Steet protests in Tehran
Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 21, 2009 with story from BBC News and the Guardian.co.uk
Street protests in Tehran turned violent Saturday with at least ten more people killed by Iranian security forces.
Despite a ban on protest by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a plea from Mousavi to stay home, people poured on the streets. They chanted, threw stones, lit fires and vented their anger at the election results. Video – street protest turn violent in Iran
On Saturday night the centre of attention Mir-Hossein Mousavi told his supporters he is ready for martyrdom. The story in the Guardian.co.uk is hard for Westerners to accept but it shows the depth of their emotion and dedication to the cause of freedom in Iran.
“He dramatically raised the stakes in the standoff with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after publishing a letter to the country’s highest electoral authority in which he cited examples of electoral fraud to support his “undeniable right” to call for a re-run of the election.
Mr Mousavi made his defiant call during a speech delivered in southwest Tehran, according to an ally, who telephoned a western news agency shortly afterwards to report: “Mousavi said he was ready for martyrdom and that he would continue his path.”
The election over a week ago gave a landslide win to incumbent President Ahmadinejad. Opposition leaders protested immediately that the results were rigged and the protests started.
The are several opposition groups to the government. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful Iranian politician, protested the election results and has been arrested along with five members of his family. His daughter Faezeh who adressed the protests on Tuesday is among those arrested.
Pro-reform cleric “Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri calls for three days of national mourning for those killed in street protests, Reuters news agency reports”. The situation on the ground is complex and fluid.
BBC reported Jon Leyne has been asked to leave the country along with Canadian and other foreign journalists. The government claims they are fanning the protest flames by exporting the cell phone videos that are showing up on Twitter and YouTube. Most of the footage is amateur and widely shared on the Internet.
Another politician “former pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami calls for the release of detained activists.”
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