Iran after the elections: 16 June 2009 - part 2

Hi - if you're here due to a Twitter update, check the bottom of the post.

I'll be updating this post throughout the day as events warrant.


So it's 3:30 pm in Iran now and many on Twitter are saying that Ahmadinejad supporters are planning to march at the same time now, so 5 pm instead of 3 pm. Checking to see what's going on.

Reuters here says that Mousavi has called off the rally to save lives, but who knows how effective that will be. A tweet here in Persian is also saying that it's been cancelled. Others are saying that this is just a false rumour. Conclusion: who knows.

Apparently there is going to be a partial recount, which sounds suspicious from the start. The Mousavi camp isn't in favour of this partial measure and wants a redo of the election.

The Huffington Post reports that yes, buses were used to bring in people from outside the city to fill up Ahmadinejad's rally. Nobody is surprised.

Now the government says that foreign journalists can only work from inside their offices (= no taking pictures of the demonstrations).

A lot of people on Twitter are changing their time zone to GMT+3:30 (Tehran) to confuse those who may be looking for Twitterers in a certain area.

Everybody is now saying that army forces are entering Tehran, such as here in Persian and here in English.

Bad advice from John McCain. He wants Obama to come out and call the election a corrupt, fraud, sham of an election. That's certainly what it was, but there's no point in all of a sudden making Obama into the story here. The administration's reaction so far has been perfect, in casting doubt on the election and giving support to those opposing Ahmadinejad without making it look like the US is trying to directly interfere. There would be nothing worse for the protesters than all of a sudden made to seem like American stooges when really all they are doing is fighting for their votes.

This seems to be the latest video. It says in Persian that it's also Valiasr Street, and you can hear them chanting Marg bar diktator (مرگ بر دیکتاتور), death to the dictator.



Five more videos just released with much better image quality.











A tweet in Persian from 9:02 pm in Tehran says mobile phone service has been cut off.



Good news: according to the BBC, today's demonstrations might have been even bigger than those on Monday.

Checking Twitter in Persian, many are saying that the next demonstration is tomorrow at Haft-e-tir Square (میدان هفت تیر), which is located here.


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Okay, time for bed here in Korea. More updates in a new post tomorrow.