By Sean Yoes
AFRO Staff Writer
D.C. attorney and campaign contributor Howard Gutman was among several donors that were awarded ambassadorships by President Obama. (Courtesy Photo)
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(June 14, 2009) - Violence still rumbles through the streets of Iran’s capital a day after the country’s embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a disputed election over reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
And when Ahmadinejad—who captured 62.3 percent of the vote Friday according the government—was asked if he could guarantee Mousavi’s safety, he didn’t answer directly.
“There is a rule of law in this country and all the people are equal before the law,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “In a soccer match, people may become excited and there may be confrontation between the people and the police force…these are not problems.”
Yet, problems—violence, numerous arrests and widespread charges of vote fraud—persist in the country’s capital of Tehran.
Opponents of Ahmadinejad continue to clash with police, pelting them with rocks and bottles and setting fires sparking the worst unrest in the capital in a decade.
Al Jazeera, a leading Middle East news agency, reported that renewed clashes between the government and protesters broke out Sunday when police confronted about 200 stone-throwing supporters of the reformist party.
According to the Associated Press, police stormed the headquarters of Iran’s largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, and arrested several of their leaders.
There are also reports of protests by Mousavi supporters in the southern city of Ahvaz, in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan.
Mousavi has declared himself the true winner of the election and has encouraged his backers to continue resistance of a government based on “lies and dictatorship.”
As the unrest continues in Iran, political observers continue to speculate on how the results of the Iranian election and the subsequent aftermath will impact the Obama administration.
Many believe Obama’s efforts to engage the Iranian government could be more difficult given the taint of the results that left the hard-liner Ahmadinejad in power.
Meanwhile, a poll released today indicates the majority of Israelis support bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The poll conducted by the Hebrew University found 52 percent of Israelis believe their country should bomb Iran’s nuclear reactor, if the international effort to stop the Islamic republic from developing nuclear weapons fails.