Sunday, June 14, 2009

Gripping Picture of the Uprising in Iran

Iranian Woman Holding Flag with Fist in the Air

So I have been keeping up with this situation quite a bit, and I have to say that this picture has by far left the most impression on me of what is going on in Iran. The picture reminds me of the man standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Riots in Tehran, Iran

So I was looking at Reuters last night, and it seems that the Iran elections were rigged, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won the election against the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, according to Iran national media. The Iranian people have taken to the streets in large numbers and have started resisting against the current regime.

The topic interested me, so I decided to check out the news sources I usually look for. Since not much has been covered on the mainstream media in depth on any news channels and many big news sites, I decided to try social media sites and started to be able to piece together my own story. Here is the scoop according to many sites I have read from around the web in the last few hours.

An announcement was made on national television in Iran that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the recent Presidential election, retaining his position.

The attendance of the election was said to be the biggest ever recorded, at least by Christiane Amanpour from CNN. Aside from Amanpour's 2 minute piece on just a hint of what was going on, there was not much, if any, breaking news coverage about the rioting that had started at about 4AM Iran time from any major US news outlet on my TV anyway. There was an MSNBC clip that I caught on their website, that I wasn't sure if it was broadcast on TV or not. It looks like it might have been, but I didn't see anything on their channel when I looked. Mostly, US news outlets were covering things that would be better suited for The Inquirer. These topics are not generally considered news to intellectuals. Overall, this is a disturbing revelation about our news outlets.

Just mintues before the announcement, many forms of communications throughout Iran were disrupted.

Cell phone communications were blocked, or disrupted in many areas, including SMS and texting.
Land line phone communications were also disrupted in many areas.

Iran blocks many news outlets and the big social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and eventually Twitter.

Twitter was by far the best source of information about what was going on, as it seemed to slip passed Iran's efforts to censor news about what was going on. In fact, a peaceful protest solution was broadcast across Twitter and 10's of thousands of Iranians headed to their rooftops to chant together in union against the government.

Then Twitter was silenced when the Iran government blocked it as well. At that point, there was even a time where the #iranelection trending topic disappeared from Twitter's trending topics, which was even more disturbing. That trending topic returned later on, but had alot of buzz itself during the peak of the madness.

Here are some great sources for pictures and videos that I found of the protesting and resistance around Tehran. Updating when I find more!
Videos
Tehran protests against election results - an emerging second revolution?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsh6NYss2f8
Protest againt fake elections TEHRAN IRAN 13 June 2009 17:45 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nifgnonH-BU
Protesting against huge cheating in presidential election in iran 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIAd3-ADow4
Dargiri 23 Khordad, Valiasr st., Eskan Complex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F82liEzGUE
BBC Reports Live from Tehran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4NQ8x0cDc
Iranian Election Riots 2009 Raw Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYGVA0S5V2U
Police invasion on people, Tehran, vanak Sq. 13th June 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54GESbxHASw
Protests in Tehran after rigged election
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urUipN165Uw
Iran election. Riot in tehran streets after election day - 13/06/09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0MkATcn04M
Protests in Tehran after election - Riot police caught by crowd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSECAvBTanQ
Esfehan after iranian election. Riot police running away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRUTh76486I
14/06/09 - Riot after iranian election - Police run away from crowd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbqoH4bk6I4
Tehran BusExplosion 23Khordad Tazahorat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cCjY6VT2jQ
23 khordad Shishe Mashin tehran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9jJw4vgoxs
Iranian Riots - Burning bus in Tehran part 2 (June 14th)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W4uo4gGgAg
Iranian Police Brutality - Beating the people (June 14th)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CtyfLJ5yy4
Cam 2009 06 14 20 11 08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GF0NEV3Hws
Dafi Fools - Tehran Burning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ru2Okezlzc

Iranian Named Videos - Sorry I can't translate :(
شیراز 24 خرداد
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSN3tdrdj5s
حمله به دانشگاه شیراز با گاز اشکاور
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQkFtMm7Gnc
محاصره دانشگاه شیراز توسط یگان ویژه
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mlNHAubgEo
حمله به دانشگاه شیراز با گاز اشکاور
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwTPsD8Q__8


Pictures
Iran Streets After Elections
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mousavi1388/

*Update - I have removed Twitter usernames for the safety of the people sending information. There have been several tweets I have read that are warning that Iranian government agents are trying to stop the tweets in any way possible. I would rather not contribute to that, as I am trying to help.

I will keep this post updated with more links and information when I can. I will tweet about further updates.