Recount Offer Fails to Quell Political Tumult in Iran

Recount Offer Fails to Quell Political Tumult in Iran
By NAZILA FATHI and SHARON OTTERMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html?_r=1&ref=global-home


TEHRAN — Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered in the streets here on Tuesday for a second day of mass demonstrations protesting the official results of Friday’s presidential election, unsatisfied by a top government panel’s agreement to conduct a partial recount.

As the political tumult grew, the Iranian government instituted tough restrictions on foreign journalists, formally shutting down their ability to report on the unrest on the streets. Press credentials of journalists temporarily in the country to cover the election were revoked; journalists stationed in Iran were required to get explicit permission to report beyond the confines of their offices.

The result was a dearth of initial photographs and video of Tuesday’s enormous opposition protest, which began on Valiasr Street, a major thoroughfare, and headed north. The tens of thousands of marchers — perhaps more — gathered without the help of text messaging or cell phone service, relying on word of mouth and internet social media platforms such as Twitter.

State television turned its attention to a counter-rally by a few thousand people in support of the declared winner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those demonstrators stayed to the south of the much larger opposition protest.

Monday’s vast protest drew hundreds of thousands for a march that glittered with the signature green color of the camp of the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi. In contrast, many of those who gathered Tuesday wore black to honor the seven people who state media reported died in clashes with a pro-government militia the day before.

As on Monday, rows of security forces stood along the avenues, allowing the demonstrators to pass. Some among protesters gave flowers to the security forces. Other marchers covered their mouths with surgical masks, apparently fearing tear gas attacks.

More than 100 prominent opposition members are believed to have been detained since Saturday. On Tuesday, leading reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, was arrested, his office said.

On Tuesday, President Obama said he had “deep concerns about the election,” and was dismayed by the violence that has marred antigovernment demonstrations since Saturday.

“When I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it’s of concern to the American people,” he said. “That is not how governments should interact with their people.”Leaders in western Europe also continued to voice concerns about the election, with the strongest remarks coming from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said on Tuesday that the “extent of the fraud” in Iran was “proportional to the violent reaction” there.

“These elections are dreadful news,” Mr. Sarkozy told reporters in Gabon’s capital Libreville. “The Iranian people deserve something else.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Ahmadinejad, appearing to try to project a secure grip on power, left Iran to fly to Russia on Tuesday for a meeting on international security.

In Yekaterinburg, Russia, for a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Mr. Ahmadinejad did not mention the Iranian election, but gave a speech in which he referred to regional problems, describing Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine as occupied and unstable.

He added: “The current political and economic order is approaching the end of its mastery of the world. It is absolutely clear that the epoch of empire has come to an end.”

A deputy foreign minister of Russia, Sergei Ryabkov, told reporters that Russia had warm relations with Iran. “Elections in Iran are an internal affair of the Iranian people, but we welcome the newly elected president of that state,” Mr. Ryabkov said.

A few hours after the polls closed on Friday, Iran’s Interior Ministry announced that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won about 63 percent of the vote, after a hard-fought election campaign and the rise of a broad reform-oriented opposition that rattled Iran’s ruling elite.

Since that announcement, opposition leaders have catalogued a list of what they call election violations and irregularities in the vote, which most observers had expected to go to a second-round runoff.

On Monday, as the contours of that day’s enormous protest began to become clear, the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shifted from his endorsement of the elections so far, instead calling for an inquiry into the allegations of vote-tampering.

On Tuesday, the powerful Guardian Council said it was prepared to order a recount of ballots at those polling stations where specific accusations of tampering had been made, but appeared unwilling to allow for the possibility of new elections, as the opposition has pushed for.

“Based on the law, the demand of those candidates for the cancellation of the vote, this cannot be considered,” the spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, a spokesman for the Guardian Council, told state television, Reuters reported.

The conflict over the elections reflects the fissures in Iranian society. On one side are the most powerful arms of the Islamic system of government: Ayatollah Khamenei; the military; the paramilitary; and the Guardian Council. On the other is a diverse coalition that has grown emboldened by the day, with some clerics joining two former presidents and Mr. Moussavi, a former prime minister.

Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran, and Sharon Otterman from New York.. Bill Keller reported from Tehran, Clifford J. Levy from Moscow and Andrew E. Kramer from Yekaterinburg, Russia, and Alan Cowell from New York.