Iranian elections

One year on from the Iranian election protests, the streets of Tehran are quiet apart from the basij, but that doesn’t mean nothing has changed.

Lindsey Hilsum blogs about her interview with an Iranian militiaman of the infamous Basij.

Lindsey Hilsum celebrates the release from prison in Iran of journalist Maziar Bahari, who worked for Channel 4 News in Tehran during the Iranian elections and who was arrested on 21 June.

Neda Agha Soltan, who was shot on July 20th during street protests in Tehran, has become a symbol of protest. Today thousands went to the cemetery where she’s buried south of Tehran to mourn 40 days after her death and remember others killed during these last six weeks of protest.

For weeks we’ve been trying to find people who have fled Iran after being arrested or injured in the demonstrations. It’s been difficult – not because such people do not exist, but because they’re all so scared. Those who have come to Europe know that if they speak out, their relatives back home are likely…

Iran’s opposition supporters have a way of turning things upside-down and back-to-front in the Islamic Republic. Many of them are secular, yet they go onto their balconies every night to shout “Allah Akbar,” putting the Basij militia, the vanguard of the Islamic Revolution, into the invidious position of telling people to stop praising God. That’s…

So did they rig it and if so, how? So far the evidence seems circumstantial and no-one I’ve spoken to has managed to provide hard proof.

TEHRAN, IRAN – Whenever the riot police charge, waving their batons, with their shields to the fore, people run down the streets to escape. The black-clad riot squad move in phalanxes on motor-bikes, riding up on the pavements, swiping at passers-by. You don’t have to be a protestor to get hit.

ESFAHAN, IRAN – Some snapshots from the Mousavi rally (the video report is here).

ESFAHAN, IRAN – A video dispatch from this historic city, on one of the most passionately fought election campaigns I have ever seen anywhere: (Read more from Esfahan here.)

ESFAHAN, IRAN – I can bear witness to the fact that support for Ahmadinejad’s main rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is not confined to wealthy north Tehran. We nearly got crushed in the crowd in Esfahan‘s central square yesterday. It wasn’t even the main man speaking but his prominent and much-loved supporter, former President Khatami. The…

I love Iranian politics. It never fits into the simple reformist/conservative paradigm so beloved of us western reporters. It’s about complex relationships between different layers of power. And it’s never about the people in the public eye. It’s always about Rafsanjani.

TEHRAN, IRAN – The biggest mosque in Tehran was full. It was, according to a true believer I met, the biggest rally ever, anywhere in the world. Their leader, president and presidential candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to address them. They screamed slogans, sang patriotic songs and waved national flags. Music blared from huge speakers. It…