Iran elections: Khamenei warns protesters to stay off streets

guardian.co.uk, ^ | Friday 19 June 2009 11.15 BST | Haroon Siddique

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, giving his Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University. Photograph: Reuters TV/Reuters

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remained defiant today in the face of vote-rigging allegations as he condemned the protests that have rocked the country since last week's disputed elections.

Speaking at Friday prayers, Khamenei claimed that the high turnout at the elections showed how much the Iranian people supported the regime, and warned protesters to keep off the streets.

The reformist presidential challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was conspicuous by his absence from Friday prayers at Tehran University, where Khamenei was making his first public appearance since controversially endorsing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president.

With the crowd chanting "Death to the US," Khamenei praised the president as "hardworking" and dismissed the idea that the election might have been rigged.

"The Islamic republic will never manipulate votes and commit treason," he said. "The legal structure in this country does not allow vote-rigging." He said that vote-rigging to the extent of the 11m votes in the official results was impossible.

He added: "If some people have doubts and evidence it should be dealt with through legal ways – only through legal ways. I will never accept illegal innovations."

Some followers of Mousavi, who support his claim to have won the election, had called for a boycott of prayers at the university because of the refusal to annul the result of the poll, but TV pictures showed thousands of people listening to Khamenei and occasionally chanting affirmation of his words.

Khamenei said people were "wrong" to think they could influence the establishment by taking to the streets.

[PapaBear3625]

Latest from PersianKiwi:

Confirmed - Saturday Sea of Green rally - Enghelab Sq - 4pm - Mousavi, Karoubi and Khatami will attend - #Iranelection RT RT

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From IranianFreedom site:

Name Navid

• Location Cologne, Germany

  RT : Night Clashes between Protestors and Basiij very brutal! Many Protestors injured , many disapear! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran4 minutes ago from web

  RT : Basiij break in homes where injured protestors are beeing helped and beat up helpers! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran4 minutes ago from web

  # RT : People sheltering injured protestors in their homes giving them Water and treating their wounds! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran4 minutes ago from web #

  RT : Basiij break in homes where injured protestors are beeing helped and beat up helpers! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran8 minutes ago from web

  RT : People sheltering injured protestors in their homes giving them Water and treating their wounds! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran8 minutes ago from web

  RT : Night Clashes between Protestors and Basiij very brutal! Many Protestors injured , many disapear! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran10 minutes ago from web

  # RT : CONFIRMED!! Iran Gov brings Arab Supporters to do the dirty job and beat up protestors! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran13 minutes ago from web #

  RT : CONFIRMED!! Arab people dressed in black that cant speak Persian beat up Protestors on the street! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran17 minutes ago from web

  RT : The Police cant kill 2 million protestors! Stay Together and fight for your right! #Iranelection #gr88 #Iran #tehran17 minutes ago from web

  RT : We want a free Iran without religion in politics! #Iranelection #gr88 #Iran #tehran19 minutes ago from web

  It is CONFIRMED that the Iranian Gov is giving tourist in Iran a hard time! #Iranelection #gr88 #Iran #tehran21 minutes ago from web

  RT : Arab people dressed in black that cant speak Persian beat up Protestors on the street! CONFIRMED #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran22 minutes ago from web

  Confirmed - Saturday Sea of Green rally - Enghelab Sq - 4pm - Mousavi, Karoubi and Khatami will attend - #Iranelection #gr88 #Iran #tehran22 minutes ago from web

  RT : Today in Cologne Germany at 5pm Rally from Rudolfplatz until Heumarkt! Please RT! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #tehran28 minutes ago from web

  RT : Freedom is something u habe to fight for! Never give up your hopes!The country belongs to its people! #IranElection #gr88 #Iran #theranabout 1 hour ago from web

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

RT This is sickening. Students shot in front of the camera http://bit.ly/LlSTO #iranelectionabout 12 hours ago from web

[mimaw]

I wish I had your confidence in the decency of the army, but they have been cultivated by the mullahs since they came into power. They live well compared to the general populace. My heart goes out to the young demonstrators many will die if this continues. These bastards in power there are not constrained , they will mow down any opposition.

