Mousavi Defiant

The defeated Iranian presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said he will keep challenging the election result.

But the number of people on the streets has been considerably smaller than in past demonstrations, and a planned day of mourning was cancelled.

Restrictions have been placed on the BBC and other foreign news organisations in Iran. Reporters are not allowed to cover unauthorised gatherings or move around freely but there are no controls over what they can say.

link: BBC NEWS | Middle East | Mousavi urges crackdown defiance

What Will The Regime Do With Mousavi?

Juan Cole writes:

Reformist presidential aspirant Mir Hosain Mousavi called Monday morning for another round of big street protests by his supporters against the attempt of the regime to steal the election for hard liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has replied by warning it will crush any further street protests with a "revolutionary confrontation."

FT points out that given Mousavi's continued challenge to Khamenei's decisions, the regime may well arrest him, feeling the step is necessary to remove his freedom of action. Of course, Iranian Shiites all know the pitfalls of creating martyrs, since the religion is all about resisting the tyrants in history who made the martyrs. An arrest of Mousavi would either push Iran over the brink or would indeed consolidate power for the time being in the hands of the hard liners.

link: Informed Comment: Mousavi, Defiant, Calls for More Rallies

Moussavi 6/20/09

The latest from Iran – Saturday June 20, 2009 4:27 pm:

Moussavi’s open letter to the people of Iran. Released tonight at 9:21pm. It states that he stands with the people to protect the original aims of the revolution to reach human rights and democracy. He states that what they got instead was fraud, injustice, torture and lies. He states why he will not stand down and why all the security forces of Iran are brothers and sisters that should support the nation. He says the body charged with investigating the elections is not a neutral body. He calls on authorities to pull the security forces and Basij out of the streets and allow the people’s voices to be heard peacefully. The full letter in Farsi can be found here.

4:13 pm: According to Moussavi’s Facebook page, the police are pouring acid on the demonstrators.

link: niacINsight

Everything to Lose

Tehran Bureau writes:

Mousavi, Karroubi, Rafsanjani and others know that if they are to now surrender, their heads will be rolling. So what do you do when you have everything to lose?

This Saturday is a day of great suspense. History is waiting to happen. Regardless of what these veteran politicians and old guard revolutionaries will do, one thing is for certain. Iranians will continue to shout Allah o Akbar in Tehran. The game is not over, not yet.

link: Iran updates – tehranbureau

Revolutionaries Who Know The Job

Reza Aslan forecasts:

What's really fascinating about what's happening right now in 2009 is that it looks a lot like what was happening in 1979. And there's a very simple reason for that. The same people are in charge -- I mean, Mousavi, Rafsanjani, Khatami, Medhi Karroubi, the other reformist candidate -- these were all the original revolutionaries who brought down the Shah to begin with, so they know how to do this right.

And so what you're going to see tomorrow is something that was pulled exactly out of the playbook of 1979, which is that you have these massive mourning rallies, where you mourn the deaths of those who were martyred in the cause of freedom. And these things tend to get a little bit out of control, they often result in even more violence by the security forces and even more deaths, which then requires another mourning rally which is even larger, which then requires more violence from the government, and this just becomes an ongoing snowball that can't be stopped.

That's how the Shah was removed from power, was these mourning ceremonies. And so Mousavi very smartly calling for an official -- not a rally -- but an official day of mourning tomorrow. I think we're going to see crowds that we haven't even begun to see yet, and then follow that, on Friday, which is sort of the Muslim sabbath, the day of prayer, which is a traditionally a day of gathering anyway. This is just beginning, Rachel, this is just the beginning.

link: Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising