Meet Mahmoud Vahidnia: Mathlete, Iranian opposition hero
From mild-mannered mathlete to national opposition hero - it's been a crazy couple of weeks for Iranian math student Mahmoud Vahidnia.
At a meeting between students and the Ayatollah Khamenei, Vahidnia raised his had to ask a question and then spent twenty minutes criticizing the country's Supreme Leader to his face.
Contrary to the stories of the thousands of protesters and critics of the country's election results - Mahmoud Vahidnia has faced no repercussions. In fact the incident was originally reported by the Supreme Leader's office - touting the country's tolerance for healthy debate. Initially many questioned whether the incident was staged for such a purpose - though opposition leaders are now saying the incident was the real deal.
Here's some video (albeit in Persian) of the meeting with a little bit of Vahidnia at the podium.
(h/t themajlis.org)
Posted to Current News by elsonwvu.
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At a meeting between students and the Ayatollah Khamenei, Vahidnia raised his had to ask a question and then spent twenty minutes criticizing the country's Supreme Leader to his face.
"I don't know why in this country it's not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you," said the student, wearing a long-sleeved blue polo shirt and appearing calm.
"In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader," he said, referring to the clerical body that chooses the country's supreme leader.
Khamenei countered, "We welcome criticism. We never said not to criticize us. ... There's plenty of criticism that I receive," according to accounts in state media and on opposition Web sites.
Contrary to the stories of the thousands of protesters and critics of the country's election results - Mahmoud Vahidnia has faced no repercussions. In fact the incident was originally reported by the Supreme Leader's office - touting the country's tolerance for healthy debate. Initially many questioned whether the incident was staged for such a purpose - though opposition leaders are now saying the incident was the real deal.
Here's some video (albeit in Persian) of the meeting with a little bit of Vahidnia at the podium.
(h/t themajlis.org)
Posted to Current News by elsonwvu.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Unemployment spikes to 10.2 percent - The Real Recovery
- Iraq's bomb detectors are useless?
- 20 more weeks of unemployment
- Tune in tonight for Vanguard's Sri Lanka: Notes from a War on Terror
- 2009 election round-up: NYC, NY-23, NJ and VA, Maine
