Segunda-feira, 22 de Junho de 2009
Conselho admite irregularidades nas eleições do Irã
O Conselho de Guardiães do Irã admitiu nesta segunda-feira (hora local) que nas eleições do dia 12 de junho foram cometidas irregularidades nas votações, informou o site do canal estatal de televisão Press TV.
Segundo o canal, o órgão assegurou que em 50 cidades votaram mais eleitores do que os inscritos, o que implica em mais de 3 milhões de eleitores, reconheceu o porta-voz do Conselho, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei.
A afirmação é feita em resposta às queixas apresentadas perante o conselho pelo candidato conservador, Mohsen Rezaei. O citado conselho, integrado por seis clérigos e seis juristas, é o organismo encarregado de validar os resultados eleitorais apresentados pelo Ministério do Interior para que sejam oficiais.
"As estatísticas proporcionadas por Rezaei nas quais ele reivindica que mais de 100% dos eleitores registrados emitiram seu voto em 170 cidades não são exatas, o incidente ocorreu em apenas 50 cidades", disse Kadkhodaei.
Em seus 30 anos de existência, o conselho jamais tomou uma decisão de tal calibre como a anulação do pleito, exigida pela oposição. Os resultados oficiais dão 62,6% dos votos ao atual presidente iraniano, o ultraconservador Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, e ao líder opositor reformista, Mir Hussein Moussavi, 33,75% dos votos.
Moussavi não aceita estes resultados que levaram ao país protestos diários e confrontos entre a oposição e as forças de segurança, deixando um saldo de 20 pessoas mortas, segundo dados oficiais. A situação se agravou neste sábado depois que pelo menos 13 pessoas morreram e dezenas ficaram feridas por causa da repressão policial durante uma passeata de protesto da oposição na qual um número indeterminado de manifestantes foram detidos.
Faezah Hashemi foi detida por participar de uma manifestação da oposição iraniana na praça de Azadi de Teerã, no sábado passado, que o regime iraniano considerou ilegal.
As autoridades consideraram que os parentes de Rafsanjani se encontravam em uma das ruas de Teerã "incitando e encorajando os arruaceiros".
Segundo o jornal conservador Irã, Faezah e sua filha, assim como seu primo, Hussein Marashi, mulher e filha, tinham sido detidos este domingo. No entanto, nenhum deles poderá deixar o país por imposição do regime iraniano.
Até mesmo os aiatolás admitem o que Lula e a imprensa nacional classificaram como 'democrático'. Lula deve estar assistindo seu Flamengo x Vasco ao lado de Hugo Chávez e Kim Jong II.
Se fosse qualquer outro presidente, teria apanhado como gente grande dos grandes veículos pelas asneiras que diz, em especial, esta do "Flamengo X Vasco", mas o leniênte apadeuta conta com a eterna leniência de quem lhe causa azias. Só para constar: é prática usual e comum em democracias, que após as eleições, os candidatos derrotados sejam intimidados e tenham membros de suas famílias presos.
Lula me enoja em demasia, mas isto ocorre antes dele ser presidente. O que me estarrece é quantidade de idiotas que endossam e seguem suas asneiras.
Iran Admits Possible Discrepancy in 3 Million Votes
TEHRAN — Locked in a continuing bitter contest Monday with Iranians who say the presidential elections were rigged, the authorities here acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, state television reported following assertions by the country’s supreme leader that the ballot was fair.
Iranian Readers: Share Your Views on the OutcomeBut the authorities insisted that discrepancies, which could affect three million votes, did not violate Iranian law and the country’s influential Guardian Council said it was not clear whether they would decisively change the election result.
The news emerged on the English-language Press TV Web site late Sunday as a bitter rift among Iran’s ruling clerics deepened over the disputed election. The outcome of the vote, awarding a lopsided victory to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has convulsed Tehran in the worst violence in 30 years, with the government trying to link the defiant loser to terrorists and detaining relatives of his powerful backer, a founder of the Islamic republic.
The loser, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate reform candidate who contends that the June 12 election was stolen from him, fired back at his accusers on Sunday night in a posting on his Web site, calling on his own supporters to demonstrate peacefully despite stern warnings from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that no protests of the vote would be allowed. “Protesting to lies and fraud is your right,” Mr. Moussavi said in a challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei’s authority.
The official result gave Mr. Ahmadinejad 63 percent of the ballot — an 11-million vote advantage — to Mr. Moussavi’s 34 percent.
At a news conference Monday, Hassan Qashqavi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, called the turnout — officially put at 85 percent, or 40 million voters — a “brilliant gem which is shining on the peak of dignity of the Iranian nation.”
He accused unidentified western powers and news organizations, which are operating under extremely tight official restrictions, of spreading unacceptable “anarchy and vandalism.” But, he said, the outcome of the vote would not be changed. “We will not allow western media to turn this gem into a worthless stone,” he said.
Mr. Qashqavi drew comparisons with American election results.
“No one encouraged the American people to stage a riot” because they disagreed with the re-election of George W. Bush, he said. Quoted by Press TV, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the authoritative Guardian Council — a 12-member panel of clerics charged with certifying the vote — denied claims by another losing candidate, Mohsen Rezai, that irregularities had occurred in up to 170 voting districts.
“Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100 percent of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80 to 170 cities are not accurate — the incident has happened in only 50 cities,” Mr. Kadkhodaei said.
But he said that a voter turnout in excess of the registered voting list was a “normal phenomenon” because people could legally vote in areas other than those in which they were registered. Nonetheless, some analysts in Tehran said, the number of people said to be traveling on election day seemed unusually high.
As increasingly violent protests have swirled through Tehran since the elections, Ayatollah Khamenei has ordered the Guardian Council to investigate the opposition’s allegations of electoral fraud. The council itself has offered a random partial recount of 10 percent of the ballot.
Mr. Kadkhodaei said the Guardian Council could recount votes in areas where irregularities were said by the opposition to have occurred. But “it has yet to be determined whether the possible change in the tally is decisive in the election results.”
The opposition has alleged a total of 646 electoral irregularities and is demanding that the vote be annulled.
But in a sermon at Friday prayers last week Ayatollah Khamenei mocked the idea that the huge margin attributed to Mr. Ahmadinejad could have been won through fraud.
On Sunday, the police detained five relatives of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who leads two influential councils and openly supported Mr. Moussavi’s election. The relatives, including Mr. Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, were released after several hours.
The developments, coming one day after protests here in the capital and elsewhere were crushed by police officers and militia members using guns, clubs, tear gas and water cannons, suggested that Ayatollah Khamenei was facing entrenched resistance among some members of the elite.
Though rivalries have been part of Iranian politics since the 1979 revolution, analysts said that open factional competition amid a major political crisis could hinder Ayatollah Khamenei’s ability to restore order.
Iran’s air force, meanwhile, will start exercises on Monday in the Gulf and the Sea of Oman in order to raise “its operational and support capability,” the official news agency IRNA said. The plans had been announced earlier. There was no verifiable accounting of the death toll from the bloodshed on Saturday, partly because the government has imposed severe restrictions on news coverage and warned foreign reporters who remained in the country to stay off the streets.
It also ordered the BBC’s longtime correspondent expelled and Newsweek’s correspondent detained.
State television said that 10 people had died in clashes, while radio reports said 19. The news agency ISNA said 457 people had been arrested.
Vowing not to allow a repeat of Saturday’s clashes, the government on Sunday saturated major streets and squares of Tehran with police and Basij militia forces. It was unclear whether protests would continue in the face of the clampdown.
There were reports of scattered confrontations but no confirmation of any new injuries by evening. Amateur video accounts showed at least one large protest gathering, on Shirazi Street, though it was unclear how long it lasted.
As on previous nights, many residents of Tehran clambered to their rooftops and could be heard shouting “Death to the dictator!” and “God is great,” their rallying cries since the crisis began.
In the network of Internet postings and Twitter messages that has become the opposition’s major tool for organizing and sharing information, a powerful and vivid new image emerged: a video posted on several Web sites that showed a young woman, called Neda, her face covered in blood. Text posted with the video said she had been shot. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the video.
The Web site of another reformist candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, referred to her as a martyr who did not “have a weapon in her soft hands or a grenade in her pocket but became a victim by thugs who are supported by a horrifying security apparatus.”
Accounts of the election’s aftermath in the state-run press suggested that the government might be laying the groundwork for discrediting and arresting Mr. Moussavi.
IRNA, the official news agency, quoted Alireza Zahedi, a member of the Basij militia, as saying Mr. Moussavi had provoked the violence, sought help from outside the country to do so and should be put on trial. The Fars news agency quoted a Tehran University law professor as saying that Mr. Moussavi had acted against “the security of the nation.” State television suggested that at least some of the unrest was instigated by an outlawed terrorist group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, which does not have a strong following in Iran.
Mr. Moussavi was not seen in public on Sunday but showed no sign of yielding. In his Web posting, he urged followers to “avoid violence in your protest and behave as though you are the parents that have to tolerate your children’s misbehavior at the security forces.”
He also warned the government to “avoid mass arrests, which will only create distance between society and the security forces.”
The moves against members of Mr. Rafsanjani’s family were seen as an attempt to pressure him to drop his challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei — pressure that Mr. Rafsanjani’s son, Mehdi Rafsanjani, said he would reject.
Mr. Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Mr. Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign, and is thought to have had a strained relationship with Ayatollah Khamenei for many years.
But he remains a major establishment figure, and the detention of his daughter, albeit briefly, was a surprise. In Ayatollah Khamenei’s sermon on Friday, in which he backed Mr. Ahmadinejad and threatened a crackdown on further protests, he praised Mr. Rafsanjani as a pillar of the revolution while acknowledging that the two have had “many differences of opinion.”
Mr. Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One, the Assembly of Experts, is a body of clerics that has the authority to oversee and theoretically replace the country’s supreme leader. He also runs the Expediency Council, empowered to settle disagreements between the elected Parliament and the unelected Guardian Council.
The Assembly of Experts has never publicly exercised its power over Ayatollah Khamenei since he succeeded the Islamic Revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989. But the increasingly bitter confrontation between Ayatollah Khamenei and Mr. Rafsanjani has raised the prospect of a