robocop gear roared down the sidewalks on motorcycles to disperse and intimidate the clots of pedestrians who gathered to share rumors and dismay.
“Another four years of dictatorship,” a voter muttered, and “this is a coup d’état.” Several others agreed. Some women wept openly. Some talked of “mutiny.” Others were more cynical.
“It was just a movie,” said Hussein Gharibi, a 54-year-old juice vendor, scoffing at those who got their hopes up. “They were all just players in a movie.”
Voters were obliged to chose a candidate and fill in a code. Though Mr. Moussavi was Candidate No. 4, the code No. 44 signified Mr. Ahmadinejad.
One man who worked in the Ministry of Interior, which carried out the vote count, said the government had been preparing its fraud for weeks, purging anyone of doubtful loyalty and importing pliable staff members from around the country.
“They didn’t rig the vote,” claimed this man, who showed his ministry identification card but pleaded not to be named. “They didn’t even look at the vote. They just wrote the name and put the number in front of it.”
Mr. Keller also reports that there is discussion in Iran’s capital today of how the vote may have been rigged, including the suggestion that “the ballots seemed designed to lead opposition voters astray.”
Mr. Keller also reports that the authorities seem to have prevented Mr. Moussavi from even appearing on Saturday to rally the opposition:
Mr. Moussavi, who disappeared from view amid rumors that he was under house arrest or worse, sent word that there would be no turning back, but he did not say how he or his followers should challenge the outcome.
The text-messaging that is the nervous system of the opposition was shut down, along with universities, Web sites and newspapers the government regarded as hostile. Mr. Moussavi was not allowed a platform on Saturday, and barely managed to get out a communiqué calling the election “a magic show.”
Update | 1:30 p.m. Another reader in Iran shares her frustration:
None of the people I know have voted for Ahmadinejad. He wildly cheated and Khamenei, the leader of Iran, supports this scenario fully. They just wanted to show us that no matter what we do and what we think, they will do whatever they want to do. They just want people to know that their votes just don’t count. … I just feel terrible. I saw police force attack people brutally. I’m going to streets and I don’t know if I’m gonna come back home safely but I just can’t bear this anymore. — Anahita
Update | 1:21 p.m. A reader writes to scold us for even considering the possibility that the election results are genuine — though, to be clear, we are not saying that Mr. Ahmadinejad did win fairly, or that the interior ministry he controls did count the votes accurately. We are just pointing to one possible explanation offered by some observers, that media reports of the opposition’s strength could have been wrong. Here is the counter-argument, that what we are seeing unfold in Iran today is more like the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 than like the New Hampshire primary in 2008:
No one with the slightest trace of active brain in his head would believe the outcome of the elections. The pseudo-realism of Western media is quite a shame, as they try to still balance whether or not the elections were rigged. Every independent poll suggested a landslide victory for Mousavi the day before the elections. It is also not true that Mousavi had his support base only in Tehran. Commentators from small and large cities and also many rural areas indicated overwhelming support for Mousavi. Even the claim that the Iranian poor supports Ahmadinejad is a lie. Four years of his government has made the life only more difficult for the poor. We shouldn’t forget that the continuing labor strikes in Haft Tappe, Assalouye and the sugar factories, just to mention a few. Far from the wishful thinking of the Iranian elite, it is absolutely evident that the votes were rigged and what is happening now is nothing less than a coup. — Bahram
Update | 1:17 p.m. More video of the protests by supporters of the opposition in Tehran on Saturday, in a report on the Web site of Radio Liberty, which is financed by the U.S. government.
Update | 12:44 p.m. The BBC has posted some dramatic footage of clashes today on the streets of Tehran between opposition supporters and riot police. As the BBC notes, scenes of the police beating demonstrators are disturbing.
