BBC Covers Iran
The BBC has consistantly led in Iran coverage
Iran’s powerful Guardian Council says it is ready to recount disputed votes from Friday’s presidential poll.
…The authorities announced sweeping restrictions on foreign media covering the protest and other “unauthorised events”.
…Dozens of people have been arrested since the protests began. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a close aide of ex-President Mohammad Khatami, was detained at his home in Tehran on Tuesday.
Those detained also include prominent journalist and academic Ahmad Zeidabadi. His wife says he was picked up in the middle of the night on Saturday.
I assume that the authorities are covering CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, CBE like a carpet, as she hasn’t been able to say much from the scene. We’ll find out more once she’s out of Iran. The CNN coverage is unbelievably muted since yesterday.
Picking up Zeidabadi on Saturday indicates the authorities knew almost immediately there was going to be trouble over their crude theft of the election. I would guess that they started seeing the early results from Tehran and panicked, which would explain the unbelievable results that were reported. It was almost as if they issued an edict that every district would report the same percentage of the total votes cast.
The recount offer of the Guardian Council is really too little, too late, although it might be entertaining to watch the Ministry of the Interior attempt to create all of the ballots needed to justify the results they reported. The Council only offered a recount in specific districts, not a general recount.
