video from Iran News blogspot

Iranian-Canadian Amir Safavi-Naeini writes re Iran:

Just thought I'd let you in quickly on what has happened in the last 24 hours.

Some of these reports are still in Farsi, and I'll translate. Basically, last night, according to phone call to Voice of America from one of the people inside Mousavi's election committee, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the following happened:
The Interior Ministry called Mousavi, told him... he'd won. Told the progressive newspapers to avoid printing the word "victory" in publications. Then it seems like "they" essentially changed their minds. All mobiles in Tehran are shut off. The power in the city is shut off. Armed and plain clothes officers are sent to main streets and intersections. Rafsanjani, Noori and Mousavi attempted to contact the leader regarding this, and most of the night is spent with them in meetings, trying to figure out how suddenly AN [Ahmadinejad] is winning exactly 66% regardless of location.

Now Iran is a country where Farsi speakers are a minority. In previous elections there have always been huge variations based on ethnicity, and previous Azeri candidates have won disproportionately in Azeri regions. Mousavi is Azeri. If we are to believe the election results, Ahmadinejad won 60% in Mousavi's home town. Karroubi is from Lorestan, in the previous election he won 5M votes, because all the Lor voted for him. This time, he's essentially come 5th in a 4 person race if one counts the invalid ballots. Apparently AN won >60% in Karroubi's home town, a town which overwhelmingly voted for him previously. The results have been clearly falsified. For the expatriate results, they've given more than half to A.N.; another clear falsification.

Back to Iran, on June 13th, Khamenei, without agreeing to meet with Mousavi, Karroubi and Rafsanjani, validated the election results, essentially removing all legal ways by which the results may be disputed. He did this the very next day. Usually he takes 3 days, to insure there are no irregularities.

In the morning (June 13th) people took to the streets, demonstrations seem to have been spontaneous and have become violent in many parts. There are pictures of burning police motorcycles and bleeding protesters and officers, and films of plain clothes cops grabbing leaders. Here is a blog which essentially captures what has been happening in pictures and clips: http://iran101.blogspot.com/

There are reports of deaths, though it seems like "hokm'e tir" (license to fire guns) has not been given.

On another front, Mousavi is placed under house arrest. Leading reformers are arrested, including Khatami's brother and his wife. 10s of reporters are also arrested.

Various cities have been put under military rule, including Tabriz (Mousavi's home town, an ethnic Azeri city) and Qom; Shia Islam's Vatican city.

All mobiles have been shut off for the last 24 hours or so. Facebook, Twitter, etc. are blocked ("filtered"). All foreign reporters have been asked to leave.

Most disturbing are the (English) tweets of Farhad: http://twitter.com/Change_for_Iran, a university student at Tehran who has been walled up inside the University of Tehran residences. Example: "Ahmadynezad now calls himself 'seyed' (bloodline of prophet mohammad) & wearing a green shawl on state TV! unbelievable!"

You have to understand, traditional media has completely failed us. Iranians out of country have been glued to Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and blogs, since they are the only fast and reliable sources of news. We feel completely helpless outside the country and can only imagine what those inside (who we cannot contact) must be feeling.

A Farsi twitter feed which has been silent for last few hours is that of (previously jailed) F. Ghazi, a brave Iranian citizen journalist.
http://twitter.com/Iranbaan

We can only hope and pray that today will bring another relatively bloodless day for the streets of Tehran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Qom, Esfehan, Babol, etc.

P.S. Please also note this source in EN/Farsi: http://twitter.com/Gita.

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