Iran after the elections: 7 July

Hi - if you're here due to a Twitter update, check the bottom of the post.

The first article worth mentioning today is this one from Reza Aslan, who writes about Itikaf (the three-day religious holiday that started yesterday) being a good excuse to begin a strike. He also wonders if America is still paying attention to the situation in Iran. Let's check:


Looks like the answer is: no, not so much. Traffic from the US alone over the past 30 days bears this out too.


You can read about Mousavi's first public appearance in nearly three weeks here. It also mentions at the end that text messaging has suddenly been turned off again, without explanation.

Rafsanjani's party has issued a statement on the election clearing up any ambiguity: it calls the election results unacceptable due to an unhealthy voting process, electoral fraud and the preference of the Guardian Council towards a specific candidate.

Tehran Bureau has gotten some more attention for its great work here.

An op-ed from the Turkish Hurriyet criticizes the country for its waffling foreign policy that tries to please too many while at the same time stepping on too many toes, and includes being the first country to issue Ahmadinejad a congratulations on the election, in spite of the fact that Iran does not want Turkey's help in being a mediator between it and the United States.


BBC has a collection of photos of Iranians in Germany protesting the elections. The information is in Persian though so here is the location of each of the photos:

1, 2 - Berlin
3 - Hamburg
4 - Frankfurt
5, 6 - Kiel
7, 8 - Cologne (Köln)
9 - Hanover

The best one of the nine is probably #7:



Le Figaro published an article yesterday from the point of view of doctors in hospitals on the climate of terror there during the crackdown (secret police tracking down the wounded while in the hospital), and an English translation can be seen here. Peiknet.com has also picked up on this and their review of the article is on the front page right now. Even if you don't know Persian it's easy enough to simply copy and paste the title of the Peiknet article ( گزارش چند پزشک ایرانی از دوشنبه سیاه در تهران - "Accounts of some Iranian doctors on Black Sunday in Iran") to spread the word.

The Washington Post had a short but great editorial yesterday on something the Senate (and thus government) can do in this situation - a bill that would dedicate $50 million to providing internet access to those living in repressive societies that otherwise wouldn't have it. Something like this would apply not only to Iran but to other countries as well, and as the article writes "For every dollar the United States spends to guarantee access, oppressive regimes must spend thousands to put up walls and barriers." That's exactly right.