Violence erupts across Iran after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in last Friday’s controversial presidential election. The world is keeping an eye on claims of election fraud and the continuing protests by supporters of defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
That was video from the BBC.
Let’s get to the ground and see what’s happening in Tehran.
ABC News’ Jim Scuitto reports from the scene using video taken from cell phones.
“‘Down, down with the dictator,’ that’s what the protestors have been shouting to the dictator, in their view, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hundreds of riot police have just come to the streets on motorcycles, swinging batons, attacking protesters.”
Looking back at the elections,
Al Jazeera English brings a perspective from an Iranian academic and writer. She says the elections don’t necessarily represent democracy.
“...elections in a country such as Iran don't have same meaning as in countries such as the US. We hardly have a choice in who we vote for anyway. There was also not one single international observer.” -- Azar Nafisi
In an op-ed,
The Wall Street Journal called on the world to support what they called “The Iranian Rebellion.”
“In Iran today, a sham election has been met with an open revolt. This takes great courage. The world’s free nations need the courage to do better than respond with the sham policy of making nice with an illegitimate regime.”
A writer for Indian national newspaper
The Hindu says Ahmadinejad’s win is legitimate.
“Confined mainly to Tehran and unacquainted with the mainstream local culture, the western media may have misread the public mood... a ‘silent majority’...voted solidly for Mr. Ahmadinejad.”
A
Washington Post article backs up the idea. A survey of Iranians three weeks before Friday’s election showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin. They conclude:
“Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, … they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.”
NBC’s Martin Fletcher writing as a guest columnist for
Times Online says that the uprising will be short-lived.
“...the media’s ten-day visas almost all expire this week, and the regime has refused to extend them. That leaves it free to act as savagely and brutally as it needs to snuff out the last vestiges of revolt.”Copy the code and paste it to your blog or website:
