Tag Archives: violence

Why Europe Is Talking Tougher than Obama on Iran

While President Obama has chosen a deliberately measured response to the contested Iranian election, European leaders have been far less restrained in their comments. On June 16, four days after the presidential election, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the contested poll a “tragedy” and added that “the extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction.” That same day, the Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, said the violence in the streets and the deaths of protesters were “unacceptable.” Three days later, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown referred to “the repression and the brutality” in Iran.

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Fighting tears, shah’s son calls crisis a ‘moment of truth’

The son of the former shah of Iran called Monday for solidarity against Iran’s Islamic regime, warning that the democratic movement born out of the election crisis might not succeed without international support. “The moment of truth has arrived,” Reza Shah Pahlavi said at Washington’s National Press Club

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Forbidden Iran: How to Report When You’re Banned

Like other journalists who work for foreign media organizations, I was banned early on from reporting on the protests against the official victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. First, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance sent a fax prohibiting me from reporting on the streets. Then I got a call to return my already annulled press card in person

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Lessons For the U.S. As the Iranian Revolution Unravels

Who would have thought that Iran, a country that has been the nemesis of the past five American presidents, might actually become a model for what Washington wants to see happen politically in the Middle East? Who would have thought that a Berlin Wall moment for the region might happen in the strict Islamic republic, where a revolution 30 years ago unleashed Islam as a modern political idiom and extremism as a tool to confront the West Unlikely as it seems, the rise of a popular movement relying on civil disobedience to confront authoritarian rule — in the last bloc of countries to hold out against the tide of change that has swept the rest of the world over the past quarter century — is almost a diplomatic dream for the Obama administration

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Wolfowitz: U.S. should reach out to Moussavi

President Obama should reach out to Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi as tensions in Iran over the disputed presidential elections continue to heighten, a former Bush administration official told CNN Sunday. “I would certainly find out if he (Moussavi) wants a conversation,” former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “If he doesn’t, I certainly wouldn’t push it.

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Policeman to protesters: ‘Please, please, please go home!’

In at least one incident Saturday, police wavered in their resolve to break up demonstrators who had turned out to protest last week’s election results, a witness told CNN. “The commander was shouting at the protesters,” said Roger Cohen, a columnist for the New York Times, who came upon perhaps a dozen police who had faced off against a number of demonstrators at about 5 p.m. “The commander was shouting at the protesters, one of whom had thrown a rock at him,” Cohen said.

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Iran’s supreme leader to speak at site of crackdown

Iran’s supreme leader will deliver a sermon Friday at Tehran University, just days after a bloody crackdown at the school, according to a statement from the pro-government Basij militia. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will give his sermon during Friday prayers. It will be closely watched for a sign of how the government plans to resolve the stalemate over the country’s recent presidential elections.

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