Mousavi Faces Heat, But Vows Not To Crack
Last Updated 3:01 p.m. Eastern.
Iran's opposition leader pledged Thursday not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner of the vote, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused President Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
Reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who last led a protest rally a week ago, described his growing difficulties for the first time Thursday, in a statement posted in his official Web site, Kalemeh.
He said authorities were increasingly isolating and vilifying him in an attempt to get him to withdraw his election challenge.
In the latest sign of government attempts to silence dissent, 70 professors were detained late Wednesday after meeting with Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the balloting. They were among a group pushing for a more liberal form of government, and all but four were released, his Web site said later. The four still in custody included Qorban Behzadiannejad, Mousavi's former campaign manager.
In a statement on his Web site Mousavi said he would not back down. "I am not ready to withdraw from demanding the rights of the Iranian people," he said, adding that he was determined to prove electoral fraud.
In a later statement, Mousavi struck an even more defiant tone.
"I am ready to show how the electoral wrong-doers, standing beside the main agitators that have caused the present disturbances, have spilled people's blood. I would not, for the sake of personal expediency and fear in the face of threats, withdraw for one moment my demands for the return of the rights of the Iranian people, whose blood is being unjustly spilled today."
IranWatch: Track the latest on the Iran election upheaval.
Since Saturday, demonstrators challenging the election results have found themselves increasingly struggling under a blanket crackdown by government authorities.
State media reported Thursday that in addition to the 17 protesters killed in the recent unrest, eight members of the pro-government Basij militia were killed and dozens more wounded by weapons and knives. The reports could not be independently verified.
A Thursday march by another opposition figure, reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, was postponed for lack of a permit, a day after club-wielding security forces dispersed a small group of protesters outside Iran's parliament.
Mousavi's Web site, Kalemeh, said he has applied for permission to hold a gathering to commemorate the "martyrs" of the postelection campaign. The statement did not elaborate or give a date.
Mousavi, who last led a massive protest rally a week ago, described his growing difficulties for the first time in a statement on the site.
He said authorities were increasingly isolating and vilifying him to try to get him to withdraw his election challenge, but Mousavi added he would not back down.
Mousavi also defended himself and his movement, identified by the color green, against the barrage of claims on state media about foreign hands behind the unrest. "The green movement is not dependent on foreigners," he said.
The statement appears to conflict with a report on Iran's state-controlled TV network Press TV that Mousavi and his most powerful backer in the Islamic establishment, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, along with other reform-minded candidates, met with members of the Iranian parliament Wednesday.
Press TV's Web site said that, according to a lawmaker speaking to the Fars news agency, the men told members of Iran's Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy that they would help seek a resolution to the almost two weeks of political unrest.
"The lawmakers asked Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani to help solve the problems and he vowed support and we hope that we would witness practical measures to be taken to end the current situation soon," the lawmaker told Fars, according to the Press TV report.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.
Mousavi's statements came as Ahmadinejad reiterated complaints about foreign interference, singling out Obama and comparing him to former President George W. Bush, in a statement quoted by Iranian state television.
"We expect nothing from the British government and other Europeans governments, whose records and backgrounds are known to everybody and who have no dignity, but I wonder why Mr. Obama, who has come with the slogan of change, has fallen into this trap, the same route that Mr. Bush took and experienced its ending," Ahmadinejad said.
According to a report on the BBC, the Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Mr. Obama should "express regret" for what the Iranian regime has called interference in domestic affairs.
Before the Iranian election, the Obama administration had indicated that it was interested in reaching out to Iran, after years of a diplomatic freeze following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has given no clear signal that it is interested in Obama's overture. In the wake of the vote, Mr. Obama has used increasingly harsh language to discuss Iran, saying he was "appalled" by the clampdown.
Ahmadinejad, who is to be sworn in for a second four-year term by August, warned that there would be "nothing left to talk about" if the U.S. leader kept up such a tone. "This will not have any result, except that the people will consider you similar to Bush," he said.
The comments by both presidents could complicate any attempt at a dialogue, which Washington hopes will include talks on the scope of Iran's disputed nuclear program.
Key Western powers urged Iran's leaders anew to ease up on the protesters and review the disputed election results.
"We stand beside you," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in remarks directed to "all in Iran who seek to demonstrate peacefully."
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, whose government expelled two Iranian diplomats earlier this week after Iran did the same to two British envoys, told the British Broadcasting Corp. there is a "crisis of credibility between the Iranian government and their own people."
And Italy said it hoped Thursday's meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers would send a "tough" message to the regime.
Ahmadinejad's standing at home appears to have suffered over the election dispute. Several Tehran newspapers reported that 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad on Tuesday.
However, there was also indications that the disputed election has caused a rift among former Ahmadinejad supporters. Several Tehran newspapers reported Thursday that only 105 out of 290 members of parliament attended a victory celebration held by Ahmadinejad on Tuesday. Among the no-shows was Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.
Ahmadinejad's patron, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said the election result would not be reversed.
