June 20, 2009: Iran at the brink

[seafan]

The news out of Iran is coming at the speed of light now, even in the face of overarching media clampdown by the regime. For immediate, ongoing updates, see these blogs below for details, videos and photographs, coming in rapidly.



General update as it stands now, gleaned from Andrew Sullivan, Nico Pitney and Juan Cole:


There are violent clashes in the streets and squares in Tehran today, Saturday, June 20, 2009, with police using tear gas, pepper spray, batons, water cannons and some type of irritating liquid/water dropped from helicopters onto the protesters. Many reports of injuries/fatalities. Reports of European embassies taking in injured, as the hospitals are reported unsafe for treatment because of police presence. Requests going out for people to allow protesters to take haven in residents' homes.

Reports of the metro transportation being shut down to prevent protesters from joining the mass.

Reports of attacks on people for carrying cell phones, or for walking in the direction of the mass gatherings.

Reports from twitter that Mousavi has declared he is ready for martyrdom. He reportedly has sent a letter to the Guardian Council, saying that there were plans from months ago to rig the election.

Reports of shouts of "Death to Khamenei!" in the streets today, and it sounds like this has taken a much more ominous turn since Khamenei's confrontational sermon yesterday...




From Cole:

AP reports that Iranian riot police have deployed tear gas and water cannons against protesters who were gathering for another big demonstration in Tehran.

Aljazeera is reporting that a suicide bomber blew himself up near the shrine of Imam Khomeini. Hard to interpret, since I don't take the reformist camp for seedy terrorist types. My guess, if its true, is Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK or something very like it (which, if true, would be bad publicity for the reformers, since MEK is universally hated in Iran.)

From Sullivan:

11.50 am. The regime's mojo is to fabricate a terror threat from outside to buttress their power-grab at home. Michael Roston:

An Al Jazeera analyst suggests that a Mujahedeen-e-Khalq bomber carried out the attack. That would be convenient because MEK has been constructed as a stand-in for the Bush administration in Iran since America invaded Iraq. Instead of shipping MEK, a group that’s on the American list of foreign terrorist organizations, off to Iran for trial, the Bush administration allowed the Iranian-origin but anti-Islamic Republic group to continue to stay in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein had long ago given the group safe haven.

So, If Iranian officials are suggesting that MEK was involved, it’s a useful rumor to spread because it’s their way of saying, “America and its proxies bombed Iran.”

From Pitney:

12:10 PM ET -- Reports: Embassies accepting injured Iranians. Several reports on Twitter report that the Australian, British, and Dutch embassies are taking in Iranians injured during today's violence. A sample: "Australian Embassy accepting injured: No. 13, 23rd Street, Khalid Islambuli Ave. The British embassy is now accepting injured Iranians"

The world is with the Iranian people.

[goclark]

1. Is this the official thread for us cube rats?

What is happening minute to minute --Please keep kicked unless someone can start an official thread.
Thanks

[seafan]

2. Reports: Regime blames Obama by intentional mistranslation; coerced "confessions" from captured

From Sullivan:

12.53 pm. The state media are putting words into Obama's mouth:

This morning a friend of NIAC who gets Iranian Satellite TV here said that state-run media showed President Obama speaking about Iran this morning. However, instead of translating what he actually said, the translator reportedly quoted Obama as saying he “supports the protesters against the government and they should keep protesting." Assuming this report is correct, it shows the Iranian government is eager to portray Obama as a partisan supporting the demonstrators.

So the Khamenei regime wants the same posture from the Obama as Krauthammer and Wolfowitz. They just don't know what they're talking about, do they?

From Pitney:

12:35 PM ET -- "U.S. behind the attacks." A reader sends in this unverified note: "Hi I'm located in Dubai but we have access to Iranian State T.V. here. I just witnessed a program on official state television depicting young Iranians with there faces blurred 'testifying' to visiting the U.S. and being trained and told by the americans to cause unrest and chaos in Iran."

The regime is in a corner as it is now trying to make this into *America against Iran* and NOT the actual truth that the people are rebelling against their own repressive, brutal leadership.


The regime is using all those years of George W. Bush's covert ops against Iran, as a weapon now, to foment hatred and violence against the Iranian people, while Bush and his fellow war criminals still walk free.


The cancer of the Bush years spreads.

[seafan]

3. The bravery of the Iranian people vs the madness of the regime

From Sullivan:



(Several tweets from Iran at 1:52 pm)

1.52 pm.

People Shouting on the roofs, all over the Capital: "Death to the Dictator"!

Getting frustrated at Aljazeera. They say "a man" is being beaten when he's obviously militia captured by people.

Reports: People Blocking Streets at Tehran Pars (East Tehran) and Setting Fires

Reports: At least 5 Protersters Shot Dead By Police, Army Forces and
Milittia in Tehran...

Mass arrest of protesters, about 400 people arrested in today's clashes...

