Skip to main content

Obama condemns Iran over violence

Iran remained tense on Wednesday as US President Barack Obama expressed outrage over a crackdown on protests and said significant questions remained about the legitimacy of the country's elections.

Tehran has refused to overturn the result of the disputed poll but supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei agreed to extend by five days a Wednesday deadline to examine vote complaints, ISNA news agency said.

As international alarm mounted over the crisis, the most serious challenge to the Islamic regime in its 30-year history, Britain said it was expelling two Iranian diplomats after a similar move by Tehran.

At the same time, other European nations hauled in envoys to protest at the election and the repression of protests.

Iran's top election watchdog, the Guardians Council, insisted the vote would stand.

"We witnessed no major fraud or breach," spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai said on English-language state television Press TV.

"Therefore, there is no possibility of an annulment taking place."

The council has acknowledged more votes were cast than there were eligible voters in 50 of 366 constituencies.

The opposition claims the June 12 poll that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for a second four-year term was rife with fraud.

Late on Tuesday, defeated opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi released on his website a report promised to show "electoral fraud and irregularities."

The three-page report called for a "commission of truth and justice acceptable to all the parties to examine the entire election process".

It denounced claimed "large-scale" official support for Ahmadinejad and spoke of ballot papers being printed the day of the election without serial numbers, doubts about whether ballot boxes were empty when they arrived at the polls and candidates' representatives being banned from polling places.

World leaders are calling for an immediate halt to violence and Tehran has responded by accusing Western governments of interfering.

source: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/world/world/general/obama-condemns-iran-over-violence/1549491.aspx

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

ASEAN pushes for resumption of N. Korea nuke talks

ASEAN and friends: Foreign Ministers from left, Vietnam's Pham Gia Khiem, South Korea's Kim Sung-hwan, Japan's Takeaki Matsumoto, Indonesia's Marty Natalegawa, and China's Yang Jiechi, hold hands during a group photo at the opening session of ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Thursday. (AP/Dita Alangkara) Associated Press, Nusa Dua | Thu, 07/21/2011 2:19 PM Foreign ministers from 10 Southeast Asian nations are calling for a speedy resumption of talks aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. China, the US, Japan, South Korea and Russia had been negotiating since 2003 to persuade Pyongyang to dismantle the program in exchange for aid and other concessions. The North pulled out of the talks about two years ago after being censured for launching a long-range rocket. It has indicated a willingness in recent months to return to the table. The 10-member Association of Southeast As...

Judicial watchdog to visit Antasari in prison

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 06/15/2011 9:45 PM The Judicial Commission plans to send investigators to question former Corruption Eradication Commission chief Antasari Azhar regarding his belief that the panel of judges made mistakes during his trial. “We want to hear and collect evidence from his side, if there is any, about the judges during his trial,” Suparman Marzuki, the commission’s supervisory division chief, said Wednesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com. The Judicial Commission is in the middle of gathering evidence in response to an allegation by Antasari’s lawyer that the panel of judges took into consideration the wrong evidence during his trial. The South Jakarta District Court panel found Antasari guilty of murder and he is currently detained at Tangerang Penitentiary.