Iran’s opposition defied an official ban with a day of marching and mourning for slain protesters yesterday as it kept up the pressure on the regime over the disputed presidential election.
Facing their biggest crisis since the 1979 revolution, the country’s Islamic rulers have gone on the offensive, arresting opposition protesters and prominent reformists, clamping down on the media and lashing out at “meddling” by its foes, including the US.
Despite the crackdown, defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi called on his supporters to take to the streets again yesterday dressed in black in a sign of mourning for protesters slain in post-election clashes.
Tens of thousands of people joined what was billed as a “silent” protest rally on Wednesday, wearing green wrist and head-bands in the color of Mousavi’s campaign and carrying banners accusing re-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of having “stolen” their votes in last Friday’s poll, witnesses said.
State TV broadcast brief footage of the rally. Foreign media is barred from covering such events under restrictions imposed since the wave of public anger took hold in Iran, exposing deep divisions in the oil-rich nation.
At least seven people have been killed and many more wounded in the worst violence for at least a decade, with protests reported not only in Tehran but also spreading to other major cities across the country since polling day.
Meanwhile, Iran’s top legislative body decided to invite the three defeated candidates in last week’s disputed presidential election to a meeting tomorrow to discuss their complaints, its spokesman said yesterday.
The Guardian Council spokesman also told state radio the 12-member body had begun to carefully examine a total of 646 complaints submitted in connection with the June 12 vote.
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
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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
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