Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, angrily warned opposition leaders Friday to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged.
Meanwhile on Twitter and Iran Blogs they are saying that the election was rigged and demonstrators are being jailed an abused. If this election was so fair and the opposition is being treated fairly why aren't legitimate western news sources allowed out of their hotel rooms to cover this victory for democracy?
Certainly if the Ayatollah is correct the election will stand the test of scrutiny the world will hold it to. I frankly have my doubts but then I have lived through two bogus elections of GW Bush. And I can understand the anger of the people of Iran to have a Supreme leader (in our case the Supreme Court) declare what we in our hearts and minds knew was wrong.
From the outside looking in obliquely, since they are allowing no direct viewing, they made a few huge mistakes. First was declaring victory within hours in a country that counts its votes by hand. Second was in underestimating the power of the "informal media" out there these days with their cellphones and text messages to Twitter.
And naturally the ousted formal press is upset and going with Twitter for its source on what is happening inside Iran. Who knows what we will see when the dust settles around this disputed democratic election. One thing we will know for sure: Never underestimate the power of the people to get their story out these days. They will even beg Twitter to not shut down for routine maintenance of their site.
Who would have believed this: Twitter is the new Radio Free Europe in the Middle East.
As usual the UK is being blamed for this via the BBC. Thirty years later, the 'Islamic Revolution' is happening again with nothing really different than life under the Shah. I worked in Teheran for 18 months during and after the first revolution and found the majority of then people completely charming and longing to have a voice.
ReplyDeleteI was in the Middle East when the Shah was ousted and agree entirely with what Michael has said. In Qatar it was interesting to see the reaction to the Ayatollah's return from exile in France. One wealthy Iranian friend said 'this is not true Islam' whilst in the souk where many of the traders were Iranians, the photos of the Shah on their booths were replaced overnight with photos of the Ayatollah.
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