Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Times Online:

As protesters marched through the thoroughfares of Tehran, much of the city went on an unofficial strike today. Shops opened their shutters only halfway, in defiance of the vote.

Four days after Mr Ahmadinejad claimed re-election, the powerful Guardian Council offered a partial recount of disputed ballot boxes in response to complaints of massive electoral fraud.

The move by the clerics on the country’s highest legislative body appeared to be the first concession to the opposition after hundreds of thousands joined anti-government protests in recent days.

But many saw it as a ploy by the mullahs to buy time before their formal endorsement of Mr Ahmadinejad’s victory. Mr Mousavi had asked the council of clerics to annul the election and re-run it, but they rejected that demand as impossible.

At least seven civilians were killed when members of the Basiji militia, a force of young Islamic hardliners, started shooting when their post came under attack during yesterday’s mass rally.

State radio said that the building came under attack at the end of what it called an “illegal” demonstration.

“Some thugs in an organised and coordinated action attacked and vandalised a number of public and government buildings,” it reported. “A military post was attacked with the intention of looting its weapons. Unfortunately, seven of our citizens were killed and a number of them injured.”

The death toll may actually have been higher. A nurse at western Tehran’s Rasoul Akram hospital said that 28 people with “bullet wounds” had been brought in last night, of whom eight had died.

Mr Ahmadinejad showed his contempt for the protests by visiting the Russian city of Yekaterinburg for a regional summit, where his re-election was effectively endorsed not just by his hosts but other nations attending, including China, India and Pakistan.

“It’s quite symbolic that the Iranian president arrived in Russia on his first foreign visit since re-election,” Sergei Ryabkov, the Deputy Foreign Minister, told reporters in a briefing at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, at which Iran has observer status.

“We welcome the fact that the elections have taken place, and we welcome the newly re-elected Iranian president on the Russian soil.”

Mr Ahmadinejad had originally been scheduled to arrive at the conference yesterday and was forced to call off bilateral talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. Taking the floor at one of the summit meetings, Mr Ahmadinejad made no reference to the crisis at home, instead baiting the United States for its economic woes.

According to the official figures, Mr Ahmadinejad won a massive 24.5 million votes in Friday’s election against 13.2 million for Mr Mousavi. Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the elite Revolutionary Guards, came third with 678,240 votes or 1.73 per cent, while the reformist Mehbi Karroubi, a former parliamentary speaker, trailed with 333,635 votes or 0.85 percent.

It is not just Mr Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory that has cast doubt on the result, however, but the speed with which 39.1 million votes were counted – and the fact that the incumbent enjoyed a consistent two-to-one lead even in his opponents’ political strongholds.

In his first public comments on the election, President Obama said last night that he was “deeply troubled” by the violence in Iran, but said that it was up to the Iranians to “make a decision about who Iran’s leaders will be”.

“I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability for folks to peacefully dissent, all those are universal values and need to be respected,” Mr Obama said.

“Whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they’re rightfully troubled.”