Check out the twitter feeds: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/14/iran-election-twitter-fee_n_215330.html
they are up to the minute and way more gripping than anything on network or blog (since the country is basically shut down)
Nico Pitney is liveblogging the situation in Tehran on Huffington Post as well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090615/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election_160
(http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1753/slide_1753_23739_large.jpg)
Quote
TEHRAN, Iran â€" Gunfire from a compound used by pro-government militia killed one demonstrator Monday after hundreds of thousands of opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad massed in central Tehran to cheer their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since elections that he alleges were marred by fraud.
A group of demonstrators with fuel canisters attempted to set fire to the compound of a volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard as the crowd dispersed from Azadi, or Freedom, Square after dark. As some attempted to storm the building, people inside could be seen firing directly at the demonstrators at the northern edge of the square, away from the heart of the demonstration.
An Associated Press photographer saw one person fatally shot and several others who appeared to be seriously wounded.
The chanting demonstrators had defied an Interior Ministry ban and streamed into central Tehran â€" an outpouring for reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi that swelled as more poured from buildings and side streets.
The massive show of protest followed a decision by Iran's most powerful figure for an investigation into the vote-rigging allegations.
The chanting crowd â€" many wearing the trademark green color of Mousavi's campaign â€" was more than five miles (nine kilometers) long, and based on previous demonstrations in the square and surrounding streets, its size was estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.
Security forces watched quietly, with shields and batons at their sides.
Mousavi, in a gray striped shirt and talking through a portable loudspeaker, had paused on the edge of the square â€" where Ahmadinejad made his first postelection speech â€" to address the throng. They roared back: "Long live Mousavi."
"This is not election. This is selection," read one English-language placard at the demonstration. Other marchers held signs proclaiming "We want our vote!" and raised their fingers in a V-for-victory salute.
"We want our president, not the one who was forced on us," said 28-year-old Sara, who gave only her first name because she feared reprisal from authorities. The demonstration lasted several hours before the crowd began to disperse and violence erupted.
Hours earlier, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directed one of Iran's most influential bodies, the Guardian Council, to examine the claims. But the move by Khamenei â€" who had earlier welcomed the election results â€" had no guarantee it would satisfy those challenging Ahmadinejad's re-election or quell days of rioting after Friday's election that left parts of Tehran scarred by flames and shattered store fronts.
The 12-member Guardian Council, made up of clerics and experts in Islamic law and closely allied to Khamenei, must certify election results and has the apparent authority to nullify an election. But it would be an unprecedented step. Claims of voting irregularities went before the council after Ahmadinejad's upset victory in 2005, but there was no official word on the outcome of the investigation and the vote stood.
More likely, the dramatic intervention by Khamenei could be an attempt to buy time in hopes of reducing the anti-Ahmadinejad anger. The prospect of spiraling protests and clashes is the ultimate nightmare for the Islamic establishment, which could be forced into back-and-forth confrontations and risks having the dissidents move past the elected officials and directly target the ruling theocracy.
The display of opposition unity Monday suggested a possible shift in tactics by authorities after cracking down hard during days of rioting.
Although any rallies were outlawed earlier, security forces were not ordered to move against the sea of protesters â€" allowing them to vent their frustration and wave the green banners and ribbons of the symbolic color of Mousavi's movement.
State TV quoted Khamenei as ordering the Guardian Council to "carefully probe" the allegations of fraud, which were contained in a letter Mousavi submitted Sunday.
On Saturday, however, Khamenei urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad and called the result a "divine assessment."
The results touched off three days of clashes â€" the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. Protesters set fires and battled riot police, including a clash overnight at Tehran University after about 3,000 students gathered to oppose the election results.
Security forces have struck back with targeted arrests of pro-reform activists and blocks on text messaging and pro-Mousavi Web sites used to rally his supporters.
One of Mousavi's Web sites said a student protester was killed early Monday in clashes with plainclothes hard-liners in Shiraz, southern Iran. But there was no independent confirmation of the report. There also have been unconfirmed reports of unrest in other cities.
Most media are not allowed to travel beyond Tehran and thus can not independently confirm protests in other cities.
The unrest also risked bringing splits among Iran's clerical elite, including some influential Shiite scholars raising concern about possible election irregularities and at least one member of the ruling theocracy, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, openly critical of Ahmadinejad in the campaign.
According to a pro-Mousavi Web site, he sent a letter to senior clerics in Qom, Iran's main center of Islamic learning, to spell out his claims.
The accusations also have brought growing international concern. On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden raised questions about whether the vote reflected the wishes of the Iranian people.
Britain and Germany joined the calls of alarm over the rising confrontations in Iran. In Paris, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to discuss the allegations of vote tampering and the violence.
Overnight, police and hard-line militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they say was mass election fraud.
The overnight gathering at Tehran University started with students chanting "Death to the dictator." But it quickly erupted into clashes as students threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police, who fought back with tear gas and plastic bullets, a 25-year-old student who witnessed the fighting told the AP. He would only give one name, Akbar, out of fears for his safety.
