I agree, he was the only member in Iran . His insight would have been appreciated but sadly emotions are running high with some Iranian members and he left .
I subscribe to some mail lists talking about ISPs, network neutrality and freedom of information issues on an other site. Ran across this message in case it is of interest to anyone.
I was following many people from Iran on Twitter. I could not find anyone on Twitter who supported Ahmadinejad. Obviously that isn't scientific polling but a bit curious. Anyway many of the people I was following on Twitter just stopped posting. I know Iran cut the Internet off in some places, but I am also a bit worried now that I heard Ahmadinejad supporters were beating protesters. Also came across this: http://mces.blogspot.com/2009/06/please-help.html "The first three hours, they "counted" 20 million votes, a very unusually high rate. The next three hours, only 10. Then there's silence for six hours. No one's responding. Mousavi and Karroubi are pretty much non-existent on the net and news. Karbaschi, the former Tehran mayor and Karroubi's VP stopped tweeting at 4am, saying that they have to wait to hear from Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, and he wouldn't tweet for ten hours. It's this time that bloggers find about the all made up numbers. The following "photo" of the Iran map on fire storms Facebook profile photos:"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...n-the-crowd-a-cry-from-the-heart-1705287.html "When I have wiped my tears away, I have something to be happy and proud of. Mousavi may have lost this fraudulent election, but people will not forget him, and what is more they will draw a line between him and what he represents and this government. What is more, we will never forget this event. People will not give up. They are being crushed into silence, but they won't be silent forever. They have new ways to connect to one another. They, the regime, can block Facebook today but they can't do it forever. Something has changed in this country, people have been cheated but they have seized more freedom. Now we are like caged lions, so taking anything from us will be harder in future."
Read from down to up. http://enduringamerica.com/2009/06/15/the-latest-from-iran-demonstrations-and-uncertainty-15-june/
Mousavi has confirmed reports that he is under virtual house arrest, saying that he is being pressured into accepting the results.
I am in Iran as well and most of the stuff IM was saying were horsecrap. I could have gotten killed yesterday had I not pulled a few jacky chan type moves. Anyways In about 2 hours there's gonna be war. Rahpeymami az meydoon enqelab ta meydoon azadi. People don't care if mousavi shows up or not this time we're going out with weapons of our own.
AP is reporting that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered an investigation into claims of fraud in the election: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090615/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election Is this accurate? Can anyone confirm this? EDIT: CNN is reporting it as well... Looks like it is! http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/15/iran.elections.protests/index.html
official election results here. anybody have thoughts or knowledge? just started a morning thread round-up of news here. i'll be updating throughout the day.
Be careful and best of luck to you. Thanks for the update letting us know you are in country as well.
Flip flopping Ayatollah Maybe I am missing something but I can't believe there is no thread on the Iranian election results. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_iran_election It is amazing that Ali Khamenei has flipped on this. It seems like Ahmadinejad, rolled the dice and said I need to steal this election by a large amount to stop his critics, but now it seems almost certain there will be some huge amounts of fraud uncovered.
Dont put yourselves on such lofty pedestals...you wouldnt like the names people would have in mind if there were ballots in Saudi Arabia. All of America's allies there, KSA, Egypt, Jordan, etc...fare better for your sakes by remaining monarchies and kleptocracies. Indeed, if the Saudi government is a joke, why doesnt your country estrange and sever the strong ties it has in favour of Iran's 'flourishing' democracy? Dont want to be labled a hypocrite? Then please, support democracy accross the Arab world instead of restraining it. Then again, realpolitik calls for practicality and logic superseding lofty ideals at the risk of being labled 'hypocrite'. Unless you want a repeat of the Hamas victory elsewhere, the US will continue befriending these 'joke' governments as you call them. So choose your medicine American, a hypocrite, or a naive idealist. On topic, truth of the matter is the opposing camp in Iran seem to be sore losers, and the west are loving it, using these sore losers and the detached Iranian diaspora as instruments to sow discord within Iran and undermine Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi, Karrubi, Karbaschi (his running mate and former mayor of Tehran) and Khatami are all said to be taking part in the rally.
The 10 days is the limit the Guardian Council has to review the complaints received and state whether there was anything wrong with the elections. The general view at this point seems to be an attempt to drag this along for a little for the protests and the momentum of the protests to cease. Khamenei announcing the winner and accepting the results before all the procedural aspects had been satisfied (he is supposed to announce after the Ministry of Interior had officially announced it, and the time for lodging complaints had elapsed) and for AN to hold his election victory rally. It was all signs of a quick coup. And many are saying a recount at this stage is pointless!! It will be the same people who have simply had more time to make the recount seem more believable (let's not forget that AN's people will be doing the recounting and they've been holding onto the votes all this time). So Khatami's brother has said that Khatami has said nothing short of a re-election will do! PS last night everyone was told to go to their rooftops and shout God is Great (Allah-o-Akbar). Apparently it was quite a spectacle. And now the crowds in the rally are huge! So that people are having to walk for hours just to be able to get to the actual rally!! Mousavi, Karrubi and Khatami attended to invite people to calm despite not getting the permission for the rally. There are various "military" forces doing excercises on the other side of the motorway and keeping a close watch over the crowds.
Obviously I was hoping that Mousavi won and hope that something comes out of this. The reasons: 1. I am a believer in liberal democracy 2. I oppose theocracy as a governing principle 3. I see the current Iranian regime as a threat to my country (and to others). Still, given the power the religous establishment holds, I am not sure much would change, expect, other than the glad result that the Iranian nuclear weapons program would end (the religious establishment is unhappy with the program). This would allow us to cancel the anti-missile site in Europe, ending a bone of contention between with and Russia in the process (and further disengaging us from our old European security guarrantee). In any event, I actually think President Obama, by taking a soft middle road on this, is handling it correctly. By not coming out to strongly in favor of Mousavi, Obama deflects comments from the hardline camp that Mousavi is nothing but a Western puppet. That said, those protesting in the streets are far braver than me -- especially if rumors that some of the crowd control has been given over to foregin troops (though that strikes me as being untrue).
Happening right now, millions on the streets of Iran: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey9Kgf-cB40"]YouTube - 15th June 2009 millions protest in iran against election fraud in Iran[/ame]
I consider myself a little bit of both. Although one man's hypocrite is another man's calculating realist. With Bush gone, I think on foreign policy we are all supposed to be realists now.