Iranian Election Results There seems to be too much secrecy in a process which is supposed to be open. If there are 45,000 polling places (& 14,000 "mobile polls"), then representatives of the candidates need to be at all polling places & wherever the "mobile" polls are being tallied. The comment that poll watchers are not supposed to report the counts which they observe to anyone else is disturbing. The entire point of an open election is transparency. While there are official tallies, each party must be allowed to compile and report their own figures, if for nothing else than to validate the official reports and totals. If one candidate makes a statement that his own sources (presumably his poll watchers) advised him that he received millions of votes more than the official totals, he may not want to expose them to charges of violating the supposed secrecy guidelines or laws.
Re: Iranian Election Results i completely agree with all that. i'm just saying that i don't really buy the "real results" statistics that show Mousavi getting 3.5 times as many votes as AN, and Karoubi getting twice as many. to me, those numbers seem more ludicrous than the "official" numbers.
Iranian Election Results Amanpour questions AN about safety of opposing candidate. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/14/iran.election.rival/index.html
Re: Iranian Election Results My God, that is just like listening to the Iraqi information minister. I wonder if IM wrote that speech?
Iranian Election Results We've been asked not to mention those initials! Personally, I felt AN was channelling Eric Cantona! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTq6aApCBnA"]Eric Cantona [/ame] "When seagulls follow a trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea"
Is that right? Perhaps they were shamed by the criticism that's been hurled their way in the last 24 hours.
Perhaps. although others have said that CNN hasn't been reporting on this. i'm in the U.S., so maybe the U.S. and International versions of the channel are reporting different things.
According to direct reports from Tehran on German tv, heavy-armed troups have entered the studios of German tv stations and threatened the journalists. Although not being able to leave their studios anymore, we could see some short-takes of the riots obviously taken by cell phones and hidden cams. The German secretary of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has protested and called for the Iranian ambassador in Berlin. It seems that AN's thugs now start concentrating on the international media in order to prevent them from showing the world what's happening on the streets of Tehran & other cities (it seems that there's absolutely no reports on Iranian propaganda tv) . No matter what's gonna happen, hence: Ahmadinejad will be isolated even more among the international community (his reputation after the current happenings definitely won't entitle him for serious negotiations)! And he's surely gonna face a nice time on national level, too... Bonne nuit.
The Velvet revolution that the neo-libs tried to pull off flopped. That's basically it. Now, there's a few thousands of anarchists causing trouble and MSM only shows them repeatedly.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/14/iran.election.reaction/index.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904589,00.html
Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard speaking to student supporters at Tehran University's Faculty of Fine Arts, several hours ago. She says "the election is void as far as we are concerned". She also says that "our avenues of communication with the people, have been taken away, but we have enough experience from the 1979 revolution, to know how to spread our message". She goes on to say, that "this is not about Mousavi the person, this is about preventing dictatorship and protecting the civil liberties of the voters." She also explains that their home is surrounded by security forces, and gives out their home address, asking the supporters to e-mail it to everyone they know, to spread the word. She ends her speech by saying "dictators will always be defeated." [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=174J9-C3I8E"]YouTube - Zahra Rahnavard_Honarhaye ziba Tehran UV_20090614_12:15pm(Tehran)[/ame]
The Time magazine piece has a lot of factual inaccuracies, and is very sensationalistic. For example, it says "an unelected Assembly of Experts", which is a false statement. The Members of the assembly are elected.
I have my usual healthy skepticism towards the talking heads in the media, so they can say what they want. What I keep coming back to is something that superdave wrote a couple pages back: Nobody anywhere in the world turns out in those numbers to vote for the status quo. It's just not human nature.
Re: Iranian Election Results This "creature" just can't stop lying. He did state (as IM pointed out) that no one had complained to the Guardian Council about the result of the elections. Well, as someone else mentioned, Rezaei already had. Chalk up another lie for the list of the mis-statements by "El Presidente". Rezaei has now complained to the head of the Guardian Council about AN's incorrect statement in his election "victory" rally. Maybe I should stop calling all of these lies. The words is starting to lose its meaning. For anyone interested in the source: http://tabnak.ir/fa/pages/?cid=51890 (Sorry it's in farsi but every candidate has their own news outlets. This is Rezaei's; therefore very reliable.) Other than that, there are a few main stories. Mani already posted Zahra Rahnavard's video and gave a summary of the important points. Only thing I will add is someone asks we are here behind you but will you go to the end, and she effectively says, we're not going to back off. There are reports of at least 3 people dead in the first day in Tehran. One girl who was shot in the chest was caught on tape (I haven't seen the clip myself but it is not for the squeamish). There are reports of more people shot dead; up to 10 in Rasht or Karaj (too tired to go back and check which city it was - you get the point!). Although it is difficult to get any accurate information on any of this. Reliable sources do report that various "forces" flooded into at least one of the main hospitals and arrested everyone who had been taken there after receiving a beating! They were taken to the infamous Evin prison in north Tehran. There are also reports of stabbings inside the crowds: I think someone already mentioned Grand Ayatollah Sanei announcing that the election results are void and any help to AN is haram (religiously forbidden). There was a similar statemnt announcing the unacceptability of the election by a body of respectable senior clerics. Finally, whilst there hasn't been too much going on, there are reports of lobbying behind the scenes by Rafsanjani with the clerics in Qom. Mousavi apparently had a meeting with Khamenei and discussed the elections. Nothing further is known about the discussions. There is a rally organised by Mousavi's supporters tomorrow. Reports suggest that AN had about 40,000 in his victory speech; many of whom were bussed in from the outskirts and were the militia (Basij) and Revolutionary Guard members. Let's hope Mousavi's supporters at least double that! EDIT: Incidentally, AN did say some crap in his speech, but one point which was notable was his statement that he will chase up all the corrupt people of the last 30 years, hinting that he will try to eliminate all of his current opposition; Rafsanjani was compared to Grand Ayatollah Montazeri by other AN people - Montazeri is a left wing cleric who has been under house arrest for quite some time (over a decade) signalling their intention to get rid of it another pillar of the revolution. Here is Montazeri's bio for those interests; he is a truly remarkable man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montazeri
From a random freethinking football (soccer) fan in the U.S..... No regard to faith, philosophy or nationality...we are all in this fight together...the fight for deceny, justice and rule of law. Free thinking people everywhere send our thoughts and prayers to those in Iran fighting against tyranny. Good luck and god be with you.
Absolutely. Iranians deserve to be accorded the right of self-determination. Mani, I really appreciate your updates, and I want you to know, my support of you and those who are challenging these election results has nothing to do with any antipathy I may have to AN or my own country's geopolitical considerations. Is has everything to do with the right of people to exercise their natural right of self-governance and freedom. I suppose I am a bit of a pie in the sky democrat (small d) but I truly believe that in the medium to long term, when people are given the responsibility of self determination, peaceful co-existence will be more possible.
Re: Iranian Election Results I forgot to mention. Unofficial reports suggest that Karrubi and Sanei both said they will be there without their cleric robes. De-robing in protest by a cleric is BIG! You cannot understand the significance of such an action!! If it is true, it is unheard of so far as I know at least. I am sure it may have happened before, but I have not come across it.
Thanks to everyone who is contributing to this thread, I've been subscribed since it started and it has meant a lot to be able to follow this here at bigsoccer. Even though I share the skepticism shown here towards IM, I wish he would continue to post - the conversation has remained civil and intelligent. For better or worse, his is one of the voices/perspectives involved. (Sorry to make another post about him and his GBCW message but I mainly wanted to express gratitude to the participants.)