Iranian Elections Simmer Across Globe

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SCOTT SIMON, host:

There are rallies around the country and the world today, from New York to Fresno and from Bogotá to Tokyo, to express support for those Iranians who've been imprisoned since that country's disputed June 12th presidential election. Since Iran threw out all foreign journalists and chilled many social media networks with so many arrests, news from that country has been harder to come by.

Roger Cohen of The New York Times was reporting from Iran at the time of the elections and he was one of the last journalists to leave the country. He joins us now from New York.

Thanks so much for being with us, Roger.

Mr. ROGER COHEN (The New York Times): Thank you, Scott.

SIMON: And what do these kinds of international rallies do?

Mr. COHEN: I think the sight of all these young people from this very young society out protesting that they wanted their votes counted, I think it's touched something in the global imagination. And the fact that all these demonstrations are going on around the world I think is a reminder to the authorities in Iran that this is not over.

SIMON: Does it give the pretext to authorities to crack down? Does it seem to evince their argument that this is all Western motivated?

Mr. COHEN: I don't think they've needed much excuse. They've just gone for it, a very hardline faction around the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has intimidated the Iranian population or tried to, not entirely successfully.

And the suggestion that Western agents, even British agents could somehow summon three million people into the streets on the Monday after the election, which is what I saw, is simply absurd. So I don't think these demonstrations give any further pretext.

SIMON: Can you give us some idea as to who's been locked up, the range of people?

Mr. COHEN: All kinds of people: Saied Laila(ph), who is a reformist; economist that I know, Mohamed Atriyam Fah(ph), who is a political advisor to the opposition candidate, Mousavi. There are journalists who are in prison, notably Maziar(ph), the stringer in Tehran for Newsweek. The economists, political thinkers. Anybody who the authorities feel could give direction to this protest movement and an intellectual framework for them, I think they're going for them.

And one of the problems, Scott, is this anger, this rage that coursed throughout in the aftermath of the election is still there. But the leadership has been a little timid how to identify at times. And I think that's an issue going forward.

SIMON: Roger, in your capacity as a columnist and someone who occasionally expresses an explicit opinion...

(Sound bite of laughter)

SIMON: ...should President Obama send a letter of support to any rally today?

Mr. COHEN: That's a delicate question. I think he should. Yeah, I think he should have spoken out more strongly and faster. He was two days behind the curb I think throughout, Scott. Being those demonstrations, in those very intense 10 days after the election, it took six days for the president to get to saying that he and the American people were, quote, "very concerned" by what they were seeing.

And it wasn't until nine, 10 days afterward that he was very strongly condemning the unconscionable violence; the women being beaten, these plainclothes thugs, Basiji Militia, out there with a state license to beat people. And he shouldn't hesitate to speak out on the human rights front, and these demonstrations are about that.

SIMON: Would that be counterproductive?

Mr. COHEN: You see, I don't believe that that would. I think if he speaks about the violence, that in today's 21st century world people have a right to peaceful protest and if they feel their votes were stolen, they have the right to protest that. If he says that, I think if he keeps his offer on the table, Iran will continue to study that offer carefully.

Now, if he went a step further and he said this government is illegitimate, and because I regard this government as illegitimate, which may well be the president's intimate conviction, if he said that, then I think he would closing the door on the overture that he himself has made. And I personally think he's right not to do that.

SIMON: Roger Cohen of The New York Times, thanks so much.

Mr. COHEN: Thank you, Scott.

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