Iran Government Cracks Down On Demonstrators, Blames U.S. For Chaos, Police Arrest Ex-Iranian Leader's Daughter

MSNBC----

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TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's government said Sunday it arrested the daughter and four other relatives of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country's most powerful men, in a move that exposed a rift among the ruling Islamic clerics over the disputed presidential election.

State media also reported at least 10 more deaths, bringing the official toll for a week of confrontations to at least 17. State television inside Iran said 10 were killed and 100 injured in clashes Saturday between demonstrators contesting the result of the June 12 election and black-clad police wielding truncheons, tear gas and water cannons.

Police and members of the Basij militia took up positions in the afternoon on major streets and squares, including the site of Saturday's clashes. There was no word on any new clashes Sunday, although after dark many people in Tehran went to their rooftops to shout "Death to the dictator" and Allahu akbar," a common form of defiance in recent days.

State-run Press TV reported that Rafsanjani's eldest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and four other unidentified family members were arrested late Saturday. On Sunday evening, it said the four others had been released but that Hashemi remained in detention. However, Iran's ambassador to France Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi said on France's RFI radio that Hashemi had been released.

Serious divide among clerics:

Last week, state television showed images of Hashemi, 46, speaking to hundreds of supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. He alleges fraud in the June 12 election, which the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.

After Hashemi's appearance, hard-line students gathered outside the Tehran prosecutor's office and accused her of treason, state radio reported.

The arrests are the strongest sign yet of a serious divide among Iran's ruling clerics.

Also Sunday, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on state television that the number of people questioning the election results was large and "this group should be respected and one should not mix this big population's account with a small group of rioters."

Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One of them, the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, has the power to monitor and remove the supreme leader, the country's most powerful figure. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.

The assembly has never publicly reprimanded the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Aytollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But the current crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader with protesters openly defying his orders to leave the streets.

Underscoring how the protesters have become emboldened despite the regime's repeated and ominous warnings, witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations — another sign of once unthinkable challenges to the virtually limitless authority of the supreme leader.

Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign and has the potential to lead an internal challenge to Khamenei.


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Sources: MSNBC, Huffington Post, Google Maps

Facebook Provides Iranians With Link To American Relatives & Friends

MSNBC----

I’ve been using Facebook for years to connect with co-workers, friends and family. However, I never anticipated its wingspan until I received “friend requests” from my Iranian relatives in Tehran, whom I have seen only a handful of times throughout my life.

I’m a full-blown Hoosier, but my dad migrated to the U.S. from Iran after medical school. We took occasional family trips to Iran: My dad wants his kids to stay connected to Persian culture. There, I got to meet my Iranian extended family. After visits, my relationships with them tended to stagnate ... that is, until we found each other online as young adults.

I always assumed that I'd have little in common with my Iranian relatives, but on Facebook, I saw them as people interested in the same TV shows and the same political news. Their photos and videos on the social networking site gave me insight into their lives. It was almost like meeting completely new people.

With the recent election in Iran, the site became a source of information on the protests and the safety of my family in Iran.

Personal touch to news:

I learned that for their own protection, many Iranian students and Facebook users have changed their account names. Rather than taking their profiles down altogether, they say students still feel the need to spread information and stay connected. Family and friends in the U.S. have also helped spread information from Iran through their active Facebook and Twitter accounts.

I decided to message Mojdeh (not her real name), a teenage relative I recently “friended” who is now a student at a university in Tehran. Instead of receiving a Facebook reply, I got an e-mail from her. Mojdeh said she can't really access Facebook, instant message services, mobile phones or Twitter — although e-mail seems to be working.

She told me everyone was safe but frustrated with the election results. Although I could log on to almost any Web site to see the crowds, guards and violence, it felt different coming from someone I was slowly getting to know all over again.

Mojdeh said it’s hard to know exactly what's happening with regard to protests or reports of violence because “they (the Iranian government) don’t tell the truth … but many shots have been fired." She said most people in Tehran don’t accept the election results and believe that the government “cheated.”

So far, she claimed, the Iranian police, known as the Sepah, hit one of her friends who was protesting, and a bullet grazed another friend in the arm. She’s growing concerned about the possibility of spreading violence.

