* Opposition update: late last week three of the major opposition leaders, Musavi, Karrubi, and Khatami, issued long and strongly-worded statements saying they would still not accept the results of the election. Musavi’s and Karrubi’s were fairly similar to their previous ones—reiterating their disavowal of the election results, calling cautiously to continue opposition—but Khatami’s was uncharacteristically strong for the former president. As I’ve said before, the knock against him was that he lacked the political will to confront regime hardliners during his presidency. Compared to his usual demeanor he was somewhat outspoken during the post-election unrest, but his most recent statement was a notable departure from his usual mild manner. He even used a bit of rhetorical jujitsu against the regime and its constant labeling of the opposition as a Western-backed attempt at ‘velvet revolution’, stating that the electoral fraud "has been a velvet revolution against the people and against the republicanism of the system." Musavi also released on his website a 24-page opus detailing evidence of electoral fraud, which ran the gamut of members of the Guardian Council campaigning for Ahmadinejad, millions of extra ballots being printed, campaign workers being harassed, and incidents of money and other services services being exchanged for votes, among other complaints. Yesterday Musavi appeared in public for the first time in almost three weeks, though not at any political rally or gathering. There was a small gathering, about 200 people, at an art gallery of the Iranian Academy of Iran (which Musavi heads), and according to a few journalists present he again reiterated that he did not accept the results of the election. He didn’t, though, call for further protests and said that the opposition should work within the confines of the law.
* Rafsanjani and regime insiders: first, some bad news for the opposition. Larijani, who as I’ve detailed in previous emails, has been a rival of Ahmadinejad during the past 4 years and earlier didn’t show up at an Ahmadinejad victory part (along with dozens of other MPs), officially congratulated Ahmadinejad on his electoral victory. I’m not sure what the status is of the parliamentary committee Larijani had called to investigate the attacks on the Tehran University dormitories immediately after the election, but even if these are still ongoing Larijani recognizing Ahmadinejad is a symbolic blow to the opposition. On the other hand, Rafsanjani is moving closer to the opposition. Last Friday he again declined to give Friday prayers—the second time in a row he had declined this—and met with families of those detained during protests. During these meetings he made slightly less moderate, but still cautious, statements, basically saying that the Iranian people are not satisfied with the election, and this must be remedied for the sake of stability and security. Interestingly, just over a day after this Rafsanjani’s political party spoke out directly against the election, calling it ‘unacceptable.’ One portion of the statement they issued said: "We declare that the result is unacceptable due to the unhealthy voting process, massive electoral fraud and the siding of the majority of the Guardian Council with a specific candidate." For the opposition this is coming a week or two too late, but is still huge news given that this party is firmly in the center of the Iranian political spectrum.
* Another clerical group for the opposition? Many of you may have seen a front-page article in the NYT on Sunday about ‘the most important clerical group in Iran’ issuing a statement criticizing the election. There is some confusion about this article, though, mainly stemming from the difficulty in translating the names of these clerical groups. The NYT article cites a statement made by the “Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom,” which if translated this way, is very close to the name of one of the most prominent, and by no means reformist, clerical groups. A few people whose Persian is infinitely better than mine, though, read the original statement and said that translation is not correct. Most likely it comes from another clerical group with a similar name “The Society of Scholars and Teacher’s of Qom’s Hawza”, which is in fact reformist-leaning and is not ‘the most important clerical group in Qom.’ (As a side note, the problems with these groups and translating their names are completely understandable. Many of the names don’t translate well into English, and their names after overlap. For example, there are two with the phrase “combative clerics” in them, one of which is moderate and the other reformist). Regardless, even this clerical group had remained silent until now, and the few clerics and clerical groups that are speaking out have been doing so in favor of the opposition. As a note of caution, though, I’d be careful when reading any stories talking about clerical groups. There are over 200,000 clerics in Iran that are known for their quarreling and factionalism, so some clerical groups are bound to deviate from the official line. There are certainly some that are more prominent than others and whose possible criticism of the election would be significant given their close proximity to the state, but keep in mind the heterogeneity of the religious establishment when reading about clerical politics.
* Regime update: on the regime side of things, various people and groups have been calling for harsher treatment of Musavi and other opposition leaders. The student wing of the basij said that Musavi should be charged with acting against national security (an offense that would warrant 10 years in prison). An important aid to Khamenei, Hossein Shariatmadari, said that Musavi and Khatami should be tried, and the hardline Kayhan newspaper, of which Shariatmadari is editor, said that Musavi’s actions were ‘treasonous.’ Although the groundwork for arresting Musavi and others is being laid by hardline clerics, newspapers and MPs, Khamenei has stopped short of acting on this. In a recent speech where he blasted Western interference in Iran, he urged patience and caution in dealing with Musavi, saying something along the lines of ‘our friends should not be treated like our enemies just because they make a mistake’. With Musavi’s recent statement emphasizing opposition ‘within the legal mandate’ Khamenei will likely not risk provoking more protests by arresting or trying Musavi. This could all change if Musavi escalates the opposition again and calls for protests, or perhaps takes bold steps such as trying to join a gathering or protest, but he seems to be planning for the long run, as evidenced by desire made last week in one of his statements to form a political party to continue the opposition.
* Arrests and detentions: news is now starting to seep out about harsh treatment and torture of people inside Iran’s prisons. For the most part people have unable to contact their families—groups of mothers and wives have been assembling outside the infamous Evin prison to ask about their sons and husbands—but the reports that have come out are quite gruesome. People have been subjected to psychological pressure like sleep deprivation, sensory techniques and mock executions, and physical torture like being hung upside down and whipped, having nails pulled out, and other tactics that have unfortunately become commonplace inside Iran’s prison facilities. I read a few stories reporting that six people had been executed several days ago, but I haven’t seen that confirmed yet in any Western or state-run press. There are still some prominent opposition leaders in prison, such as Saeed Hajarian, who as I said in an earlier emails, was left partially paralyzed after a failed assassination attempt against him in the 90s. Iran’s national police chief said 1032 people had been arrested, but a human rights NGOs thinks the number of current detainees is around 2,000. There have also been further televised ‘confessions’ where people say they were influenced by Western media like the BBC or Radio Farda, or were agents of the exile group MeK. I should also note that in the face of mounting eyewitness accounts and picture/video proof of violence on the part of Iranian security forces, the regime blamed this on vigilantes who stole uniforms and disguised themselves as members of the basij. In other words, the basiji in those pictures and videos weren’t real basij. Lastly, one regime member (I forget who) said that they were working with Interpol for a warrant to arrest the doctor who tried to help save Neda. (He has since fled to England and spoke out against what he saw there, including the circumstances around Neda’s shooting). A spokesman with Interpol, though, said they had received no such request from Iran and were not at all involved in arresting the doctor.
* What’s next? The next three days are an official religious holiday, and the opposition, similar to what it did last Sunday with the gathering at the mosque in northern Tehran, is trying to piggy-back on top of this holiday and turn legally permitted gatherings into their own. The opposition, Musavi included, also asked people to go on strike during these three days to show their support for the opposition. This is a rather clever move on their part, since the way this holiday is observed is mainly by people staying home and using the time for silent prayer or meditation. This way people can ‘strike’ without subjecting themselves to the response of the regime. On top of this, the regime has for years (with limited success) urged people to honor this holiday through silent prayer and other such actions, so in emphasizing this the opposition can further claim it is not anti-Islam or anti-regime. On the other hand, the choice of the strike on a day when everything is supposed to be closed raises the question “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around…..?” For their part, the opposition also said people can take more visible part in the strike by shunning commercial centers and even withdrawing money from banks. Given the nature of the holiday it would be difficult for the opposition to claim victory if everyone is at home, but this is a good way to continue to get people involved through ways other than street protests, especially given wave of repression the regime unleashed on the protestors after Khamenei’s Friday sermon.
* Two final notes about the three day holiday. State media announced the closure of government offices and other such services because of high levels of ‘air pollution’ in Iran. This sounded extremely suspect at first, but right now in Tehran the air is filled with dust from extremely strong winds coming from the West of the country. Somehow the sand from the deserts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia have made it over the mountains that surround most of Iran and is now blowing around the plateau on which most of Iran sits. Given the odd weather conditions in Tehran, it will be even harder for the opposition to claim a successful strike. Lastly, the final day of this three day holiday is the 18th of the month of Tir. I’ve mentioned this in previous emails, but this day marks the anniversary of the regime’s brutal repression of the student movement back in 1999. At the time the five-day protests leading up to the 19th of tir (July 9th) were the largest in Iran since the revolution, and hundreds, if not thousands, of students were arrested after security forces raided and attacked students in their dormitories. This Thursday will be the 10 year anniversary of these protests, and the security forces will be present in even greater numbers than other years. In fact, the regime seems to already be gearing up for them. After several days of SMS service being restored, it’s back down again, and I suspect will be—as well as internet service—in the coming few days.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Terminal Humming by K. Lorraine Graham! New from Edge Books
Terminal Humming
by K. Lorraine Graham
regularly $16.00
$12 direct from Edge Books, postpaid.
96 pages
Cover by the author
ISBN 978-1-890331-31-5
All "this shining and this flutter [!]." Terminal Humming is a very exciting book and I love it. Eavesdropping and borrowing from diverse discourses, K. Lorraine Graham has created a complex "essay on scrounging." It is a wonderfully violent "attempt to unleash inner badness" in poems that are hot and audacious, in a girly way: "Wonder Woman boots twirl twirl." Terminal Humming is just the right amount of weird. In it, "kinks become beautiful and obvious," and "language [hums] as angry form." Read this "downwind chess urine bird bathing extravaganza" of a book! NADA GORDON
Map and start K. Lorraine Graham’s Man-cunt. Honeybucket defoliates broadcast. Too personal? She keeps it normal and lumpy. Scattered disco balls mutilated by grisly pixies. This shining and this clutter. Their cunning bodies, well stocked. She rammed her glistening ovipositor into his abdomen. Imbued doll I am not. Warning! Warning! I clash looking for just a regular body in a supergirl outfit. All soft and twisted and inexpensive and consumable with a nice bike and nice bike gear. Hottie wanting sweet inside sprawl (Female until further notice) mixing information substitutes. Automatic shredder joy rehearsing pitch incineration. Squirming again and again (editing) editing (editing) (editing) something (editing) very (editing). Edit looks stupid. Change the finish. Overcome emotion by funding. Written in a kind of stripper life often scattered communication prosthetics mutilated by beauty. You find them here. ABIGAIL CHILD
Using irony, charm, and unexpected associations, the poems of Terminal Humming challenge any sense of women's situation being normal or transparent. These ambitious and invasive poems make us attentive to the steady drone of put-downs and put-ons that form so much of our discourse. Parcels of ostensibly innocuous information reveal their condescension or malice on Graham's pages, drawing us into the contours of an everyday life that is fine, okay enough—yet threatenednonetheless. And yet the poems have the strength of their whimsy, an outraged whimsy which ever-so-casually threatens back. This is the everyday as counter-attack! STAN APPS
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Iran Update: Wednesday, July 1st
As always, feel free to send or post this, but please omit my name and email.
