Purple People Vote

It has been made abundantly clear that the Iranian government and its supreme leader have no interest in respecting the basic human rights of its citizens. This was again evident in Friday’s “prayer” by Ayatollah Khatami. Leading demonstrators must be executed, Ayatollah Khatami demands

In a televised sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami called on the judiciary to “punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson”. He said that those leaders were backed by the United States and Israel. They should be treated as mohareb — people who wage war against God — and deserved execution.

In a clear warning to all other dissenters, he declared: “Anybody who fights against the Islamic system or the leader of Islamic society, fight him until complete destruction.”

The Guardian UK reports Jailed Iran reformists ‘tortured to confess foreign plot’

Jailed Iranian reformists are believed to have been tortured in an attempt to force them into TV “confessions” of a foreign-led plot against the Islamic regime.

According to Iranian websites, the “confessions” are aimed at implicating Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the defeated reformist candidates in this month’s presidential poll, in an alleged conspiracy.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi supporters, are reported to have undergone “intensive interrogation” sessions in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since being arrested in a mass round-up of opposition figures following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

The three, who all served in the government of the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, are among several hundred activists, academics, journalists and students detained in a crackdown coinciding with the brutal suppression of street protesters who believe the election was stolen.

Amnesty International is reporting mass detention of reporters along with serious concerns about their whereabouts and well being.  Iran: Journalists detained as news restrictions tighten

Since the announcement on 13 June that President Ahmadinejad had won the election, the Iranian authorities have imposed severe restrictions on freedom of expression. Access to the internet has been blocked or significantly interrupted. Iranian publications have been banned from publishing information about the unrest. Foreign news journalists have been banned from the streets, and some foreign reporters have been expelled from the country.

“If nothing else, the authorities must immediately disclose the whereabouts of these journalists, ensure that they are not tortured or otherwise ill-treated and allow their families and lawyers access to them,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. “Unless the authorities lift all unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression – which includes the right of journalists to report on events – and release all the journalists arrested, we can only assume they are trying to hide evidence of abuse and further silence any critical voice”.

Specifics on some of these arrest are addressed by The Guardian UK in their article Iranian Newspaper Staff Arrested

Iason Athanasiadis-Fowden, known as Jason Fowden, a Washington Times reporter, was arrested as he was attempting to leave the country, according to the Iranian news agency IRNA.

RSF, the Paris-based journalists’ charity, reported that Kalemeh Sabz’s editor, Alireza Behshtipour Shirazi, confirmed the arrest of his whole staff on German radio.

Kalemeh Sabz ceased publication on 13 June but was due to restart on 23 June. However, the prior evening, agents from Tehran’s prosecutor’s office surrounded the building where the paper is based.

Earlier this week, 180 Iranian journalists wrote an open letter to Iran’s leaders, protesting the “deplorable and critical” state of Iran’s media.

The Miami Herald describes how the struggle continues, but is shifting…

Iranians mourn slain woman as power struggle continues

Some experts Thursday said they thought Iran’s worst political crisis in 30 years was entering a new phase. They said a power struggle within the country’s clerical hierarchy is likely to continue for some time behind closed doors while anti-regime activists seek ways other than mass protests, such as strikes, to challenge the ruling theocracy amid escalating arrests and censorship, they said.

“This is the fire beneath the ashes. It’s brewing. It is not volcanic yet,” said Reza Molavi, the director of the Center for Iranian Studies at Durham University in Britain. “If we assume that the genie is out of the bottle, I would venture a guess that this will go on.”

The Telegraph UK describes the economic toll that the brutal suppression of protesters have brought on Iran.  Money floods out of Iran as election crisis continues

Millions of pounds in private wealth has begun flooding out of Iran in the wake of mass demonstrations which have paralysed commercial life after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

---

Fears of a new round of crippling sanctions are also thought to have fuelled the movement of money out of the country.Western intelligence agencies have reported that prominent private businesses and wealthy families have moved tens of millions of dollars out of Iranian banks into overseas accounts.