1.47 pm. A reader writes:

Has it occurred to you that all the unbelievable imagery of the protests is, pixel by pixel, etching itself in the memory of the world and of course now or later back through the satellite dishes and Internet connections into the brains of all Iranians, as an indelible revolutionary iconography that will, over time, supplant the revolutionary mythology of the Republic's founding, on which so much of the regime's legitimacy depends? The way I see it, that truly horrific footage of the conservatively dressed woman bleeding out will do more damage to Ahmadi and Khamenei than any military strike ever could. I think the old Revolutionary era is ending.

These are moments in history whose salience it is simply impossible to know as they happen. But today has already demonstrated both the total bankruptcy of the current Iranian regime and the immense bravery, humanity and genius of the Iranian people.

[Uncle Joe]

4. I believe this sentence could signify a tipping point.

"Reports from twitter that Mousavi has declared he is ready for martyrdom. He reportedly has sent a letter to the Guardian Council, saying that there were plans from months ago to rig the election."

If he is martyred, that will be beginning of the end of this government, if he isn't martyred, the current government with their heavy handed approached has squandered it's moral authority and legitimacy with the people of Iran in a most obvious way.

[seafan]

5. Obama urges Iran to 'stop all violent and unjust actions'

President Obama on Saturday:

"We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people," Obama said in a statement as he ramped up the tone of official Washington reaction to the violent unrest playing out in Tehran and other Iranian cities.

"The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost," he added.

"The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."

Obama also stressed that the Iran's leadership "must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion."

An administration official said that Obama "repeatedly met" in the White House Saturday with senior advisors to discuss the situation in Iran, where thousands clashed with police as they defied an ultimatum from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for an end to protests over last week's disputed presidential election.

Obama quoted Martin Luther King Jr in his statement, repeating the slain US civil rights leader's phrase that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

"I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness," Obama said.

[myrna minx]

6. I've been outside all day, so thank you so much for posting. K&R n/t

[seafan]

8. You are welcome, myrna minx.

I just cannot look away from this unfolding history. It has ramifications for all of us.

[myrna minx]

12. I know! I've been glued to twitter and Andrew Sullivan since the beginning of this movement.

I needed to get some gardening done and get some fresh air, so I'm so grateful for threads like this so I can catch up. Thirty years ago, I remember the "breaking news" that interrupted my Saturday morning cartoons that the hostages were taken. This is so fascinating to me considering one of the first "current events" I have a recollection of involves Iran. Thanks again. :hi:

[seafan]

7. It's over for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. They just don't realize it yet.

That is my sense of all of this.



From Sullivan:

20 Jun 2009 03:40 pm

A reader writes:

So here's what we have:

They're afraid of murdering too many protesters all at once. Eventually the protesters will come to understand how to work around this.

They can't open their telecomm pipes, because the minute they do 3 million people will know how and where to gather, and the world will get to see thousands of videos showing horrific instances of state violence against its subjects.

They have to open their telecomm pipes, because their economy cannot function without telecomm.

They can't repress too much, because the cleric support base will tip against them.

Rafsanjani is waiting to find out who'll keep his financial empire running. He's going to come to conclude the current leadership's promises cannot be trusted; the country is now being run by a Fascist Islamic Mafia.

So what do they do?

They turn this into a keystone-cops gulag, and still, no matter how they try to block it, the entire world is watching, and international disapproval is growing. At some point even life in Syria or Egypt will start to look better. The leadership will become ostracized in the Muslim world, and a large and influential Islamic country like Indonesia will come out with a public condemnation. Then other nations will feel emboldened. Even worse, Ahmadinejad, and to some extent even Khamenei, will now have a difficult time making uncontrolled appearances where the crowds are not bused from towns 100 miles away; every time they show up, crowds will chant them down.

These citizens are done with their leadership. The trust has completely and irretrievably dissipated, and the fear, although present, is not sufficient, especially as it becomes more clear the army will remain on the sidelines. And the mullahs have opened all the playbooks on repression and crowd control simultaneously; it's a smorgasboard attempt at blocking the rising tide of resentment; if you'll recall, that's called the mullah's-ass-on-a-pressure-cooker-lid-to-retard-fulmination rule. If things look bad with the pressure cooker, piling more mullahs on the lid will only result in a more spectacular finish.

If the Warsaw Ghetto uprising had been broadcast to the entire world, Hitler's demise most surely would have come several years sooner. The mullahs have no way out. They are, essentially, fucked. It's now only a matter of time. And Iran's negotiations on their nuclear program? Suspended indefinitely due to lack of credibility; nobody will believe anything they say now.

TICK, TOCK, MOTHERFUCKERS...

From Pitney:

3:25 PM ET -- Riot police target people with cell phone. A brave Iranian photographer has been sending us photos (through an amazing Iranian-American reader who has been helping us cover the situation since we started). The photos are in the slideshow currently on the homepage.

The photographer also included this note:

I could not get through. the guards were hitting people really hard to block their way. I got hit a few times, fortunately a few bruises but nothing major. they were hitting the women as hard if it didn't seem harder. they smashed all mobiles and then smack the mobile owners with batons. they also blocked all above ground routes out. the only way out was via the metro

This isn't the first we've heard of the riot police and basiji targeting people with cell phones and mobile devices. A contact from the National Iranian American Council wrote this today:

Security and police have been confiscating cameras and arresting those who are taking footage. I saw this young guy taking a video and 5 people attacked him and throughout it all he help his hand up with a peace sign.- then they arrested him. They have also handcuffed students to the Tehran University fence.

We talk to some normal police and patrolling cops- they are nice and are trying to help people. But it is the Basij and anti-riot that are ruthless.

From the National Iranian American blog:

4:27 pm: Moussavi’s open letter to the people of Iran. Released tonight at 9:21pm. It states that he stands with the people to protect the original aims of the revolution to reach human rights and democracy. He states that what they got instead was fraud, injustice, torture and lies. He states why he will not stand down and why all the security forces of Iran are brothers and sisters that should support the nation. He says the body charged with investigating the elections is not a neutral body. He calls on authorities to pull the security forces and Basij out of the streets and allow the people’s voices to be heard peacefully. The full letter in Farsi can be found here.

Google's Farsi translation page




It's over for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. They just don't realize it yet.

[Kaleko]

11. It takes my breath away

and I was already holding it through last night.

Listen to the soul of Iran if you haven't yet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKUZuv6_bus

[steelmania75]

9. At least the Iranian protestors are doing the work the US would eventually have done in Iran

Now if only we can get an uprising in North Korea.

[leveymg]

10. What work? Which US? I don't see the protesters dropping 1,000 pound bombs.

You don't seem to have the interests of Iran at heart when you say such a thing.

[seafan]

13. Her name was Neda.

From Pitney at HuffPo:

7:57 PM ET -- Neda. That appears to be the name of the woman whose death in the streets today was captured on film, and has been broadcast around the world. I posted it earlier at 2:57 PM.

From Twitter, via Chas: "Her name was ندا (#Neda), which means voice or call in Farsi. She is the voice of the people, a call to freedom - RIP, Neda"

8:53 PM ET -- "Sister, have a short sleep, your last dream be sweet." Yesterday we printed a touching letter from an Iranian woman that began with these ominous lines: "I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed..."

Tonight, she posted a second letter, passed along and translated by two readers. She writes about her "sister" in this cause who was killed today, referring to Neda.

Yesterday I wrote a note, with the subject line "tomorrow is a great day perhaps tomorrow I'll be killed." I'm here to let you know I'm alive but my sister was killed...

I'm here to tell you my sister died while in her father's hands
I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams...
I'm here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind... and like me read "Forough" ... and longed to live free and equal... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, "I'm Iranian"... and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair... and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib...

my sister died from not having life... my sister died as injustice has no end... my sister died since she loved life too much... and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people...

my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come... the very end of your last glance burns my soul....

sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet.

Rest in peace, Neda.

[seafan]

14. Reports from twitter: Sunday, June 21, 2009

Mousavi - We are(Independently) working on a gerneral Strike Plan. Please help us with your ideas if you have expertise #Iranelection RT RTless than 10 seconds ago from web

Faeze Hashemi Rafsanjani and family members being held prisoner in military compound - #Iranelection -1 minute ago from web

Faeze Hashemi Rafsanjani arrested yesterday - confirmed - #Iranelection2 minutes ago from web

ppl prepare - soon Iran will be cripple with strikes - already petrol shortages being reported - #Iranelection5 minutes ago from web

http://bit.ly/TMEqh - MOUSAVI Facebook #Iranelection RT RT RT13 minutes ago from web

Mousavi - any person with Project Management ability or mobilization experence contact Mousavi on facebook - #Iranelection15 minutes ago from web

MOUSAVI - We need advice and help to organize a National Strike Plan - if u can help post on his facebook - #Iranelection RT RT RT18 minutes ago from web

Mousavi - I did not go to meeting of Guardian Council Sat because their final decision was made on Friday b4 I go - #Iranelection22 minutes ago from web

If Mousavi is arrested or killed he has willed that the nation will strike indefinitely - #Iranelection7 minutes ago from web

There are rumours that Gov is losing control of army - #Iranelection10 minutes ago from web

The bomb in the Tomb of Imam Khomeini is the work of the dictator - they want to blame us but we have no bomb - Sea of Green #Iranelection15 minutes ago from web

Mousavi - I call for free elections overseen by a fair national council - not one which has an agenda of its own - #Iranelection RTabout 3 hours ago from web

Iran is full of rumors - but the army is NOT on the streets - not against the people - no tanks yet - #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

Rafsanjani has stayed silent until now - he has the support of the army - our hope is that the army will protect us - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web

(bold type added)

[seafan]

15. Important reads via Sullivan, HuffPo Sunday, June 21, 2009

(Cross-posted from GD)

Important reads via Sullivan, HuffPo Sunday, June 21, 2009