Iran supreme leader warns opposition to back down: Via The Associated Press on Google.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's supreme leader told politicians Monday not to disturb the country's security in a strong warning to the opposition to back down after one of its top figures called for a referendum on the government.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed "Iran's elite" and warned them to be cautious in the positions they take on the turmoil that has shaken the country since the disputed presidential election on June 12.

He said that hurting Iran's security was "the biggest vice," adding that "anybody who drives the society toward insecurity and disorder is a hated person in the view of the Iranian nation, whoever he is."
( Read more ... )

Reformists resist Iranian government pressure: Via The Associated Press on Google.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The son of an Iranian revolutionary icon called on parliament to dismiss President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from his post, as the country's conservative political establishment upped pressure Sunday on the reformists.

Ali Reza Beheshti, 47, a close Mousavi ally and son of one of the main leaders of the 1979 Islamic revolution, also urged the parliament to reverse the election results, saying that "people expect their representatives to represent them and not to defend authorities by any means."

"I wish the lawmakers would respect the demands of the majority of their constituents" and submit a bill disqualifying the president, Beheshti was quoted as saying on the pro-Mousavi Web site, Norooznews. Beheshti, who ran Mousavi's now-banned Kalemeh newspaper, is the younger son of Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, Iran's top judge who was killed in a bombing in 1981.
( Read more ... )

AFP: Merkel likens Iran to repressive East Germany: Via AFP on Google.

BERLIN (AFP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday likened events in Iran to the oppression at the hands of the Stasi secret police in communist East Germany, where she grew up.

"I know from the time of the GDR (East Germany) how important it was that people around the world made sure that the people stuck in (Stasi prisons) Bautzen and Hohenschoenhausen ... were not forgotten," Merkel told parliament.

"Iran must know, particularly in the age of modern communications, that we will do everything in our power to ensure that these people (arrested in Iran during the recent turmoil) are not forgotten about," she said.

Merkel called for a "strong message" to go to Iran from a meeting of the leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations -- which includes Germany -- in L'Aquila, Italy next week.

"We have become witnesses to sensational and above all shocking events, and I hope that a strong message of unity emerges out the (G8) summit, unity that demonstrations, civil rights and human rights are indivisible, and that this also applies to Iran," Merkel said

Read Original Article:(Via AFP on Google.)
( Read more ... )

Iranian Embassy in Stockholm storms - Google Translate: Via Google translation service.

Iranian embassy employees have demonstrators with baton at a demonstration outside the embassy on Lidingö in Stockholm on Friday afternoon, according to a witness on the spot.

- Ten or twenty demonstrators broke through the fence, entered the embassy area. Then came some from inside the area, came forward påkar and began to turn on the demonstrators, "said Roya Hakimnia, 24-year-old läkarstudent participating in the demonstration.

She saw himself more persons, men and women, be hit by truncheon kind, but says that no one seems to have been seriously damaged.

Inroads were made around the clock 16.30. The demonstrators were unarmed but had earlier thrown stones into the area, where several embassy staff moved to the lawn and looked throughout the demonstration.
( Read more ... )

The Associated Press: Amateur video turns woman into icon of Iran unrest: Via Associated Press on Google .

Amateur video of a young Iranian woman lying in the street — blood streaming from her nose and mouth — has quickly become an iconic image of the country's opposition movement and unleashed a flood of outrage at the regime's crackdown.

The footage, less than a minute long, appears to capture the woman's death moments after she was shot at a protest — a powerful example of citizens' ability to document events inside Iran despite government restrictions on foreign media and Internet and phone lines.

The limits imposed amid the unrest over the disputed June 12 election make details of the woman's life and events immediately preceding her apparent death difficult to confirm. But clips of the woman being called Neda are among the most viewed items on YouTube — with untold numbers of people passing along the amateur videos through social networks and watching them on television.
( Read more ... )