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Iran in Turmoil After Disputed Presidential Election; Anti-Ahmadinejad Street Protests Continue
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Iran remains in a state of turmoil after Friday’s much-anticipated elections ended in a result strongly disputed by opposition candidates and many thousands of their supporters.
Today, Iranian officials refused to allow the leading opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters to hold a major rally protesting the re-election of President Ahmadinejad. Demonstrators began calling for the election to be canceled after the Interior Ministry announced that President Ahmadinejad had won over 62 percent of the vote. The official results gave Mousavi less than 34 percent of the vote. Heavily armed riot police have been cracking down on street protests that continued through the weekend. Early Monday morning, security forces raided a dormitory at Tehran University, injuring fifteen. Opposition websites report that over a hundred prominent opposition members were detained and then released over the weekend. We speak to Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council and David Makovsky, co-author with Dennis Ross of a new book called Myths, Illusions, and Peace.