Daily News Channel
The woman whose death has come to symbolize Iranian resistance to the government’s official election results did not die the way the opposition claims, government-backed Press TV said Sunday. Two people told Press TV there were no security forces in the area when Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, was killed on June 20. Neda’s death was captured on amateur video — most likely by a cell phone — and posted online.
Two weeks into turmoil, Iran’s leaders turned up the heat Friday as a high-ranking cleric warned protesters that they would be punished "firmly" and shown no mercy. “Rioters and those who mastermind the unrest must know the Iranian nation will not give in to pressure and accept the nullification of the election results,” said Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami during Friday prayers in Tehran, according to Iran’s state-run Press TV.
The United States may have been behind the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman whose fatal videotaped shooting Saturday made her a symbol of opposition to the June 12 presidential election results, the country’s ambassador to Mexico said Thursday. “This death of Neda is very suspicious,” Ambassador Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri said
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday called the U.S. president inexperienced, compared him unfavorably to President George W
Despite his threats of "consequences" and the subsequent beatings and shooting deaths by government agents, the open protests on Iran’s streets by hundreds of thousands of people have dented the shield of invincibility of Iran’s Supreme religious Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, say sources in Iran. Chants of “Death to Khamenei” broke a state-imposed, and a self-imposed absolute prohibition on criticizing a leader believed to be wielding the wisdom and authority of God himself. But right now, the massive network of Iran’s intelligence agents, Revolutionary Guard, paramilitary Basij, and police of all sorts, are cracking down.
This week, President Obama spoke in the harshest tones yet about the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown against election protesters.
Iran stands at a crossroads between the opposition movement and the Islamic regime, which has cracked down on protesters who dispute the election results that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. Some analysts say that Iran’s former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani could play a key role in resolving the political crisis.
As a tense Tehran awoke Wednesday bracing for more protests, residents in the capital city and elsewhere said they were too afraid to talk about the political crisis over the phone. Residents, worried the government was monitoring phone conversations, said the Internet was the best way to transmit information about the unrest.
Hawks and neocons in Washington believe the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on its own people demands tougher U.S. action
President Obama sharpened his language on Iran and stressed the urgency of overhauling the health care system at his news conference Tuesday. “The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days