> By now you’ve probably all seen the two most important developments since last Friday—Rafsanjani finally speaking in public and the Guardian Council officially endorsing the election results—but I still want to include some other, less-reported updates from the past few days, and of course to talk about the major two events.
>
> * Rafsanjani speaks: after close to two weeks of silence and endless speculation and rumors about what he was doing in Qom, Rafsanjani finally appeared and made his first public remarks. Speaking to parliament Rafsanjani gave muted praise for Khamenei’s decision to grant the Guardian Council a five day extension, and also stated that he hoped the GC would carefully study the complaints of irregularities brought to them. On the other hand, he repeated the usual regime canard that the events after the election were the work of foreign conspiracies aimed at dividing the people. Specifically, he said “The recent events were a complex plot by suspicious elements that wanted to create a gap between people and the establishment and was aimed at people to lose their confidence in the establishment,” and somewhat cryptically, “whenever people have entered the scene such plots have been neutralized.” I’ve read a few pieces saying that he caved to Khamenei, but I don’t believe this to be the case. He praised a decision by the Supreme Leader and not the Supreme Leader himself, and the decision of course was one of (limited) concession to the opposition. Those that were hoping for a full-blown critique of Khamenei were surely disappointed, but this was never going to happen in the first case. Rafsanjani has been one of the most powerful men in the Islamic Republic for its three decades of existence, and he has maintained his stature through careful and calculating alliances, not by publicly confronting people in such positions as the Supreme Leader. He’s been charged as being an opportunist—indeed, he is only recently an ally, and barely one at that, to reformists—and it would be naïve to think he would make such a bold and risky move as to come out publicly against Khamenei. We may never know what he was doing in Qom—or if he was even there—but if he was in fact trying to rally clerical support to get the Assembly of Experts to replace Khamenei as Supreme Leader, his speech to parliament shows that he clearly failed in this. He would only have come down on the side of the opposition if he was sure that would be the winning side. I hope my previous emails didn’t give the sense that an impending clerical coup was on the horizon, but until we know more about what happened in Qom during these two weeks it’s hard to tell how close, if at all, such an event may have been.
> * Guardian Council approves election: in a much less surprising move, the other day the Guardian council officially approved the results of the election. I’m not sure what the purpose of that five day extension was other than to bide time and hope to outlast popular momentum, as even on Sunday spokesman said to state tv “We have had no fraud in any presidential election and this one was the cleanest election we have had.” On Friday they proposed establishing a special commission of six people of their choosing, plus representatives from the losing candidates, for a recount of 10% of the ballots, possibly to be broadcast live on TV, but Karrubi and Musavi both rejected this. In the end the GC went ahead with without the opposition participating and conducted a recount of 10% of votes coming from all of Tehran’s 22 electoral districts, as well as other outlying provinces. The one surprise that did come from this was that the recount found that Ahmadinejad’s vote was actually slightly higher that Musavi’s. Finally, I can’t vouch for the veracity of this since my Persian is not very good, but people are now pointing to pictures of ballots—taken during the recount—published on Iranian state media showing “Ahmadinejad” written with the same handwriting on various ballots. Rezaiis spokesman actually complained about this as well, but I’m skeptical that the election rigging took place at this level of voting rather than at the counting and reporting level. Perhaps these ballots were created afterwards for the 10% ‘random’ recount, but again, my Persian isn’t good enough to match handwriting.
> * Small Protests: in the past several days protests continued to wane, but there were a few notable ones that are worth mentioning. Voice of America reported that on Friday around 13,000 people met at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery (the largest cemetery in Iran) to grieve, but they were quickly dispersed. As I said before, many of the large protests that led up to the revolution of 1979 started off as mournings or funeral processions, so the regime is determined not to let these repeat themselves. Sunday was a holiday in Iran, commemorating the deaths of around 72 (I believe) people who died in a bombing in the early days of the revolution (among those killed was a very high-ranking cleric, Ayatollah Beheshti). Ceremonies and events were planned to remember this day, and protestors cleverly tried to take advantage of pre-existing legal rallies and turn them into their own. They planned on meeting at a mosque in the north of Tehran where a ceremony was being legally held, and according to the reports I saw there were about 3,000 people there, many of them in green and holding their fingers in a “V.” Musavi was prevented from attending but spoke to the crowd through a cell phone held up to a loudspeaker, but his wife, Karrubi, and both Rafsanjani’s daughter and wife were there, as well as several other prominent reformists. They succeeded in marching for 10 minutes down a large street in Tehran but were eventually dispersed by riot police and basijis. If you’d like to see a video from inside the mosque when people were gathering before starting their march you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfoI1f96H3c. Finally, people planned to form a human chain on Tuesday but this was quickly broken up. I’m sure there were other gatherings and incidents with security forces, but these are some of the major ones I read about. Security forces were out in droves once the GC made their announcement to prevent any sort of gathering from taking places, and I expect this type of tactic to continue whenever the regime makes a decision that might spark a protest. Also, I should say that that the Iranian calendar is filled with holidays like the one this past Sunday, and I expect the opposition to continue to use these to try to hold further events. It’s clear permits for demonstrations will not be approved, so the opposition will have to use and try to co-opt pre-existing ones.
> * The arrested: with much of the media basically writing off Iran’s protests and putting them below issues such as the nuclear program, it’s worrying that the fate of all those arrested will now go unnoticed. I suspect it will take even longer to figure out just how many people have been arrested in these two weeks, but one French human rights NGO is reporting that the number could be as high as 3,000. Thankfully all but one of those arrested a few days ago from Musavi’s campaign headquarters/newspaper have been arrested, but many more remain in prison. I’d written before that members of parliament and the security forces had made public statements that Musavi should be found criminally liable for the violence, that those arrested should be punished severely, and other such sentiments, and it looks like the regime is planning to deal with those it has or will arrest brutally. For example, on Friday the hardline cleric Ahmed Khatami (not to be confused with the reformist president Khatami) gave the Friday sermon at Tehran University and said "I want the judiciary to punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson." Khatami isn’t a particularly high-profile cleric—in fact, in the past several days more high-ranking clerics like Grand Ayatollah Shirazi, Grand Ayatollah Zanjani, and Ayatollah Ardebili urged leniency with protestors—but Khatami is a member of the Assembly of Experts, and went as far as to say that some of the protestors could be tried for mohareb crimes, or crimes against God, which is punishable by execution. The intelligence minister said that those who have been arrested are divided into three camps: 1) those caught up in the atmosphere of protests who have already been released, 2) those who took part in and organized these protests, who will be released in due time, and 3) anti-revolutionary forces, who they have no plans yet to release. I’m still trying to find out more information on the special court they have established to deal with such detainees, but apparently they have appointed Saeed Mortazavi to be the lead prosecutor for these. Mortazavi is known as the ‘butcher of the press’ for the dozens of newspapers he shut down in the 90s when Khatami first came to power. More worrying is the treatment and threats imprisoned journalists underwent during that time, which some people say came from Mortazavi himself.
>
> I know I usually have more bullet points and themes in my updates, but news, and even reliable twitter updates, have been lacking in the past few days. What I’ve said above is mostly what happened in the last few days, but I’d like to write out separately what I think the implications of all of this is. Not just the implications of the last 4 days, but the last two weeks. I’ve tried to include these in each email, but with Rafsanjani’s public remarks, the GC’s decision, and the regime’s brutal quashing of protests, it now seems apparent Ahmadinejad will serve a second term as president. As I’ll write tomorrow I do not see this as the end but rather the beginning of a longer and more gradual process. Something like Musavi’s arrest could yet spark a huge event, but with most of the major questions decided it’s more important to focus on “what now?” rather than “what happened?” With that said, if you have any questions about anything feel free to shoot me an email.
> By now you’ve probably all seen the two most important developments since last Friday—Rafsanjani finally speaking in public and the Guardian Council officially endorsing the election results—but I still want to include some other, less-reported updates from the past few days, and of course to talk about the major two events.
>
> * Rafsanjani speaks: after close to two weeks of silence and endless speculation and rumors about what he was doing in Qom, Rafsanjani finally appeared and made his first public remarks. Speaking to parliament Rafsanjani gave muted praise for Khamenei’s decision to grant the Guardian Council a five day extension, and also stated that he hoped the GC would carefully study the complaints of irregularities brought to them. On the other hand, he repeated the usual regime canard that the events after the election were the work of foreign conspiracies aimed at dividing the people. Specifically, he said “The recent events were a complex plot by suspicious elements that wanted to create a gap between people and the establishment and was aimed at people to lose their confidence in the establishment,” and somewhat cryptically, “whenever people have entered the scene such plots have been neutralized.” I’ve read a few pieces saying that he caved to Khamenei, but I don’t believe this to be the case. He praised a decision by the Supreme Leader and not the Supreme Leader himself, and the decision of course was one of (limited) concession to the opposition. Those that were hoping for a full-blown critique of Khamenei were surely disappointed, but this was never going to happen in the first case. Rafsanjani has been one of the most powerful men in the Islamic Republic for its three decades of existence, and he has maintained his stature through careful and calculating alliances, not by publicly confronting people in such positions as the Supreme Leader. He’s been charged as being an opportunist—indeed, he is only recently an ally, and barely one at that, to reformists—and it would be naïve to think he would make such a bold and risky move as to come out publicly against Khamenei. We may never know what he was doing in Qom—or if he was even there—but if he was in fact trying to rally clerical support to get the Assembly of Experts to replace Khamenei as Supreme Leader, his speech to parliament shows that he clearly failed in this. He would only have come down on the side of the opposition if he was sure that would be the winning side. I hope my previous emails didn’t give the sense that an impending clerical coup was on the horizon, but until we know more about what happened in Qom during these two weeks it’s hard to tell how close, if at all, such an event may have been.
> * Guardian Council approves election: in a much less surprising move, the other day the Guardian council officially approved the results of the election. I’m not sure what the purpose of that five day extension was other than to bide time and hope to outlast popular momentum, as even on Sunday spokesman said to state tv “We have had no fraud in any presidential election and this one was the cleanest election we have had.” On Friday they proposed establishing a special commission of six people of their choosing, plus representatives from the losing candidates, for a recount of 10% of the ballots, possibly to be broadcast live on TV, but Karrubi and Musavi both rejected this. In the end the GC went ahead with without the opposition participating and conducted a recount of 10% of votes coming from all of Tehran’s 22 electoral districts, as well as other outlying provinces. The one surprise that did come from this was that the recount found that Ahmadinejad’s vote was actually slightly higher that Musavi’s. Finally, I can’t vouch for the veracity of this since my Persian is not very good, but people are now pointing to pictures of ballots—taken during the recount—published on Iranian state media showing “Ahmadinejad” written with the same handwriting on various ballots. Rezaiis spokesman actually complained about this as well, but I’m skeptical that the election rigging took place at this level of voting rather than at the counting and reporting level. Perhaps these ballots were created afterwards for the 10% ‘random’ recount, but again, my Persian isn’t good enough to match handwriting.
> * Small Protests: in the past several days protests continued to wane, but there were a few notable ones that are worth mentioning. Voice of America reported that on Friday around 13,000 people met at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery (the largest cemetery in Iran) to grieve, but they were quickly dispersed. As I said before, many of the large protests that led up to the revolution of 1979 started off as mournings or funeral processions, so the regime is determined not to let these repeat themselves. Sunday was a holiday in Iran, commemorating the deaths of around 72 (I believe) people who died in a bombing in the early days of the revolution (among those killed was a very high-ranking cleric, Ayatollah Beheshti). Ceremonies and events were planned to remember this day, and protestors cleverly tried to take advantage of pre-existing legal rallies and turn them into their own. They planned on meeting at a mosque in the north of Tehran where a ceremony was being legally held, and according to the reports I saw there were about 3,000 people there, many of them in green and holding their fingers in a “V.” Musavi was prevented from attending but spoke to the crowd through a cell phone held up to a loudspeaker, but his wife, Karrubi, and both Rafsanjani’s daughter and wife were there, as well as several other prominent reformists. They succeeded in marching for 10 minutes down a large street in Tehran but were eventually dispersed by riot police and basijis. If you’d like to see a video from inside the mosque when people were gathering before starting their march you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfoI1f96H3c. Finally, people planned to form a human chain on Tuesday but this was quickly broken up. I’m sure there were other gatherings and incidents with security forces, but these are some of the major ones I read about. Security forces were out in droves once the GC made their announcement to prevent any sort of gathering from taking places, and I expect this type of tactic to continue whenever the regime makes a decision that might spark a protest. Also, I should say that that the Iranian calendar is filled with holidays like the one this past Sunday, and I expect the opposition to continue to use these to try to hold further events. It’s clear permits for demonstrations will not be approved, so the opposition will have to use and try to co-opt pre-existing ones.
> * The arrested: with much of the media basically writing off Iran’s protests and putting them below issues such as the nuclear program, it’s worrying that the fate of all those arrested will now go unnoticed. I suspect it will take even longer to figure out just how many people have been arrested in these two weeks, but one French human rights NGO is reporting that the number could be as high as 3,000. Thankfully all but one of those arrested a few days ago from Musavi’s campaign headquarters/newspaper have been arrested, but many more remain in prison. I’d written before that members of parliament and the security forces had made public statements that Musavi should be found criminally liable for the violence, that those arrested should be punished severely, and other such sentiments, and it looks like the regime is planning to deal with those it has or will arrest brutally. For example, on Friday the hardline cleric Ahmed Khatami (not to be confused with the reformist president Khatami) gave the Friday sermon at Tehran University and said "I want the judiciary to punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson." Khatami isn’t a particularly high-profile cleric—in fact, in the past several days more high-ranking clerics like Grand Ayatollah Shirazi, Grand Ayatollah Zanjani, and Ayatollah Ardebili urged leniency with protestors—but Khatami is a member of the Assembly of Experts, and went as far as to say that some of the protestors could be tried for mohareb crimes, or crimes against God, which is punishable by execution. The intelligence minister said that those who have been arrested are divided into three camps: 1) those caught up in the atmosphere of protests who have already been released, 2) those who took part in and organized these protests, who will be released in due time, and 3) anti-revolutionary forces, who they have no plans yet to release. I’m still trying to find out more information on the special court they have established to deal with such detainees, but apparently they have appointed Saeed Mortazavi to be the lead prosecutor for these. Mortazavi is known as the ‘butcher of the press’ for the dozens of newspapers he shut down in the 90s when Khatami first came to power. More worrying is the treatment and threats imprisoned journalists underwent during that time, which some people say came from Mortazavi himself.
>
> I know I usually have more bullet points and themes in my updates, but news, and even reliable twitter updates, have been lacking in the past few days. What I’ve said above is mostly what happened in the last few days, but I’d like to write out separately what I think the implications of all of this is. Not just the implications of the last 4 days, but the last two weeks. I’ve tried to include these in each email, but with Rafsanjani’s public remarks, the GC’s decision, and the regime’s brutal quashing of protests, it now seems apparent Ahmadinejad will serve a second term as president. As I’ll write tomorrow I do not see this as the end but rather the beginning of a longer and more gradual process. Something like Musavi’s arrest could yet spark a huge event, but with most of the major questions decided it’s more important to focus on “what now?” rather than “what happened?” With that said, if you have any questions about anything feel free to shoot me an email.
Monday, June 29, 2009
TOMORROW IS THE COLLECTION OF SILENCE
TOMORROW IS THE COLLECTION OF SILENCE
WHERE: 155 St. & BWAY (DIA AT THE HISPANIC SOCIETY)
WHEN: June 30, 7PM
WHO: You will be shocked. 25 poets* and The Village Zendo, mezzo John Kelly, dancer Christine Elmo and five cohorts and a to-be-revealed number of kids from PS 4 & The Poetry Club directed by Christine Hou with a consult from Julie Patton and finally a life drawing group from Brooklyn known as F>A>R>T>S (Friends of the Fine Arts).
You are encouraged to dress in your hot weather finery, and wander across the Audbon Plaza (where Audbon’s House once stood) and marvel at the power of silent art as it mingles its forces with the city. Afterwards, cool drinks & talk.
*MONICA DE LA TORRE, CHARLES BERNSTEIN, STEPHANIE GRAY, TIM LIU, RACHEL ZOLF, JENNIFER BARTLETT, DANNY SNELSON, CA CONRAD, FRANK SHERLOCK, RENATO GÓMEZ, KIM ROSENFIELD, ANGELA JAEGER, JEREMY SIGLER, TIM PETERSON & LYDIA CORTES, NATHANIEL SIEGEL. PAOLO JAVIER, MARK BIBBINS, NICOLE COOLEY, LINDA GREGG, JEFFREY MCDANIEL, LILA ZEMBORAIN, TONYA FOSTER, RACHEL LEVITSKY, EMILY BEALL, CHRISTINE HOU, JULIE PATTON, STUDENTS FROM PS 4 AND EILEEN MYLES, PROJECT
WHERE: 155 St. & BWAY (DIA AT THE HISPANIC SOCIETY)
WHEN: June 30, 7PM
WHO: You will be shocked. 25 poets* and The Village Zendo, mezzo John Kelly, dancer Christine Elmo and five cohorts and a to-be-revealed number of kids from PS 4 & The Poetry Club directed by Christine Hou with a consult from Julie Patton and finally a life drawing group from Brooklyn known as F>A>R>T>S (Friends of the Fine Arts).
You are encouraged to dress in your hot weather finery, and wander across the Audbon Plaza (where Audbon’s House once stood) and marvel at the power of silent art as it mingles its forces with the city. Afterwards, cool drinks & talk.
*MONICA DE LA TORRE, CHARLES BERNSTEIN, STEPHANIE GRAY, TIM LIU, RACHEL ZOLF, JENNIFER BARTLETT, DANNY SNELSON, CA CONRAD, FRANK SHERLOCK, RENATO GÓMEZ, KIM ROSENFIELD, ANGELA JAEGER, JEREMY SIGLER, TIM PETERSON & LYDIA CORTES, NATHANIEL SIEGEL. PAOLO JAVIER, MARK BIBBINS, NICOLE COOLEY, LINDA GREGG, JEFFREY MCDANIEL, LILA ZEMBORAIN, TONYA FOSTER, RACHEL LEVITSKY, EMILY BEALL, CHRISTINE HOU, JULIE PATTON, STUDENTS FROM PS 4 AND EILEEN MYLES, PROJECT
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Iran Update (Thursday, June 25th)
* Protest and strike update: unfortunately there’s less and less news out of Iran, and today I couldn’t find very much written about sizes or planned protests or strikes. Until a few days ago, today was supposed to be a national day of mourning, but after some confusion this has been postponed to an undetermined time next week. I saw some plans to hold demonstrations in public squares in Iran earlier today, but so far haven’t read any stories about it or seen any pictures or videos. However, given the spontaneous nature of most of the protests in the last few days I wouldn’t be surprised if there were smaller demonstrations and clashes with security forces today. In fact, there was some good footage of yesterday’s protests that emerged only today, so perhaps there will more of that from today’s events later on. Sadly the footage showed that the regime’s crackdown is becoming even more intense, and these types of tactics are surely discouraging people from coming into the streets. Regarding the national strike, I wrote yesterday that it didn’t seem to have much success in Tehran—largely because the word isn’t getting out with communication restrictions, and isn’t emanating from opposition leaders—but there were some pictures that I saw that purportedly showed a Shiraz bazaar on strike. There are plans tomorrow for people in Iran and worldwide to release green balloons into the air, but given that it’s Friday and time for the regime’s weekly sermons, I wouldn’t expect any large protests.
