It appears that Zelaya has managed to make his way back to Honduras. Despite claims that he is there to start peaceful dialogue, so far his actions look calculated to cause violence and upset stability.

The Organisation of American States is not helping, neither is Chavez. Obama has not said anything yet this time, but his past lies are not helping the country, which is due to hold fresh elections in less than two months anyway in which Zelaya is not permitted by the constitution to stand as President, having already served (most of) a term.

La Gringa is updating her blog frequently, thanks Glen for providing that link.

I am sorry that i have not blogged the Iranian Protests recently, but I have seen little except the brief mentions in the national press. The recent Al-Quds day anti-Israel marches were seen by Ahmadinijad’s regime as a time the opposition might use to protest. That does seem to have been the case, although you might have missed it in the news media.

I cannot confirm that this video is from that protest, although I think it is and the date is correct for that.

It also seems that on al-Quds day some Iranians think that It was less important to protest against Israel than another rather more powerful country. I have to say that they seem to have far more sense than the whole political leadership of the UK, USA, EU and the UN.

Posters made to honour the disputed Iranian government were carried, although not necessarily with the respect that was intended by the distributor.

Big hat tip to Gateway Pundit, on whose post I have based this entire story. Thanks!

So many times have we been told that an artist is using satire, to criticise the right, to attack Christianity or to condemn a decision to fight? How often is that satire just a bit, well, lame? It is either to obvious and literal or from a mind that is so wrapped up in left-wing ideology it only makes sense from that perspective?

However I do agree with Reason Online that satire is a healthy form of dissent, that we should expect to see in a healthy democracy. I also agree that it has been sadly lacking where Obama is concerned, at least from the ‘professional’ satirists, and that there is undue pressure from the left against even the poorest satire that is made.

It is nice to see that the amateurs on the right not only try, but can really make you laugh in the way no depiction of Bush as Hitler ever will. Thanks, Fausty, for bringing this canine Tea Party protester to our attention.

It is not just in America that left-wing racists beat up people with whom they disagree. Letters From a Tory has a tale of the fascists who claim to be anti-fascist.

I first read this story this morning in the Daily Mail (no I don’t read that rag, but i cannot remember the link to give a hat tip). That did not mention the previous protest that had gone off peacefully. However there is some evidence that this is not a classic BNP thugs baiting racial minorities, despite ‘speculation’.

• The group involved specifically states on the website that it is open to “…British people of various different colours/races…”. The BNP does not hide its opposition to non-white members.
• The police state that they have no intelligence of any link.
• A previous protest went off peacefully, and the protest arrangers’ website called for peaceful protest.
• An eyewitness suggested that the violence only happened when a “group of black and Asian people turned up”, so there is no evidence the anti-Muslim-fundamentalist group had any plans for violence.

Now I suspect that the group protesting had been infiltrated by racist thugs, probably of the BNP sort. Nasty people who should be arrested when they do commit crimes. However that is no reason not to let them protest. We don’t have to act on or even listen to their unreasoning complaints (against other races). We can even ignore those and choose to listen to their reasoned complaints, against Islamic fundamentalism.

On that score the target of the ire proved their case. The report talks of flag burnings, shows a picture of an Asian man tearing a Union Flag held by a protester. There is evidence of serious violence against the protesters by the attacking “anti-fascists”, but no evidence that the protesters caused any violence.

It is disgusting that Khalid Mahmood MP blamed the protesters, and had called for the protest to be banned, without any justification at all. As a Muslim MP, Mahmood should be setting an example, telling Muslims that they must accept British values of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

It seems that Unite Against Fascism, a socialist organisation, has become intolerant, violent and authoritarian. Ironic, since the original fascists were violent, authoritarian, intolerant socialist.

Update: Calling England has some of the more amusing background to this.

Update: Goodnight Vienna of Calling England in the comments gives a link to Gates of Vienna who has a left-wing Birmingham student thug’s personal account. It appears that Unite Against Fascism arrived early, looking certainly for confrontation and by strong implication looking for violence.

Update: it appears that the Guardian did have an article (I am not sure why their search did not find it). Typically the opening has an editorial slant that is not justified by the rest of the story. The headline is not about the violence of UAF, but claiming that the anti-fundamentalist group is planning more clashes. The article actually says they plan more demonstrations, gives no hint that there is any evidence they plan violence, and ignores evidence that the counter-demonstration caused the ‘clash’.

I wrote yesterday about the beating received by Kenneth Gladney, an American conservative who was beaten by members of the Service Employees’ International Union, the SEIU.

At the time there was no good impression of the injuries he received. The attack was described as ‘a beating’, but all commentary was from people politically opposed to the SEIU’s stance on the healthcare issue under debate. Well, that is if you can call a beating debate, because it appears that ‘beating’ was an understatement. ‘Serious beating’ was certainly justified.