Don’t know what’s going to happen:

Mojdeh’s sister, Asal (not her real name), who is following the events in Iran from her home in the U.S., said it seems the family is OK at the moment.

"But this is just for now,” Asal said via Facebook. “We don’t know what’s going to happen if no one supports this protest from outside Iran.”


Asal said people are discussing a rumor that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked the army to attack protesters in the street. Mojdeh claimed that the buzz circulating among her friends is that the Sepah has raided homes and universities. The reports are that satellite dishes have been damaged to limit news activity, and young protesters have been beaten in the streets, including women and children. She said she wakes in the middle of the night to hear people screaming, “Allah o Akbar” — “God is great” — from rooftops in protest against the government.

Asal expressed her concerns about the outcome of the protests and what might happen if people ignore what’s going on. She said some Iranians hesitate to call an ambulance even when they're hurt, because people are saying that injured protesters are being arrested rather than treated.

A few relatives have been keeping close contact with me, sending messages and links to reports about the crisis. But my limited connection with them via the Internet has taught me that people, while fearful of Iranian police reaction, have been empowered by the peaceful protests. They are now, more than ever, determined to stay connected to the rest of the world — at least electronically.


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Sources: MSNBC, Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps

G.O.P. Using Iran Resolution To Attack Pres. Obama

Huffington Post----

Dave Weigel has a good round-up of the debate that just transpired on the House floor over Iran. No one should be surprised that while the language of the resolution is fairly innocuous, the GOP is going to use it as a wedge against the Administration, and utilize the optics that the House acted on behalf of the Iranian people while Obama remains silent as a calculated strategy to hammer the president's approach towards Iran, which has been supported by Henry Kissinger, Pat Buchanan, Nick Burns, and Dick Lugar, amongst other. Just look at the statements Republicans just made on the floor (from Weigel):

Eric Cantor: "America's moral responsibility to speak out on the protection of human rights wherever they are violated...I urge President Obama to follow the lead of this House."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher: Silence would be a "betrayal of our fundamental principles" and a show of "weakness," and reminded the House that he had been a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan.

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart: "The president of the United States has been silent and confused."

And Mike Pence's statement introducing the resolution far exceeded the rhetoric in the resolution itself:

"For days hundreds of thousands of dissidents have taken to the streets of Iran in support of freedom and democracy. The American cause is freedom and in that cause the American people will not be silent.

It's clear that on its merits, the resolution itself is not necessarily bad (and indeed the Administration appears to have a hand in its crafting), and is not completely opposed by members of the Iranian human rights community.

But that's in a vacuum.

This is American politics and the GOP's political calculation is very shrewd and very insidious.

This resolution will give the Republican party cover to slam Obama's "inaction" on behalf of the Iranian people, and sets them up for a weekend of messaging along these lines, including on the Sunday shows.

And in the end, while from the domestic political angle this might score points for the GOP at a very superficial and visceral level (especially in the media), the biggest impact is it will provide another talking point for Khameini and Ahmadinejad to accuse America of meddling in Iranian affairs. In fact, Khameini already attacked the West today on those lines:

"The enemies [of Iran] are targeting the Islamic establishment's legitimacy by questioning the election and its authenticity before and after [the vote]."

Through this resolution and subsequent Republican statements which far exceed the moderate tone of the resolution's text itself, the GOP provides Khameini, the Iranian state media, and Ahmadinejad with talking points confirming the regime's assertions of American interference as well as providing the appearance of an American government divided. Such political posturing might help the Republican's cause of demonizing the Administration and decrying weakness of its foreign policy. But in the end, the resolution itself is merely a vehicle for subsequent statements, releases and press conferences. This is where the dangerous rhetoric will emanate from which will only add fuel to the fire for those in Iran who seek to suppress the protesters and quell the march of freedom that continues to build in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere.

While they display the veneer of being on the side of the Iranian people, in the end Cantor, Pence, Rohrabacher and others today confirmed themselves as the leading speechwriters and providers of talking points for Iran's oppressive regime. It's too bad they put partisan American politics above actually supporting the people of Iran.

Sources: Huffington Post, Washington Independent, Wikipedia