Update | 12:36 p.m. A live blog set up by the National Iranian American Council has posted these translations of recent comments from the Farsi-language Twitter feed of Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the campaign manger for Mehdi Karroubi, the other reformist candidate who took part in the elections. As Nazila Fathia noted in The Times in March, Mr. Karbaschi “was instrumental in Mohammad Khatami’s victory in 1997.” Here are some of his recent tweets:
“Karoubi’s camp believes that if there is no resistance this time, people’s help can never be expected again.”
“Making any decision is very difficult and we are in a very difficult situation, any protest must very carefully calculated.”
“Karbaschi asks people to follow the news through satellite, facebook and internet and ignore rumors.”
“Karoubi will never be silent. He is present in the scene and never left it. Solutions are being considered.”
Update | 12:31 p.m. A video report from The Associated Press includes amateur footage of some of Mir Hussein Moussavi’s supporters on the streets of Tehran today:
Update | 12:07 p.m. A reader reminds us that support for Iran’s incumbent President exists even among Iranians living in the United States:
I can confidently say a vast majority of Iranians in Boston favored and most probably voted for Doctor Ahmadinejad. All my friends overseas as well as inside Iran favored the President. … — Faramarz Fathi
Another reader, in Iran, echoes that sentiment and mentions that soliciting opinion in English from Iranians could well skew our perspective:
I didn’t vote for Ahmadinejad, but I think that Ahmadinejad does have many supporters. But his supporters are mainly conservative people who don’t know English and are not Web users. Please don’t assume that the Iranian Web users are representative of all the voters. The same false assumption is made by many upper-class Iranians who only see their friends and relatives in northern Tehran and foreign countries and assume that all people are against Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad did very well in the debates. He also publicly criticized some very influential officials which boosted his popularity, even among people who hadn’t voted before. Btw, my impression is that Ahmadinejad’s supporters are more shy than than Mousavi’s supporters. Mousavi’s are very loud and held massive rallies in Tehran and big cities (many people were annoyed by such lavish gatherings). Ahmadinejad often fear being ridiculed by others and don’t express themselves much. This has contributed to the delusion that everybody is pro-Mousavi. — Mohammad
Didn’t we have a similar discussion in the United States after the Democratic party’s New Hampshire primary last year, when all reports focused on the large rallies of enthusiastic Obama supporters in town centers before the vote?
Update | 11:44 a.m. Writing on The Guardian’s Web site Abbas Barzegar, a graduate student in religious studies at Emory University, says that the election result only proves that residents of the wealthier parts of Tehran and the Western media engaged in “wishful thinking” in the days leading up to the vote. Mr. Barzegar writes:
I have been in Iran for exactly one week covering the 2009 Iranian election carnival. Since I arrived, few here doubted that the incumbent firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would win. My airport cab driver reminded me that the president had visited every province twice in the last four years – “Iran isn’t Tehran,” he said. Even when I asked Mousavi supporters if their man could really carry more than capital, their responses were filled with an Obamasque provisional optimism – “Yes we can”, “I hope so”, “If you vote.” So the question occupying the international media, “How did Mousavi lose?” seems to be less a problem of the Iranian election commission and more a matter of bad perception rooted in the stubborn refusal to understand the role of religion in Iran.
Of course, the rather real possibility of voter fraud exists and one must wait in the coming weeks to see how these allegations unfold. But one should recall that in three decades of presidential elections, the accusations of rigging have rarely been levied against the vote count. Elections here are typically controlled by banning candidates from the start or closing opposition newspapers in advance. […]
As far as international media coverage is concerned, it seems that wishful thinking got the better of credible reporting. It is true that Mousavi supporters jammed Tehran traffic for hours every night over the last week, though it was rarely mentioned that they did so only in the northern well-to-do neighborhoods of the capital. Women did relax their head covers and young men did dance in the street.
