The Tehran Putch

Dutch-Iranian blogger and Leiden University lecturer Afshin Ellian has a perspective on the situation in Iran. Yesterday he posted the following:

I want to inform you about what has happened in Tehran over the last couple of days. I got my information from open sources and discussions I had with the people of Tehran. (...)

Last Friday at 10 PM the polls were closing. Just after midnight press agencies IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency) and Fars (a mouthpiece of the Revolutionary Guard and the Iranian Hezbollah) issued a report that Ahmadinejad has been re-elected President. Around 3 AM some 15 million votes for Ahmadinejad had been counted. A physical impossibility.

Saturday afternoon around 4 PM radio and televion broadcast a message from the leader Khamenei. Even before the electoral committee issued the result, Khamenei congratulated Ahmadinjad on the occasion of his victory. It's apparent that this isn't the actual result of the elections.

The European Union (EU) would do well to protest against the situation. Mousavi spoke of election engineering with good reason.

On Friday June 12 a coup of state was perpetrated. Early in the morning the state prohibits any political manifestations from taking place. Wearing green is banned, because this is Mousavi's color. Text messages are being blocked. Later on that day mobile phone traffic becomes impossible.

In the afternoon the police announce that from 5 PM onwards a extensive exercise will be held. Shortly after Tehran is teeming with police personnel. The name of the operation is Eghtedar: power, might, force or authority. A fitting name for a putch. Operation "Force" aims at quelling protests against the election result. 

In the meantime all websites of important opposition parties are being blocked by intelligence services.  The Persian BBC is forced to change frequencies because it is sabotaged.  

Around 01.00 AM Mousavi's party HQ is surrounded by security forces.  In the course of Saturday the Ministry of Energy announces that electricity in Tehran and vicinity may be cut due to a "tropical storm". 

On Saturday there's a power cut. In the meanwhile in Tehran a hundred known and less known people are arrested. Mousavi and former President Khatami are put under house arrest.

Modjtaba Khamenei, son of the Iranian leader is in all probability the coordinator of the coup. The Revolutionary Guard, the Basidj militia, Tehran police force and the intelligences services are assisting him. The armed forces are not involved. 

An Iranian film director on Saturday doubles as Mousavi's international spokesman. In an interview with French radio and Roozonline in Paris he recontrusts events as follows: "On the basis of exit polls Mousavi and the leader Khamenei were informed that Mousavi was the undisputed winner. Mousavi declared victory. While he was writing his speech, he is visited by a number of Revolutionary Guard members who delivered a letter from the leader Khamenei. 

The letter read: "I will not allow your green revolution to succeed. Ahmadinejad's defeat is also my defeat." An officer tells Mousavi to keep quite. He then hears that in a couple of hours a putch will take place."

Asked that he thinks of events, the Iranian director declares: "This is not just fraud. Our people are shocked and in a similar state as on the day after the Shah deposed Mosadeq in 1953 (...) We all must shout out that a coup has been staged. This will not serve the distatorship well, because our people have won and they have succeeded in breaching the wall of tyranny. (…) We are back in the absolutist tyranny of 1953."

The European Union must act before it is too late. Europa must take the side of the Iranian people. Democratic change in Iran will be good for Europe, America and Israel. World peace is at stake.

Ellian recommends this Iranian site.



- Filed on Articles in "Iran Power Play" -