[1010RD]

Talk about having a tin ear...

That is good news.

[Man50D]

Twitter report

minapolos: Basij-animals are marching to Rafsandjani's house!! this is huge. #iranelection RT RT Rafsanjani going to be arrested???

[PapaBear3625]

Students shot in front of the camera

Looking at this, this video seems to be a different angle of an incident from a couple of days ago, where a Basij shot at the crowd surrounding a local Basiji HQ, and the protesters responded with Molotov cocktails and torched the place.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From:

iran88

* Name Iranian

* Location Tehran, Iran

***************************************************

Hizbollah statmnt, leader's comments, a rally: all against Hashemi. Basij checkpoints. Things really heating up today! #iranElection #gr8814 minutes ago from TwitterFox

Ghalam: A group of lawyers & law professors want end to violence against people. http://ghalamnews.ir/news-2... #iranElection #gr8818 minutes ago from TwitterFox

ILNA: Head of General Inspection Organization to Mousavi: Some complaints are valid and documented. http://tinyurl.com/nqt9c7 #iranElection20 minutes ago from TwitterFox

ILNA: Parliment's investigation commitee has met with Hashemi Rafsanjani http://tinyurl.com/nqt9c7 #iranElection #gr8828 minutes ago from TwitterFox. This is after an statement was distributed during the prayer that Hameshi is the mastermind behind the unrest. #iranElection #gr8830 minutes ago from TwitterFox

RT from Iran: In Iran, Friday Prayers are rallying toward Hashemi Rafsanjani's office. They calls him "Head of Devilry". #iranElection #gr8831 minutes ago from TwitterFox

Iran's Supreme Leader Praises Vote Results http://digg.com/d1uHAB #IranElection #gr88 (thnx @yarayara)38 minutes ago from TwitterFox

RT from Iran: Ebrahim Yazi is back in hospital after his arrest. #iranElection #gr8839 minutes ago from TwitterFox

RT from Iran: the unrest of active in Karaj http://z8un.blogfa.com/post... #iranElection #gr8843 minutes ago from TwitterFox

BBC: Khamenei has issued a stern warning that protests against the country's disputed presidential election results must end. #iranElection44 minutes ago from TwitterFox

RT from Iran: Hezbollah also issued an statement against Hashemi http://tinyurl.com/l2cqnm #iranElection #gr8844 minutes ago from TwitterFox

RT from Iran: After Friday's prayer, AN/leader fans protested against Hashemi's home. #iranElection #gr88about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I thought the scene looked familiar ...but I hadn’t seen any bodies in the other clip although the audio sounded like there were shots.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Sure looks like it...see notes in post #28 regarding him...<P.Can’t imagine he doesn’t have some protection.

[M. Espinola]

Ahmadinejad has his ‘solution’ orders from Putin’s Kremlin.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More from iran88:

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RT: @lotfan: VIDEO via BBC: Khamanei's speech http://bit.ly/XXzZp #iranelection #gr8810 minutes ago from TwitterFox

RT from Iran: Council of Guardians spokesperson: General meeting tomorrow with Mousavi, Karroubi & Rezaei's presence. #iranElection #gr8813 minutes ago from TwitterFox

Hizbollah statmnt, leader's comments, a rally: all against Hashemi. Basij checkpoints. Things really heating up today! #iranElection #gr8831 minutes ago from TwitterFox

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well the NY Times is performing a servic...with their bias of course:

Friday: Updates on Iran’s Disputed Election

June 19, 2009, 7:56 am

By Robert Mackey

To supplement reporting by New York Times journalists inside Iran on Friday, The Lede will continue to track the aftermath of Iran’s disputed presidential election online, as we have for the last several days. Please refresh this page throughout the day to get the latest updates at the top of your screen (updates are stamped with the time in New York). For an overview of the current situation, read the main news article on our Web site, which will be updated throughout the day.

Readers inside Iran or in touch with people there are encouraged to send us photographs — our address is: pix@nyt.com — or use the comments box below to tell us what you are seeing or hearing.

