[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]
[Middle East]
Defiance Grows as Iran’s Leader Sets Vote Review
By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI
Published: June 15, 2009
TEHRAN — Hundreds of thousands of people marched in silence through central Tehran on Monday to protest Iran’s disputed presidential election in an extraordinary show of defiance from a broad cross section of society, even as the nation’s supreme leader called for a formal review of results he had endorsed two days earlier.
Having mustered the largest antigovernment demonstrations since the 1979 revolution, and defying an official ban, protesters began to sense the prospect — however slight at the moment — that the leadership’s firm backing of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had wavered.
The massive outpouring was mostly peaceful. But violence erupted after dark when protesters surrounded and attempted to set fire to the headquarters of the Basij volunteer militia, which is associated with the Revolutionary Guards, according to news agency reports. At least one man was killed, and several others were injured in that confrontation.
On Tuesday, Radio Payam, a state-owned station, reported that seven people were killed and others were wounded Monday night when “several thugs” tried to attack a military post and vandalize public property in the same area as the demonstration earlier in the day, according to Agence France-Presse.
In his first public comment on the situation in Iran, President Obama said Monday that he was deeply troubled by the postelection violence and he called on Iranian leaders to respect free speech and the democratic process. He told reporters he would continue pursuing a direct dialogue with Tehran, but he urged that any Iranian investigation of election irregularities be conducted without bloodshed.
The protests showed how the government’s assertion that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won re-election by a ratio of almost two to one further cleaved Iranian society into rival camps.
On one side are the most powerful arms of the Islamic system of government: the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; the military; the paramilitary; and the Guardian Council. On the other is a diverse coalition that has grown emboldened by the day, with some clerics joining two former presidents and Mir Hussein Moussavi, the former prime minister and main opposition candidate, who addressed the crowd from the roof of a car near Freedom Square in downtown Tehran.
Protesters were especially enraged that Mr. Ahmadinejad on Sunday dismissed them as nothing more than soccer fans who had just lost a game and as “dust.” One demonstrator fired off a Twitter message, one of thousands of brief electronic dispatches that kept the outside world up-to-the-minute on the protests, proclaiming, “Ahmadinejad called us Dust, we showed him a sandstorm.”
Earlier Monday, Ayatollah Khamenei stepped in to try to calm a growing backlash, forcing him into a public role he generally seeks to avoid as the country’s top religious authority. Under Iran’s dual system of government, with civil and religious institutions, the supreme leader can usually operate in the shadows while elected officials serve as the public face of governance and policy.
He called for the Guardian Council to conduct an inquiry into the opposition’s claims that the election was rigged and then had that announcement repeated every 15 minutes on Iranian state radio throughout the day. It was a rare reversal.
Ayatollah Khamenei announced Saturday that the election results showing a landslide victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad were fair. But on Sunday he met with Mr. Moussavi, a moderate, to listen to his concerns. And on Monday, he promised the inquiry into the results.
Nevertheless, his announcement could not calm the anger of the people. There was so much distrust that some people said they believed the leader was just trying to buy time and to calm the crowds, rather than attempting to really investigate the outcome.
Hours later, a broad river of people in Tehran — young and old, dressed in traditional Islamic gowns and the latest Western fashions — marched slowly from Revolution Square to Freedom Square for more than three hours, many of them wearing the signature bright green ribbons of Mr. Moussavi’s campaign and holding up their hands in victory signs.
The silent march was a deliberate and striking contrast to the chaos of the past few days, when riot police officers sprayed tear gas and wielded clubs to disperse scattered bands of angry and frightened young people. When the occasional shout or chant went up, the crowd quickly hushed it, and some held up signs with the word silence.
“These people are not seeking a revolution,” said Ali Reza, a young actor in a brown T-shirt who stood for a moment watching on the rally’s sidelines. “We don’t want this regime to fall. We want our votes to be counted, because we want reforms, we want kindness, we want friendship with the world.”
Mr. Moussavi, who had called for the rally on Sunday but never received official permission for it, joined the crowd, as did Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former president. But the crowd was so vast, and communications had been so sporadic — the authorities have cut off phone and text-messaging services repeatedly in recent days — that many marchers seemed unaware they were there.
“We don’t really have a leader,” said Mahdiye, a 20-year-old student, who like many protesters declined to give a last name because of fears of repercussions. “Moussavi wants to do something, but they won’t let him. It is dangerous for him, and we don’t want to lose him. We don’t know how far this will go.”
The protesters said they would continue, with another major rally planned for Tuesday. But it was too soon to tell whether Ayatollah Khamenei’s decision to launch an inquiry, or the government’s decision to let the silent rally proceed, would change the election results. Many in the crowd said they believed that officials expected the protests to dissipate, as smaller protest movements did in 1999 and 2003.
Later on Monday, Mr. Moussavi said on his Web site that he was not optimistic that the authorities would overturn the election results. Demonstrators, though, expressed hopes that the tide had turned in their favor.
“Anything is possible,” said Hamid, a 50-year-old financial adviser. “If the people insist on this movement, if it continues here and in other parts of Iran, the pressure will build and maybe Ahmadinejad will be forced to resign.”
The police mostly stood on the sidelines on Monday. But after sunset, violence erupted after members of the Basij militia opened fire, leaving one dead and several others injured.
In Isfahan, south of Tehran, more violence broke out on Monday, with the police attacking a crowd of several thousand opposition protesters and rioters setting fires in parts of the city.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Ian C. Kelly, said that the United States was “deeply troubled” by the unrest in Iran and was concerned about allegations of ballot fraud. But he stopped short of condemning Iran’s security forces for cracking down on demonstrators and said that Washington did not know whether the allegations of fraud were, in fact, true.
In Moscow, meanwhile, an official at the Iranian Embassy said that Mr. Ahmadinejad had delayed a visit to Russia that was to have started Monday. The meeting, in Yekaterinburg, is of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China and four Central Asian countries. Reuters reported that he arrived on Tuesday.
As concern about the vote spread among Western governments, the European Union’s 27 member states planned to issue a joint call on Iran to clarify the election outcome, Reuters reported. The French government summoned the Iranian ambassador to register concern about the fairness of the vote, and Germany planned to follow suit.
The Guardian Council, which will have 10 days to review the results, is closely aligned with the supreme leader and with Mr. Ahmadinejad. It also has the full support of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia. Until now, there have been no signs of that unity fraying. Political analysts said that the coalition of hard-line thinkers had hoped to finish off the reform movement and its leaders with this election.
However, at least for the moment, they have inadvertently empowered them.
“People feel really insulted, and nothing is worse than that,” said Azi, a 48-year-old woman in a yellow headscarf who participated in the massive rally on Monday. “We won’t let the regime buy time, we will hold another march tomorrow.”
At nightfall, large numbers of people in Tehran took to their roofs for a second night, chanting “God is great!” and “Death to the dictator!” in neighborhoods across the city. The Associated Press, quoting residents, also reported that shooting was also heard in three districts of wealthy northern Tehran.