* Opposition leaders update: Musavi still hasn’t been seen in a week, but today he issued a strongly-worded statement again decrying the election results and saying people should continue their peaceful protests. For a sense of the tone of his letter, here’s one particularly pointed portion: “There is strong syndicated electoral mafia in Iran that has interfered and changed the results of the elections. We must locate the cancerous leadership of this syndicate and destroy it.” A semi-official hardline newspaper (unfortunately their English service has been down for several days), reported that Musavi and Rafsanjani met with members of parliament, but the article gave no details of the meeting other than that they discussed “election and current development.” Still no word from Rafsanjani, though, or any confirmed reports about where he is and what he’s doing. It may not be correct to put this under the ‘opposition leaders update’ heading, but 105 of the 290 members of parliament didn’t attend a dinner held by Ahmadinejad to celebrate his electoral victory. Among these was Ali Larijani, who is now being attacked and threatened with impeachment by some pro-Ahmadinejad MPs. Additionally, I said yesterday that nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi said she would defend Neda’s family in court. Well, today she was under attack by some female lawyers and academics who wrote to the Judiciary saying that her legal permit should be revoked. This isn’t anything new for Shirin Ebadi—her office has been closed down, members arrested, etc—so I wouldn’t expect this to deter her from her work. In a bit of good news, there are reports that all but 4 of the university professors who were arrested the other day have been released.
* Neda: the doctor who was trying to save her life made it to the UK successfully and sat down for a long interview with the BBC. If you’d like to read it or listen to the whole thing you can find it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8119713.stm. Iran’s ambassador to Mexico was interviewed by CNN and claimed that the CIA could be behind her killing. Yet another example of the regime blaming protests and violence on foreign powers and ‘terrorists.’
* Legal Update: the spokesman of the Guardian Council said on state TV that there were no major irregularities in the election, and that they will publish their final official report at the end of the 5-day extension. It’s still strange that the GC was given the 5-day extension in the first place given that there’s very little chance that they wouldn’t endorse the results, but again the regime may have been trying to bide time and encourage Musavi to continue to express his grievances through legal channels while hoping the street protests would die down. There are new rumors, though, that a compromise is being sought whereby Musavi and Ahmadinejad would have a run-off election. I haven’t seen any details of this and remain skeptical, but it would be somewhat of a face-saving compromise, since the GC could say that it found irregularities in X amounts of votes (it’s already admitted to 3 million), which, when subtracted from the initial total, would reduce Ahmadinejad’s percentage to below 50%. According to the rumor that’s what Rafsanjani is now pressing for with members of the Assembly of Experts in Qom, but they don’t have any direct influence on the GC—they’d need to pressure Khamenei directly about this, who would then pressure the GC about this compromise.
* Distract and Awe: Two quick items that give a good indication about how the regime is dealing with the recent events in the media. I’ve mentioned before that they’ve both downplayed the events and blamed them on foreigner powers or terrorists, but they’re also trying to keep people distracted through entertainment. The government doesn’t allow many Western films to play on state TV, but starting today one station has begun a Lord of the Rings marathon that aired at peak times during the day when people might go out to protest. I don’t want to attach too much importance to this, since obviously this doesn’t have much of an affect on the people who have been out there every day, but it they are probably trying to distract people on the fence or just keep people inside so groups and gatherings don’t accidentally form. Also, I failed to mention this before, but a few days ago Iran started military exercises in the Persian Gulf, and are also claiming to have tested some new missiles. This is being carried on state TV where they say the state is demonstrating its power and will not back down in the face of foreign meddling.
* Women: I’m mad at myself for waiting so long to write about this, but to be honest, after reading so much about Iran and studying it for so long, I just took for granted that women would of course be on the frontlines of the protests, just as they have been for years. Still, it’s amazing that in the face of such brutal tactics employed by security forces against protestors, women are still in the streets taking part in and leading these protests. There was a great story from one of the protestors who talked about a scuffle they had with a group a basijis a few days ago, and when things escalated the group protesting started running away. He looked back and saw several women standing firm in their place, yelling at the basijis. Given what happened to Neda, women are just as at risk as men are during these protests. I could write about this for much longer, but I cannot underscore how untrue the stereotypes of repressed, passive Iranian women are. They make up around 60% of the university population, and are among the most active members of civil society and NGOs throughout Iran. The 1,000,000 signatures campaign they launched a few years ago—they’re trying to get a million signatures from people to present to the government to overturn gender discriminatory laws—is probably the most well-organized and widespread civil society initiative in all of Iran. Members of this campaign have been harassed and imprisoned, yet they have refused to be intimidated and have carried on their work, so it’s no surprise they’re on the front lines of the current protests.
* Finally, a must read by BBC correspondent who was in Iran for over a week before the elections where he talks about befriending a few Revolutionary Guards, among other things: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8116825.stm
* Opposition leaders update: Musavi still hasn’t been seen in a week, but today he issued a strongly-worded statement again decrying the election results and saying people should continue their peaceful protests. For a sense of the tone of his letter, here’s one particularly pointed portion: “There is strong syndicated electoral mafia in Iran that has interfered and changed the results of the elections. We must locate the cancerous leadership of this syndicate and destroy it.” A semi-official hardline newspaper (unfortunately their English service has been down for several days), reported that Musavi and Rafsanjani met with members of parliament, but the article gave no details of the meeting other than that they discussed “election and current development.” Still no word from Rafsanjani, though, or any confirmed reports about where he is and what he’s doing. It may not be correct to put this under the ‘opposition leaders update’ heading, but 105 of the 290 members of parliament didn’t attend a dinner held by Ahmadinejad to celebrate his electoral victory. Among these was Ali Larijani, who is now being attacked and threatened with impeachment by some pro-Ahmadinejad MPs. Additionally, I said yesterday that nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi said she would defend Neda’s family in court. Well, today she was under attack by some female lawyers and academics who wrote to the Judiciary saying that her legal permit should be revoked. This isn’t anything new for Shirin Ebadi—her office has been closed down, members arrested, etc—so I wouldn’t expect this to deter her from her work. In a bit of good news, there are reports that all but 4 of the university professors who were arrested the other day have been released.
* Neda: the doctor who was trying to save her life made it to the UK successfully and sat down for a long interview with the BBC. If you’d like to read it or listen to the whole thing you can find it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8119713.stm. Iran’s ambassador to Mexico was interviewed by CNN and claimed that the CIA could be behind her killing. Yet another example of the regime blaming protests and violence on foreign powers and ‘terrorists.’
* Legal Update: the spokesman of the Guardian Council said on state TV that there were no major irregularities in the election, and that they will publish their final official report at the end of the 5-day extension. It’s still strange that the GC was given the 5-day extension in the first place given that there’s very little chance that they wouldn’t endorse the results, but again the regime may have been trying to bide time and encourage Musavi to continue to express his grievances through legal channels while hoping the street protests would die down. There are new rumors, though, that a compromise is being sought whereby Musavi and Ahmadinejad would have a run-off election. I haven’t seen any details of this and remain skeptical, but it would be somewhat of a face-saving compromise, since the GC could say that it found irregularities in X amounts of votes (it’s already admitted to 3 million), which, when subtracted from the initial total, would reduce Ahmadinejad’s percentage to below 50%. According to the rumor that’s what Rafsanjani is now pressing for with members of the Assembly of Experts in Qom, but they don’t have any direct influence on the GC—they’d need to pressure Khamenei directly about this, who would then pressure the GC about this compromise.
* Distract and Awe: Two quick items that give a good indication about how the regime is dealing with the recent events in the media. I’ve mentioned before that they’ve both downplayed the events and blamed them on foreigner powers or terrorists, but they’re also trying to keep people distracted through entertainment. The government doesn’t allow many Western films to play on state TV, but starting today one station has begun a Lord of the Rings marathon that aired at peak times during the day when people might go out to protest. I don’t want to attach too much importance to this, since obviously this doesn’t have much of an affect on the people who have been out there every day, but it they are probably trying to distract people on the fence or just keep people inside so groups and gatherings don’t accidentally form. Also, I failed to mention this before, but a few days ago Iran started military exercises in the Persian Gulf, and are also claiming to have tested some new missiles. This is being carried on state TV where they say the state is demonstrating its power and will not back down in the face of foreign meddling.
* Women: I’m mad at myself for waiting so long to write about this, but to be honest, after reading so much about Iran and studying it for so long, I just took for granted that women would of course be on the frontlines of the protests, just as they have been for years. Still, it’s amazing that in the face of such brutal tactics employed by security forces against protestors, women are still in the streets taking part in and leading these protests. There was a great story from one of the protestors who talked about a scuffle they had with a group a basijis a few days ago, and when things escalated the group protesting started running away. He looked back and saw several women standing firm in their place, yelling at the basijis. Given what happened to Neda, women are just as at risk as men are during these protests. I could write about this for much longer, but I cannot underscore how untrue the stereotypes of repressed, passive Iranian women are. They make up around 60% of the university population, and are among the most active members of civil society and NGOs throughout Iran. The 1,000,000 signatures campaign they launched a few years ago—they’re trying to get a million signatures from people to present to the government to overturn gender discriminatory laws—is probably the most well-organized and widespread civil society initiative in all of Iran. Members of this campaign have been harassed and imprisoned, yet they have refused to be intimidated and have carried on their work, so it’s no surprise they’re on the front lines of the current protests.
* Finally, a must read by BBC correspondent who was in Iran for over a week before the elections where he talks about befriending a few Revolutionary Guards, among other things: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8116825.stm
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Iran update Wed 6/24
* Waning but continued protests: a protest was planned for today at 4 PM in a public square near the parliament, but there was some confusion heading into this as to whether it was sponsored by Musavi and whether he would appear there. As evidence of just how difficult it has been for Musavi to communicate effectively with the opposition since Khamenei’s Friday sermon, his website may have been hacked into and for a short time issued a statement telling people not to show up. Regardless, a few thousand—the numbers are almost impossible to verify now—showed up and were quickly attacked and dispersed by basijis and plain-clothes officers. From the reports and statements I have read the violence here was quite bad, with one person possibly being killed, and many others beaten with batons and arrested. One Iranian managed to speak to CNN about what has happened in rallies like today, which you can listen to here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEtVRgZ3Szw. Yesterday I wrote that there was some planning for a national strike, but that did not materialize today, partly because is has not been officially called for by people like Musavi or Montazeri. Instead, there are calls for public mourning that could act as de facto national strikes by figures such as these, or statements like ‘if I am arrested, the nation should strike,’ but still no explicit calls to escalate things to this level. I’m not sure if this is because they are still hoping for some sort of compromise or legal settlement, or because they lack the political will to move things to the next level, but what is clear is that since the crackdown after Khamenei’s Friday sermon Iran has been, in the words of Musavi’s wife, under ‘martial law’ and large protests and demonstrations have been prevented. The calls for a national day of mourning for those killed so far during these protests has also been postponed to next week, but like in previous days I expect people will independently organize the same types of smaller demonstrations they have been. With that said, the chants of ‘Allah-u akbar’ are still going on every night—some people say they get louder with each day—and it’s unclear what will happen in the Iranian streets once security forces are pulled back (their presence now is simply unsustainable for a long period of time).