Update | 8:42 a.m. In his sermon on Friday, Ayatollah Khamenei attacked what he called attempts by foreign governments to stir up opposition to the election results. He seemed to be saying that reports by foreign media outlets are actually veiled attempts to overthrow his regime. Reporting on what was in part an attack on the corporation itself, the BBC, which maintains an active Farsi-language news service, explained:

He said the election was a “political earthquake” for Iran’s enemies - singling out Great Britain as “the most evil of them” - whom he accused of trying to foment unrest in the country.

“Some of our enemies in different parts of the world intended to depict this absolute victory, this definitive victory, as a doubtful victory,” the Supreme Leader said.

In its own way, the BBC was quick to strike back - passing on reaction to the Supreme Leader’s speech from users of its Web site who claimed to be inside Iran.

Update | 8:38 a.m. In a post on Bits, the New York Times’s technology blog, Miguel Helft reports:

“There is a huge amount of interest about the events in Iran,” said Franz Och, principal scientist at Google, who has been leading the development of Google Translate. “We hope that this tool will improve access to information in Iran and outside,” Mr. Och said in an interview. [...]

In a blog post, Mr. Och warned that the service is not perfect, so mistakes are possible. It is optimized to translate between Persian and English, but Google is working on improving translation between Persian and the other languages in Google Translate.

Update | 8:30 a.m. The automatic translation tool introdcued by Google on Friday was quickly used by supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi. One hour ago, Mousavi1388, a Twitter feed maintained by opposition supporters, reported:

Mousavi’s official news site GhalamNews in now available in English thanks to @GOOGLE, see http://is.gd/16b2j

In reference to reports from Twitter that we cite, we should note that, after consulting several experts, The Times has decided to include the user names for the Twitter posts that are quoted here and elsewhere on NYTimes.com. We concluded that the user names would better allow readers to judge the source and value of the posts that are quoted. The user names are already publicly available on Twitter and accessible, along with all content created on Twitter, through Twitter’s search index and on any number of third-party search engines.

Update | 8:20 a.m. Iran’s authorities are no doubt hoping that images broadcast on Iranian state television this morning, of the Supreme Leader speaking to a large number of loyal followers at Tehran University — including incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — will give many Iranian citizens the impression that the opposition protests are doomed to failure. Largely shut out by state television, and barred from speaking to the foreign press, the opposition will continue to rely on citizen journalists within the movement to get word of its protests out to other Iranians and the world through the Internet.

To that end, their efforts may be aided by the introduction of two new tools from Google and Facebook, announced on Friday. Google has sped up the release of automatic translation software that will help with translations of Internet messages to and from Farsi. On Google’s official blog, the company explained:

Today, we added Persian (Farsi) to Google Translate.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The above ( post #33) is an excerpt..........

[PapaBear3625]

I thought the scene looked familiar ...but I hadn’t seen any bodies in the other clip

Here is the other video. Notice the green thing with arabic writing on the rooftop that the guard is standing behind at :22 seconds into the vid, and compare with the green thing the guard is standing behind at :10 secs into the vid you posted. In the first clip, you see a body being carried away at :52

[556x45]

Rather like his counterpart here. Both use the media as a prop.

[PapaBear3625]

From PersianKiwi twitter 2 minutes ago: confirmed - the Gov has refused to issue a permit for Sea of Green march at 4pm on Saturday in Tehran

Looks like Saturday will be the day when we see which side (if either) blinks

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Looks that way...the NY times has added some material at :

Friday: Updates on Iran’s Disputed Election************************EXCERPT************************

Another response, on the BBC’s Web site, comes from computer programmer in Mashhad, identified as Arash, who said:

People are being beaten up in Mashhad. There have been no demonstrations in the past two days. People wait until night to go on the roofs and shout “Allahu akbar” ["God is great] to show their support for the opposition. People from here go to Tehran to demonstrate, to be part of the bigger, safer crowds.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Crowd seems so much larger in the first video...but the roof line looks the same....hard to tell...

[PapaBear3625]

Latest from PersianKiwi:

unconfirmed reports - Revolutionary Guard has been mobilised to secure Tehran - #Iranelection - 18 minutes ago from web

The situation in Iran is now CRITICAL - the nation is heartbroken - suppression is iminent - #Iranelection

Looks like the regime will not allow demonstrations tomorrow.