The fallout may leave Khamenei and the ruling theocracy battered by once-unthinkable defiance of their leadership. But they still control the Revolutionary Guard and its vast network of volunteer militias that watch every corner of Iran.
The Guard — sworn to defend the Islamic system at all costs — has been steadily expanding its authority for years to include critical portfolios such as Iran's missile program, its oil pipelines and other energy infrastructure, and some oversight of the nuclear program.
Iran's most senior dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, warned the authorities in a statement that trying to snuff out dissent would prove futile.
If people are not allowed to voice their demands in peaceful gatherings, it "could destroy the foundation of any government," regardless of its power, wrote Montazeri. He was the heir apparent to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini until falling out of favor with the ruling clerics by questioning their almost limitless powers. Montazeri spent five years under house arrest in the city of Qom, a center of clerical power and Shiite Islamic learning.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Iran's opposition leader pledged Thursday not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner of the vote, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused President Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
Reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who last led a protest rally a week ago, described his growing difficulties for the first time Thursday, in a statement posted in his official Web site, Kalemeh.
He said authorities were increasingly isolating and vilifying him in an attempt to get him to withdraw his election challenge.
In the latest sign of government attempts to silence dissent, 70 professors were detained late Wednesday after meeting with Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the balloting. They were among a group pushing for a more liberal form of government, and all but four were released, his Web site said later. The four still in custody included Qorban Behzadiannejad, Mousavi's former campaign manager.
In a statement on his Web site Mousavi said he would not back down. "I am not ready to withdraw from demanding the rights of the Iranian people," he said, adding that he was determined to prove electoral fraud.
In a later statement, Mousavi struck an even more defiant tone.
"I am ready to show how the electoral wrong-doers, standing beside the main agitators that have caused the present disturbances, have spilled people's blood. I would not, for the sake of personal expediency and fear in the face of threats, withdraw for one moment my demands for the return of the rights of the Iranian people, whose blood is being unjustly spilled today."
IranWatch: Track the latest on the Iran election upheaval.
Since Saturday, demonstrators challenging the election results have found themselves increasingly struggling under a blanket crackdown by government authorities.
State media reported Thursday that in addition to the 17 protesters killed in the recent unrest, eight members of the pro-government Basij militia were killed and dozens more wounded by weapons and knives. The reports could not be independently verified.
A Thursday march by another opposition figure, reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, was postponed for lack of a permit, a day after club-wielding security forces dispersed a small group of protesters outside Iran's parliament.
Mousavi's Web site, Kalemeh, said he has applied for permission to hold a gathering to commemorate the "martyrs" of the postelection campaign. The statement did not elaborate or give a date.
Mousavi, who last led a massive protest rally a week ago, described his growing difficulties for the first time in a statement on the site.
He said authorities were increasingly isolating and vilifying him to try to get him to withdraw his election challenge, but Mousavi added he would not back down.
Mousavi also defended himself and his movement, identified by the color green, against the barrage of claims on state media about foreign hands behind the unrest. "The green movement is not dependent on foreigners," he said.
The statement appears to conflict with a report on Iran's state-controlled TV network Press TV that Mousavi and his most powerful backer in the Islamic establishment, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, along with other reform-minded candidates, met with members of the Iranian parliament Wednesday.
Press TV's Web site said that, according to a lawmaker speaking to the Fars news agency, the men told members of Iran's Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy that they would help seek a resolution to the almost two weeks of political unrest.
"The lawmakers asked Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani to help solve the problems and he vowed support and we hope that we would witness practical measures to be taken to end the current situation soon," the lawmaker told Fars, according to the Press TV report.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.
Mousavi's statements came as Ahmadinejad reiterated complaints about foreign interference, singling out Obama and comparing him to former President George W. Bush, in a statement quoted by Iranian state television.
"We expect nothing from the British government and other Europeans governments, whose records and backgrounds are known to everybody and who have no dignity, but I wonder why Mr. Obama, who has come with the slogan of change, has fallen into this trap, the same route that Mr. Bush took and experienced its ending," Ahmadinejad said.
According to a report on the BBC, the Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Mr. Obama should "express regret" for what the Iranian regime has called interference in domestic affairs.
Before the Iranian election, the Obama administration had indicated that it was interested in reaching out to Iran, after years of a diplomatic freeze following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has given no clear signal that it is interested in Obama's overture. In the wake of the vote, Mr. Obama has used increasingly harsh language to discuss Iran, saying he was "appalled" by the clampdown.
Ahmadinejad, who is to be sworn in for a second four-year term by August, warned that there would be "nothing left to talk about" if the U.S. leader kept up such a tone. "This will not have any result, except that the people will consider you similar to Bush," he said.
The comments by both presidents could complicate any attempt at a dialogue, which Washington hopes will include talks on the scope of Iran's disputed nuclear program.
Key Western powers urged Iran's leaders anew to ease up on the protesters and review the disputed election results.
"We stand beside you," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in remarks directed to "all in Iran who seek to demonstrate peacefully."
