Post-election events in Iran: 23 July (1 Mordad)

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Yesterday there was no one single event or protest that could be called the news of the day, but the reformist side continues to press their case with as much if not more confidence than before, such as this statement by Khatami saying that it would not be in the interest of the regime to reject a referendum on the election. And then of course there is Mousavi's statement yesterday that a new Ahmadinejad government would bring about both domestic and international problems for Iran, citing among other things that not only does the elite not want to work with the government, but the government also does not want their help either. You can see a lot of Ahmadinejad's views on the elite here in his debate with Rezaei, where he constantly tries to make the point that a president should be good at everything, whereas Rezaei said that a president needs to surround himself with qualified people in order to make good decisions.

Time has a good article here on the protests two days ago and the attempts to create a blackout that day, which apparently worked in an eastern suburb of Tehran (Pars) but not the rest of the city. The article says that the government has yet to announce a date for Ahmadinejad's swearing-in but everywhere else says that it's been scheduled for August 2nd.

Green Brief #35 can be seen here. The most interesting parts IMO are the accounts of some security forces getting tired of fighting against crowds and beginning to curse their superiors, the continued squabbling over Ahmadinejad's VP pick, and Russia's dig against Airbus in defending their airplanes.

Roger Cohen had another good op-ed yesterday on the current situation and the absurdity of the election, and the line being taken by many reformists that Ahmadinejad and the current situation has been turning Iran into a bit of a laughingstock on the world stage. This is similar to a line Mousavi often used during the election too when he said that thanks to the government an Iranian passport is now little better than one from Somalia. For a discussion on the same article en français you can see a blog entry from Cyberpresse here.


Here's a small comic in Persian that I found here saying (with Nokia) "no one is ever alone" (با نوکیا هیچکس تنها نیست).