The statement by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s party heightens the confrontation between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s camp and supporters of reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

By Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times on July 7, 2009

Reporting from Beirut — A day after commanders of the Revolutionary Guard warned there was no middle ground in the dispute over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the political party of one of Iran’s most powerful clerics Monday defiantly issued a statement dismissing the vote.The statement by the Kargozaran party all but cleared away weeks of ambiguity about the stance of the cleric, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani, who heads two government councils that oversee the supreme leader and mediate disputes between branches, openly backed presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

But he has not spoken definitively about the June 12 vote, which was validated after a partial recount by the powerful Guardian Council.

“We declare that the result is unacceptable due to the unhealthy voting process, massive electoral fraud and the siding of the majority of the Guardian Council with a specific candidate,” the party’s statement said.

It followed a declaration by a senior Revolutionary Guard commander that “no one is impartial” in the dispute.

“There are two currents — those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it,” Gen. Yadollah Javani said at a Sunday news conference, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The Revolutionary Guard, the elite, ideologically driven military branch that formally answers to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made its clearest statement yet about taking over the nation’s security apparatus.

“Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest,” Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said at the news conference. “This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles, and we have to understand all its dimensions.”

The latest moves sharpened the confrontation between the pro-Ahmadinejad camp and supporters of Mousavi in the run-up to Thursday, when thousands are expected to take to the streets of a dozen Iranian cities for a rally marking the 10th anniversary of a deadly attack on a Tehran University dormitory that sparked weeks of riots and political strife.

The pro-government Basiji militia, under the command of the Revolutionary Guard, is also expected to mobilize to confront any demonstrators.

In the days after the election, many officials had whispered that the Revolutionary Guard had taken control of the nation’s security as a result of the unrest that followed the vote, which opposition leaders claim was stolen by Ahmadinejad.

But Jafari’s comments came the closest yet to publicly acknowledging what government supporters describe as a heroic intervention by the Revolutionary Guard, which has been increasing its economic and political power over the last decade. Critics decry the guard’s action as a palace “coup d’etat” instigated by military elites loyal to Khamenei, the guard’s commander in chief.

Jafari described “a new stage of the revolution” that is worrisome to some Western observers.

“If this continues, Iran may be heading to a much more militarized system of politics,” said Alireza Nader, an Iran specialist at the Rand Corp. “Before, there was give-and-take not only between the political institutions, but also the security organs. Now it looks like the [Revolutionary Guard] dominates all, even perhaps the Ministry of Intelligence.”

In a speech Monday, Khamenei acknowledged the continuing strife within the establishment and society over the vote, but warned Western leaders against exploiting the nation’s political turmoil for their own ends.

“The Western governments should be careful about their hostile words and behavior, because the Iranian nation will react,” he told supporters on the occasion of the birthday of the Shiite saint Imam Ali.

“Even if the Islamic Republic leaders are at odds on certain affairs, they are united against the enemy as far as the safeguarding [of] the country’s independence is concerned,” he said in a speech broadcast on state television. The remarks came after Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. would not stop an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

But Khamenei also appeared to reach out to Mousavi supporters, after his deputies for weeks equated peaceful demonstrators with rioters.

“It is natural that some Iranians feel depressed and sad due to the failure of their preferred candidate,” he said.

The statement by Rafsanjani’s party, posted on reformist websites, demanded a restoration of public confidence after the vote count, an investigation into alleged violence against protesters, the release of political prisoners and the lifting of restrictions on media.

Over the weekend, Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat Zanjani criticized the mass arrest of reformist activists and protesters.

“Every healthy mind casts doubt on the way the election was held,” the high-ranking cleric said in a statement published online.

“More regrettable are postelection large-scale arrests, newspaper censorship and website filtering and, above all, the martyrdom of our countrymen whom they describe as rioters,” he said.

The families of detainees also spoke out harshly against the government.

“My father is a defender of pure Islam,” Mehdi Saharkhiz, the son of imprisoned journalist Issa Saharkhiz, wrote Monday — Father’s Day in Iran — in a letter posted on various websites.

“My father has done his utmost to defend the republican nature of the regime,” he wrote. “He wants to establish religious democracy, but you and your accomplices prefer your mundane interests to anything else,” he wrote, insultingly referring to Ahmadinejad with the informal “you.”