Hundreds of people, largely it appears from the ‘Tea Party’ movement (opposing large increases in government spending, for those non-Americans who have not heard of this), descended on the St Louis offices of the SEIU. Mr Gladney was able to join them, he is fortunate that he has been able to leave hospital. However it appears that he is as yet still unable to speak. That does not suggest a moderate knock-about. That suggests to me he was subject to some determined violence, from four cowardly attackers.

Notice that the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, rabble rousers who have supported violent criminals if they were black) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) did not manage to attend. That is the left for you. Event the ACLU won’t defend civil liberties taken away by their fellow lefties.

I wish for Kenneth Gladney swift justice and, more importantly, an even swifter recovery. Freedom-loving people everywhere are supporting you, Mr Gladney.

Update: of course the left-wing blogosphere cannot believe that the left has thugs. An ideology of coercion, socialism has always had its thugs, from the brownshirts of Germany in the 1930s to violent revolutionaries in South American jungle. My earliest memories of the left was the violent nastiness of the “peace” campaigners at Greenham Common, where we had family friends. Peace protesters who would attack a car with three young children in the back, entirely surrounding it and physically rocking it while shouting and screaming.

A warning of what the government might face if conditions get worse as they are enjoying their summer recess. All in good silly-week style, of course!

For those not brought up in the UK, or too old or too young to recognise the reference, I loved this iconic series when I was about 3 years old.

Last night I watched a small part of the BBC’s coverage of Zelaya’s childish jumping back and forth across the border in Honduras. The talk about the pro-Zelaya protests was irritating as I have seen nothing about the far greater anti-Zelaya protests.

However the worst piece of bias was in the commentary about international response. The presenter stated that the “international community” has claimed Zelaya’s removal as president was illegal. However the international community has no jurisdiction. They have absolutely no right to decide whether the removal was legal or not. The BBC of course completely failed to mention what the Honduras Supreme Court said about the issue. They do have jurisdiction, and they were the ones that ordered Zelaya’s removal.

BBC reporting fails yet again when it comes to totalitarian socialists.

OK, so it is not simply against Obama, but against foreign interference in Honduran political affairs. However Obama is probably the key target; externally only Chavez is likely to be as important as Obama to the future of democracy in Honduras, and he is unlikely to pay any attention to what Hondurans actually want.

Glen Reynolds of Instapundit is quite rightly critical of AFP for a story that describes a march of “hundreds” of people. While not a lie, it is far less informative than “thousands” or even I suspect “tens of thousands”, looking at the photo in the first link I gave, which Glen also uses. Ironically that is an AFP image! Most of the commercial news media really should be embarrassed by their coverage of Honduras over the last month.

Fidel and Raul Castro are the biggest supporters of Hugo Chavez. They have all supported Zelaya’s return to Honduras as President.

So as a blogger, critical of the government, what would I (and most of you) have experienced if living in Castro’s Cuba? Generation Y might be the best known Cuban anti-Castro blog. I have read Yoani Sánchez’s blog occasionally, and she felt she had avoided sanction because of her profile. However, that has not always protected her. Venezuela is already moving rapidly in the direction of state political censorship, and if Zelaya succeeds in his aim of returning to power I suspect he will follow his mentors to move Honduras that way.

Why is Barack Obama sucking up to the Cuban regime? Not just on the Honduras affair, but a general movement of the American attitude. The Cuban government has not changed, there is not yet a liberation.

Yoani Sánchez is a blogger braver than any of us need to be; she has every right to call her accusers ‘cowards’. Let us hope we keep our freedom, and she gains hers. Thanks to Harry’s Place for the link.

Does anyone know an email address for Asif Zardari, President of Pakistan?

I think that bloggers outside Pakistan should be encouraged to email ribald remarks about the President and his ministers. It appears from news reports that he has banned anyone within Pakistan from ‘slander[ing] the political leadership’, on pain of up to 14 years imprisonment. This is in order to stem the tide of jokes to the President’s email. So it falls to the rest of us, living comfortably outside the writ of a Pakistani warrant, to fulfil the vital political purposes of satire.

The article repeats some of the jokes (thus giving them a rather wider audience than they would otherwise have had) and there are a couple of good ones there. Mmmmmmm, that gives me an idea. The email address given by the Guardian (via theyworkforyou.com) for Gordon Brown is birdc@parliament.uk. Anyone see where I am going?

It seems that on one level the Iranian government succeeded. Although I knew that protesters had not simply accepted the corrupted election results the government restrictions mean that a lot less information reaches the outside world, so the international profile is lower.

