Protests and developments two days after the election in Iran: part 2

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

It's approaching 3 pm in Iran.

First of all, the house arrests of Mousavi and Karroubi have been denied (this is BBC).

News has picked up on Twitter's CNNFail - Twitter users have been slamming CNN all morning for having next to no coverage on Iran while continuing to report on non-stories like Letterman and Palin.

This article says that Iran is calmer today. That's probably because it's still morning - early afternoon.

This diary on DailyKos has been updated and says that yes, the demonstration planned for 12:30 was a police trap and many have been arrested...New York Times says they may have just been given a warning and released.

Another video from last night at 9 pm. The bank burning there is Bank Mellat, which is state-owned.



A photo here of security going from door to door.

This tweet in Persian says that there are (edit: will be, looks like this is about tomorrow) people from Engelab Square to Azadi Square to listen to a speech by Mousavi that will happen in a few hours. The distance from one square to another is about 5 km:



Ahmadinejad is giving a speech right now; nothing worth reporting. "I won, they're complaining, Iran is a free country and our elections are awesome." Reporter asks him about the nuclear issue. No news here.

A tweet here in Persian instructs people to include the name "Mousavi" in English when uploading videos so that the world can know. That's good advice so I'm going to retweet that. Feel free to do the same.

Two more videos. First this one from Esfehan yesterday with riot police running away.



The next one is in Tehran from today along the same main street (Valiasr) where a lot of the other ones happened.



DailyKos has another diary here showing Rezaei's total vote count magically going backward as time went on on election day.

A permit for Dutch reporters in the country has been cancelled.

Mousavi is calling for the vote to be cancelled.

CNN removes its CNNFail label with bold questioning of Ahmanidejad from Amanpour. She asked him if he could guarantee the safety of Mousavi. Ahmadinejad avoided the question and they got into a bit of a verbal scuffle from that.

Twitter keeps repeating over and over that students are being fired at with plastic bullets but I can't find a source for that.

Biden has commented as well, saying that he has real doubt about an Ahmadinejad win.

This tweet in Persian says that Mousavi's wife said in the University of Tehran today that everyone will do a march tomorrow from Enghelab Square to Azadi Square (that's the image above the two videos there) at 4 pm to defend everyone's vote.

Ah good, Change for Iran is twittering again. He mentioned that they would be going to the 12:30 demonstration and then stopped writing anything for seven hours. There are a few grainy pictures he has sent a link to here.

You can see the English translation of Mousavi's request to nullify the election here (note: this is scribd.com).

A tweet here says that 150 professors at Sharif University have resigned in protest. The source in Persian is here.

Here's a video of one of the riot police being caught by the crowd and treated very nicely.



BBC is not impressed with being blocked in Iran.

I'm in full agreement with this tweet protesting Mousavi being referred to as the "defeated candidate". If the election results are suspect then there's no reason to make such a conclusion based on a sketchy source.

Good first-person perspective from the New York Times here.

New instructions for supporters from Mousavi from his Facebook page:

1 - Tonight and every night from 9 to 11 pm call God is great (Allaho Akbar) from the rooftops
2 - Monday is a day off; general strike on Tuesday
3 - Gives the address for Mousavi's house here
4 - Keep the protests non-violent

It then gives a long list of locations in each city to stage protests, such as Chaharbagh Street (خیابان چهارباغ) in Esfahan.




Final edit for the day: it's past 3:30 am here in Korea and thus time for bed. More updates in a new post tomorrow.