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Mothers arrested before opposition rally in Iran |
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Monday, 07 December 2009 |
The New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
 Ahead of a planned opposition rally on Monday, Iran tightened security and arrested more than 20 mothers who were mourning children killed in the unrest that has broken out since the disputed June 12 elections.
The mothers took part in an antigovernment protest in Leleh Park in central Tehran every Saturday since the death in June of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, whose shooting became a symbol of the government’s violent repression. The rally had been attacked by the police before, but Saturday was the first time the mothers were arrested.
An opposition Web site reported that the protest was broken up by the police and many demonstrators were taken away. The BBC Persian service quoted a witness who said 29 women were arrested, some of whom were later released. But at least 21 remained in jail, the BBC said.
Ms. Agha-Soltan’s mother regularly attended the rally, but it was not clear whether she was there on Saturday or was among those arrested.
The arrests appear to be part of the government’s increasing efforts to suppress a large rally planned for Monday on National Student Day. Reuters reported that on Monday, the Iranian police surrounded Tehran University to prevent members of the opposition from demonstrating at the rally.
The authorities have ordered foreign news media not to cover the event and Internet service was reduced to a trickle on Saturday, so slow that it was impossible to “open e-mails or any Web pages,” a journalist in Tehran said.
The measure appeared to be aimed at preventing information about the crackdown or the protest to get outside the country and also to deprive the opposition from its key means, the Internet and Facebook, to mobilize their supporters. Videos posted online have played a critical role in showing the world what has been happening inside Iran.
The government has also arrested dozens of student leaders in Tehran and across the country in the past weeks. However, students continued to say they would hold demonstrations at universities around the country on Monday. In Tehran, the nightly rooftop chants of “Allahu akbar,” meaning “God is great,” an opposition ritual since June, were louder than usual Sunday night.
“The chants rocked Tehran,” said the journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, out of fear for his safety. “People will also go out tomorrow but only to stop the traffic. It won’t be as large as previous protests.”
There are no plans for street demonstrations on Monday but students plan to hold demonstrations inside universities, which security forces are banned from entering. However, hard-line members of the Basij militia force at the universities often raid the student protests.
Mir Hussein Moussavi, one of the two opposition leaders who ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, issued a statement on Sunday characterizing the movement “as alive” despite government suppression.
He warned that the authorities could not end the protests with the arrests of students because one in 20 Iranians were university students, several opposition sites reported. “They are asking us to forget about the election results as though people are concerned only about the elections,” he said. “How can we make them understand that this is not the issue? It is not about who the president is or is not; the issue is that they have sold out a great nation.”
Mr. Moussavi has been issuing statements regularly since June. Despite threats of arrest, he remains free, but his movement is restricted, according to an ally outside the country.
His comments were followed by criticism of the government by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential politician who sided with the opposition but had been silent recently.
“Constructive criticism is not tolerated in the country,” Mr. Rafsanjani said at a meeting with students in the city of Mashad, according to the Web site mowjcamp.com. “It was not right to put the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards to confront the people.”
Next Saturday, six months after Election Day, protests are planned around the world “to honor the Iranian people’s peaceful struggle for their human and civil rights,” according to the organizer, United4Iran, a network of activists supporting human rights in Iran. |
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Iran's nuclear standoff |
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AP: Iran on Tuesday urged China to resist pressure by the United States and its allies for new sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.
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New York Times: In the Iranian desert, at a sprawling industrial site ringed by barbed wire and antiaircraft guns, a shift in the enrichment of uranium is producing global jitters because it could shorten Iran’s path to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
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AFP: Gabon will "work closely" with the United States and others to pressure Iran to comply with UN demands over its nuclear program, Gabonese President Ali Bongo said Monday.
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Reuters: China's Foreign Minister said on Sunday new sanctions on Iran will not solve the standoff over its nuclear program, while chiding the United States after two months of tensions between the big powers.
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Washington Post: The Obama administration is pushing to carve out an exemption for China and other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council from legislation pending in the Senate and the House that would tighten sanctions on companies doing business in Iran, administration and congressional sources said.
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AFP: Western nations pitched new sanctions against Iran in the Security Council Thursday amid signs that several members are reluctant to back a fourth round of punitive measures to deter Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
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AP: China said Thursday it will continue to push for a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear standoff, rebuffing efforts by Western powers to introduce a new set of sanctions against Iran.
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Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 03 - Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gloated on Wednesday that all serious threats against his government's nuclear program have been thwarted, state media reported.
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AFP: The United States and the European Union said Wednesday that there must be more sanctions against Iran's nuclear programme standoff if diplomacy fails to shift Tehran.
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Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 03 - Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh on Wednesday criticised the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano's report on Iran’s nuclear file for opening doors which had already been closed by Iran, state media reported.
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