By the CNN Wire Staff
June 13, 2010 6:19 p.m. EDT
Tehran, Iran (CNN) --
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad defended last year's contested presidential election during a wideranging interview on staterun television Sunday, calling its outcome "the manifestation of the united and grand human will of 40 million people in a 100 percent free" vote.
Ahmadinejad spoke a day after the first anniversary of the election, which sparked widespread outrage within the Islamic republic and gave rise to the opposition Green Movement, whose leaders accused the hardline regime of stealing the election and staging a brutal crackdown on protesters.
"Those who opposed [the election] were governments of injustice who interfered in [our] internal affairs," Ahmadinejad said
Sunday. "Even the American president, who was new to the scene, joined them. But the Iranian nation defeated them."
Large numbers of protesters took to the streets in defiance of
Ahmadinejad's hard-line regime immediately after the election's outcome was announced, but Saturday's anniversary passed with only scattered clashes between opposition protesters and security forces.
"I think there are some people who are disheartened ... because of the brutality of the crackdown, friends who ended up in jail ... and just the government's ability to squash any protest whatsoever,"
Iranian-American author Hooman Majd told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria:
GPS" on Sunday. "So that becomes an attitude of, 'Why bother? Why should I go out on the streets and demonstrate? I'm not going to get anywhere.'"
Source : CNN World News
Site : http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/13/iran.ahmadinejad/index.html
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 13, 2010 6:19 p.m. EDT
Tehran, Iran (CNN) --
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad defended last year's contested presidential election during a wideranging interview on staterun television Sunday, calling its outcome "the manifestation of the united and grand human will of 40 million people in a 100 percent free" vote.
Ahmadinejad spoke a day after the first anniversary of the election, which sparked widespread outrage within the Islamic republic and gave rise to the opposition Green Movement, whose leaders accused the hardline regime of stealing the election and staging a brutal crackdown on protesters.
"Those who opposed [the election] were governments of injustice who interfered in [our] internal affairs," Ahmadinejad said
Sunday. "Even the American president, who was new to the scene, joined them. But the Iranian nation defeated them."
Large numbers of protesters took to the streets in defiance of
Ahmadinejad's hard-line regime immediately after the election's outcome was announced, but Saturday's anniversary passed with only scattered clashes between opposition protesters and security forces.
"I think there are some people who are disheartened ... because of the brutality of the crackdown, friends who ended up in jail ... and just the government's ability to squash any protest whatsoever,"
Iranian-American author Hooman Majd told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria:
GPS" on Sunday. "So that becomes an attitude of, 'Why bother? Why should I go out on the streets and demonstrate? I'm not going to get anywhere.'"
Source : CNN World News
Site : http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/13/iran.ahmadinejad/index.html