* Opposition leaders update: the regime’s strategy of weakening Musavi’s power by depriving him of his top advisors and leaders continued today when his main legal advisor was arrested, as well as around 70 university professors who had been meeting with or connected to Musavi. On top of this, a newspaper and campaign headquarters aligned with him was raided last night and most of its staff arrested. Musavi himself remains under de facto house arrest and is only able to issue short, period statements on his website. Karrubi, though, issued another statement decrying the election results where he called the government ‘illegitimate.’ Although he fared much worse than Musavi in this election, Karrubi has actually been more outspoken recently, though this could be because the regime doesn’t see him as large as a threat and is allowing him more leeway. The 4th loser of the presidential election, Rezaii, officially dropped his complaints about the election today. I wouldn’t take this as that large a blow to the opposition, since Rezaii was always the conservative alternative to Ahmadinejad anyway, and only very accidentally in the opposition, but it was an advantage for the opposition to have someone like him tentatively allied with them, however loosely it was. Lastly, there were two more people who spoke up in support of the opposition today that are worth mentioning. The first is Abdullah Noori, a reformist cleric and former ministry of the interior in Khatami’s administration, who issued a statement in support of the protestors’ rights to demonstrate peacefully. The second, the current mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Qalibaf, is a moderate conservative who people were speculating would be the conservative alternative to Ahmadinejad in this election—he has been critical and a rival of Ahmadinejad for several years now—who didn’t necessarily speak out against the election results but did say that permits should be issued for protests and demonstrations so violence would be avoided. I haven’t seen anything aside from unconfirmed rumors of Rafsanjani and his possible statement on Friday, but it’s likely he’s still in Qom working behind the scenes.
* Khamenei digs in: today Khamenei spoke to the parliament and reiterated his hard-line stance against the protestors, saying that “The security of the nation and the will of the faithful people of the Islamic Republic will not bend under pressure.” I imagine he will echo similar sentiments in his Friday sermon. It’s important to note here that Khamenei and other powerful members of the regime have personal experience managing and dealing with social unrest, not just during the existence of the Islamic Republic but dating back to the days of the Shah. They were themselves active in the protests and movement that brought down the Shah, and learned first-hand the lessons of how to manage such things. They saw how the Shah’s gradual compromise and weakening stance in dealing with the movement against him ultimately led to his downfall, and they are not going to repeat it. I know that I’m as guilty as anyone else of speculating that Khamenei might have entertained some sort of regime-saving compromise by ‘throwing Ahmadinejad under the bus,’ but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s just going to stick with the hard-line tactics and dig his heels in. If some sort of compromise or bargain with the opposition comes—and the possibility of this is becoming slimmer and slimmer—I don’t see it coming from him but from elsewhere, like the Assembly of Experts. On another note, the types of statements about Musavi on state TV I mentioned yesterday gained ground in the parliament. The head of the parliament’s judicial committee raised the possibility of legal action against Musavi and said that he could be held criminally responsible for the violence and damage that has come out of the recent unrest.
* Neda: state TV is claiming that Neda’s murder was staged to make the regime look bad, and was the work of the MeK/MKO. Sadly, her family no longer lives at their old home and apparently have been forced to move out of Tehran. The doctor who was trying to save her in the video has also fled from Iran, and sent an email to a friend that was posted on the web giving his flight information and saying that if he is not at the London airport at the scheduled arrival time ‘something has happened’. On a more encouraging note, Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Prize winning human rights lawyer said that she would represent Neda’s family in court.
* International reaction: by now most people have probably seen Obama’s recent statements on Iran where he issued his harshest denunciation yet of the recent violence in Iran. Ban Ki-Moon also issued a statement where he expressed worries about the level of violence, which I know many activists inside Iran were hoping for, as this type of high-ranking, international statement (especially not one from America, which can be twisted to the regime’s liking) helps their cause. Obviously I wouldn’t expect the GA or UNSC to issue any sort of statements about the violence, but Moon’s is a good start. I should also not that Iran expelled 2 British diplomats and are reportedly now contemplating downgrading their ties with the UK. State TV is continuing to blame the BBC (and Voice of America) for instigating protests, and has even aired ‘confessions’ by Iranians who claim they were inspired to do so from these media sources. Lastly, the US had made the unprecedented step of inviting Iranian diplomats in foreign countries to July 4th celebrations, but that has now been rescinded (although no Iranian diplomats had actually taken the US up on this offer).
* What’s next: with media and access in Iran so restricted and people like Musavi kept virtually incommunicado it’s difficult to make any predictions about where the protests are headed. My update today may have seemed more pessimistic than previous days, but that’s largely because the regime has succeeded in silencing leaders like Musavi without any drastic, protest-provoking action like arresting him, as well as the security forces brutal tactics in suppressing and preventing any large gathering from happening. Although Musavi was in a sense always playing ‘catch up’ (which he even acknowledged) to the opposition and was never a driving leader of this, without a clear leader or figurehead, however accidental, to rally around, call for demonstrations and speak at large rallies, it’s extremely difficult for this movement to maintain momentum. Still, it’s a testament to the opposition that they continue to function on their own without clear central leadership and are still going into the streets despite the regime’s brutality. With that said, given the regime’s success in preventing further massive demonstrations with the heavy security presence, I think the next step for the opposition on the streets would need to be a national strike or large-scale civil disobedience. In order for this to happen, though, people like Musavi, Khatami, Karrubi, or Montazeri will need to explicitly call for one. We’ll see what happens in the next few days and how the regime treats Musavi—for example, if they make good on the threats floated around that he could be arrested—but for now they seem content to pressure him by taking out his support system and stall for time, hoping the opposition will lose momentum. What’s missing from this analysis, though, is Rafsanjani. Some Iranians friends who I’ve spoken to are very skeptical about the success he will have with the Assembly of Experts and despite his leading role within this body, still view the assembly as a Khamenei proxy. I still think it’s telling that they haven’t issued any collective statement thus far, and that Rafsanjani is still mysterious working behind the scenes, but it would be an unprecedented move for them to actually remove the Supreme Leader. Regardless, as one commentator who knows much more about Iran than me has said, this will be a marathon, not a sprint.
* Lastly, I wanted to direct your attention to two fascinating pieces. The first is a really interesting interview with pro-Ahmadinejad cleric. Read the whole thing, but he really expressed the sentiment given by state TV, and interestingly hasn’t heard about some news like Larijani’s criticism of the GC and statement by Montazeri. I link to this not to point out the laughable opinions of one side, but really to show the kind of obstacles and ideas the opposition has to take into account: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-exclusive-interview-wi_b_219047.html. Second is an account of a 17-year old’s arrest and torture during the recent unrest, and there are quite graphic pictures that accompany this story. The tactics he describes are consistent with accounts from political prisoners and activists I’ve read or heard of from their experiences in prison before the election protests, so this is unfortunately common practice: http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/06/24/iran_photos/
* Opposition leaders update: the regime’s strategy of weakening Musavi’s power by depriving him of his top advisors and leaders continued today when his main legal advisor was arrested, as well as around 70 university professors who had been meeting with or connected to Musavi. On top of this, a newspaper and campaign headquarters aligned with him was raided last night and most of its staff arrested. Musavi himself remains under de facto house arrest and is only able to issue short, period statements on his website. Karrubi, though, issued another statement decrying the election results where he called the government ‘illegitimate.’ Although he fared much worse than Musavi in this election, Karrubi has actually been more outspoken recently, though this could be because the regime doesn’t see him as large as a threat and is allowing him more leeway. The 4th loser of the presidential election, Rezaii, officially dropped his complaints about the election today. I wouldn’t take this as that large a blow to the opposition, since Rezaii was always the conservative alternative to Ahmadinejad anyway, and only very accidentally in the opposition, but it was an advantage for the opposition to have someone like him tentatively allied with them, however loosely it was. Lastly, there were two more people who spoke up in support of the opposition today that are worth mentioning. The first is Abdullah Noori, a reformist cleric and former ministry of the interior in Khatami’s administration, who issued a statement in support of the protestors’ rights to demonstrate peacefully. The second, the current mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Qalibaf, is a moderate conservative who people were speculating would be the conservative alternative to Ahmadinejad in this election—he has been critical and a rival of Ahmadinejad for several years now—who didn’t necessarily speak out against the election results but did say that permits should be issued for protests and demonstrations so violence would be avoided. I haven’t seen anything aside from unconfirmed rumors of Rafsanjani and his possible statement on Friday, but it’s likely he’s still in Qom working behind the scenes.
* Khamenei digs in: today Khamenei spoke to the parliament and reiterated his hard-line stance against the protestors, saying that “The security of the nation and the will of the faithful people of the Islamic Republic will not bend under pressure.” I imagine he will echo similar sentiments in his Friday sermon. It’s important to note here that Khamenei and other powerful members of the regime have personal experience managing and dealing with social unrest, not just during the existence of the Islamic Republic but dating back to the days of the Shah. They were themselves active in the protests and movement that brought down the Shah, and learned first-hand the lessons of how to manage such things. They saw how the Shah’s gradual compromise and weakening stance in dealing with the movement against him ultimately led to his downfall, and they are not going to repeat it. I know that I’m as guilty as anyone else of speculating that Khamenei might have entertained some sort of regime-saving compromise by ‘throwing Ahmadinejad under the bus,’ but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s just going to stick with the hard-line tactics and dig his heels in. If some sort of compromise or bargain with the opposition comes—and the possibility of this is becoming slimmer and slimmer—I don’t see it coming from him but from elsewhere, like the Assembly of Experts. On another note, the types of statements about Musavi on state TV I mentioned yesterday gained ground in the parliament. The head of the parliament’s judicial committee raised the possibility of legal action against Musavi and said that he could be held criminally responsible for the violence and damage that has come out of the recent unrest.
* Neda: state TV is claiming that Neda’s murder was staged to make the regime look bad, and was the work of the MeK/MKO. Sadly, her family no longer lives at their old home and apparently have been forced to move out of Tehran. The doctor who was trying to save her in the video has also fled from Iran, and sent an email to a friend that was posted on the web giving his flight information and saying that if he is not at the London airport at the scheduled arrival time ‘something has happened’. On a more encouraging note, Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Prize winning human rights lawyer said that she would represent Neda’s family in court.
* International reaction: by now most people have probably seen Obama’s recent statements on Iran where he issued his harshest denunciation yet of the recent violence in Iran. Ban Ki-Moon also issued a statement where he expressed worries about the level of violence, which I know many activists inside Iran were hoping for, as this type of high-ranking, international statement (especially not one from America, which can be twisted to the regime’s liking) helps their cause. Obviously I wouldn’t expect the GA or UNSC to issue any sort of statements about the violence, but Moon’s is a good start. I should also not that Iran expelled 2 British diplomats and are reportedly now contemplating downgrading their ties with the UK. State TV is continuing to blame the BBC (and Voice of America) for instigating protests, and has even aired ‘confessions’ by Iranians who claim they were inspired to do so from these media sources. Lastly, the US had made the unprecedented step of inviting Iranian diplomats in foreign countries to July 4th celebrations, but that has now been rescinded (although no Iranian diplomats had actually taken the US up on this offer).
* What’s next: with media and access in Iran so restricted and people like Musavi kept virtually incommunicado it’s difficult to make any predictions about where the protests are headed. My update today may have seemed more pessimistic than previous days, but that’s largely because the regime has succeeded in silencing leaders like Musavi without any drastic, protest-provoking action like arresting him, as well as the security forces brutal tactics in suppressing and preventing any large gathering from happening. Although Musavi was in a sense always playing ‘catch up’ (which he even acknowledged) to the opposition and was never a driving leader of this, without a clear leader or figurehead, however accidental, to rally around, call for demonstrations and speak at large rallies, it’s extremely difficult for this movement to maintain momentum. Still, it’s a testament to the opposition that they continue to function on their own without clear central leadership and are still going into the streets despite the regime’s brutality. With that said, given the regime’s success in preventing further massive demonstrations with the heavy security presence, I think the next step for the opposition on the streets would need to be a national strike or large-scale civil disobedience. In order for this to happen, though, people like Musavi, Khatami, Karrubi, or Montazeri will need to explicitly call for one. We’ll see what happens in the next few days and how the regime treats Musavi—for example, if they make good on the threats floated around that he could be arrested—but for now they seem content to pressure him by taking out his support system and stall for time, hoping the opposition will lose momentum. What’s missing from this analysis, though, is Rafsanjani. Some Iranians friends who I’ve spoken to are very skeptical about the success he will have with the Assembly of Experts and despite his leading role within this body, still view the assembly as a Khamenei proxy. I still think it’s telling that they haven’t issued any collective statement thus far, and that Rafsanjani is still mysterious working behind the scenes, but it would be an unprecedented move for them to actually remove the Supreme Leader. Regardless, as one commentator who knows much more about Iran than me has said, this will be a marathon, not a sprint.
* Lastly, I wanted to direct your attention to two fascinating pieces. The first is a really interesting interview with pro-Ahmadinejad cleric. Read the whole thing, but he really expressed the sentiment given by state TV, and interestingly hasn’t heard about some news like Larijani’s criticism of the GC and statement by Montazeri. I link to this not to point out the laughable opinions of one side, but really to show the kind of obstacles and ideas the opposition has to take into account: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-exclusive-interview-wi_b_219047.html. Second is an account of a 17-year old’s arrest and torture during the recent unrest, and there are quite graphic pictures that accompany this story. The tactics he describes are consistent with accounts from political prisoners and activists I’ve read or heard of from their experiences in prison before the election protests, so this is unfortunately common practice: http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/06/24/iran_photos/
Iran update (Mon 6/22 & Tues 6/23)
* Scattered protests continue: Sunday was perhaps the quietest day in Iran for over a week, but there were still scattered protests and street clashes in Tehran as well as other cities throughout Iran. One of the larger planned rallies was a demonstration for Neda, the woman killed by basij gunfire I talked about yesterday, which was supposed to take place in Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran. Between 1,000 and 2,000 security forces were in full force here to prevent people from assembling, and would break up any small group from forming and tell them to keep walking and not assemble there. Some reports I read said that people ended up circling around the square and kept trying to assemble, but every time they stopped and gathered in even small groups the basij would break them up. This seems to be the new tactic of the basij—prevent people from assembling in even the smallest groups to stop largescale protests or demonstrations from taking place. Still, a few thousand managed to gather in a few parts of Tehran, and as in previous days the basij dealt with them brutally (there’s a very, very graphic video some of you may have seen of a young man shot in the head being carried by people away from the fighting). State TV has urged people to call the police and report any demonstrations, and even take pictures of those in the streets and give them to the authorities. To counter this, in twitter and other outlets the opposition encouraged people to call in fake demonstrations and report make-up names and addresses to district the basij. Further examples of a very clever opposition that will not back down any time soon. State TV also reported that 457 people were arrested during protests on Saturday—the first day after Khamenei’s sermon—although the number is probably higher than that. Lastly, the revolutionary guards issued a harsh statement saying they would deal with protestors harshly.
* next steps: strike: with the huge number of basij and security forces in the streets trying to prevent any sort of peaceful protests, the next step is a nation-wide strike, which to return again to 1979, was one of the most important tactics used in bringing down the regime. Khatami issued a statement on Musavi’s facebook page where he called for people to go to the bazaars at 9am in droves dressed normally and not shouting slogans. If the bazaars become overwhelmed with people or bazaari merchants themselves agree to stop business the country’s domestic commerce will be brought to a complete standstill. This would be a huge blow to the regime domestically, but a more serious one would be if oil workers can be convinced to strike. As oil is by far the largest components of Iran’s exports this would harm the regime even more than a bazaar closure—in fact, this tactic was used successfully before the 79 revolution.
* Neda: just a quick note on Neda, who is becoming a symbol of the opposition. Most of her friends and family have declined to speak to the press about her, BBC Persia was able to get an interview with her fiancé the other day. He said that Neda’s full name is Neda Agha-Soltan, and she was born in 1982. She was shot through the heart by a basij from on top of a building and died before they could get her to the hospital. According to the fiancé she wasn’t a firm supporter of Musavi or any one candidates, and just wanted ‘freedom for everyone.’ Additionally, her family was prevented from holding a public ceremony for her for fear that it would turn into a large demonstration. Related to this, the basij have been much more careful about attacking women in the streets so they don’t have any more opposition-galvanizing images like Neda, but now when male protestors are being attacked by security forces Iranian women are surrounding the men being attacking and trying to get in the way of the security forces. I feel terrible for not commenting until now on the huge presence of women in these rallies, but this just goes to show you how active and on the frontlines they are in this movement.
* Media update: if you’re curious about how State TV is dealing with these protests, they’re basically trying to downplay their number and scale, but when they do discuss them, try to portray them as terrorists and rioters. They’ve ratcheted up their statements about Musavi, saying that his actions are criminal. Also, they’ve seized protests worldwide and are mistranslating signs and chants, claiming that people are saying stuff like “down with regime” and “death to Iran,” etc. Another tactic they use with these foreign protests is to say that they’re MKO-backed or organized. I believe I wrote about this already, but there’s an opposition group in exile called the mujaheddin-e khalq (MeK, or its English acronym, MKO). They were one of the many groups instrumental in the 1979 revolution, but when the new government started to take on an Islamic-bent they turned against this and attacked other groups and factions within the revolutionary forces (they were even responsible for a bomb that killed the president of Iran in 1981). Eventually they were pushed out of Iran, and found exile in Iraq, where they continued to support attacks within Iran and even sided with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. Taking the side of Iraq in the ‘war of holy defense’ cost them any legitimacy they may have had, and they have absolutely no support inside Iran, although they are quite organized and active in lobbying Western governments, particularly France, Britain, and the US. Iran has always complained about the US and other Western governments not labeling the MeK as a terrorist group—they have been very helpful with intelligence in Iraq during and after the overthrow of Saddam—and claim that the West is using the MeK to destabilize Iran. I don’t know if people actually state TV claims that the MeK is behind all these global protests, but it’s interesting to see how the regime has fallen back on its usual tactics of blaming the West for trying to destabilize and overthrow Iran.
* Opposition Leaders update: if people have been surprised that Musavi has not been as present in recent protests as he was right after the election, it’s because he’s not allowed to speak to any journalists, and virtually all of his campaign managers and 1st or 2nd level people have been arrested. On top of this, his campaign spokesman said they he is under 24-hour surveillance, which from what I can tell essentially amounts to house arrest. One quote worth mentioning comes from an interview with the spokesman, who, when asked whether the protests were losing steam, said “The regime, arguably, is losing ground, not the protests… Ordinary Iranians are openly rejecting the legitimacy and power of Ayatollah Khamanei. That is entirely new, unheard of." Probably for this reason Musavi was absent again from protests on Sunday, but on Monday day he issued a statement again supporting the opposition, saying “Protesting to lies and fraud is your right.” Also, he played down reports that he told his supporters he was ‘ready for martyrdom’, and called for a global day of mourning for those killed so far this Thursday. There was also an article in a hardline newspaper that was basically laying out the groundwork for Musavi’s arrest, but unfortunately I haven’t seen more about this or an English translation. This would be a risky move by the regime, since the opposition would have another rallying cry and cause to protest, but they might gamble that this is a better way to stifle the protests than risk him further encouraging them. To be honest the movement is larger than Musavi and he’s been held virtually incommunicado for days, so I don’t see this having much benefit for the regime. Karrubi issued another statement calling for new elections and criticizing the Guardian Council, and repeated his claims that there were 200 regions where the number of votes exceeded the number of voters. One political party/group that is allied with Rafsanjani called on Musavi to join with them to help undermine the ‘illegitimate’ government. This isn’t coming from Rafsanjani himself, but it’s still important that a more moderate group is explicitly calling for the support and alliance with a more liberal/reformist group. In recent history reformists have undermined their power by fighting amongst themselves, but not only have they been more united and disciplined leading up to the election, but apparently now they are joining up with moderate groups in a development that will seriously worry the regime. Hardliner elements have stayed in power through divide-and-conquer tactics, but this will be harder to maintain now in light of current events.
* Rafsanjani: according to some reports I’ve seen, Rafsanjani is going to speak on Frida after Khamenei’s sermon. I can’t overemphasize how hugely important this is. If he sides with Khamenei the opposition will be dealt a huge blow, and I’d unfortunately say that a re-vote or annulment of the election would be near impossible then. However, if he sides with the opposition, even if not explicitly so, the movement will have its most powerful and important supporter to date, and their immediate demands for a new election will be all the more likely to be met. Rafsanjani, like much of the regime establishment, is not prone to swooping changes or sudden changes in alliance, so I wouldn’t expect him to come down directly on any one side, but if he is planning on speaking, it will still have massibe implications for those on the streets. His whereabouts are still not directly known, but his son was interviewed about the arrest of some members of his family and said that his father would not bow to this kind of pressure—he was imprisoned for 5 years under the Shah, his son said, and he will remain strong. Finally, there are other reports and rumors I’ve seen—unfortunately not confirmed—that Rafsanjani could have the support of up to 40 members of the Assembly of Experts for annulling the election.
* Legal update: in somewhat of a surprise, on Sunday the Guardian Council admitted there were in fact more votes than voters in 50 districts, but that this would only amount to 2 million votes, and wouldn’t have affected the results of the election since Ahmadinejad won by 11 million. On Monday they ruled out the possibility of nullifying the vote—not particularly surprising—so that leaves only the Assembly of Experts left that can possibly call for a re-vote. Yet in a turnaround on Tuesday state TV reported that the GC will extend the period where they will assess election complaints by 5 days. Additionally, on Tuesday state media reported that Ahmadinejad will be sworn in as president in late July or early August, but I haven’t seen any official confirmation of this from the GC or Khamenei himself.
* Cracks in the regime: there’s more evidence of cracks in the regime, this time a more reliable report (but I still wouldn’t say confirmed) of a senior Revolutonary Guard Commander being arrested for not following Khamenei’s orders to deal with the protestors by force. There was an interesting comment I saw the other day that people have been overlooking Rezai’is role in all of this, mainly his ties to the Revolutionary Guards. Rezaii is a former head commander of the Guards, and I’m sure still has allies within the senior ranks, and this could be one of the reasons for their lack of willingness to crack down on protests. Regarding clerical splits within the regime, CNN posted some great footage of members of the clergy taking part in protests. While this is very significant, I would again remind people that the Iranian clergy are far from monolithic, and there are various opinions not just about this election but about the idea of the Islamic Republic as a whole among Iran’s many clerics and clerical students. Still, this does show evidence of the type of splits that have been rumored, but I just want to remind people that these protests—and the Iranian regime as a whole—is not a uniform ‘mullocracy’ ruling the people. I can’t find a direct link but its one of the newer videos on http://www.cnn.com/video/. Ali Larijani, who I’ve mentioned before has been close to Khamenei but a rival of Ahmadinejad, is pressing for Musavi to have time on state TV to discuss his complaints about the election directly to the public. Additionally, a clerical group called the Association of Combatant Clergy—the same group that applied for a permit to protest on Saturday—issued a statement ‘strongly supporting’ Musavi and rejecting the results of the election.
* Protesting footballers: a few days back I wrote that 6 members of the Iranian national soccer team wore green arm bands in support of the protesters during their last world cup qualifying match (all but one, the captain, took them off after halftime). 4 of the 6 were ‘retired’ (including the captain), and there is no news about the other two. A few days after that there was a report that the 6 that wore the arm bands may have chosen to do so because they were the elder players on the team and were going to retire anyway. Except for one player who is 24, the other three players who were ‘retired’ were either 31 or 32.
* Two frightening stories: apparently the regime is establishing a ‘special court’ to deal with those who are arrested during protests. I haven’t seen any details about how these courts will work, but I can tell you from my own work on Iran’s judicial system that if they are in any way similar to the ‘revolutionary courts’ or ‘special courts for the clergy’—which they likely will be—trials will be short and behind closed doors, sentences handed down summarily and be harsh, and the accused will almost surely not have access to a lawyer (or even be able to be present at their own trials). I won’t bore you with details of Iran’s courts, but if you want more information let me know and I can send you my old research. Secondly, there was one story reported about a young man, aged 19, who was shot during a demonstration. When his parents went to pick up his body at first they weren’t allowed to take him until they payed a $3,000 ‘bullet fee’ for the ammunition used by the basij that killed him. Eventually they got the ‘fee’ waived—the father argued he was a war veteran and it was horribly unjust—but they still were made to bury him outside of Tehran and not have a public ceremony. I don’t know if this is an isolated incident or not, but its worth mentioning just to show the lack of respect for human life that’s been on display these past days.
* Neo-cons for Ahmadinejad: I’ve touched on this before, but there’s an unfortunately sizeable contingent of neo-cons or other commentators that, despite the fact that protests have gone on for over a week, still think that Ahmadinejad actually won the election and people in Iran, as well as the US, should ‘get over it’ and move on. I know that some people criticize these people for making this argument in bad faith, and basically wanting to have Ahmadinejad around for another term to justify a hardline stance towards Iran and eschewing any attempts at engagement. I think it’s actually quite simpler than this, and rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of Iran. For many of the commentators who actually believe Iran won, they simply can’t get their head around the fact that Ahadinejad does not represent the Iranian people. Their perceptions of Iran are rooted in the 1979 revolution, embassy takeover and hostage crisis, and they assume most Iranians are as anti-American and fundamentalist as Ahmadinejad To them, of course Ahmadinejad won---the Iranian people are just like him. Hopefully the continuing protests and calls for democracy in the streets will convince these people how untrue their stereotypes of Iranians are, but they’ve held this misperception of Iranians for three decades, and it will take time to change.
* Khamenei’s two-pronged battle: the longer the uncertainty in Iran goes on for, the more apparent it appears that Khamenei is fighting a two-pronged battle for his, and perhaps the regime’s, survival. On the one hand, there are the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets since the election who are furious at the blatant electoral fraud and attempts to remove the ‘Republic’ part from the ‘Islamic Republic.’ On the other hand, he’s also facing a mounting front within the establishment and clergy itself that is questioning his legitimacy and effectiveness as a leader. This group is of course led by Rafsanjani, and if the reports are true that Rafsanjani is gaining support within the Assembly of Experts, Khamenei’s days as Supreme Leader could be numbered. Interestingly, I think Rafsanjani and his clerical allies are upset with Khamenei for his attempt to take the ‘Islamic’ part out of the Islamic Republic. What I mean by this is that the role of Supreme Leader is supposed to remain above the political fray, and its main task is to ensure the stability of the regime by keeping factional differences and infighting to a minimum. As evidenced by his Friday sermon, Khamenei has clearly taken the side of Ahmadinejad, and in so directly aligning himself with one political faction, has sacrificed some of the mystique and legitimacy of the position of Supreme Leader. Most importantly, with the regime so closely taking sides with Ahmadinejad and his cohort, the regime’s image itself is tied direct to that of one particular faction. If and when Ahmadinejad’s administration fails to deliver, popular anger will be (as it has increasingly been) directed at the regime itself rather than the regime. The regime will no longer have a scapegoat for economic and political failures, and people may increasingly come to blame not just one politician but the system as a whole.
* How gov’t monitors internet: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us. With help from European countries. Basically monitoring what everything is saying with keywords, etc, and can even hack into sites, which may be why gov’t has kept internet on but slow (deep pocket stuff slows it down). More advanced than china and working through one large hub.
* next steps: strike: with the huge number of basij and security forces in the streets trying to prevent any sort of peaceful protests, the next step is a nation-wide strike, which to return again to 1979, was one of the most important tactics used in bringing down the regime. Khatami issued a statement on Musavi’s facebook page where he called for people to go to the bazaars at 9am in droves dressed normally and not shouting slogans. If the bazaars become overwhelmed with people or bazaari merchants themselves agree to stop business the country’s domestic commerce will be brought to a complete standstill. This would be a huge blow to the regime domestically, but a more serious one would be if oil workers can be convinced to strike. As oil is by far the largest components of Iran’s exports this would harm the regime even more than a bazaar closure—in fact, this tactic was used successfully before the 79 revolution.
* Neda: just a quick note on Neda, who is becoming a symbol of the opposition. Most of her friends and family have declined to speak to the press about her, BBC Persia was able to get an interview with her fiancé the other day. He said that Neda’s full name is Neda Agha-Soltan, and she was born in 1982. She was shot through the heart by a basij from on top of a building and died before they could get her to the hospital. According to the fiancé she wasn’t a firm supporter of Musavi or any one candidates, and just wanted ‘freedom for everyone.’ Additionally, her family was prevented from holding a public ceremony for her for fear that it would turn into a large demonstration. Related to this, the basij have been much more careful about attacking women in the streets so they don’t have any more opposition-galvanizing images like Neda, but now when male protestors are being attacked by security forces Iranian women are surrounding the men being attacking and trying to get in the way of the security forces. I feel terrible for not commenting until now on the huge presence of women in these rallies, but this just goes to show you how active and on the frontlines they are in this movement.
* Media update: if you’re curious about how State TV is dealing with these protests, they’re basically trying to downplay their number and scale, but when they do discuss them, try to portray them as terrorists and rioters. They’ve ratcheted up their statements about Musavi, saying that his actions are criminal. Also, they’ve seized protests worldwide and are mistranslating signs and chants, claiming that people are saying stuff like “down with regime” and “death to Iran,” etc. Another tactic they use with these foreign protests is to say that they’re MKO-backed or organized. I believe I wrote about this already, but there’s an opposition group in exile called the mujaheddin-e khalq (MeK, or its English acronym, MKO). They were one of the many groups instrumental in the 1979 revolution, but when the new government started to take on an Islamic-bent they turned against this and attacked other groups and factions within the revolutionary forces (they were even responsible for a bomb that killed the president of Iran in 1981). Eventually they were pushed out of Iran, and found exile in Iraq, where they continued to support attacks within Iran and even sided with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. Taking the side of Iraq in the ‘war of holy defense’ cost them any legitimacy they may have had, and they have absolutely no support inside Iran, although they are quite organized and active in lobbying Western governments, particularly France, Britain, and the US. Iran has always complained about the US and other Western governments not labeling the MeK as a terrorist group—they have been very helpful with intelligence in Iraq during and after the overthrow of Saddam—and claim that the West is using the MeK to destabilize Iran. I don’t know if people actually state TV claims that the MeK is behind all these global protests, but it’s interesting to see how the regime has fallen back on its usual tactics of blaming the West for trying to destabilize and overthrow Iran.
* Opposition Leaders update: if people have been surprised that Musavi has not been as present in recent protests as he was right after the election, it’s because he’s not allowed to speak to any journalists, and virtually all of his campaign managers and 1st or 2nd level people have been arrested. On top of this, his campaign spokesman said they he is under 24-hour surveillance, which from what I can tell essentially amounts to house arrest. One quote worth mentioning comes from an interview with the spokesman, who, when asked whether the protests were losing steam, said “The regime, arguably, is losing ground, not the protests… Ordinary Iranians are openly rejecting the legitimacy and power of Ayatollah Khamanei. That is entirely new, unheard of." Probably for this reason Musavi was absent again from protests on Sunday, but on Monday day he issued a statement again supporting the opposition, saying “Protesting to lies and fraud is your right.” Also, he played down reports that he told his supporters he was ‘ready for martyrdom’, and called for a global day of mourning for those killed so far this Thursday. There was also an article in a hardline newspaper that was basically laying out the groundwork for Musavi’s arrest, but unfortunately I haven’t seen more about this or an English translation. This would be a risky move by the regime, since the opposition would have another rallying cry and cause to protest, but they might gamble that this is a better way to stifle the protests than risk him further encouraging them. To be honest the movement is larger than Musavi and he’s been held virtually incommunicado for days, so I don’t see this having much benefit for the regime. Karrubi issued another statement calling for new elections and criticizing the Guardian Council, and repeated his claims that there were 200 regions where the number of votes exceeded the number of voters. One political party/group that is allied with Rafsanjani called on Musavi to join with them to help undermine the ‘illegitimate’ government. This isn’t coming from Rafsanjani himself, but it’s still important that a more moderate group is explicitly calling for the support and alliance with a more liberal/reformist group. In recent history reformists have undermined their power by fighting amongst themselves, but not only have they been more united and disciplined leading up to the election, but apparently now they are joining up with moderate groups in a development that will seriously worry the regime. Hardliner elements have stayed in power through divide-and-conquer tactics, but this will be harder to maintain now in light of current events.
* Rafsanjani: according to some reports I’ve seen, Rafsanjani is going to speak on Frida after Khamenei’s sermon. I can’t overemphasize how hugely important this is. If he sides with Khamenei the opposition will be dealt a huge blow, and I’d unfortunately say that a re-vote or annulment of the election would be near impossible then. However, if he sides with the opposition, even if not explicitly so, the movement will have its most powerful and important supporter to date, and their immediate demands for a new election will be all the more likely to be met. Rafsanjani, like much of the regime establishment, is not prone to swooping changes or sudden changes in alliance, so I wouldn’t expect him to come down directly on any one side, but if he is planning on speaking, it will still have massibe implications for those on the streets. His whereabouts are still not directly known, but his son was interviewed about the arrest of some members of his family and said that his father would not bow to this kind of pressure—he was imprisoned for 5 years under the Shah, his son said, and he will remain strong. Finally, there are other reports and rumors I’ve seen—unfortunately not confirmed—that Rafsanjani could have the support of up to 40 members of the Assembly of Experts for annulling the election.
* Legal update: in somewhat of a surprise, on Sunday the Guardian Council admitted there were in fact more votes than voters in 50 districts, but that this would only amount to 2 million votes, and wouldn’t have affected the results of the election since Ahmadinejad won by 11 million. On Monday they ruled out the possibility of nullifying the vote—not particularly surprising—so that leaves only the Assembly of Experts left that can possibly call for a re-vote. Yet in a turnaround on Tuesday state TV reported that the GC will extend the period where they will assess election complaints by 5 days. Additionally, on Tuesday state media reported that Ahmadinejad will be sworn in as president in late July or early August, but I haven’t seen any official confirmation of this from the GC or Khamenei himself.
* Cracks in the regime: there’s more evidence of cracks in the regime, this time a more reliable report (but I still wouldn’t say confirmed) of a senior Revolutonary Guard Commander being arrested for not following Khamenei’s orders to deal with the protestors by force. There was an interesting comment I saw the other day that people have been overlooking Rezai’is role in all of this, mainly his ties to the Revolutionary Guards. Rezaii is a former head commander of the Guards, and I’m sure still has allies within the senior ranks, and this could be one of the reasons for their lack of willingness to crack down on protests. Regarding clerical splits within the regime, CNN posted some great footage of members of the clergy taking part in protests. While this is very significant, I would again remind people that the Iranian clergy are far from monolithic, and there are various opinions not just about this election but about the idea of the Islamic Republic as a whole among Iran’s many clerics and clerical students. Still, this does show evidence of the type of splits that have been rumored, but I just want to remind people that these protests—and the Iranian regime as a whole—is not a uniform ‘mullocracy’ ruling the people. I can’t find a direct link but its one of the newer videos on http://www.cnn.com/video/. Ali Larijani, who I’ve mentioned before has been close to Khamenei but a rival of Ahmadinejad, is pressing for Musavi to have time on state TV to discuss his complaints about the election directly to the public. Additionally, a clerical group called the Association of Combatant Clergy—the same group that applied for a permit to protest on Saturday—issued a statement ‘strongly supporting’ Musavi and rejecting the results of the election.
* Protesting footballers: a few days back I wrote that 6 members of the Iranian national soccer team wore green arm bands in support of the protesters during their last world cup qualifying match (all but one, the captain, took them off after halftime). 4 of the 6 were ‘retired’ (including the captain), and there is no news about the other two. A few days after that there was a report that the 6 that wore the arm bands may have chosen to do so because they were the elder players on the team and were going to retire anyway. Except for one player who is 24, the other three players who were ‘retired’ were either 31 or 32.
* Two frightening stories: apparently the regime is establishing a ‘special court’ to deal with those who are arrested during protests. I haven’t seen any details about how these courts will work, but I can tell you from my own work on Iran’s judicial system that if they are in any way similar to the ‘revolutionary courts’ or ‘special courts for the clergy’—which they likely will be—trials will be short and behind closed doors, sentences handed down summarily and be harsh, and the accused will almost surely not have access to a lawyer (or even be able to be present at their own trials). I won’t bore you with details of Iran’s courts, but if you want more information let me know and I can send you my old research. Secondly, there was one story reported about a young man, aged 19, who was shot during a demonstration. When his parents went to pick up his body at first they weren’t allowed to take him until they payed a $3,000 ‘bullet fee’ for the ammunition used by the basij that killed him. Eventually they got the ‘fee’ waived—the father argued he was a war veteran and it was horribly unjust—but they still were made to bury him outside of Tehran and not have a public ceremony. I don’t know if this is an isolated incident or not, but its worth mentioning just to show the lack of respect for human life that’s been on display these past days.
* Neo-cons for Ahmadinejad: I’ve touched on this before, but there’s an unfortunately sizeable contingent of neo-cons or other commentators that, despite the fact that protests have gone on for over a week, still think that Ahmadinejad actually won the election and people in Iran, as well as the US, should ‘get over it’ and move on. I know that some people criticize these people for making this argument in bad faith, and basically wanting to have Ahmadinejad around for another term to justify a hardline stance towards Iran and eschewing any attempts at engagement. I think it’s actually quite simpler than this, and rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of Iran. For many of the commentators who actually believe Iran won, they simply can’t get their head around the fact that Ahadinejad does not represent the Iranian people. Their perceptions of Iran are rooted in the 1979 revolution, embassy takeover and hostage crisis, and they assume most Iranians are as anti-American and fundamentalist as Ahmadinejad To them, of course Ahmadinejad won---the Iranian people are just like him. Hopefully the continuing protests and calls for democracy in the streets will convince these people how untrue their stereotypes of Iranians are, but they’ve held this misperception of Iranians for three decades, and it will take time to change.
* Khamenei’s two-pronged battle: the longer the uncertainty in Iran goes on for, the more apparent it appears that Khamenei is fighting a two-pronged battle for his, and perhaps the regime’s, survival. On the one hand, there are the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets since the election who are furious at the blatant electoral fraud and attempts to remove the ‘Republic’ part from the ‘Islamic Republic.’ On the other hand, he’s also facing a mounting front within the establishment and clergy itself that is questioning his legitimacy and effectiveness as a leader. This group is of course led by Rafsanjani, and if the reports are true that Rafsanjani is gaining support within the Assembly of Experts, Khamenei’s days as Supreme Leader could be numbered. Interestingly, I think Rafsanjani and his clerical allies are upset with Khamenei for his attempt to take the ‘Islamic’ part out of the Islamic Republic. What I mean by this is that the role of Supreme Leader is supposed to remain above the political fray, and its main task is to ensure the stability of the regime by keeping factional differences and infighting to a minimum. As evidenced by his Friday sermon, Khamenei has clearly taken the side of Ahmadinejad, and in so directly aligning himself with one political faction, has sacrificed some of the mystique and legitimacy of the position of Supreme Leader. Most importantly, with the regime so closely taking sides with Ahmadinejad and his cohort, the regime’s image itself is tied direct to that of one particular faction. If and when Ahmadinejad’s administration fails to deliver, popular anger will be (as it has increasingly been) directed at the regime itself rather than the regime. The regime will no longer have a scapegoat for economic and political failures, and people may increasingly come to blame not just one politician but the system as a whole.
* How gov’t monitors internet: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us. With help from European countries. Basically monitoring what everything is saying with keywords, etc, and can even hack into sites, which may be why gov’t has kept internet on but slow (deep pocket stuff slows it down). More advanced than china and working through one large hub.
Monday, June 22, 2009
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