Archives for June 2009

VOA says Mir-Hosain Mousavi, the opposition candidate who says the Iranian election was stolen, held that supposedly forbidden and cancelled rally in Tehran after all. And an estimated 100,000 protesters showed up, thronging the streets. Near an HQ of the paramilitary Basij pro-regime militia, shots rang out, leaving a protester dead and panicking the crowd. […]

UPdate: The rally went ahead anyway. See above. Mir-Hosein Mousavi, the reformist candidate who alleges that Friday’s presidential election was stolen from him, was forced to cancel a planned nation-wide protest on Monday morning. Clashes had again broken out between pro-Mousavi demonstrators and Iranian police and paramilitaries on Sunday. From Italian t.v., Iranian police on […]

Noting my skepticism about the announced outcome of Friday’s presidential elections in Iran, readers have been asking me what I think about this WaPo op-ed by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty pointing out that a scientifically weighted Project for a Terror Free Tomorrow poll in mid-May found Ahmadinejad beating Mir-Hosain Mousavi by a 2 to […]

Some comentators have suggested that the reason Western reporters were shocked when Ahmadinejad won was that they are based in opulent North Tehran, whereas the farmers and workers of Iran, the majority, are enthusiastic for Ahmadinejad. That is, we fell victim once again to upper middle class reporting and expectations in a working class country […]

Aljazeera.net is reporting that the streets in Iran’s capital, Tehran, were almost deserted Sunday morning. Since it is a weekday in Iran, there should have been heavy traffic, but many people appear to have stayed home from work. Reports from students in Tehran say that the universities and polytechnic institutes have been closed for the […]

Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen 1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, […]

One person was wounded and 8 injured (all policemen) by a Taliban bombing at Kohat Saturday morning. The attack was likely intend to punish the Pakistani security forces for their campaign against the Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province . . . The Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (Movement of the Taliban of Pakistan), led by Baitullah […]

On Friday, Iranians and the rest of the globe are eagerly awaiting an outcome in the presidential elections. Iranians started voting Friday morning. Rallies and electioneering were not allowed on Thursday, the day before the vote, leaving Tehran’s streets eerily ghost-like after days of raucus rallies every evening. Howard LaFranchi at CSM asks what the […]

The USG Open Source Center analyzes Iran’s political blogs and finds that the conservatives have redoubled their efforts on Ahmadinejad’s behalf. OSC Analysis: Iran — Conservative Bloggers Intensify Support of AhmadinezhadIran — OSC AnalysisThursday, June 11, 2009 Document Type: OSC Analysis In the second week (23-29 May) of analysis of 100 Iranian political bloggers President […]