Rallies in France, Germany, U.S. support Iranian demonstrators

Demonstrators gathered in major cities in France, the United States and Germany on Saturday to condemn Iran’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tehran. The rallies ranged from tens of thousands of Iranian exiles and supporters who crammed a Paris, France-area convention center to the hundreds of demonstrators who braved a downpour in Washington to march to the White House. In Hamburg, Germany, protesters marched against the announced result of last week’s Iranian election, which had President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the overwhelming victor in voting that opposition groups called rigged.

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Reza Aslan: The Spirit of ’79 in Iran

For those of us who lived through the Iranian revolution, which toppled the government of the Shah and paved the way for the creation of the Islamic republic in 1979, there is a dreamlike familiarity to the massive riots roiling the streets of Tehran. I remember the seemingly spontaneous rallies that brought the country to a screeching halt. The young, fearless protesters daring the security forces to make them martyrs in the cause of freedom

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Ahmadinejad says remarks taken out of context

Six days after official election results awarded him victory in Iran’s presidential elections and four days after he compared the putative losers to fans of a losing soccer team, unleashing a wave of fury in his country, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a broadcast aired Thursday his remarks had been taken out of context. “I was addressing those who started riots and set up fires and attacked people,” he told the state-run news agency IRINN in an interview. “I said these [people] are nothing, they are not even part of the nation of Iran.

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Analysis: Iran’s conservative leadership divided amid unrest

There are signs that the ongoing protests against last week’s presidential election results may be starting to divide Iran’s conservative leadership. Iran’s influential parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani on Thursday blamed the Interior Ministry for a bloody crackdown on civilians, including students at Tehran University, after Monday’s protests

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Iranians dodging government’s Internet crackdown

It’s a high-tech, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. As the Iranian government seeks to crack down on the online networks being used by protesters who question the nation’s election results, a community of Net-savvy users — both inside and outside the country — are working to try to stay one step ahead

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Iran 101: Understanding the unrest

For almost a week, tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in daily protests — handkerchiefs shielding their faces from the pungency of tear gas, fists punching the air, and chants of "Down with the dictator" echoing against buildings. The massive outpouring is a result of a disputed presidential election that the protesters think coronated the incumbent hard-liner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over their candidate, Mir Hossain Moussavi

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Moussavi calls for day of mourning in Tehran’s streets

Supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi planned to turn Tehran into a sea of black Thursday when thousands of them march, dressed in dark clothes, to mourn comrades killed or wounded while calling for a new presidential election. Demonstrators expected to start their rallies from mosques across the Iranian capital, converging in a city square Thursday afternoon, for what is expected to be one of the largest protests since last Friday’s disputed election

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10 Days in Tehran: What I Saw At the Iranian Revolution

A few days before the Iranian election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a big rally at the Mosallah Mosque — said to be the world’s largest, if it is ever completed — in central Tehran. It was not very well organized. About 20,000 supporters of the President were inside the building, being entertained by a series of TV stars, athletes and religious singers

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