Iran after the elections: 18 June 2009

Thursday, June 18, 2009

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.


Last night while in the middle of updating a post the internet suddenly went down, and didn't recover until the morning. Very boring. I can only hope that the people of Iran are soon able to achieve this level of boredom as well, where when the internet goes down it's the most annoying thing that happens all day, a cause for a stern reprimand to ones ISP, and no more.

I also spent some time taking a look at a book I have with the script of a movie called دو زن (Do Zan, Two Women), which has to do with the life of two women before and just after the Islamic Revolution. I haven't seen the movie itself but from the script it looks like it might be worth watching if you can find it (and let me know in the comments below if you do).

By the way, do (two) is cognate with English two, and zan (woman) with English queen.

Now, let's get to what happened last night.

Here's something from the BBC. You can see the sign there after 1:00 saying that this is Haft-e-tir Square.



This video is probably yesterday's best though. In under one minute it shows the vast extent of yesterday's protests. Note how quiet everything is. This is especially important considering that the government is doing everything within its power to try to make the protests look as violent as possible - interviewing shopkeepers whose stores have been damaged, etc. The larger and more peaceful the protest the more obvious this will be that that's not the case.



And then there's this one.



And then of course there was the revelation that Photoshop was used to make Ahmadinejad's rallies look bigger.

I see a tweet in Persian from an hour ago (just past 6:00 am in Iran) saying that there will be a demonstration in Tabriz tomorrow in front of the Tuba Mosque, which is here. 4 pm, and wear black.



We have another possible leaked letter showing a Mousavi victory here. I don't think I agree on the "colourless" Karroubi part though - remember the speech he tried to give at a university where he was denied permission and the students took it into their own hands to make it happen? Or how fired up he was in his debate with Ahmadinejad? Karroubi was actually the person that provided the best entertainment throughout the debates. Well, besides Ahmadinejad and his bazillion charts to attempt to show a healthy economy and his attacks on Mousavi's wife. Entertaining in a "let's slow down to watch this car accident" sort of way.

Nice demonstration at Tabriz University here. This is actually from the 15th.



A lot of people are asking in Persian on Twitter where today's demonstration is going to be. Some are saying in English that it'll be at Toop Khone / Khomeini Square. Apparently many are at the mosque at the moment and then will go to rallies so information is hard to come by right now.

Here's a video from Rachel Maddow's show that just came out on the morning rallies today, and some other things.



Okay, any confusion about location on Twitter in Persian seems to be subsiding and everybody is saying that today's gathering will be at 5 at Toopkhaneh (توپخانه).

Another one (amongst others saying the same thing) says that tomorrow at 11 Karroubi will be at a black-clothed gathering at Tehran University.



12:30 in Tehran: Okay, heading out the door for a few hours. More updates soon in a new post.

0 comments:

  © Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP