Iran Police Crack Down As Thousands Protest

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

His backers were demonstrating over the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won by a landslide despite opposition claims the result was rigged.

The protesters defied a call from the country’s supreme leader for the demonstrations to end.

Eyewitnesses said around 3,000 people chanted “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to dictatorship!” near Revolution Square in the city centre.

Police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannon at them. At least one person is thought to have been injured by gunfire.

Witnesses said Mr Mousavi’s supporters lit a fire at the headquarters of the president’s backers in the capital.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had issued a strong warning on Friday to the leaders of the street protests that they would be responsible for any bloodshed.

Mr Khamenei claimed the June 12 vote was won fairly by Mr Ahmadinejad.

But in a letter to the country’s top legislative body, Mr Mousavi claimed poll rigging had been planned months ago and insisted the election must be annulled.

The runner-up in the election said if he was arrested, he urged people to go on strike.

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber has blown himself up in Tehran at the shrine of Iran’s revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, injuring one person, reports say.

Foreign media are banned from reporting on non-official events but reports are still reaching the outside world of violence being used by the authorities.

The election result sparked fury among supporters of the losing candidates, who accused the government of rigging the poll and took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands in the biggest public protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iran’s electoral watchdog, the Guardian Council, says it is ready to “randomly” recount up to 10% of the ballot boxes from the election, state TV said.

In his speech, Mr Khamenei also denounced Britain as the “most treacherous” of Iran’s enemies.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said violence on the streets of Tehran must not be turned into a battle between Iran and the UK.

Writing in The Sun, he hit back at the Ayatollah’s claims. “Dignity has been shown by the protesters on the streets of Tehran,” Mr Miliband said.

“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tried to blame the unrest on the West.

“But we will not allow anyone to turn scenes on the streets of Tehran into a battle between Britain and Iran. My message to the Iranian people is simple: the future of your country is for you to decide.

“But we need to know whether Iran is prepared to work with us to restore confidence in its nuclear intentions.”

The Ayatollah offered no concession to opposition supporters who are demanding the elections be cancelled and held again, sternly warning against further protests.

He blamed Great Britain and Iran’s external enemies for the unrest, vigorously defending the ruling system.

“The enemies (of Iran) are targeting the Islamic establishment’s legitimacy by questioning the election and its authenticity before and after (the vote),” the Ayatollah continued.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, talking to Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton, said: “What we want is to have a good relationship with Iran in the future.

“But that depends on Iran being able to show to the world that its elections have been conducted fairly and that there is no unfair suppression of rights and individuals in that country.”

Supporters of runner-up Mr Mousavi have so far ignored the Ayatollah, holding huge unauthorised rallies.

Tens of thousands of Iranians had gathered in and around Tehran University to hear Khamenei’s Friday prayer sermon.

Some in the crowd were draped in Iranian flags. Others held placards with anti-Western slogans.

As passions soared, the crowd reportedly chanted: “Death to the UK, Israel and the US.”

American President Barack Obama said he was very concerned by the “tenor and tone” of Khamenei’s comments.

In a US TV interview, Mr Obama said that Iran’s government should “recognise that the world is watching.”

He said “how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard” will signal “what Iran is and is not”.

Mr Khamenei’s speech followed six days of protests by Mousavi supporters.

On Thursday, tens of thousands of black-clad marchers bore candles to mourn those killed in earlier rallies.

Iranian state media has reported seven or eight people killed in protests since the election results were published on June 13.

Scores of reformists have been arrested and authorities have cracked down on both foreign and domestic media.

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Iranians Use Internet, Phones to Share Protest News

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

With independent media coverage of Iranian protests restricted by authorities, witnesses are reaching out online and by telephone to report what they see on the streets of Tehran.

Opposition Web sites said protesters had planned to gather Saturday in Revolution (Enghelab) and Freedom (Azadi) Squares, two of Tehran’s main areas.

But witnesses told VOA Persian News Network and other news agencies they saw large numbers of police gathered in the streets, blocking the demonstrators.

Near Freedom Square, the witnesses say police clashed with thousands of protesters, arresting some and using tear gas, batons and water cannons on others.

Some witnesses also said they heard gunshots, but it is unclear who fired the shots. At least three helicopters were hovering over the area.

At other places in the capital, witnesses say protesters attacked authorities, setting some of their motorcycles on fire.

News agencies are relying heavily on information published by Iranian citizens through social media services, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

On Friday, Facebook announced it is making its Web site available in Farsi, so Iranians can use the service in their native language.

Google also introduced a new Farsi translating tool.

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Delay in Releasing CIA Report Is Sought

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Justice Dept. Wants More Time to Review IG’s Findings on Detainee Treatment

by Carrie Johnson

The Justice Department needs a week to complete its review of a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report before releasing it in redacted form to civil liberties advocates, officials said yesterday.

Government lawyers notified the American Civil Liberties Union of the delay yesterday afternoon, citing a longer-than-expected review process at the CIA. Activists requested the report as part of a longstanding Freedom of Information Act lawsuit focusing on the U.S. government’s detention and treatment of terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

CIA officials sought to redact many sensitive and classified elements of the lengthy report, including details about the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other harsh measures against detainees. The report by the agency’s internal watchdog raised questions about the legality of the CIA’s strategy and ignited a fierce debate within the agency and the Bush administration after it was completed five years ago.

Tension over how much to disclose in the fight against terrorism continues to roil the highest levels of the Obama administration. After a behind-the-scenes fight, authorities released earlier this year four memos by the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that paved the way for information-gathering techniques that critics assert are torture. But at the urging of Defense Department officials, the White House has sought to bar the release of photos depicting detainee abuse on the ground that they could incite violence against U.S. forces.

The report is the most definitive official account to date of the CIA’s interrogation system. A heavily redacted version, consisting of a dozen or so paragraphs separated by heavy black boxes and lists of missing pages, was released in May 2008 in response to the ACLU lawsuit. The broad conclusions of the report, as well as its specific assertion that some interrogators exceeded limits approved by the Justice Department, have been disclosed.

Administration officials have been cool to the idea of a congressionally chartered “truth commission” that would explore the origins and effects of the interrogation program. But they have repeatedly been forced to respond to lawsuits they inherited, filed by interest groups that seek sensitive government documents from the Bush era.

New leaders at the Justice Department generally lean toward disclosure, but they are playing a secondary role in the case of the CIA inspector general’s report because they did not have a hand in investigating or preparing the report.

Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer, said the group is disappointed by the delay. “We can only hope that this delay is a sign that the forces of transparency within the Obama administration are winning over the forces of secrecy and that the report will ultimately be released with minimal redactions,” she said. “The CIA should not be permitted to use national security as a pretext for suppressing evidence of its own unlawful conduct.”

CIA spokesman George Little said the process “is working just as it should.” He rejected the ACLU’s allegations of suppressed evidence as “wrong and offensive.”

Joby Warrick contributed to this report.

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