On Monday night at least 100,000 of the former prime minister’s supporters set up a human chain across Tehran. But, hours before I had attended a mass rally for the incumbent president that got little to no coverage in the western press because, on account of the crowds, he never made it inside the hall to give his speech. Minimal estimates from that gathering have been placed at 600,000 (enthusiasts say a million). From the roof I watched as the veiled women and bearded men of all ages poured like lava.
According to this theory, all that happened is that observers, and reformists, misinterpreted the massive rallies for Mr. Moussavi this week and failed to understand that his support was not as broad as it seemed from Tehran. What observers like Mr. Barzegar are saying is that just as reporters from other countries trying to gauge the popular mood in the United States would be wrong to base their reports on what people on Manhattan’s Upper West Side told them, reporters visiting Tehran this week failed to understand that support for Mr. Moussavi was perhaps not as broad as it seemed from the leafier parts of the capital.
That said, there are some obvious anomalies. As The Guardian’s Ian Black reported on Saturday: “in Mousavi’s hometown province of Tabriz in north-west Iran, the ministry claimed Ahmadinejad received more than 60% of the vote.”
Mr. Black adds that the authorities worked hard to suppress reports that Mr. Moussavi’s campaign disputed the official results:
Early editions of Mousavi’s paper Kalemeh Sabz, or the Green Word, and other reformist dailies declared Mousavi the victor but were ordered to change their headlines, local journalists said. The papers had blank spots where articles were removed.
Update | 11:37 a.m. Another of our Iranian readers endorses the theory aired elsewhere today — that the official vote totals are correct, but have simply been reversed to give Mr. Ahmadinejad rather than Mr. Moussavi a landslide victory:
There are nothing special to say, to talk about, to think about…. They stole the vote results and reversed the final result. Mir Hossein is in our hearts. — Hasan from Iran
Update | 11:28 a.m. One of our Iranian readers writes to tell us that the election has convinced him that it is better not to vote in Iran’s elections:
After four years the silent non-voters became convinced that if they vote this time round the difference between reformist votes with conservative ones would be so great that the regime would not dare to cheat. Alas, they were wrong (including myself who voted for the first time in the last 30 years). This regime has decided to continue ruling without any change. In Iran, despite what I read in some comments, there is not democracy. There is only HOPE for democracy and this HOPE brought people to cast balots. The political structure is so that all such hopes are only illusions.
The regime use democratic tools (elections) as a means to show off its legitimacy. It does not believe at all to democracy. It says democracy is a Western and not Islamic value and in fact it fight all western values. In this respect I am sure that this time millions of people will join those who believed that voting only further strengthen the regime and will not vote any more as long as this regime is in power. … — Hormoz
Update | 11:20 a.m. Reuters reports that the man who is the ultimate authority in Iran’s theocratic system of government, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “told all Iranians to respect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in a presidential election that his closest challenger described as a ‘dangerous charade.'” Reuters adds that there has been some violence in Tehran but on a relatively small scale:
Trouble erupted on the streets when Ahmadinejad partisans clashed with about 2,000 supporters of moderate former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi who had been staging a protest against the result of Friday’s vote, a Reuters witness said.
The scale of Ahmadinejad’s triumph upset widespread expectations that the race would at least go to a second round, and his victory is unlikely to help unblock a standoff with the West over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, told defeated candidates and their supporters to avoid “provocative behaviour” as police with batons moved in to disperse stone-throwing Mousavi supporters, from Vanak Square in the capital. Some protesters were arrested and two men were carried away from the scene.
“The chosen and respected president is the president of all the Iranian nation and everyone, including yesterday’s competitors, must unanimously support and help him,” Khamenei said in a statement read on state television.
