Supreme Leader Calls Iran Election Fair -Nazila Fathi & Alan Cowell
In his first public response to days of protests, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [pictured
at right], sternly warned opponents to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged.
In a sermon in Tehran, he called directly for an end to the protests. “Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.
He blamed “media belonging to Zionists” for seeking to show divisions [in Iran].
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has kept a defiant if low profile, made an unusual public concession. After insulting the huge crowds that poured into the street by dismissing them as “dust,” the president [said] "[e]very single Iranian is valuable. The government is at everyone’s service. We like everyone.”
Iranian Web sites have carried reports of violence in some other cities, but given the press restrictions now in place, those could not be verified.
[New York Times]
This Is for Real -David Ignatius
The willingness of hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives to protest injustice is what overthrew the shah of Iran in 1979, and it is now shaking the mullahs.
This is politics in the raw - unarmed people defying soldiers with guns - and it is the stuff of which revolutions are made. Whether it will succeed in Iran is impossible to predict, but already this movement has put an overconfident regime on the ropes.
(Washington Post)
Iran's Leadership Divided Amid Unrest -Christiane Amanpour
Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, said: "I am absolutely convinced that what we are witnessing is a turning point in the history of the Islamic republic. Even if the Islamic republic survives this crisis, it will no longer be as it used to be."
(CNN)
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In his first public response to days of protests, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [pictured
at right], sternly warned opponents to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged.In a sermon in Tehran, he called directly for an end to the protests. “Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.
He blamed “media belonging to Zionists” for seeking to show divisions [in Iran].
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has kept a defiant if low profile, made an unusual public concession. After insulting the huge crowds that poured into the street by dismissing them as “dust,” the president [said] "[e]very single Iranian is valuable. The government is at everyone’s service. We like everyone.”
Iranian Web sites have carried reports of violence in some other cities, but given the press restrictions now in place, those could not be verified.
[New York Times]
This Is for Real -David Ignatius
The willingness of hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives to protest injustice is what overthrew the shah of Iran in 1979, and it is now shaking the mullahs.
This is politics in the raw - unarmed people defying soldiers with guns - and it is the stuff of which revolutions are made. Whether it will succeed in Iran is impossible to predict, but already this movement has put an overconfident regime on the ropes.
(Washington Post)
Iran's Leadership Divided Amid Unrest -Christiane Amanpour
Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, said: "I am absolutely convinced that what we are witnessing is a turning point in the history of the Islamic republic. Even if the Islamic republic survives this crisis, it will no longer be as it used to be."
(CNN)
*
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