Early Report Day Two: Media Police Run, Protestors Trapped by Police, Ayatollahs Daughter Arrested

[FourScore]

Early Report Day Two: Media Police Run, Protestors Trapped by Police, Ayatollahs Daughter Arrested
by electronicmaji
Sat Jun 13, 2009 at 11:19:10 PM PDT

After Ahmadinejad's Coup I have received reports from some friends inside of Iran, who conveniently enough I met through some soccer forums. The information lies deeper. But to begin some of what I consider the strongest photos out there.



From TehranLive Shooting a sign of victory wrapped in green, with a Emo-styled hairdo and Calvin Klein underwear, this kid could be any American. This is the face of this election's voters. This is the face of today's Tehran.




...The contrast and shock of this image is no doubt to be a opinion shaper.



From TehranLive we have another image, this time of what they layman is doing. Watching on from the rooftops. Snapping photos, Worried. Like on that fateful day in 1979.


Let me bring you up to date. Every single agency, in and outside of Iran, and practically everyone who knows anything about the nation has declared this thing a Sham. The vote wasn't stolen, the vote wasn't EVEN COUNTED. It was invented. This coup has been bought around by the guard, and supported by the Ayatollah. The actions take are indefensible, and a group of hardline radicals are ignoring the will of the Iranian people.

Even now the phone lines and internet connections have gone eerily dead, alongside the electricity for the entire city of Tehran. The police is out looking for Satellites, and communications from Iranians on Twitter, Facebook and through blogs have totally died out.

Make no doubt about it. Tehran is under martial law.

From the streets I have updates, a friend in Iran is a sports journalist for the immensely popular national football team. Due to the nature of his reporting, he has been practically ignored, and free to switch his reporting over to covering these events.

This is what he is telling me about what he has heard.

* 1. The Green protesters have taken over at least two police stations in north of Tehran, the Guards are trying to take back the buildings.

* 2. University dormitories across Iran have been attacked by the Revolutionary Guards.

* 3. The building of the ministry of Industry, and a major telecommunication center, have been set on fire.

* 4. Sharif University's professors have resigned on mass.

* 5. Unrest in Rasht, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz and every other major city.

Meanwhile supporters are saying http://twitter.com/Change_for_Iran that Mousavi has asked people to form near his campaign offices at 12:30 today. His supporters now consider him President. Others are reporting this is a police trap. Very well may be.

Mousavi is no lightweight. He has held back out of care for his country, and his people. But let us not ignore the facts. Mousavi was Prime Minister during the Iraq-Iran War, and he knows HOW to run a campaign.

If Mousavi want's it and I hope he does, this revolution is on, and the National Guard will fall to the hands of the people.

Meanwhile inside Government Officials are leaking the REAL election numbers.

Unofficial news - reports leaked results from Interior Ministry:
Eligible voters: 49,322,412
Votes cast: 42,026,078
Spoilt votes: 38,716
Mir Hossein Mousavi: 19,075,623
Mehdi Karoubi: 13,387,104
Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad (incumbent): 5,698,417
Mohsen Rezaei (conservative candidate): 3,754,218

Keep this rec'd and keep Iran in your thoughts.

Down with the Dictator, Down with the Ayatollah. Allaho Ackbar!

Update 1

Civil War in Iran? According to this article http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/06/iran_there_will/ things are very hot right now!

But the scariest point he made to me that I had not heard anywhere else is that this "coup by the right wing" has created pressures that cannot be solved or patted down by the normal institutional arrangements Iran has constructed. The Guardian Council and other power nodes of government can't deal with the current crisis and can't deal with the fact that a civil war has now broken out among Iran's revolutionaries.

The Green Supporters are beginning to block all major highways into Tehran.

Removing the Ayatollah? It's possible according to Trita Parsi http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html.

Clearly, the anti-Ahmadinejad camp has been taken by surprise and is scrambling for a plan. Increasingly, given their failure to get Khamenei to intervene, their only option seems to be to directly challenge -- or threaten to challenge -- the supreme leader.

I will be liveblogging for another 3 hours at least. Reports as they come in.

Update 2

Cell Phone service and some internet is being restored to the capitals, and reports are coming in on twitter, hundreds by the minute.

The most important from Mousavi's dedicated followers twitter http://twitter.com/StopAhmadi who is calling throughout the nation to figure out whats going on.

NEWS: NO teargas was used in Rasht, Iran. Riot police beating ppl, and blocked streets.

These news are CONFIRMED, on phone with ppl from Rasht now.

NEWS: Riot police has been beating many protesters in Rasht, but new protests on their way in afternoon

It's also CONFIRMED that majority of ppl in Rasht voted for Mousavi.

