UANI

The Wall Street Journal reported that "In central Tehran on Monday, demonstrators and authorities engaged in what has become a near daily cat-and-mouse routine: Protesters gathered in groups of several hundred shouting, 'Death to the dictator.' Iranian security forces chased them, waving batons and sticks, according to witnesses. The security forces -- present in large numbers -- also used tear gas and fired gunshots into the air to scatter demonstrators. They easily dispersed the crowd, arresting men and women, dragging them away in handcuffs and loading them onto buses, witnesses said. The protest was much smaller than recent demonstrations, and Monday appeared to mark the second day of relative calm in Tehran after security responded in force to demonstrations Saturday." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124566035538436595.html)

The Financial Times reported that "The image of Neda Salehi Agha-Soltan, a 27-year-old philosophy student, bleeding to death on the asphalt road of a Tehran street after she was shot in the chest, has become the rallying cry of the country's opposition, which is disputing the June 12 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. She was not the first person to die in the post-election protests but the fact that Neda was a young woman has added to the controversy especially in a conservative society such as Iran's where families protect their women with special care. Neda, who lost her life in front of the camera of an unknown eyewitness, has become the face of the Iranian protest movement on the internet and television screens worldwide. A Facebook page has been set up in her memory with Iranian bloggers describing her as the 'Angel of Freedom'." (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97b57c34-5f54-11de-93d1-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=...)

The New York Times reported that "As President Obama and his advisers watch the drama unfolding in Tehran, they are having to cope with a frustrating lack of reliable information - about the clashes between the police and protesters, about the strength of the opposition movement and, most of all, about the divisions within the ranks of Iran's powerful clerics. With no diplomatic relations and with foreign journalists largely expelled from the country, an administration that was already struggling to make sense of Iran finds itself picking up tidbits about the crisis in the same ways private citizens do: viewing amateur videos on YouTube and combing posts on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23diplo.html?hp)

AP reported that "The son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was Monday carrying in his breast pocket a photograph of the slain protester known as Neda said to have been killed in the Tehran protests. 'I have added her (Neda) to the list of my daughters. She is now forever in my pocket,' Pahlavi told AFP fighting back tears, after calling at a press conference for Western media and governments to stand strongly alongside the protest movement in Iran...In a speech at the packed National Press Club in Washington, Pahlavi slammed the 'brutal violence of the regime's plain-clothes thugs against unarmed people' and urged global media to continue to be 'the international artery' of the Iranian protest movement." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iBBlNJKLShgOHbXp4FonM...)

The Financial Times reported that "A senior member of Iran's judiciary on Monday night said that 'any words or statements' encouraging people to 'create insecurity' would be considered a crime, in a veiled warning to Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the opposition leader who continues to tell supporters protesting at the outcome of the June 12 election that peaceful rallies are their legal right. The warning on state television came after the head of parliament's judiciary committee, Ali Shahrokhi, had earlier said that the candidate's call for 'illegal protests' and his 'provocative statements' were 'criminal acts' that should be 'confronted firmly.'...But in a further sign that the authorities were determined to stamp out any dissent, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard on Monday threatened to crush the opposition if it pursued its protests. Security forces would deal 'firmly and in a revolutionary way' with those seeking to 'create tension, destroy public property and attack people,' said a statement from the elite force that answers to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader." (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb42bc06-5f69-11de-93d1-00144feabdc0.html)

CNN reported that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for a second term sometime between July 26 and August 19, state-run media reported Tuesday...The Iranian parliament's board of directors announced Tuesday that Ahmadinejad will be sworn in and will present his new Cabinet to parliament during the 3½-week period, government-funded Press TV reported, citing the official Islamic Republic News Agency." (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/23/iran.election/)

Reuters reported that "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged an immediate stop on Monday to use of force against civilians in Iran and urged authorities to respect civil rights in dealing with protests over presidential election results. A statement issued by Ban's press office said he was dismayed by the post-election violence, 'particularly the use of force against civilians'." (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN22521016)

Anne Applebaum wrote in today's Washington Post that "Women in sunglasses and headscarves, speaking through megaphones, brandishing cameras, carrying signs: When they first appeared, the photographs of the 2005 Tehran University women's rights protests were a powerful reminder of the true potential of Iranian women. The images were uplifting...Now they have been replaced by a far more brutal and already infamous set of images: The photographs and video taken this past weekend of a young Iranian woman, allegedly shot by a government sniper, dying on the streets of Tehran. I don't know whether the girl in the photographs is destined to become this revolution's symbolic martyr, as some are already predicting. I do know, however, that there is a connection between the violence in Iran over the past week and the women's rights movement that has slowly gained strength in Iran over the past several years." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR200906...)

Roger Cohen wrote in today's New York Times that "They gathered, the women in black, at Nilofar Square to mourn Neda Agha Soltan, the Iranian student cut down by a single bullet, whose last moments were captured on a video that has gone global. I sat among the mourners in late afternoon, under the plane trees, as candles burned and a prayer was said. The square seemed an oasis. I asked a young woman if she was scared. 'Yes,' she said. 'I'm scared that all the blood shed for this cause may be wasted.' The cause, of course, is the annulment of Iran's fraudulent election and, beyond that, freedom. The freedom not to live in a state that slams shut the doors of the mosque next to Nilofar Square because Neda, as a protester, was denied a proper service." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/opinion/23cohenweb.html?ref=opinion)

Robert Fisk wrote in today's Independent that "You don't overthrow Islamic revolutions with car headlights. And definitely not with candles. Peaceful protest might have served Gandhi well, but the Supreme Leader's Iran is not going to worry about a few thousand demonstrators on the streets, even if they do cry "Allahu Akbar" from their rooftops every night...Symbols are not enough...Mousavi, to win, needs to organise his protest in a more coherent way, not make it up on the hoof. But does Khamenei have a longer-term plan than mere survival?" (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-symbo...)

Jonah Goldberg wrote in today's Los Angeles Times that "Here is the one immutable fact of Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda as it relates to Iran: It's over. The rule book he came in with is as irrelevant as a tourist guide to the Austro-Hungarian empire. If the forces of reform and democracy win, Obama's plan to negotiate with the regime is moot, for the regime will be gone. And if the forces of reform are crushed into submission by the regime, Obama's plan is moot, because the regime will still be there. If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come out on top, even the most soulless realists will be repulsed by the blood on the regime's collective hands. Politics and decency will demand that the world condemn or shun the regime." (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg23-2009jun23,1,7910405...)