Amerika Minta Iran Ikuti Mesir
Selasa, 15 Februari 2011 | 14:05 WIB
TEMPO Interaktif, Washington - Menteri Luar Negeri Amerika Serikat Hillary Clinton secara tegas menyatakan dukungannya kepada ribuan pendemo di Iran. "Mereka layak mendapatkan seperti yang mereka lihat di Mesir," katanya di Washington DC, hari ini. Iran harus membuka sistem politiknya.
Hillary mengatakan pemerintah Amerika secara jelas dan langsung memberikan dukungan kepada pendemo. Apa yang mereka lakukan menunjukkan keberanian rakyat Iran.
Hillary juga mengatakan Amerika menyampaikan pesan kepada pemerintah Iran seperti pesan yang disampaikan kepada pemerintah Mesir, dimana Presiden Mesir Hosni Mubarak dipaksa turun dari jabatannya oleh aksi massa besar-besaran.
"Kami menentang kekerasan dan akan meminta tanggungjawab pemerintah Iran yang menggunakan kekuatan keamanannya untuk menyerang dan mencegah keberlangsungan kebebasan ekspresi dan ide rakyatnya," kata Hillary.
Menurut dia, di Iran dibutuhkan komitmen untuk membuka sistem politik yang terbuka, untuk mendengarkan suara oposisi dan masyarakat sipil.
Dalam aksi demonstrasi di Teheran, Iran, kemarin seorang pendemo ditembak dan sejumlah orang lainnya luka-luka. Lusinan pendemo ditangkap dan para pemimpin oposisi berada dalam tahanan rumah.
Pemerintah Iran juga melarang aksi demonstrasi di beberapa kota antara lain Isfahan, Mashhad dan Shiraz.
BBC| Aqida Swamurti
Tehran streets mostly empty after protesters clash with police
Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched in Tehran in defiance of the Iranian government were largely cleared from the city's streets by nightfall.
Patrolling security forces had battled protesters with batons and tear gas for much of the day.
The wave of people who marched along Revolution Avenue on Monday had remained largely silent as they walked toward the capital's Azadi Square, though at times they clashed with Iranian security forces who tried to disperse the marchers and divert them from the square.
By day's end, dozens of demonstrators had been detained while internet videos showed others had been chased and beaten.
One person was shot and killed during the protests, according to Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency. Several others were injured and listed in serious condition as a result of the shooting, which the Iranian government blamed on "agitators and seditionists."
Uniformed security forces and pro-government Basij militiamen had earlier advanced on crowds who chanted "Death to the dictator!" during demonstrations in the city's Imam Hossein Square -- the planned starting point of a scheduled rally, a witness said.
"We definitely see them as enemies of the revolution and spies, and we will confront them with force," said Cmdr. Hossein Hamedani of the Revolutionary Guard, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Thousands of security personnel lined Revolution Avenue, allowing the march to continue but preventing the marchers from congregating in Azadi Square -- considered a rallying point by opposition groups.
"You can't take two steps without running into security personnel," one witness said. "They're all over the place."
Several protesters who were diverted by police to side streets were beaten with batons and gassed by security officers who were waiting at those locations, witnesses said.
At least 40 people were detained as riot police on motorcycles continue to patrol Tehran, one witness said.
Video uploaded to YouTube showed throngs of demonstrators marching, burning posters of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and in one instance beating a man who appeared to try to remove a poster from the hands of protesters.
Other YouTube video showed police in riot gear pursuing dozens of people running away from the baton-wielding officers.
CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the videos and witnesses declined to be named for fear of retribution.
Reporting from Iran proved extremely difficult Monday, as foreign journalists were denied visas, accredited journalists living in the country were restricted from covering the demonstrations and internet speeds slowed to a crawl in an apparent attempt to both limit protest organizing and restrict information from being transmitted out of the country.
The Iranian government had blocked the homes of opposition leaders after they called for rallies in support of the uprising in Egypt that toppled a near three-decade-long rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
About 200 protesters -- some of whom chanted "death to Khamenei" and "death to the dictator" -- set fire to several trash bins in the capital city and threw rocks at security forces, who tried unsuccessfully to subdue them, witnesses said. The chanting protesters apparently were referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader.
Clashes also erupted in front of Tehran University, where security forces dispersed crowds by firing tear gas and paint-ball guns, a witness said.
"There needs to be a commitment to open up the political system," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday after a meeting with U.S. House Speaker John Boehner.
Clinton said the crackdown is "an indictment of the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime" that constantly "hailed" the protests in Egypt but "once again illustrate their true nature."
