The Iranian opposition sought permission yesterday to hold a ceremony to mourn those killed in protests over last month’s election, in a new challenge to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We request permission to hold a ceremony to commemorate the 40th day after the deaths of our citizens who lost their lives following the start of the saddening events,” Ahmadinejad’s challengers Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi wrote in a letter to the Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli.
The ISNA news agency, which carried the letter, said the organizers planned to hold the ceremony in central Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, an open prayer venue.
PHOTO: AP
The Web site of Etemad Melli, the political party of Karroubi, said the ceremony was to be held on Thursday.
Authorities have banned such gatherings since the violence that followed Ahmadinejad’s hotly disputed re-election and have placed tight restrictions on foreign media.
In the immediate aftermath of the June 12 vote, hundreds of thousands of protesters poured onto Tehran streets, triggering the Islamic regime’s worst crisis since the 1979 revolution.
Reports say at least 20 people were killed and scores wounded.
“The ceremony will have no speeches. It will consist only of recitals from the Koran and participants will be asked to pay their respects in silence,” Mousavi and Karroubi said.
Their call came a day after the two joined reformist former president Mohammad Khatami in urging Iran’s clerics to intervene to prevent “oppression” by the authorities against detained protestors.
They accused the regime of “savagery” and said its “interrogation methods are a reminder of the dark era of the Shah,” Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The reformist Etemad newspaper reported that two protestors have died in custody.
As Ahmadinejad’s opponents pressed on with their efforts to mobilize their supporters, the president faced continued fire from his own hardline supporters.
They accused him of defying supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by not sacking his pick for first vice president pick Esfandia Rahim Mashaie immediately after being ordered to do so by Khamenei on July 18.
The conservative Justice Seeking Students Movement urged the parliament to question Ahmadinejad on “why he was late in obeying the leader’s order and accepted [Rahim Mashaie’s] resignation instead of sacking him.”
“The appointment and [failure to] sack Mashaie is an unprecedented act in the history of the revolution,” the group said in a statement carried by ISNA.
The group also took strong issue with Ahmadinejad’s decision to appoint his close friend as chief staff just hours after he stepped down as first vice president, charging that that too was an act of defiance against Khamenei.
In his July 18 letter, the supreme leader told Ahmadinejad that Rahim Mashaie’s appointment would cause “division and frustration among your supporters.”
“It is necessary that the appointment be cancelled,” he said in the letter carried by state broadcast media.
The outspoken Rahim Mashaie had enraged hardliners last year by describing Iran as a “friend of the Israeli people.”
But he remains “one of Mr Ahmadinejad’s inner circle of trustees,” independent analyst Mohammad Saleh Sedghian said.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
‘NARWHAL’: The indigenous submarine completed its harbor acceptance test recently and is now under heavy guard as it undergoes tests in open waters, a source said The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, yesterday began sea trials, sailing out of the Port of Kaohsiung, a military source said. Also known as the “Narwhal,” the vessel departed from CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard at about 8am, where it had been docked. More than 10 technicians and military personnel were on deck, with several others standing atop the sail. After recently completing its harbor acceptance test, the vessel has started a series of sea-based trials, including tests of its propulsion and navigational systems, while partially surfaced, the source said. The Hai Kun underwent tests in the port from
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
RSS