13 and June 14
The Iranian security forces defused a homemade bomb on a plane with 131 passengers aboard a domestic flight being conducted between the southern city of Ahvaz and Tehran, reported yesterday by the Iranian news agency FARS. Approximately 15 minutes after takeoff from the airport of Ahvaz, the flight security guards found the bomb on the eve of the bathrooms of the plane aeroliena Kish Air, the aircraft had turned back to land in the city. The plane with 131 people aboard, landed at the airport immediately Ahwaz and the pump was turned off after the passengers were evacuated, he added FARS. Clashes between police and groups protesting the election results began in early Saturday morning. The protests were peaceful at the beginning, but turned violent as the hours passed. The crowd erupted in protest in Teheran shops, smashed windows and destroyed signs. that is considered the worst civil unrest in Iran for over a decade, protesters burned tires outside the building of the Ministry of Interior and other formed a human chain of around 300 people to close one of the main streets of Teheran.
Anonymous source indicated that sources of police raided the headquarters of the Islamic Participation Front of Iran and arrested an unspecified number of people.
Demonstrators in Tehran, June 13, 2009
The June 14 protests had grown considerably and had become more violent. The burning of buses, motor cars and trash cans blocked several roads in Teheran, as well as several of the routes leading to the city. The protesters attacked shops, government offices, police stations, police vehicles, petrol stations and banks. Several riots also broke out after peaceful demonstrations in Tehran University, Amirkabir University, and Shahid Beheshti University, where students started burning and destroying several buildings and objects around the campus. Valiasr Street is full of young students and protesters who attacked staff of the Islamic duty. The police had installed a barricade around the Mehrabad International Airport and Imam Khomeini International Airport, for fear that the protesters were planning to attack and has also blocked all streets leading to the Secretary of the Interior, where demonstrators burned tires outside the building and threw stones and molotov cocktails.
In an attempt to quell the protests, many websites are blocked, especially social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, web sites of foreign media and the sites of political reformers. Both the electronic mail service, and international calls were blocked from Teheran, and on Sunday afternoon, the cell phone services had been disabled.
Reporters from the Italian public television RAI reported that one of its players was beaten with sticks by riot police and officers confiscated the tapes with recordings of incidents. a number of BBC cameramen were beaten and arrested by police officers and confiscated his tapes.
In the middle of the day, the protests spread to Ahwaz, Shiraz, Gorgan, Tabriz, Rasht, Babol, and Mashhad, and as time passed grew in size. On June 14, the large-scale protests broke out in a central square of Isfahan. The protests are in Zahedan, Qazvin, Sari, Karaj, Tabriz, Shahsavar, Orumieh, Bandar Abbas, Arak, Birjend. Since the riot police were largely limited to Teheran, Islamic guards and police have been sent to quell the protests in other cities.
Demonstrators in Tehran, June 13, 2009
Al Jazeera has described the situation as “major unrest since the 1979 revolution.” Also reported that protests seem to occur almost spontaneously and without any formal organization.
On June 13, historian and expert on the Middle East and South Asia Juan Cole commented that “public demonstrations against theoutcome election does not seem so great … the reformists have always given political space in Iran when they are challenged by supporters of hard-liners, in part because nobody wants to relive the horrible Great Terror of the 1980s after the revolution, when fighting between factions filled the streets with blood. ” The independent journalist Michael Totten said that day that “Tehran and looks like a war zone,” and to compare Ahmadinejad to Baghdad Bob.
Pursuant Ynetnews reported until June 14, two people have died in the riots.
Power bus in flames during the protests in Tehran, June 13, 2009.
During the night between 14 and 15 days, 15 students were severely injured by the police in the dormitories of Tehran University, where students gathered. The June 14, 120 members of the faculty of the University of Technology Sharif resigned in protest at alleged electoral fraud and protests against the presidential election of Ahmadinejad.
Cocktails, Crises and Cockroaches: A Diplomatic Trail by James Reeve (Hardcover – Oct 29, 1999)