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Mass Arrests of Journalists Follow Iran Elections
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the fact that no less than 23 journalists have been arrested in Iran in the week following the elections, making Iran one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Online activists are trying to counter this trend by giving advice for helping Iranian protesters. One problem is that Iranian leaders are trying to delegitimize the reform movement by pretending that the reformers are puppets of foreign powers, so special discretion is required for anyone wanting to help the Iranian people."
The regime seems to be fighting the last media war. They've been very effective in deporting and isolating professionals, only to discover how irrelevant that is when thousands of phone-cams are in the streets. Their attempts at jamming and filtering have clearly been quite porous. There's no such thing as a media blackout once word of mouth goes world wide.
My heart goes out to the Iranian people, but this is something they have to do for themselves.
their governement has to learn to respect the people they govern. as one post i read had stated, "we've traded one dictatorship for another".
if we in the west get involved there will always be accusations of puppets and strings.
the only way for the Iranian people to earn the respect of those that run the country and the other countries of the region is to do this on their own.
the worst is yet to come, but i wish them all the courage and strength they may need.
This does not confirm that the elections were a farce. It simply confirms that Iran is not a liberal democracy. If the elections were fair and a protest erupted, there would have been a similar clampdown.
Frankly, I don't know who to believe. The past 30 years of American history has taught me not to take my government's word at face value, and journalism isn't much better. I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.
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I'm not asking a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious about what the historical precedent is for regimes to be overthrown since it doesn't seem to happen.
My Russian friend used the colloquialism "every country is three meals away from a revolution" to describe the threshold for revolution, to make the case that nobody missed three meals during the Great Depression but did before the Russian Revolution.
I also read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in which Heinlein asserted that revolutions are never started or run by ordinary people, but by well organized political factions.
There's also 1984, in which Orwell points out that revolutions always involve the middle class, and the proletariat never drives revolutions.
There's also the wild card of alleged CIA involvement, which was behind the Orange (Ukraine) and Rose (Georgia) revolutions.
All of these tidbits of information aren't helping me to predict the outcome of the latest situation in Iran. What's driving the protests other than the election results? Will the revolutionaries succeed?
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The Iranian government was hoping to quietly sweep the issue under the rug. The Guardian Council's statement that they would look into possible election fraud was nothing more than a delay tactic. The Council had hoped that the public would wait for the result quietly. Then when the Council made their determination, the people would have cooled off and the whole matter would be swept under the rug.
Of course, it didn't work that way. The Iranian public has been getting progressively angrier. These stalling tactics only made them madder. The Ayatollah's proclamation of "divine insight" into the election made them angrier still. Even the blood shed on the street has not discouraged them, but thrown them into a shear rage.
Now Iran is staring down a full-blown revolution. The police have been told they can use firearms (as if they haven't been using them) and the protesters have been denounced as terrorists.
A lot of blood is going to be shed in the next few days. And the press just happens to be considered a fair target by the Iranian government. :-(
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No it, doesn't confirm the elections were a farce. But there is quite a lot of statistical evidence, and even the government admits to some apparent overvoting. Yes, it could all be coincidence (the statistical evidence allows for a less than 1% chance the chance the election results weren't made up), and it is possible that in between 50 and 170 districts, people voted outside their voting districts and therefore produced greater than 100% turnout, but it's extremely suspect all the same.
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The problem here is that there are deep divisions among the various factions that control Iran. Khamenei is, at least on paper, the most powerful person in Iran, but he ultimately does have to answer to the Assembly of Experts. The Assembly of Experts is lead by Khamenei's chief rival; Rafsanjani. It appears that, whatever the goals of the protesters, it really is about Rafsanjani and the other commercial elites, who stand to benefit from opening up to the West, taking on Khamenei and his faction, who are decidedly anti-Western and totally anti-American.
You can see this secret dance in odd ways; Khamenei's fawning words about Rafsanjani's, the unwillingness of Khamenei to go completely Tienanmen on the protesters (which may suggest deep divisions in the Guardian Council). Khamenei clearly thinks he is vulnerable and has to walk a fine line. Still, by arresting Rafsanjani's kids and making only slightly veiled threats against Moussavi he's trying to send the message that he still holds a lot of cards, which of course he does.
I think the news, such as we're getting, suggests the protests are petering out. But the cat is out of the bag now. Khamenei's authority has been undermined.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't think anyone outside of Iran knows the truth.
Iranians living in the US know the truth. Seek out what they have to say on Google.
By the way, you may think the US government is FOS, but take note of the language used on many of the protester's signs. They're in English, and I don't think they are necessarily looking for attention from the Brits.
Having worked with a former Iranian several years ago, I can tell you only what he told me - there can be terrible consequences if someone speaks out against the ruling mullahs. I, for one, would like to see this upheaval undermine the bastards that are ruling that otherwise magnificent country, populated by smart hard working people.
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That really is a load of crap. In the 1950s, Iran was well on its way to becoming probably the most secular society in the Middle East. It had a burgeoning middle class, and seemed to be moving away from authoritarianism. And then the Americans and the Brits, not liking the nationalization of oil by Mohammad Mosaddeq, helped the Shah to overthrow that government. That created the deep divide between Iran and the US and Great Britain, and it didn't help that the Shah became a ruthless, Western-backed dictator.
I doubt a lot of the Iranians who supported Ayatollah Khomeini did it because they wanted to replace the Shah's oppressive regime with a fundamentalist Islamic regime just as oppressive. They wanted the Shah out and flocked to those who seemed capable of a leadership position. Was it a mistake? Probably, but if there's still lingering distrust of the United States, it's hardly because Iranians are somehow culturally more likely to live willingly under dictators (which I don't buy, it doesn't really reflect where Iranian culture was going for the first part of the 20th century). It's because the US, shortsightedly, opted for a man they viewed as a friend as opposed to a man they viewed as an opponent who threatened both key oil reserves and who (in they're view) might be more prone to siding with the Soviets.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Whatever the truth of cultural differences, the reality is that the claims that Mosaddeq was going to cut a deal with the Russians was a smokescreen, a complete pile of B.S. concocted by the Brits and the Americans to give some justification to turfing a guy who was clearly trying to break Iran free from both Western subservience and trying to give more weight to the democratic institutions than to the Shah.
None of this history is very much disputed any more. The CIA, with Eisenhower's approval, helped the Shah overthrow Mosaddeq's government in return for allowing foreign oil companies to gain valuable contracts to extract Iranian oil.
You need to read up on Anglo-Iranian Oil Company here. The coup d'etat that ousted Mosaddeq had nothing to do with differing cultures or with the fear of the growth of the Soviet sphere, and everything to do with the Brits being really pissed off that Mosaddeq had nationalized their oil company, and the Americans lending a helping hand and trying to firm up their control over the Shah, who they viewed as a chief ally in the Middle East and Central Asia. It was a shortsighted policy that ended in absolute disaster.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.