Earlier on Saturday, one of our readers in Iran sent us this comment warning that there could be trouble:
I am a student living in Tehran. My Family lives in Shiraz. At the present time that I’m witting to you people has gathered in front of Ministry of Interior Affairs to protest against the results which are announced early this morning. Mousavi just announced a statement declaring that people do NOT obey the fraudulent government and these people are not afraid to burn these pietist’s house. — Arash
Another reader added this thought:
Everyone is thinking the same thing… that the election was obviously fixed. I’m sorry I voted, it was a waste of time and I donned the dreaded hejab in heat for no reason. — Sara
Update | 11:02 a.m. Iran’s state-supported satellite channel, Press TV , reports on Saturday that Iran’s interior minister, Sadeq Mahsouli, has rejected claims that the election officials in his ministry failed to spot, or took part in, voter fraud, as the opposition has claimed. According to Press TV’s report:
Iranian Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli has declared that the 10th presidential elections were conducted in a manner that ruled out the possibility of voter fraud. In a press conference at the Interior Ministry on Saturday, Mahsouli put the number of the total votes cast in the elections at 39,165,191, suggesting the heavy turnout to be a victory for the nation and not for a specific candidate.
The figures bring to around 85 percent the total participation in the elections. The total number of people eligible to vote had been estimated to be over 46 million. While officially pronouncing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner of the presidential elections with a whopping 24,527,516 votes, Mahsouli dismissed claims that the elections were rigged.
“No violations that may have influenced the vote have been reported, and we have received no written complaint,” he said in response to a question posed by an Italian reporter.
At the moment, there are two comments, posted anonymously, beneath this report on the Press TV Web site. They read:
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:43:04 GMT
the world is laughing at you
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:36:19 GMT
Corrupt.
Comments on other posts on Press TV’s Web site have been dominated by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but have also included similar criticism of the results and suggestions of fraud.
These comments were left beneath an article on Press TV’s site about the country’s Supeme Leader praising the election:
Abadani Lover
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:10:03 GMT
That was a fantastic theater Mr. Leader. Hopefully similar theater we could stage in Paradies.Marianne
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:17:24 GMT
ZR If you love Iran so much, why you live in london?ZR, London
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:01:21 GMT
Mr Mousavi should with dignity accept that he lost the election.The way he campaigned with his loud supporters, he actually encouraged and motivated millions of ordinary Iranians go to vote, just to make sure all the hard work of the last 30 years to keep the WEST out of Iran politics is not wasted and the elected president represents them.Lets us move together supporting the president to sort out the economic, social,legal and other problems in IRAN. God Bless IRAN.
Another thread on the Press TV site, of comments on an article declaring that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won a “Landside” [sic] victory, showed the tensions between supporters of the two main candidates, visible on the streets of Tehran earlier this week, continuing online today:
Ali hasaner
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:23:01 GMT
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that many important things to all of the world. the other leaders must be shame themselves. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a real leader, he loves his nation,his country and the others love money. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a perfect leaderUntraceable
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:18:13 GMT
Mousavi supporters please submit your applications to embassies of various Zionist countries. You will most certainly receive your freedom in such countries.Untraceable
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:17:02 GMT
Mousavi supporters, can go to western media outlets and listen to the enemies of Iran for proper news.
mary cooper
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:04:57 GMT
congratulations President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. he is a so brave and good leader and also he is very talented. he loves his people and they love him too.Mark Bolan
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:49:53 GMT
Bravo is good to see thaqt Iranian people have not and will not give in to the western blackmails and have keep the man who is most qualified to defent the right of their country where it belongs. At the wheel of the country.Ali
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:42:11 GMT
Democracy? Republic? This government has elected itself…a great puppet showMad Iranian
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:32:56 GMT
it doesnt matter if Ahmadinejad cheated to win i dont care if all votes counted in 5o seconds or if he he photoshopped missile launches he is the better leader and must lead. we are at war this is no time for democracy. We need to finish our nuclear missiles and be like north korea.Reza
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:13:19 GMT
Are you people high or just uneducated, brainwashed people? A.) The ballots are done by hand in Iran, not electronic and somehow they have counted the majority of the votes this fast?! B.) Iran is not a real democratic country, the president has no real power. This is a joke and so are the majority of the delusional people that are commenting.
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