The Revolutionary Guard is trying hard to stifle such criticism. The uniformed leaders, Jafari and Javani, joined by cleric Ali Saeedi, Khamenei’s representative, said they would henceforth play a more active role in defending the Islamic Republic’s core values, though they insisted this should not be interpreted as “interfering” in politics.

Related:

Hamas, Hizbullah join Iran’s paramilitary forces in post-vote crackdown, published in the World Tribune on Friday, June 19, 2009.
Iranian opposition sources said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij paramilitary force have used Hizbullah and Hamas personnel to assault anti-government protesters in wake of the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Opposition candidate’s supporters describe plans in a reformist newspaper. Iranian officials release a jailed European journalist and a lawyer says a British Embassy worker will be freed soon.

By Borzou Daragahi – Published July 6, 2009 for the Los Angeles Time

Reporting from Beirut — The top figure of Iran’s nascent political reform movement, opposition presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, will launch a political party to pursue his goals, a reformist newspaper reported Sunday.

Iranian officials, meanwhile, released a jailed European journalist and the lawyer of an imprisoned employee of the British Embassy in Tehran said he was confident that his client’s case would be resolved.

Beleaguered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated calls for a live “debate” with President Obama late Saturday in a possible sign Iran was seeking to ease diplomatic strains over his disputed reelection and its violent aftermath.

Iran continues a wide-ranging crackdown on opposition figures and reformists after the June 12 election, on Sunday blocking the website of a small reformist clerical bloc in the holy city of Qom.

The group sharply criticized the recent vote and subsequent recount effort by the Guardian Council, whose members are appointed directly and indirectly by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who supports Ahmadinejad.

“A council, whose jurist and jurisprudent members had disproved their impartiality months ahead of the election, is not competent to rule on the cleanness and accuracy of the vote,” said the proclamation by the Qom Assembly of Instructors and Researchers.

The group, somewhat prominent during the heyday of former President Mohammad Khatami, is now far less influential than the similarly named but far more important Qom Seminary Teachers Society which is pro-Khamenei and controls more than 80% of the holy city’s 50 or so seminaries.

The spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday announced the release of freelance journalist Iason Athanasiadis, a citizen of Britain and Greece, who was arrested as he tried to leave the country through Tehran’s international airport last month, state television reported.

The lawyer for British Embassy employee Hossein Rassam denied reports that his client had been formally charged, saying he was optimistic the Iranian national would be released in the coming days.

Rassam, 44, is the top political analyst at Britain’s mission in Iran, where he headed a staff of eight or nine who were all arrested on suspicion of promoting or taking part in recent clashes between supporters of Mousavi and government security forces.

“I think his situation will be fixed soon,” said Rassam’s lawyer, Abdul-Samad Khorramshahi, who also represented jailed journalist Roxana Saberi. “I think that in the next few days I will get good news.”

Khorramshahi said he visited the Revolutionary Court to discuss Rassam’s case. Authorities have not yet formally lodged a complaint against him, but could decide to do so in a week.

The arrest of Rassam and his colleagues heightened the confrontation between Iran and the West over the election and its aftermath, in which images of baton-wielding plainclothes militiamen beating demonstrators were broadcast around the world.

Tehran, which has accused London of planning and fomenting the unrest, has sought to depict Iran’s greatest domestic political challenge in 30 years as a foreign plot.

Even as Mousavi’s supporters described plans for a political party in the daily newspaper Etemad-e-Melli, a campaign against the movement continued. An editorial to appear in today’s editions of Sobh Sadegh, a newspaper close to the Revolutionary Guard, argues that the Guardian Council should bar “liars and rabble-rousers who were running for president” from taking part in electoral politics.

Several well-known Iranian actors have been banned from state television because of their support for Mousavi, according to the Khabar Online news website.

Authorities say that many of those swept up in the postelection unrest have been released from prison. The pro-government Basiji militia said it had released all but 100 of the 1,000 people it had arrested.

But some independent observers put the number of those detained much higher.

By Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi, published July 4, 2009 in the New York Times.

CAIRO — An important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult.

“This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”

The announcement came on a day when Mr. Moussavi released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president’s supporters, and as a close associate of the supreme leader called Mr. Moussavi and former President Mohammad Khatami “foreign agents,” saying they should be treated as criminals.