The head of Iran's National Security Council and other Iranian authorities had earlier compared "the Egyptian Revolution with the victory of Iran's Islamic Revolution," according to Iranian state-run media.
Last week, the Iranian government rounded up activists after opposition leaders Mehdi Karrubi and Mir Hossein Moussavi called for supporters to gather at Azadi Square -- the site of mass protests by Iran's opposition movement after the disputed 2009 presidential elections.
Security forces also blocked roads leading to Moussavi's home, his opposition website, Kaleme, reported. The website also said phone lines and cell phone service to the area had been cut off.
Plainclothes security forces blocked Moussavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, from leaving their home Monday, according to Kaleme and another opposition website, Saham News.
"This is what we've been told do," security forces said when Rahnavard asked why she couldn't leave, Saham reported. "We're sorry."
Surveillance cameras installed outside Karrubi's home have been stolen and destroyed, Kaleme reported.
About 50 riot police on motorcycles were seen near Azadi Square, while 100 more were stationed at Ferdowsi Square in the city center.
Iranian authorities had warned against holding the rally, according to state-run media.
"They are scared," then-U.S. press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday, hours after Mubarak stepped down from power.
"That's why they threatened to kill anybody that tries to do this," Gibbs said of the Iranian government. "That's why they have shut off all measure of communication."
Over the weekend, Iranian authorities blocked the word "Bahman" -- the 11th month on the Iranian calendar -- from internet searches within the country, according to an opposition website.
The measure appeared to be an effort by Iranian authorities to obstruct access to several opposition websites promoting the rally using the name of the month to draw mass demonstrations, Saham News reported Saturday.
CNN's Reza Sayah contributed to this report
February 14, 2011
Officials in Iran Use Force as Unrest Spreads Across Mideast
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ALAN COWELL
Hundreds of riot police officers deployed in key locations in central Tehran and other major Iranian cities on Monday, beating protesters and firing tear gas to thwart opposition marches that marked the most significant street protests since the end of 2009, news reports and witnesses’ accounts from Iran said.
The size of the protests was unclear, although witnesses and opposition groups estimated that there were perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 demonstrators across the country. While the protests were ostensibly in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Iranian domestic repression quickly became the focus. But Iran, unlike Egypt, used force to quell them.
Elsewhere, protests continued to spread across the Arab world. The police in Bahrain shot into crowds of peaceful protesters, shooting rubber bullets at women and volleying so much tear gas that the police themselves vomited. In Yemen, hundreds of student protesters clashed with pro-government forces in the fourth straight day of protests there.
“Mubarak, Ben Ali, now it’s time for Sayyid Ali!” Iranian protesters chanted in Persian on videos posted online that appeared to be from Tehran, referring to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders overthrown by massive protest movements.
In the central city of Isfahan many demonstrators were arrested after security forces clashed with them, reports said, and sporadic messages from inside Iran indicated that there had also been protests in Shiraz, Mashhad and Rasht. Numbers were hard to assess, given government threats against journalists who tried to cover the protests. Aliakbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former member of Parliament now living in exile in the United States, said that 20,000 to 30,000 people had taken part across Iran.
Ayatollah Khamenei and the Iranian establishment have been trying to depict the Arab movements as a long-awaited echo of the 1979 Iranian revolution, despite the low profile of Islamist parties. The opposition has been painting the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings as an echo of 2009 with citizens demanding basic rights like freedom of assembly and freedom of speech as they did after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that year.
Mehdi Karroubi, an opposition leader, said in an interview last week that the opposition had decided to organize a day of demonstrations to underscore the double standard of the government in lauding protesters in Arab countries while suppressing those at home. Mr. Karroubi has been put under house arrest with outside communication links severed, opposition reports said, as has Mir Hossein Mousavi, the other main opposition leader.
The Fars news agency, a semiofficial service linked to the Revolutionary Guard, indirectly confirmed the protests by saying an unspecified number of demonstrators had been arrested. It called participants “hypocrites, monarchists, ruffians and seditionists” and ridiculed them for not chanting slogans about Egypt, the nominal reason for the protests.
The authorities’ tactics on Monday indicated that they were resolved to stifle unrest — starting with the refusal to issue a permit for a nationwide demonstration. Reports that did emerge suggested that security forces had tried to prevent people from gathering by blocking the access routes to main squares in major cities and closing metro stations in Tehran.
The crackdown came as protests flared in Yemen and Bahrain. While those outbreaks were reported in some official Iranian state media, which also covered the 18-day Egyptian uprising selectively, there was no immediate mention of the clashes in Tehran and elsewhere on such state broadcasters as the English-language Press TV in Tehran.
