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Iranians elect to protest

21 Jun 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s first reading the Lord addresses Job out of a storm. In response to a storm of protest, Iran’s supreme leader reversed course this week and ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud in last Friday’s presidential election. Earlier having called the reelection of Mahmud Ahmadinejad a “divine assessment,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday directed a high-level clerical panel to look into the charges of fraud. The move was not enough to placate supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who have daily taken to the streets of Tehran to protest. Tuesday the country’s most senior Islamic cleric, an opponent of Khamenei, threw his weight behind charges that Ahmadinejad’s reelection was rigged. “No one in their right mind can believe” the official results from Friday’s contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi’s charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers “in the worst way possible.” In an effort to quash media coverage, the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued a ban on foreign news reporting of rallies in Tehran, revoked the credentials of those with temporary visas, and ordered them to leave the country as soon as possible. Cell phone service was cut in the city. To counter these restrictions a U.S. State Department official Monday emailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: Delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran. The State Department said its request did not amount to meddling in Iranian affairs because the department did not contact Twitter until three days after the vote was held and well after the protests had begun. Source: Articles by Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay for McClatchy Newspapers, Mark Landler and Brian Stelter for the New York Times, and Hashem Kalantari and Fredrik Dahl for Reuters

twitter ministry of culture and islamic guidance ali khamenei hossein ali montazeri tehran mir hossein mousavi fraud mahmud ahmadinejad election iran state department
Iran running roughshod over democracy?

09 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Letter to the Ephesians this Sunday counsels that all bitterness and anger "must be removed from you." That has not happened in Iran, where anger in the streets and bitterness in the halls of the Iranian parliament testify to ongoing resistance to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sworn in for a second term this week. In his inauguration speech Ahmadinejad hailed what he called an "epic election" but didn't mention the turmoil that has followed for the past two months. "The victor is all the people, the revolutionary values, and the Islamic establishment," he said. Reformists did not show up at the inauguration ceremony. Instead, they were busy on social networking sites just as they have been throughout the election crisis. They posted messages ranging from defiance to offering an action plan. One message on Twitter read: "Lots of empty seats in the Majlis (parliament) today. Well done to those who kept away. Now we need leadership committed to regime change." Experts predict that if the power struggle in the country continues, chances are high some leading opposition figures will be blamed for the unrest and be arrested as a result. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs backtracked Wednesday from comments he made Tuesday in which he called Ahmadinejad "the elected leader" of Iran, comments that had raised protests from reformers. Wednesday Gibbs said he wanted to "correct a little bit of what I said yesterday. I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say it's not for me to pass judgment on. He's been inaugurated, that's a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that and we'll let them decide that." Source: Articles by Octavia Nasr for CNN and Foon Ray for boston.com

robert gibbs iran election mahmud ahmadinejad majlis
Protesting students teach Iranian authorities a cyber-lesson

13 Dec 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Lord turned away Israel's enemies, the reading from the Book of Zephaniah this Sunday tells us. Even though Iranian officials turned away foreign journalists, slowed Internet service to a crawl, and took other measures to suppress coverage of student protests Monday, footage of violent clashes with authorities quickly flooded the Web. Government news agencies, which initially didn't mention the protests, were forced to acknowledge them by Monday afternoon. Violence erupted at and around university campuses across Iran as demonstrators took to the streets during the regime-sanctioned Student Day, but used the occasion to press their months-long protest against the government. Students chanted "death to the dictator" and anti-regime slogans and set fire to pictures of Iran's Islamic leaders and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, according to eyewitness accounts and videos posted on the Internet. The opposition planned what they called a "green traffic" tactic for 5 p.m. today, at the height of rush hour in Tehran. Supporters were asked to bring their cars to a standstill, making it difficult for security forces to navigate through the city. Iran's leadership, however, has been striking back across national borders. In an effort to stamp out dissent worldwide, authorities have threatened to punish relatives of Iranians living abroad who protest the regime. Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world and sending threatening e-mails to anyone who expresses dissent. As protests were reported online Monday, Iranian state TV was broadcasting a round-table discussion about how loyal students are to the system. Source: Articles by Farnaz Fassihi for the Wall Street Journal, Hannah Allam for McClatchy Newspapers, and BBC News

internet protests iran mahmud ahmadinejad student day students