Obama to Iran’s leaders: Stop ‘unjust’ crackdown

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

SAN FRANCISCO — President Barack Obama, taking aim at Iran’s crackdown on post-election protests, called Saturday on the nation’s leadership to halt further violence against its own people.

“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching,” Obama said in his most pointed public statement to Tehran following a week of bloody protests challenging the re-election of hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12.

“We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

Iranian police gathered in force Saturday in Tehran, launching a violent and apparently successful crackdown on further demonstrations by backers of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Millions of Mousavi’s supporters poured into the streets of Tehran and other major Iranian cities this past week to protest Ahmadinejad’s re-election, which they claim was rigged. Reports from Tehran indicate at least 15 people have been killed during clashes with Iranian police and militia.

“The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion,” Obama said.

Obama, along with other Western leaders, has so far taken a cautious line on what is the biggest political crisis to roil Iran in 30 years, avoiding statements that could be construed as meddling in Iran’s internal politics.

The stance has riled some Republicans in Washington, however, prompting them to step up pressure on the White House to address the crisis and offer some measure of support to the Iranian opposition.

Following is the text of the statement issued by the White House on Saturday from President Barack Obama on the demonstrations in Iran:

“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

“As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

“Martin Luther King once said — ’The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”