Latest updates on Iran’s disputed election

By Robert Mackey

updated 6:59 p.m. ET June 24, 2009

The New York Times blog The Lede is tracking the aftermath of Iran’s disputed presidential election online. Please refresh this page throughout the day to get the latest updates.

Update | 6:49 p.m. We didn’t get time to mention yesterday that a colleague on the sports desk, Jack Bell, blogged about the punishment meted out to some of the Iranian soccer players who dared to wear green wristbands in support of the opposition protest movement while representing Iran during a recent televised match.

Earlier today The Guardian pointed out that Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian novelist, had published his recent e-mail correspondence with an Iranian friend, who is doctor who was filmed trying to save the life of Neda Agha-Soltan on Saturday. On his blog, Mr. Coehlo wrote that the doctor has now fled to London.

Update | 6:43 p.m. The Iranian-American Web site Tehran Bureau has published this translation of an account of life in Tehran these days it received in Farsi on Tuesday night:

[Translated] I access Facebook through Yahoo! Mexico. But everyone says that’s a trap set by authorities to identify us!!!!! [X] quarrels with me all the time. He keeps imploring me not to go on the internet. They even say the phones are monitored!!! I’m so frightened I changed my [online] name today.

I don’t know why. Other than vote for Mousavi I’ve never engaged in a political activity in my entire life. But this is no comfort because [X]’s poor colleague was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet while driving through Vanak Square. After two operations, he’s blind in one eye!!!!!!!!

They picked up someone else too. Two days after his disappearance they released him near Shahreh Rey with his eyes blindfolded and his mouth gagged.

Neither guy attended demonstrations! Plus, they say those who come to these protests are MKO members [terrorists]!!!!! Not to mention 100 other insults!

What had this poor woman Neda done that they wouldn’t allow any mosque to hold ceremonies for her — come on, wasn’t she Muslim?

Anyway, things here are REALLY bad here. We’re all scared to death. Something has to change. We can’t go living like this.

Update | 6:25 p.m. Here are two videos that were posted before today, but are still interesting. First, this video — which was posted just after the election and appears to show a spontaneous protest in a Tehran subway station — gives a small sense of how common protest was in Iran’s capital in the days after the election.

Second, this video appeal from Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the great Iranian filmmaker, was recorded in Rome on Tuesday. In it, Mr. Makhmalbaf encouraged Iranians abroad to continue supporting the opposition (in Farsi with English subtitles):

Update | 6:15 p.m. In the absence of fresh video or photographs of protests on Wednesday we have been sent links to about a dozen videos that were uploaded to YouTube today, and given today’s date, that were in fact shot and uploaded to YouTube on previous days.

With that in mind, we could use the help of readers who have been following the events in Iran closely — and are willing to look at one more very graphic, horrifying video clip of a protester who seems to have been shot and at least very badly wounded. One particularly disturbing video has been circulating today, but looks very like some clips we saw on Saturday. If anyone can help us to accurately date it, or to at least confirm that it was not filmed today, we would appreciate the help. The video we are trying to put a date on is posted on this YouTube account, among others.

Update | 6:07 p.m. Supporters of the Iranian protest movement, angered by reports that Nokia Siemans sold Iran’s government technology that allows them to spy on mobile phone calls, have posted this doctored advertisement for the company online:

Update | 6:01 p.m. Noam Cohen, a colleague at The Times, passes on this chart, which shows the surprisingly large number of times the Farsi-language Wikipedia page on Mir Hussein Moussavi has been visited so far this month: 166,140.

Update | 5:53 p.m. Kremlinologists now applying their skills at reading between the lines to the Iranian government might like to set about explaining this report from Iran’s Press TV: “Tehran Mayor Asks for Legalization of Rallies.” According to Press TV, which is Iran’s state-supported, English-language channel, a state television channel, IRIB 2, aired an interview on Tuesday in which the mayor of Iran’s capital seemed to go against the security crackdown on opposition protesters:

Tehran’s mayor has urged relevant Iranian officials to authorize peaceful opposition rallies, saying the public should have an outlet to express its opinions. In a Tuesday interview with IRIB channel two, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf said that legalizing street rallies would prevent ’saboteurs who draw weapons and kill people’.