Display at the protest outside the Iranians embassy in London

The Twitter feed that put together a lot of information during the original protests is still very active, but chaotic as always. I haven’t seen anyone interpreting it, and that is what it needs unless you are prepared to watch it for a while and know a lot about the country. It is good for an impression though, and to see that the protest is still alive.

Fortunately former President and relatively moderate politician Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani made his contribution yesterday at Friday prayers. All protests and most gatherings (even funerals of some killed in the violence) have been banned, but the Islamic Republic can hardly ban Friday prayers; this was used for Rafsanjani to say his piece about the election. That speech and the subsequent street protests have given welcome international publicity (welcome to those who love freedom that is, not to George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley, Lauren Booth and Andrew Gilligan, amongst other less well-known colleagues at Press TV).

My only contribution is to say that Rafsanjani, like Mousavi, appears to be trying to save the Islamic Republic, not to destroy it. However both also appear to want to save the regime by moderating the oppressive side of the government. They also are currently siding with the protesters, even though many of them appear to want true democracy. It is slightly confused, and of course there are probably many protesters who support Mousavi and Rafsanjani’s wish for the regime to survive.

Overall I think that this new flare up of protests that have been smouldering for a few weeks (and started over a month ago now) is positive. Yes there are dangers. People will be hurt, people will be imprisoned and ill-treated, people will die. People are already being hurt, imprisoned, maltreated and killed. That is an ongoing process, so the sooner it is stopped the better. It is easy to forget the long and painful road that led to our freedom, and the millions of dead that litter the roadside. Freedom isn’t free.

The LA Times has a more comprehensive story, they talked to more protesters and report the activity in the street in more detail.

For more on what has been leading up to today’s events Berman Post had a roundup a couple of days ago.

If any recent visitors to this blog, welcome and feel free to scan through my previous comments on the issue of Iran, and my photo post on the protest I joined outside the Iranian Embassy in London. I think the most important thing I have put up so far is the video I have reposted below, from the London protest.

Hat tip to Instapundit for the LA Times and Berman Post links.

Update: Huffinton Post has live blogging of the situation. I understand HuffPo was good last month for that. This is a case where the left's blogs did some fine work, as did their political organisations supporting the protesters; there was broad agreement in the free world across the political divides, even if some political leaders were not sure how to respond.

Update: A more recent roundup from Berman Post, again thanks to Instapundit

Update: Again via Instapundit (what would we do for news of reality without Glen Reynolds?) a blog specifically about democracy in Iran, which has been running since 2005.

On the odd occasion I see a story that makes me certain I chose the right name for this blog. Harry’s Place has one such story, connected with the ongoing protests in Iran. A classic tale, like the Greek comedy Lysistrata, of a woman using her charms to try to stop unnecessary violence. The reason it failed on this occasion is that the man appears unable to conceive of the idea that he might be wrong. He is so certain that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are right that the opposition must have fooled his fiancée. It seems not to enter his head that he might be the fool.

Of course he is a member of the Basij, part morality police, part volunteer paramilitary thugs for the revolution, but all Islamist. It is that oldest of reasons not to doubt, that most insidious of institutions, religion. The Faithful, as if blind faith was something to boast about, rather than the last refuge of the determinedly ignorant. Faith allows no doubts.

OK, I see the irony that the woman in question is of a conservative religious family; their folly does not alter my point.

I am pleased about the ongoing protest and defiance of Khamenei in Iran (sorry for the lack of posts – little is coming through in the news, and I have had no novel insight). Anyone of a libertarian political view can but hope that some real change comes of them. People will die, but we must remember how many more died for our freedom, and how much some of us value that sacrifice.

Update: I am uncertain about posting this link. Persians in general are such great people, I don't want readers to hate them. The Islamic revolution has twisted so much there, that is the target of my ire. I am not certain it even shows Iran, I am trusting the unknown source, although the point I make here holds whoever these people are, and I am fairly sure they are trying to follow Islamic law, Shariah.

Warning, do NOT look at this link if you have any faith in human nature, any respect for Islam or are at all sqeamish. It is truly horrible. Believers dispense justice in Iran to an eight-year-old thief. This would be impossible for any group of people with the capacity to doubt their own rectitude. Please doubt yourself.

It is the classic U2 protest song, dedicated to the protesters in Iran.

Additional support, albeit I suspect for Mousavi as a reformer rather than deeper political change that most protesters seem to want, comes from an important and perhaps unexpected quarter. the New York Times reports that an important group of Iranian clerics has described the election and government as illegitimate.

Hat tip to Instapundit for both these snippets, although Divas for Geeks has an eloquent comment on the NYT story, contrasting Obama’s fence sitting.

Update: young Iranians are still defiant.

Hat tip Harry’s Place.

