Thursday 3 March 2016

Welcome to the land that no country wants

The results of Iran’s twin elections help to explain why the ballot box still matters in Iran, in spite of unfair disqualifications of candidates at home and the raucous cynicism of sceptics – mainly out of Washington.
One US journalist was so angry that Iranian Jews can elect an MP of their own, hetweeted “totally spontaneous scenes from a Tehran petting zoo” when sharing an article displaying a Tehran synagogue transformed into a polling station.
A Wall Street Journal commentator is so intent on regime change, he insinuates the majority of Iranian electorates cannot be trusted to determine their own fate, accusing some of betraying the “pro-democracy spirit of that summer”, referring to the 2009 post-election unrest. 
“Can you blame them?” he asked. “The bloody crackdown against the 2009 post-election uprising, followed by the cataclysms in Syria, led them to conclude that mass protest is hopeless.” No mention that many of the same people who payed the highest price in 2009 encouraged Iranians to vote, including the mother of Sohrab Arabi, a 19-year-old student whose death under mysterious circumstances turned him into a protest symbol.

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