The documents, published on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site, accused supporters of the president of printing more than 20 million extra ballots before the vote and handing out cash bonuses to voters.

Since the election, the bulk of the clerical establishment in the holy city of Qum, an important religious and political center of power, has remained largely silent, leaving many to wonder when, or if, the nation’s senior religious leaders would jump into the controversy that has posed the most significant challenge to the country’s leadership since the Islamic Revolution.

With its statement Saturday, the association of clerics came down squarely on the side of the reform movement.

The group had earlier asked for the election to be nullified because so many Iranians objected to the results, but it never directly challenged the legitimacy of the government and, by extension, the supreme leader.

The earlier statement also came before the election was certified by the country’s religious leaders, who have since said that opposition to the results must cease.

The clerics’ decision to speak up again is not itself a turning point and could fizzle under pressure from the state, which has continued to threaten its critics. Some seminaries in Qum rely on the government for funds, and Ayatollah Khamenei and the man he has declared the winner of the election, incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have powerful backers there.

They also retain the support of the powerful security forces and the elite Revolutionary Guards. In addition, the country’s highest-ranking clerics have yet to speak out individually against the election results.

But the association’s latest statement does help Mr. Moussavi, Mr. Khatami and a former speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, who have been the most vocal in calling the election illegitimate and who, in their attempts to force change, have been hindered by the jailing of influential backers.

“The significance is that even within the clergy, there are many who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the election results as announced by the supreme leader,” said an Iranian political analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

While the government could continue vilifying the three opposition leaders, analysts say it was highly unlikely that the leadership would use the same tactic against the clerical establishment in Qum.

The backing also came at a sensitive time for Mr. Moussavi, because the accusations that he is a foreign agent ran in a newspaper, Kayhan, that has often been used to build cases against critics of the government.

The editorial was written by Hossein Shariatmadari, who was picked by the supreme leader to run the newspaper.

The clerics’ statement chastised the leadership for failing to adequately study complaints of vote rigging and lashed out at the use of force in crushing huge public protests.

It even directly criticized the Guardian Council, the powerful group of clerics charged with certifying elections.

“Is it possible to consider the results of the election as legitimate by merely the validation of the Guardian Council?” the association said.

Perhaps more threatening to the supreme leader, the committee called on other clerics to join the fight against the government’s refusal to adequately reconsider the charges of voter fraud. The committee invoked powerful imagery, comparing the 20 protesters killed during demonstrations with the martyrs who died in the early days of the revolution and the war with Iraq, asking other clerics to save what it called “the dignity that was earned with the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs.”

The statement was posted on the association’s Web site late Saturday and carried on many other sites, including the Persian BBC, but it was impossible to reach senior clerics in the group to independently confirm its veracity.

The statement was issued after a meeting Mr. Moussavi had with the committee 10 days ago and a decision by the Guardian Council to certify the election and declare that all matters concerning the vote were closed.

But the defiance has not ended.

With heavy security on the streets, there is a forced calm. But each day, slowly, another link falls from the chain of government control. Last week, in what appeared a coordinated thrust, Mr. Moussavi, Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Khatami all called the new government illegitimate. On Saturday, Mr. Milani of Stanford said, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani met with families of those who had been arrested, another sign that he was working behind the scenes to keep the issue alive.

“I don’t ever remember in the 20 years of Khamenei’s rule where he was clearly and categorically on one side and so many clergy were on the other side,” Mr. Milani said. “This might embolden other clergy to come forward.”

Many of the accusations of fraud posted on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site Saturday had been published before, but the report did give some more specific charges.

For instance, although the government had announced that two of the losing presidential contenders had received relatively few votes in their hometowns, the documents stated that some ballot boxes in those towns contained no votes for the two men.

Michael Slackman reported from Cairo, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto.

A June 15, 2009, file photo shows Iranian riot policemen standing guard outside the British embassy in Tehran during a protest by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against European interference in the Islamic Republic's election results. (Photo Atta Kenare AFP/Getty Images)

By ALAN COWELL and STEPHEN CASTLE
Published July 3, 2009 in the New York Times

PARIS — Brushing aside British and European efforts to seek the release of local British Embassy staff members held in Tehran, the Iranian authorities indicated Friday that they planned to put some of them on trial — a move that deepened a diplomatic crisis and could provoke the withdrawal of ambassadors.

