things are not “well” in iran
things continue to escalate in iran this weekend with bloggers, twitters and other media doing their best to keep up with the coverage. moussavi supporters continue to protest last week’s election results including setting a building on fire used by ahmadinejad supporters and attacking the shrine of ayatollah ruhollah khomeini. the supreme leader continues to insist the election results are valid while moussavi supporters have been reportedly tear gassed and shot at.
to better understand what it’s all about, here’s a quick summary of the governmental structure in iran
- the supreme leader, ayatollah ali khamenei has the final say in the country
- the guardian council is a group of six selected by the supreme leader, they pick the candidates to run for office and is responsible for verifying election results
- the election in question is for the presidency. in some ways, the president is just a figure head since his powers come second after the supreme leader and he is often constrained by the guardian council.
- the basij plays the role of the police and is under the control of the revolutionary guard. the revolutionary guard is under the supreme leader’s control.
iran is trying hard to control the media – expelling journalist and filtering web traffic – it’s making it hard for journalist to confirm and verify the news coming out of the country. one story that came out this weekend was of the death of a young woman captured and posted on youtube.
be warned, this is explicit stuff.
here’s the description attached to the video on youtube: “Basij shots to death a young woman in Tehran’s Saturday June 20th protests At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St. The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know.”
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Comments
Thanks for covering this important story, sb. I find the (by now) ubiquitous video too difficult to watch, but perhaps her tragic death, as caught on video, has become a modern day shot heard ’round the world.
6/23 story update: the guardian council has ruled that the election won’t be nullified and ahmadinejad is set to be sworn in sometime between 7/26 -8/19
the guardian council acknowledges that although the number of ballots cast in many cities exceed the number of eligible voters, they say it didn’t affect noticably affect the outcome http://tinyurl.com/mloq5o