Tens of thousands of supporters of Iran’s defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi gathered in downtown Tehran yesterday, defying an Interior Ministry ban.
They converged on Revolution Square, where the moderate former prime minister was expected to call for calm after two days of violent unrest in the capital since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the victor in Friday’s vote.
“Mousavi, take back our votes,” the marchers chanted as they waited for Mousavi and other pro-reform leaders who back his call for the election result to be overturned.
The EU plans to demand clarification of Ahmadinejad’s victory and voice concern at the treatment of his opponents, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said after talks in Luxembourg with EU counterparts.
‘BRUTAL’
In Paris, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said Iran’s ambassador had been summoned to hear French concerns over “the brutal repression of peaceful protests and the repeated attacks on the liberty of the press and freedom of speech.”
US leaders have reacted cautiously in the hope of keeping alive US President Barack Obama’s strategy of engagement with Iran.
Mousavi has asked the watchdog Guardian Council to annul the result, citing irregularities. The Interior Ministry and the president have rejected charges of fraud.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has upheld the election result, met Mousavi on Sunday and told him to pursue his complaints “calmly and legally,” state TV said.
Iran’s reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, assailed the authorities for denying permission for the pro-Mousavi rally and said the election had dented public trust.
COMPLAINTS
The 12-man Guardian Council, whose chairman, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, endorsed Ahmadinejad before the vote, said it would rule within 10 days on two official complaints it had received from Mousavi and another losing candidate, Mohsen Rezaie.
The council vets election candidates and must formally approve results for the outcome to stand.
Ebrahim Yazdi, leader of the banned opposition Freedom Movement, said Ahmadinejad’s attacks on his opponents had opened a “Pandora’s box.”
“The result of such a crisis now is that the rift among the ... personalities in the revolution is getting deeper,” he said. “It is the biggest crisis since the [1979] revolution.”
Ahmadinejad delayed a visit to Russia yesterday for a regional summit, but would arrive today, an Iranian embassy source in Moscow said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS