Daily News Channel
Iranian authorities raided and shut down the offices of opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi, an Iranian news agency reported Tuesday, one day after another prominent reformer’s office was raided. Brandishing a court order, representatives of the prosecutor entered the building in the Tehran neighborhood of Jamshidieh at 3 p.m., a spokesman for Karrubi’s party said, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency
A senior official with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard is calling for the prosecution of two key opposition leaders and a former president, accusing them of fanning the protests that have gripped the nation since its disputed presidential election two months ago. Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi, along with former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, should be tried for attempting to lead a Western-backed “velvet revolution” that aimed to topple the regime, the official said.
Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi and reformist former President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday blasted the trials of people arrested in post-election demonstrations. Those on trial had been tortured into confessions, Moussavi said in a statement posted on his Ghalam News Web site. “They have been stepped on so severely that they would have confessed to anything else, had they been instructed to do so,” Moussavi said.
Members of Iran’s influential National Security Council have told opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi that his repeated demands for the annulment of the June 12 election results are "illogical and unethical," state media reported. Esmaeel Kowsari told the government-run Iranian Labor News Agency in an interview Friday that the council met with Moussavi, former presidential candidates Mehdi Karrubi and Mohsen Rezaie, and former Iran President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now chairs the Assembly of Experts
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.
The Arab world is among the worldwide audience that has been closely watching as events in Iran have unfolded over the past week.
Iran’s supreme leader delivered an impassioned defense of the Islamic Republic on Friday, insisting a majority of Iranians had faith in the existing establishment and issuing a "religious ultimatum" to protesters to end days of street demonstrations triggered by last week’s presidential election. Addressing a large crowd at Tehran University, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the historic voter turnout of 85 percent legitimized the Islamic system and had been a clear demonstration of the Iranian people’s trust in the regime. He rejected suggestions that fraud or cheating had been involved in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, pointing out that the 11-million vote difference between Ahmadinejad and his principal opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, was too large to have been manipulated by vote-rigging
Iran’s supreme leader passionately defended last week’s presidential election process Friday, praising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election as a "definitive victory" and sloughing off charges of vote-rigging.
Even sequestered by government order in our hotel, we could still hear the sounds of protests in the night. TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Even sequestered by government order in our hotel, we could still hear the sounds of protests in the night. Voices shouted “God is great!” from rooftops, from faces hidden in the dark
As thousands took to the streets again on Tuesday, Iran’s government banned international journalists from covering rallies and blocked access to some online communication tools in the wake of last week’s disputed presidential election. Reporters working for international news outlets, including CNN, could talk about the rallies in their live reports but were not allowed to leave their hotel rooms and offices.