Everett, Wash.
Published: Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Victory of Iran's president 'final,' high council says

The Washington Post

 TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's Guardian Council announced its "final decision" Monday on the disputed June 12 presidential election, dismissing all opposition complaints of fraud and affirming a landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The decision was greeted by a loud eruption of the nighttime rooftop chanting that has become a hallmark of opposition protests amid an intensifying government crackdown.

Before the announcement, security forces, including members of the pro-government Basij militia, deployed in large numbers to prevent street protests, witnesses said. But that did not stop people from taking to their rooftops to chant "Allahu akbar" (God is great) and other slogans in a form of protest used by the popular movement that ultimately deposed the shah of Iran three decades ago.

The council, a 12-member supervisory body that oversees elections and certifies results, made the announcement after conducting a partial recount in an effort to mollify political opponents who charge that Ahmadinejad benefited from massive vote-rigging.

The recount of 10 percent of ballot boxes went ahead over the objections of two opposition presidential candidates, who have demanded that the election be annulled on grounds of massive vote-rigging and have refused to participate in a special committee set up by the Guardian Council.

The two -- former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and cleric Mehdi Karroubi -- refused on Sunday to present their complaints to the special committee. Their spokesmen said the committee would be biased and that its review would not be sufficiently broad.

Results released June 13 by the Interior Ministry showed Ahmadinejad received nearly 63 percent of the vote, followed by Mousavi with less than 34 percent. Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, came in a distant third, the ministry said.

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said Sunday that more than 2,000 people are in detention and that hundreds more are missing since the election and resulting street protests. According to Iranian state media, more than 650 people are currently detained in connection with riots that followed peaceful protest.

Stepping into a continuing controversy over the June 20 death of a young woman during street protests, Ahmadinejad on Monday urged Iran's judicial chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, who has become an icon of the opposition since her dying moments were captured on cellphone cameras and distributed on the Internet worldwide.

A doctor who said he attended to Agha Soltan on the street, as well as several protesters, have said she was shot by a member of the pro-government Basij militia. Iranian government officials and clerics claim she was killed by "terrorists."
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA