on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (04:29):> Seven killed during Iran protest > > Iranian state radio says seven people were killed during Monday’s protests > in Tehran over the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. > > […] — http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8102224.stm The part most concerning US people is probably this: > “We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being > the issue inside of Iran,” Mr Obama said. Well, that’s nearly a truism the US government used to ignore for a long time. If there’s even the smallest public move on part of foreign governments in support of the protests it will be much easier for the state to connect them to “the enemy” and justify more severe suppressive measures. —————————————————————————— The government is organizing a “public” demonstration for ~16:00 local time to counter the scheduled protest demonstration. The list of groups called upon consists of standard codes for various beneficiaries of status quo: “men and women, students, ‘social strata,’ the Hizbollah nation, and suppporters of the Islamic government.” In Iranian state speech each of these terms targets a specific subset of “the nation,” i.e. direct or indirect receivers of payment and benefits in exchange for allegiance to the state. These are different from government employees, a majority in Iran, who do real, honest work for their pay. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (08:49): An awesome propaganda move: IRIB called for “protesting against recent unrest and thuggery.” At the same time and place as the protests against election fraud (read: coup). Mousavi called off today’s demonstration. According to: — http://www.yavar.ir/index2.aspx?siteid=1&pageid=375&newsview=1792 5,000 thugs have been employed and equipped for causing trouble and turning peaceful protests into bloodshed. People have spread the news by unorthodox means and will avoid clashes. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (08:59): Someone says on #iranelection: > GUARDS HAVE STARTED RAIDING HOUSES IN TEHRAN TO TAKE SATELLITE DEVICES. — http://twitter.com/iranelection House by house search is unprecedented. While these reception apparatuses are illegal searching for them in people’s homes is also illegal. No judge has ever issued a blanket warrant for searching every home. No judge has the authority to do so. I have no confirmation for the above bit. For now it must considered a rumor likely to be true only in limited areas of Tehran. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (09:25): I suggest About.com editor, Pierre Tristam, shut his big yap and mind his own business: http://middleeast.about.com/od/iran/p/mir-hossein-moussavi-profile.htm This measure of idiocy and malice is frustrating. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (10:37): “possible that the election could have been valid and that the majority did indeed elect Mr. Ahmadinejad?” I find that highly improbable but cannot completely rule it out as well. Problem is with lack of mutual understanding between the capital, large cities, small cities, and rural areas. Anyhow, there are some undeniable facts upon which one may reason: 1. M. A. could not have won by such a large margin. 2. Some reliable analysts had carefully combined multiple pre-election poll results and predicted a much larger number of votes for Karroubi and a definite win for Mousavi. 3. Some smaller cities where M. A. has been declared victor are comprised of tightly knit communities with blood ties that span across the city. In those cities people can easily confirm through their relatives that M. A. could not have had majority vote. Regardless of any fraudulent activity that has taken place at poll sites and after the election there exists absolutely unquestionable evidence of fraud before the election. It is so widespread and so clear that one cannot really call it fraud. M. A. began spending huge amounts of public money on his target groups, three such groups being pensioners, farmers, and students. One week before the elections relatively large sums of money were handed out as “gift from government” at student dormitories, including that of Tehran University. At Tehran University’s this caused uproar. Students didn’t accept the money. UT dean–the second UT dean to be appointed by government rather than elected by the board of trustees, both after the first stage of the coup 4 years ago–shamelessly claimed the students were upset because “the gift sum was too little.” (UT’s dormitory was attacked the night before last night. Students were beaten, arrested, and probably killed. Reminiscent of Tir 18th, July 9th, events during Khatami’s presidency when plainclothes militiamen raided, looted, and massacred.) At one village from which I have direct news up to 7K USD of bank loans to farmers were forgiven. Zero interest loans of up to 5K USD were lavishly granted for “the purchase of farming equipment.” For Iranian farmers these are considerable sums. In some poor areas “gift from government” consisted of large bags of potatoes. The cabal has given a whole new meaning to corruption. It has been a normal practice of the Islamic Republic (partly due to Iran’s society itself) to cause poverty through corruption, incompetence, nepotism, favoritism, and thieving officials. It has also been a normal practice of the IR to use poverty to its advantage. Small bonuses to the poor from the same people who had robbed them and made them poor in the first place have times over earned the thieves “respect” (read: hope for larger bonuses) from the poor. The cabal took those practices to entirely unimaginable levels with total insolence. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (10:44): My Google Talk connection gets dropped and my connection to one of the IRC servers I frequently use is untenable. I used to connect to both over SSL. The problem with Google Talk and other messengers (Yahoo! and MSN) seems to be common. Transfer speeds are back to normal but control has apparently grown more accurate. IM services are being specifically targeted. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (10:45): (Remember the IRC vs. IM talk? IRC over SSL to Indymedia servers works like a charm.) on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (10:49): Heavy disinformation campaign on the net. The IR is aiming more precisely. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (10:49): Popular networks, however, beat them to it. on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (11:18): Some people just can’t comprehend anything: https://prod.indymedia.nl/nl/2009/06/60105.shtml