Iran Election – Live Updates

From the Guardian, here. Seems to me that the hard-liner is going to lose.UPDATE: Mousavi was arrested on his way to Khamanei’s house. He’s under house arrest, and there is serious unrest in the streets. Many photos here.

More from the New York Times:

Update | 6:50 p.m. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf said on Saturday that officials from Iran’s Interior Ministry had contacted Mir Hussein Moussavi’s campaign after the polls closed on Friday night, saying that he had won the election, but asking that he not make any announcement. Mr. Makhmalbaf, who is currently in Paris, said, “After security forces attacked and shut down the press offices of Moussavi’s campaign in Gheitarieh yesterday, I was asked to act as their spokesperson abroad.”

He added that he was asked to spread the word that “last night Interior Ministry officials told Moussavi and his staff that he has won the elections but they should not make it public yet. Moussavi’s campaign, accordingly, began preparations for a public celebration on Sunday.”

Of course Mr. Moussavi ignored the Interior Ministry request and did announce that he had won. Soon after that, the Interior Ministry made what even Iranian state media reported was a “surprise” early declaration that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won, after less than 20% of the ballots had been counted.

In what looks suspiciously like a related incident, Mr. Makhmalbaf’s personal Web site seems to have been attacked. A Google search for “Makhmalbaf Film House,” leads to a warning saying that within the past 24 hours Google had spotted “malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent” from the filmmaker’s Web site. As Google’s warning explains: “In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.”

Your Lede blogger has visited the Web site Makhmalbaf.com many times in the past and never come across any such warning.