[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]
[Middle East]
Iran Police Said to Disperse Protesters
By NAZILA FATHI and SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: June 20, 2009
TEHRAN — One day after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of bloodshed if street protests continued over the nation’s disputed elections, witnesses, quoted by news services, said that thousands of demonstrators had attempted to gather for a scheduled opposition protest on Saturday, but that riot police, using tear gas and water cannons, had dispersed them.
Witnesses reported that the black-clad security forces lined the streets of two squares in central Tehran as the city braced itself for a violent crackdown. State television, meanwhile, reported that two people had been wounded at a bomb blast at the Tehran shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The report could not be independently confirmed.
There had been varying reports in the hours leading up to the rally about whether it would be called off in the face of the state’s threatened crackdown. State television reported that the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, had called off the protest, but some of his supporters, posting on social networking sites, urged demonstrators to gather.
State television had reported that a reformist group called the Combatant Clerics Assembly had called off the rally, saying that “permission was asked to hold a rally, but since it has not been issued, there will be no rally held.”
Initial reports seemed to indicate that fewer than the hundreds of thousands that had appeared for other protests this week, because of heavy intimidation. Journalists were banned from leaving their offices to report on the protests: A reporter from an American news organization said she had been called by a member of the paramilitary Basij militia warning her not to go to the venue for the Saturday rally because the situation would be dangerous and there could be fatalities.
The authorities were also reported to have renewed an offer of a partial recount of the ballots in the disputed election — an offer that the opposition has previously rejected.
In a long and hard-line sermon on Friday, Ayatollah Khamenei declared the June 12 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad valid and warned that demonstration leaders “would be responsible for bloodshed and chaos” if protesters continue, as they have pledged, to flood the streets in defiance of the government.
The tough words seemed to dash hopes for a peaceful solution to what defeated candidates and protesters call a fraudulent election last week, plunging Iran into its gravest crisis since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Iran’s National Security Council reinforced the warning Saturday, Iran’s Labor News Agency, or ILNA, and other state media reported, telling Mr. Moussavi to “refrain from provoking illegal rallies.”
The demand came in a letter from the head of the council, Abbas Mohtaj, after a formal complaint by Mr. Moussavi that law enforcement agencies had failed to protect protesters.
“It is your duty not to incite and invite the public to illegal gatherings; otherwise, you will be responsible for its consequences," the letter said, according to state media.
Ahmad Reza Radan, a senior police officer, warned on state television that the police “will act with determination against all illegal demonstrations and protests.”
Regional analysts said that, by calling for an end to the demonstrations, Ayatollah Khamenei had raised the stakes significantly, invoking his own prestige and that of Iran’s clerical regime.
In a measure of the scale of the opposition’s complaints, one losing candidate in the June 12 election, Mohsen Rezai, a conservative former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, claimed to have won between 3.5 and 7 million votes compared to the 250,000 accorded to him in the first announcement of results a week ago, state-run Press TV reported Saturday.
And, in a sign of mixed signals emerging from the authorities, the English-language network also reported Saturday that Ibrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister who leads an organization called Freedom Movement, had been released after being detained in a hospital earlier in the week. Several opposition figures, journalists and analysts were detained during a week of defiance that brought forth an array of official measures — part conciliatory, part repressive — to try to stem the protests.
On Saturday, the authorities also invited the three opposition candidates to attend a meeting with the 12-member Guardian Council, an authoritative panel of clerics which oversees and certifies election results. But only one candidate — Mr. Rezai — attended, Press TV said.
The panel has been presented with 646 complaints of electoral irregularities, the authorities have said.
Mr. Moussavi has expressed mistrust of the panel, accusing some of its members of campaigning before the election for Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Press TV quoted Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the Council’s spokesman, as saying the body was investigating complaints including shortages and delays in the supply of ballot papers, the denial of access to polling stations by candidates’ representatives and intimidation and bribery of voters.
Press TV also quoted Mr. Kadkhodaei as saying the council was ready to recount a randomly-chosen 10 percent of the ballot in the presence of the candidates — an offer, initially made earlier in the week, that falls far short of the protesters’ demands for new elections.
“Although the Guardian Council is not legally obliged,” Mr. Kadkhodaei was quoted as saying, “we are ready to recount 10 percent of the ballot boxes randomly in the presence of representatives of the candidates.”
But if other officials were trying to sound conciliatory, there was no such note in Ayatollah Khamenei’s sermon Friday.
“Although the Guardian Council is not legally obliged,” Mr. Kadkhodaei was quoted as saying, “we are ready to recount 10 percent of the ballot boxes randomly in the presence of representatives of the candidates.”
But if other officials were trying to sound conciliatory, there was no such note in Ayatollah Khamenei’s sermon Friday.
“Flexing muscles on the streets after the election is not right,” he said, before tens of thousands of angry supporters at Tehran University. “It means challenging the elections and democracy. If they don’t stop, the consequences of the chaos would be their responsibility.”
The sermon put Ayatollah Khamenei, who prefers to govern quietly and from behind the scenes, at the forefront of a confrontation not only among factions of the government but among Iranians themselves.
It also presents Mr. Moussavi, whom the opposition says was the real winner of last Friday’s elections, with a fateful choice. The former prime minister and long-time insider must decide whether to escalate his challenge to Iran’s supreme leader and risk a bloody showdown, or abandon his support for a popular uprising that his candidacy inspired.
Ayatollah Khamenei also used his sermon to try to tamp down factional disputes among the elite, at one point even chastising pro-government militias and President Ahmadinejad for their role in the crisis.
On Monday, a crowd that the mayor of Tehran estimated at three million rallied for the first of four days, and Ayatollah Khamenei ordered an investigation into the election results, which declared Mr. Ahmadinejad the winner, with 63 percent to Mr. Moussavi’s 34 percent.
But the ayatollah said Friday that there was nothing to discuss, as he again endorsed the victory of Mr. Ahmadinejad, seated in the audience, and called the elections “an epic moment that has become a historic moment.” He dismissed allegations of fraud.
“Perhaps 100,000 votes, or 500,000, but how can anyone tamper with 11 million votes?” he asked as the crowd burst into laughter. “If the political elite ignore the law — whether they want it or not — they would be responsible for the bloodshed and chaos,” he said.
He added that foreign agents were behind the street unrests and that there were efforts to stage a “velvet revolution.”
“They thought Iran is Georgia,” he said, adding, “Their problem is that they don’t know this great nation yet.”