Local and national news outlets, including television stations; are not reporting the riots or any other new news, and going on as if nothing has happened. The police are in control of the Iranian press.

AP is being told that foreign press must be prepared to leave the country. Looks like they don't want a foreign audience to witness their massacre.

CONFIRMED Image of after the riot, for our Calvin Klein friend up top. Posted via email, late.



THIS is what Ahmad is doing to his country.

Update 3

Looks like the trap worked, and the majority of the protest leaders have been placed under arrest.

The silencing power of the dictator's police force is at strong display...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/14/742253/-Early-Report-Day-Two:-Media-Police-Run,-Protestors-Trapped-by-Police,-Ayatollahs-Daughter-Arrested.

[chrisa]

1. It's not a coup when...

These crazy assholes never intended to give up power.

This election was about as fair as, and Iran is about as much of a Democracy as Iraq was during Saddam Hussein's elections. Mousavi is either going to be killed, or spend a long time in jail or exile, no doubt.

[Warpy]

2. Change_for_Iran

has been one of the more prolific posters throughout this thing.

It's worth activating a Twitter account just to read his stuff.

http://twitter.com/Change_for_Iran

On edit: late last night all the social sites were scrolling that there would be a pro Mousavi rally at 12:30. That's the one Ahmedinejad claimed for himself and that's why there was so much green in the crowd.

That's like Stupid's 2000 inauguration when the protesters lobbing eggs and insults were counted as part of his adoring crowd along the parade route.

[grantcart]

3. Interesting, unfortunately a lot of it is just rumor.

The 'numbers' from the Ministry of the Interior that are being leaked are about as credible as the official ones.


Its hard to believe that Karoubi got millions of votes as the opposition coalesced around Mousavi.

[wan]

4. Do the protestors actually have a chance of ousting Ahmadinejad?

[starroute]

6. Not by themselves, but it depends on how the rest shakes down

In 1989, the Chinese government was able to crush the Tiananmen demonstrations because they had the military on their side. The collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was the opposite situation -- the military and police were reluctant to fire on demonstrators to prop up regimes in which they no longer believed.

Some of the more convincing reports out of Iran suggest that what's going on there should be seen as a military coup -- which would mean that the military would have no compunction about violent repression. The protesters are already getting beaten and shot and arrested, and they can't take much more of it.

So if there's going to be any effective resistance, it will have to come from other quarters:

1 - The possibility that the military itself is not monolithic. That there is a core of Revolutionary Guards with a lot to lose from Iran opening up to the world and a lot to gain from establishing a military dictatorship with Ahmadinejad as its figurehead -- but that this is only a core and there are elements of the armed forces and police that are capable of being repelled by the repression and refusing to carry it out.

2 - The possibility of a broader wave of popular opposition carried out in ways that go beyond youth protests. For example, I saw one passing mention last night of a general strike being called for Tuesday.

3 - The possibility that if the ayatollahs are being shunted aside they, or enough of them to matter, will denounce the coup themselves as illegitimate and counter to the spirit of the Islamic Revolution.

I don't have any evidence that any of these things is actually going to happen. What I am saying is that on the basis of past examples in other countries, the protests alone have no chance of succeeding in the face of a brutal crackdown unless some combination of these other things comes into play.

And there are additional factors as well, any of which might play a significant role. The Shi'ite tradition of martyrdom. The simmering revolt in Baluchistan, which the CIA and/or special ops have been stirring up for years and which periodically carries out terrorist attacks within Iran. The attitude of Russia and China and whether they see a military regime in Iran as one they can happily do business with or a source of unwelcome destabilization. The possibility that a military regime which is universally regarded as illegitimate, repressive, and corrupt could trigger serious UN sanctions, of the type they've only been hemming and hawing over when it comes to the nuclear issue.

The one thing I'd be willing to say at this point (with a 60-70% certainty, at any rate) is that they're not going to be able to put the genie back into the bottle and pretend it's all business as usual.

[starroute]

8. Some hint the military/police are not all supporting the coup

A post over at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5846050 suggests (misspellings theirs), "There are also rummers that the Revolutionary Guard will have snipers on the roofs. This is getting really bad, really fast. One sliver of hope, the local police are said to be supporting the opposition in some provences, and the fact that the Iranian Army has not been called up gives hope that the hardliners believe that they don't have their full support."

[jberryhill]

5. 1979 seemed a lot more organized as these things go, do these folks have a realistic chance?

Of a "people power" revolution, such as the Phillipines?

[Exultant Democracy]

7. This is the same way that Batista effectively insured his overthrow.

Recent economic troubles in Iran had already led to a degree of relative deprivation. With this coup the citizen now know that they do not have the ability to effect change within the context of the existing political structure.