The students set vehicles on fire and hurled stones and bricks at the police, he said. Hard-line militia volunteers loyal to the Revolutionary Guard stormed the dormitories, ransacking student rooms and smashing computers and furniture with axes and wooden sticks, Akbar said.
Before leaving around 4 a.m., the police took away memory cards and computer software material, Akbar said, adding that dozens of students were arrested.
He said many students suffered bruises, cuts and broken bones in the scuffling and that there was still smoldering garbage on the campus by midmorning but that the situation had calmed down.
"Many students are now leaving to go home to their families, they are scared," he said. "But others are staying. The police and militia say they will be back and arrest any students they see."
"I want to stay because they beat us and we won't retreat," he added.
The university was the site of serious clashes against student-led protests in 1999 and is one of the nerve centers of the pro-reform movement.
After dark Sunday, Ahmadinejad opponents shouted "Death to the dictator!" and "Allahu akbar!" â€" "God is great!" â€" from Tehran's rooftops. The protest bore deep historic resonance â€" it was how the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini asked Iran to unite against the Western-backed shah 30 years earlier.
In Moscow, the Iranian Embassy said Ahmadinejad has put off a visit to Russia, and it is unclear whether he will come at all. Ahmadinejad had been expected to travel to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg and meet on Monday with President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a regional summit.
The remaining two members of the "axis of evil" are making a pretty strong case for their moniker...
What I take from that is that the regimes who run those countries are trying with all their might to hang on to their power, with both hands, and to hell with what the people want. And the people are mad as hell about it, as evidenced by those pictures.
I (genuinely) don't know about the percentage of votes tallied in Iran, or how accurate the numbers are, but I truly wonder if Ahmadinejad did indeed garner 70-something percent of the votes.
It could happen to us if we don't unite as one nation, quit our devisive tones, and get our act together. This is what Ahmadinejad gets; he is a tyrant to say the least and needs to be ousted or step down.
I disagree with McCain and others "shooting off the hip" and stating that the election was corrupt; there is no proof of this yet...but, we need to let this run its course, and until we have concrete proof of corruption, then make a decision as to what U.S. policies should be, and what decisions the President needs to make or say in in regards to this crises in Iran.
Heights Unknown
I just happened to be reading some stuff on this - very interesting indeed.
QuoteHowever, the turnout was massive, a near record high 85 percent of Iran's 49.2 million eligible voters. Based on the information from Mousavi's website , a group of Interior Ministry employees have leaked out the following results which seem to be closer to reality than the one released by the establishment:
Total eligible: 49.2 Million
Participated in the election: 75% to 85%
Mir Hussein Mousavi: 45%
Mehdi Karoobi: 33%
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 13%
Mohsen Rezai: 9%
Cancelled votes: 3%
It is clear that Mr. Mir Hussein Mousavi won the election by a large margin. Ahmadinejad came out third. But on Friday June 12, 2009, in the Islamic election (selection) something happened. Something beyond what anyone could have ever imagined. Something huge. A daylight coup d'état by the elements of the establishment, particularly, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the Senate designated as a terrorist organization (with Senator Obama not voting). The clerical leadership in Iran has grown increasingly reliant on the IRGC to help it stave off internal pressure for political and economic reform and external pressure resulting from international concern over Iran's nuclear program.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/iran_election_the_beginning_of.html
I have to agree with Bill Maher on thi one: Iran saved Twitter, not the other way around. This is twitter's first international foray into something useful.
Twitter worked in this situation as a communication means of last resort. If the Internet had not been slowed and filtered, if journalists had been able to freely report, and cell phone hadn't been reduced to sporadic text message devices, then everyone would have used a more preferred means of communication.
Perhaps twitter has found a use. I know humanitarian workers that rely on texting when cell voice or internet service is spotty. So Twitter may have uses afterall, but in very limited contexts.
As for Iran, I'm pleased to see US leaders learning from the past and guarding their words enough to encourage reform but not give hardliners a soundbite to accuse the US of "intervening in Iranian affairs" or "orchastrating demonstrations with political puppets." Given the complext history of US-Iranian relation over the last several decades, even most reformers look unkindly on (perceived or real) western intervention in Iranian politics as a threat to national sovereignty.
There is real reform at stake--especially for women--but remember, all of the candidates involved are basically establishment candidates. This isn't likely to be a whole undoing of the post-revolution Islamic Republic.
isn't twitter the highest turnover in social networking. any regularly functioning individual who signed up for it will quickly see how pointless it really is. I wish it would just go away so they will stop talking about it on every news network. It reminds me of the days when everyone had an AOL Keyword along with their website.
While the protest scale is new, the conditions in Iran have been exactly the same for decades. It is and has been arguably one of the most repressive regimes in the world after NK. Only now (sadly) the wider Western public is waking up to what has been the norm their for a very long time. These people are going to have a very, very hard road over the next four years as Ahmadinejad and the IRGC crack down on dissent and assert even MORE control, while the West only watches.
I read an article in the WSJ today that Siemens and other German companies years ago sold Iran the censoring technology they now use to police it's entire internet spectrum at an unprecedented level. It will come back to bite Europe big time I believe unfortunately.
There's no denying it's massive popularity and usefulness, but can we give it a new name?
I mean, c’mon
Twitter?
Ugh