Iran’s Islamic regime gradually stamped out the 2009 protests through shooting demonstrators, mass trials, torture, lengthy jail sentences and even executions of those taking part.
Reports from inside Iran on Monday were harvested off a special Facebook page called 25 Bahman set up for the day, Twitter feeds, telephone calls and opposition Web sites. They indicated that one tactic for sympathizers hoping to avoid a beating at the hands of the police was to drive to the demonstrations, with massive traffic jams reported in Tehran. Security forces on motorcycles tried to run down protesters, witnesses said.
Callers to the BBC Persian service television program called “Your Turn” said demonstrators had tried to gather in small knots until the police turned up in force, at which point they would run into traffic to seek refuge with strangers who opened their car doors. “It has not turned into a big demonstration mostly because they never managed to arrive at the main squares,” said Pooneh Ghoddosi, the program’s host.
Cellular telephone service was shut off around the main squares and the Internet slowed to a crawl, activists said. Echoing tactics in Egypt and Tunisia, sympathizers outside Iran set up the 25 Bahman Facebook page — Monday’s date on the Iranian calendar — to collect videos, eyewitness accounts and any information. Twitter feeds informed demonstrators to gather quickly at a certain intersection and then disperse as rapidly—one video showed them burning a government poster as the chant against Ayatollah Khamenei rang out.
The authorities had made no secret of their resolve to stop the demonstrators.
“The conspirators are nothing but corpses,” Hossein Hamadani, a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said last week in comments published by the official IRNA news agency. “Any incitement will be dealt with severely.” Monday’s clashes erupted as the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, arrived in Iran. Speaking at a news conference alongside President Ahmadinejad, he said, “We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations’ demands, the people themselves take action to achieve their demands.”
A Reuters report said he did not refer directly to Iran. “My view is that what is happening should in no way be regarded as a surprise,” he said in a response to a question about events in the Middle East. “In this age of communication, in an age where everybody is aware of each other, the demands and desires of the people are very realistic.”
In Washington Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, ”We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week.” She added, ”We are against violence and we would call to account the Iranian government that is once again using its security forces and resorting to violence to prevent the free expression of ideas from their own people,”
Artin Afkhami contributed reporting from Washington.
Selasa, 15/02/2011 04:32 WIB
Demonstrasi di Iran Mulai Makan Korban, 1 Tewas
Laurencius Simanjuntak - detikNews
Tehran - Demonstrasi anti-pemerintah di Iran mulai memakan korban. Satu orang ditembak mati dan beberapa luka-luka dalam aksi massa di Tehran, yang dilarang pemerintah itu.
"Satu orang tewas ditembak mati dan beberapa terluka oleh pendukung oposisi yang menggelar demo di Tehran," demikian laporan Kantor Berita Fars seperti dikutip Reuters, Selasa (15/2/2011).
Laporan tersebut menyebutkan, orang yang tewas itu adalah pengamat yang terkena tembakan ketika "Elemen penghasut dan kelompok teroris bayaran Monafeghin memulai kerusuhan dengan menembaki para pengamat."
Tembakan menyebabkan, "Kematian seorang penduduk dan melukai sejumlah penduduk kita," kata laporan tersebut.
Monafeghin (pengkhianat) adalah istilah standar rezim Iran untuk penyalahgunaan kelompok terlarang, Mujahidin Rakyat.
Laporan juga menyebutkan, "Pertemuan ilegal para penghasut, Monafeghin, monarkis dan preman di beberapa ruas jalan menyebabkan kerusuhan, tetapi kehadiran orang memaksa unsur penghasut dan Monafeghin pergi."
Ribuan orang pendukung oposisi bergerak ke jalan-jalan di Tehran Senin waktu setempat untuk menggelar protes anti-pemerintah.
Seperti dilansir AFP, polisi Iran terlibat bentrok dengan massa anti-pemerintah. Polisi bergerak dan menembakkan gas air mata ke arah massa oposisi yang berkumpul di Azadi Square (Lapangan Kebebasan).
Massa menyanyikan "Kematian untuk Diktator", sebuah slogan yang digunakan untuk menentang Presiden Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, setelah hasil pemilu 2009 yang sempat ricuh itu, memberikan kesempatan kepadanya untuk memerintah kedua kalinya.
Situs dari pemimpin oposisi Mir Hossein Mousavi, kaleme.com, mengatakan, "Berdasarkan laporan yang belum terkonfirmasi, ratusan pemrotes ditahan di Tehran." (lrn/lrn)
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