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, whose government expelled two Iranian diplomats earlier this week after Iran did the same to two British envoys, told the British Broadcasting Corp. there is a "crisis of credibility between the Iranian government and their own people."
And Italy said it hoped Thursday's meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers would send a "tough" message to the regime.
Ahmadinejad's standing at home appears to have suffered over the election dispute. Several Tehran newspapers reported that 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad on Tuesday.
However, there was also indications that the disputed election has caused a rift among former Ahmadinejad supporters. Several Tehran newspapers reported Thursday that only 105 out of 290 members of parliament attended a victory celebration held by Ahmadinejad on Tuesday. Among the no-shows was Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.
Ahmadinejad's patron, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said the election result would not be reversed.
The fallout may leave Khamenei and the ruling theocracy battered by once-unthinkable defiance of their leadership. But they still control the Revolutionary Guard and its vast network of volunteer militias that watch every corner of Iran.
The Guard — sworn to defend the Islamic system at all costs — has been steadily expanding its authority for years to include critical portfolios such as Iran's missile program, its oil pipelines and other energy infrastructure, and some oversight of the nuclear program.
Iran's most senior dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, warned the authorities in a statement that trying to snuff out dissent would prove futile.
If people are not allowed to voice their demands in peaceful gatherings, it "could destroy the foundation of any government," regardless of its power, wrote Montazeri. He was the heir apparent to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini until falling out of favor with the ruling clerics by questioning their almost limitless powers. Montazeri spent five years under house arrest in the city of Qom, a center of clerical power and Shiite Islamic learning.
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obama = cowardice
obama = appeasement
obama = moral failure
obama = wrong side of history
Anti-US posters complimenting each others posts on their insights has proven to be mildly entertaining, but hardly educational. The Iranian election was dirty, maybe by both sides, but it was still the Iranian election - they will be the ones who have to live with it, and if they want to change things it's up to them to pay the price for that change.
"As I see it, there truly are a series of misconnects, non-sequitors, inconsistencies, and not-quite-right factoids surrounding the videos and backstory accompanying them.
To start off, there is what appears to be two different Nedas (photos of two different women supposedly her), and (currently) a question of any independent source identifying Neda as a real person.
Then, Neda was said to have been shot by a member of the Basij, an officially sanctioned vigilante organization.
And yet, as they are not police or military, most Basiji are not permitted to carry firearms except for special requirements and when not in actual combat?
And then, why would they pick out a non-protesting woman, 1km from where the protests were occuring, just stepping out of a car for a few minutes. And, how did anyone even know it was a Basiji, since it was claimed to be from a unseen sniper on an adjacent building.
Moving now to the video . . .
For the massive injury she supposedly sustained, a direct bullet shot to the center of her chest, I have to wonder, where is all the blood that would be coming from her torso or her back onto the ground, it should have been everywhere, including the spot where they are trying to give her CPR, all over their hands and her clothing, and a huge pool on the ground. Yet the only pool of blood appears to be at her feet before she falls down.
Then, most curious . . .
Shortly into the video, we see blood coming from her mouth. She is not sputtering it out, or coughing it up, as in an inability to breathe. Rather it appears rapidly and self flowing, and runs down both sides of her mouth, almost exclusively. Her center teeth aren't even stained.
Shortly thereafter blood appears to pour out her right nostril . . . Looking carefully in the video, it appears that both the mouth and nostril bleed occurs right after a hand is seen pushing up onto or into them.
These flow patterns appear more to be from a blood bladder timed for rupture when the camera was in the correct position. And the nose bleed appears only after what appears to be a rapid slight-of-hand insertion of blood into her nose.
Conveniently, an anonymous doctor was on hand to provide the CPR, and to try to save her life, provide credible medical testimony, then disappear from the scene.
Now I am nitpicking, but this video was supposedly shot with a cellphone videocam. It really seems a bit too high quality for that, more like a DV camcorder.
And then, there is the almost too perfect backstory of Neda, preceding the shooting and in preparation to go to the protests - her supposed repeated prescient commentary about any danger there, was a flippant "Don't worry. It's just one bullet and it's over", and that "Neda had said that even if she lost her life and got a bullet in her heart, she would carry on".
Of course, we find out that she was not really political and had no intention of active protesting, only that she was passionate about the honesty of the election process, and wanted to be there to see. Her fiancee said she "studied philosophy, music and tourism, was not political", i.e. principled, but thoroughly inoffensive.
Then on followup, there is the extreme rapid nature of her burial; no wake, or prefuneral proceedings, no Imam attending, or even pictures/video of that proceeding?
We now hear unsubstantiated reports that the Iranian government has banned any memorials or gatherings in her name, which conveniently explains why there is a dearth of public involvement in her very public death.
I don't want to bust anyone's bubble, but there seems to be too many "just right" elements to this story."
this won't be the first time we use shady means to try and topple leaders we don't like.
The talking head of the Supreme leader is being a good puppy, obeying every one of his master's commands. Fetch Ahmadinejad, Fetch!
Good doggie