Qalibaf drew a clear line between ‘those protestors who had voted in the presidential election but had doubts about the result’ and ’some saboteurs, taking advantage of the situation’. [...]

Last Monday saw hundreds of thousands of protestors marching the streets of the capital. At least seven people were killed in Monday’s rallies, which turned violent after protestors were attacked by people wearing plainclothes. Iranian authorities also said the police killed at least 13 saboteurs during an ‘illegal rally’ on Saturday.

Tehran’s mayor stressed that the ‘use of force’ was the wrong way to clarify public’s doubts about the election results, calling all ‘the supervisory and executive bodies in the government’ as well as, ‘the media and presidential candidates’ to play a major role in resolving the issues.

Update | 5:31 p.m. A reader, Jon, writes to say that “a friend in Iran that I have been in touch with via Skype (which seems to work very well)” told him that a specific Web site, Gerdab.ir, is being used by the Iranian government to identify protesters by crowd-sourcing. The Lede has been unable to get the site to load to confirm this (and the site may be under attack from supporters of the protest movement), but the information passed on by the reader suggests that Iranians are being asked to study photographs of protesters taken at demonstrations and then turn them in to the authorities.

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Update | 5:03 p.m. The National Iranian American Council’s blog reports that “a trusted source who attended today’s silent rally at Baharestan Square” wrote to to them with an account of today’s events more like the one we heard from a reader of The Lede this morning — and quite unlike the account of the anonymous woman who spoke with CNN:

I was there from 5:15 to 7:30. It was very tense. Being out in Baharstan was an act of defiance. No one said anything, there were only a few chants coming from outside the square. Although the police were a lot nicer, the Basij continued to be brutal. No one was allowed to stand in one place, we had to keep on moving. The moment we stood in one place, they would break us up. I saw many people get blindfolded and arrested, however it wasn’t a massacre. I heard that someone was killed, however I didn’t see it.

NIAC’s blog also notes that an Iranian newspaper close to the country’s leadership has reported that the U.S. Congress has voted to take action against Iran. NIAC notes “Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee voted to prohibit US Export-Import loans from helping companies involved in Iran’s petroleum industry.” According to NIAC, the Iranian newspaper Kayhan reported the news this way:

Representatives of the US congress, in support of Mir Hussein Mousavi and the hooligans, asked for sanctions on oil importations to Iran. According to a report by Reuters, based on a plan introduced by one of the committees of the US congress, limitations will be put on exporting oil to Iran. Mark Kirk, one of the designers of these sanctions, while supporting the hooligans, said ‘when they are being suppressed in Tehran, we should not help Iran’s economy.’ It should be mentioned that setting gas stations on fire is one of the destructive recommendations that anti-revolutionary websites and media, who lead the chaos, have given to the thugs.

Update | 4:56 p.m.

As the blogger for the Iranian-American Web site Tehran Bureau reports:

My dear friend Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek journalist based in Istanbul, is being held by the Iranian authorities. We’ll get more about him up as soon as possible. In a nutshell: Iason Athanasiadis is a Greek journalist based in Istanbul.

The arrest seems particularly perverse since Iason, on assignment for the Washington Times and GlobalPost, is a long time Iran-hand, Farsi-speaker, and Iran-lover, who spent 2 years at Tehran University.

Mr. Athanasiadis is also a contributor to the photo agency Demotix, which told The Lede on Tuesday:

Iason was arrested on 17th June in Tehran airport. He is still being detained. Since the 17th, we have been in constant touch with the Greek Foreign Ministry and the Greek Ambassador in Tehran. They have been diligently and sensitively working on the case, and continue to do so.

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