In London, the Foreign Office said it was urgently checking reports that the Iranian authorities planned to put two of its local employees on trial. Nine staff members were seized after the unrest sparked by Iran’s disputed presidential elections on June 12.

Hours after the Iranian threat, the European Union seemed to hold back from an out-and-out showdown, resolving to summon Iranian ambassadors in all 27 countries to send “a strong message of protest against the detention of British Embassy local staff and to demand their immediate release,” said a European diplomat who, following European Union rules, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Other measures — such as a ban on issuing visas to Iranian travelers and a pullout of European ambassadors — would be considered depending on how the crisis unfolded, the diplomat said.

The Iranian authorities accused the local employees of fomenting and orchestrating protests, but pro-democracy Iranians ascribed the violence on the streets to a widespread crackdown by government security forces.

In London, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office, speaking in return for customary anonymity under civil service rules, said: “We are very concerned by these reports and are investigating. Allegations that our staff are involved in fomenting unrest are wholly without foundation. We will be seeking an urgent explanation from the Iranians.”

Britain has been pressing the European Union to withdraw all its ambassadors from Tehran in protest of the detention of its officials. But other European countries, led by Germany, argued that a withdrawal of envoys would leave them with few diplomatic options if the crisis deteriorated further.

Other possibilities such as a visa ban or withdrawal of ambassadors “are on the table, but there’s agreement on a gradual approach,” the European diplomat said.

The new slump in relations came when Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the influential Guardian Council and an ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshipers at Friday Prayers in Tehran that the local employees would be tried after they “made confessions.”

Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many of the British detainees would be tried or what charges they would face, news reports said.

But, in unofficial translations provided by news agencies, he said that the British Embassy had a “presence” in the post-election unrest and that some people had been arrested. It was “inevitable” that they would face trial, he said.

The Guardian Council is an influential panel of 12 clerics whose responsibilities including vetting elections. On Monday it certified the disputed presidential vote that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, despite opposition claims of electoral fraud and huge protests on the streets.

The Iranian authorities have frequently blamed foreigners for the turmoil but have singled out the British as instigators.

At the same time, Tehran has sent mixed signals about the likely fate of the British Embassy employees.

Hassan Qashqavi, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said on Monday — the day after the employees were arrested — that Iran was keen to maintain normal diplomatic relations with the European Union, its biggest trading partner. “Reduction of ties is not on our agenda with any European country, including Britain,” he said.

But on Wednesday, the semiofficial Fars news agency said one of the employees, who was not identified by name, “had a remarkable role during the recent unrest in managing it behind the scenes.” Iran has also claimed to have unspecified evidence linking British Embassy personnel to the unrest.

The idea of British Embassy staff members on trial recalled some of the images in 2007 when Iranian television paraded some of 15 captured British sailors making what were called confessions that they had entered Iranian territorial waters illegally.

While Ayatollah Jannati is not a member of the government or the judiciary, his words as the head of the Guardian Council and a close associate of the supreme leader carry some weight.

At Friday Prayers — a forum Iran has often used to convey significant political messages — he accused Britain of trying to provoke a “velvet revolution.” As long ago as March, he said, the British Foreign Office had said streets riots were possible during the June elections. “These are signs, revealed by themselves,” he said.

Ayatollah Jannati also said protesters “need to repent and ask God to forgive them.”

Many of the protesters have expressed loyalty to Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister who placed second to Mr. Ahmadinejad in the election, with the official count giving him around a third of the vote.

While challenges on the streets have gradually been suppressed, Mr. Moussavi has maintained his insistence that the outcome of the vote was illegitimate and that the authorities seem determined to maintain pressure on him.

While he did not mention Mr. Moussavi by name, Ayatollah Jannati inferred on Friday that the authorities considered him a traitor. According to The Associated Press, he pointed out that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution whom Mr. Moussavi served as prime minister, once said that “anyone who disrupts unity has not only committed a sin but also has committed treason against the Islamic republic and the system.”

Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and Stephen Castle from Brussels.

Related:

Britain Asks Allies for Help on Employees Held in Iran (July 3, 2009 in the New York Times)

Published by BBC News on June 28, 2009

The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain’s embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest.

EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that “harassment or intimidation” of embassy staff would be met with a “strong and collective” response.

Iranian media reported the detention of eight local staff at the UK mission over their alleged role in the unrest.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless.

Relations between the countries are strained since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the UK of stoking post-election protests, which London denies.

Iran has repeatedly accused foreign powers – especially Britain and the US – of meddling after the 12 June election, which officially handed him a decisive victory.

In the fallout from the crisis, Tehran expelled two British diplomats in the past week and the UK responded with a similar measure.

Strained relations

Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of European foreign ministers on the Greek island of Corfu, Mr Miliband said: “The idea that the British Embassy is somehow behind the demonstrations and protests that have been taking place in Tehran in recent weeks is wholly without foundation.”

In a later statement, the EU ministers said: “Harassment or intimidation of foreign or Iranian staff working in embassies will be met with a strong and collective EU response.”

The arrests were first reported by Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

“Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody,” Fars said, without giving a source.

Some 17 people are thought to have died in street protests after the disputed presidential poll, which the opposition complains was rigged.

At least 1,000 opposition supporters are reported to have staged a noisy rally outside a mosque in Tehran on Sunday evening before it was broken up by police and militia.

Riot police used tear gas and clubs to disperse the crowd outside the Ghoba Mosque, Iranian eyewitnesses said.

The report could not be independently verified because of reporting restrictions on foreign media.

Rafsanjani breaks silence

Iran’s powerful Guardian Council is due to rule on complaints about the presidential election by Monday.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s rivals have alleged massive fraud.

The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen in Tehran says there is much politicking taking place behind the scenes, and that the five-day deadline for the Guardian Council to return its verdict may be extended.

The powerful former President, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has broken his silence on the election dispute.

Mr Rafsanjani, who heads two important organs of government, praised a decision by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to give the Guardian Council time to examine complaints by the three defeated candidates.

“This valuable move by the Supreme Leader in order to attract the people’s trust towards the election process was very effective,” Mr Rafsanjani said, according to Iranian news agencies.

“I hope those who are involved in this issue thoroughly and fairly review and study the legal complaints.”

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has not backed away from his claim that the election result was fraudulent, and has refused to support the Guardian Council’s plan for a partial recount.

Mr Mousavi has been calling for a full re-run of the vote but said on Saturday that he would accept a review by an independent body.

However the Guardian Council has already defended President Ahmadinejad’s re-election, saying on Friday that the presidential poll was the “healthiest” since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

Jeremy Bowen – BBC News, Tehran

Iran’s response to criticism from abroad of the violent response to the demonstrations has been to blame foreign powers for inciting and orchestrating violence. Britain has been singled out as the country most responsible for what has happened, aided by the BBC.

On Saturday President Ahmadinejad made a strong speech about what Iran claims has been foreign interference in the election. He said that his new government would have a more decisive and powerful approach towards the west.

The arrests fit into a pattern of deteriorating relations between Britain and Iran. Two British diplomats were expelled last week, and the British retaliated by expelling two Iranians from their embassy in London. It was never certain that would be the end of the matter.

Mousavi supporters join Beheshti commemorators

Published by Press TV – Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:36:24 GMT

Hundreds of Iranians have gathered in a mosque to commemorate the martyrdom of former chief justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.

Supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi also marched down Tehran’s Shariati Street from north to south and silently gathered outside the Ghoba Mosque — where the event was being held.

Ayatollah Beheshti was killed in terrorist attack on June 28, 1981, along with over 70 government and the Islamic Republic Party officials.

The pro-Mousavi gathering was the first post-election demonstration in five days. Latest reports said the demonstration ended peacefully Sunday night.

Opposition rallies were held almost on a daily basis, following the announcement of election results, in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner with almost two-thirds of votes.

However, once the Leader of the Islamic Revolution called for an end to the street rallies, the protests drew down on scale and frequency.

The three defeated candidates — Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei — have lodged more than 600 alleged ‘irregularities’ with the electoral watchdog, the Guardian Council.

Mousavi and Karroubi believe these irregularities are enough for the election results to be annulled.

However, the head of Iran’s electoral office, Kamran Daneshjou, has criticized the complaints filed by the defeated presidential candidates for being ‘too general’. The Guradian Council has also stressed that there are no ‘major’ irregularities in the presidential election.

AKM/MMN

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