Let Egypt Be a Lesson and Allow People to Protest, White House Spokesman Tells Iran

Mar,19, Middle East. Close on the heels of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation following palpably strong mass protests over a few weeks in Egypt, the White House has upped the ante in urging the Iranian government to allow the Iranian people to exercise right of peaceful assembly and protests and allow them unqualified access to global media and the Internet that the current regime has blocked. A statement to this effect was made by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs who accused the current Iranian regime of conducting arrests and blocking international media coverage of the developments in Egypt.

On Friday, the White House spokesman also termed as “empty talk” the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi’s statement in Tehran in which he congratulated the Egyptian people for the change in regime. The US alleged the Iranian regime with blocking international media coverage of the recent developments in Egypt as it was "scared of the will of its people." The White House spokesman was alluding to the widespread demonstrations in Tehran in 2009 in support of reform that had been quelled by often violent crackdowns.

Meanwhile the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) expressed its concern on Friday over the jamming of its Persian service by the Iranian government owing to its coverage of the events that unfolded in Egypt. The BBC also insinuated that the interruptions in the Persian service covering the political turmoil in the Egypt had begun late Thursday.

Commenting on the regime-change in Egypt, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad affirmed that after Hosni Mubarak, "there would be a new Middle East in which there would neither be a place for the United States nor the Zionist regime" of Israel.

The US president Obama lauded the Egyptian protesters and their peaceful demonstrations that have swept the nation during a fortnight. The US president said, “Over the last few weeks, the wheel of history turned at a blinding pace."

As Mubarak’s thirty-year rule came to an end with the announcement to this effect made by Vice President Omar Suleiman, the Egyptians erupted into whoops of cheers and celebration with the celebrations going late into the night. The Egyptians flocked into Cairo's Tahrir Square in celebratory mood, where they danced, waved flags and saw the fireworks.