I wasn't intending to post music again so soon.

Hat tip to Clive Davis of the Spectator.

There has been a military coup in Honduras. You might be forgiven for having missed it, there has not been much in the UK newspapers. However there have been protests by tens of thousands of pro-democracy supporters.

You probably won’t have heard about that, either. The demonstration was in favour of the coup. There have also been much smaller demonstrations against the coup, and the UN and Barrack Obama have demanded that President Zelaya is reinstated. The EU countries have refused to recognise the new government (so tell me again why we should allow the EU to have a common foreign policy).

This was an unusual coup. Of course from this distance it is impossible to be certain, but it appears to be benign. The army was backing a decision by the Supreme Court that Zelaya’s must not attempt to run rather a suspect referendum, by which he was trying to bully the Congress into changing the constitution to allow him to remain in power. The interim government installed is led by a member of Zelaya’s party.

So it appears that various organisations and governments that have been rather equivocal about the stolen Iranian election (even the Iranian government admits that in many regions more votes were cast than there are registered voters) have come out in favour of Zelaya, who was breaking the law and the constitution. In this they are on the same side as Chavez and Castro, and one should always be cautious of agreeing with murderous communist despots. Surely some people should have learned that by now.

Hat tip Gateway Pundit.

Update: a lot more detail here, written from Honduras, with a lot of information about the Honduras constitution. Hat tip to Instapundit.

I heard a few days ago that there was an ongoing protest outside the Iranian Embassy in London. It so happens that I left my west-country lair to visit London for family reasons – an excellent opportunity to support the protest, both with my presence and with my first photo-blog.

I would estimate that for the hour or so I was with them there were about one hundred protesters. There were signs of previous, larger protests.

Sam, an extravagant, passionate Persian was directing the proceedings. With that protester’s friend, the bullhorn, he brought various people forward to speak.

Some spoke in generalities, albeit with passion. Some told individual stories of the terrors being visited upon those that are daring to stand up for their democratic rights. Most spoke in English, others in Farsi, with Iranians in the crowd giving a rough translation. Sam had a story to tell of a girl who only wanted freedom.

There was a heart-felt, touching shrine to Neda Sultan, who was killed with a single, targeted shot from long range, while offering no violence or threat.

Most people there were either Iranian, or British of Iranian extraction. Of course the Persian women were as enthusiastic as any. This was a protest against the Islamic Republic, chauvinism, sharia and all that entails. In fact Mousavi was criticised, and obviously only seen as better than Ahmadinejad and not himself a solution. They were protesting for true freedom, and a secular government.

One thing that both heartened and disappointed me was the political tone. The protest that day had been arranged by various left-wing groups, including the TUC. This was a good sign, that George Galloway’s disgraceful attitude does not seem to have wide support on the left. In fact when I was offered a socialist newspaper (had I known the organiser I would not have worn my red t-shirt with the yellow star; purely coincidence that I did, I had forgotten the green one I intended wearing) I had a discussion with the chap distributing it, who had a healthy disdain for Gorgeous George. He even felt that Galloway’s attitude to Iraq was simply because he would support any opponent of the USA.

On the other hand it did make it seem as if support was only from the left; I think I was the only one there who would be happy to be described as right wing. It was a Friday, and for obvious reasons left tend to be more likely to be free on a week day; I hope that today’s planned march had more libertarian and right-wing attendees.

However there was nothing said about Iran that I could disagree with. Workers in the UK were out to support workers in Iran.

After one member of the RMT had passed on her support and that of the workers’ collective, and a little plug for their cause of course, I felt I should express the solidarity of the libertarian right. When Sam offered my the microphone he did call me comrade; I had to point out that I was not a socialist despite the t-shirt, I was probably the only one not of the left there, but they had my support. My contribution was taken with friendly applause, and Sam graciously offered that if I was not comrade then perhaps colleague or friend. I accepted as friend.

Overall I saw the very best side of international socialism.

It was an enthusiastic and moving protest which still had some momentum many days after the suspect election result. It was small, but ongoing protests on a weekday cannot be expected to keep many hundreds of supporters. We are showing British support, but I would like to see more of non-Persian extraction and more from the libertarian right.

[Sorry about the slightly sloppy editing. Am just learning to use LiveWriter, and I’m not sure it’s any good. Either it isn’t, or I am crap]

Update: I have noticed a couple of people have come here from image searches. Of course I took these photos, so I have the copyright. Use them freely as long as you don't make a profit and credit this blog, linking to this post if convenient.

This picture says everything that needs to be said about why we should support the protestors in Iran. Good luck to them.

[Found about half way down this page with the caption "A backer of Mir Hossein Mousavi helps evacuate an injured riot-police officer during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009"]