Khamenei Speaks Again

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke again against the protests today against the result of last Friday's Presidential Election, which sent the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back for another four-year term with a 63% majority. Since then, supporters of his main opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been protesting in the streets of major cities throughout the country, with the largest uprisings taking place in the capital, Tehran. Much violence occurred in the early stages of the protests, with a large portion of that violence coming from the government police trying to stop these illegal rallies. Ayatollah Khamenei's first speech after the election called Ahmadinejad's win a "divine assessment," but he later admitted that there may have been voting fraud, as claimed by Mousavi's supporters, supporting the Guardian Council's decision to allow for a partial recount of ballots. Mousavi, who asks for a rerun of the election, believes that Ahmadinejad's government purposely got rid of as many as fourteen million Mousavi votes, asking his supporters to continue peaceful protests. Khamenei spoke again today, asking protesters to stop, and threatening more severe punishments for dissenters. He also asked foreign powers such as the UK and the United States to stop interfering with Iranian politics, drawing cheers from the anti-West crowd. Very little is known about the details of these protests, as journalists have been banned from filming or taking pictures of Iranian streets and protests. In addition, mobile phone service has been cut nationwide. Much of what we know about the protests has come from Iranians themselves on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Iranian political experts have said that this may erupt and produce a situation similar to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.




Khamenei's speech is unlikely to affect this in any way. The massive number of people protesting has so far deterred the police from making too many arrests. It's not hard to see why these people are so anti-Ahmadinejad. Take a look at this:



Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed too if a guy like that won a second term as president. Thank goodness that we here in the United States have never been so stupid as to reelect someone so stupid to such an office. Yeah, while I really don't care for Ahmadinejad and I feel sorry for Mousavi and friends, I just can't imagine that anyone could pull off such a massive fraud. While I do suspect that there was some sort of Fraud in the election, for it to have been at all relevant to the outcome, it would've had to have been worth nearly 13% of the vote. That's a lot of votes. However, I support their continuing protests, not because I believe that they're any significant voting fraud, or even because I may want Ahmadinejad thrown out of power. I believe he was probably rightly reelected to his office, and so he needs to stay in that position. No, I support the protests because a big indirect consequence of it is the promotion of free speech. If enough people resist the censoring anti-free speech laws, the government can't do anything about it. If it leads to a revolution that produces a more liberal Iran, great. If not, the point has still been made.


http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2009-06-19-voa1.cfm