Major Iran Update

Huge happenings over the weekend:

21st of June.

Two major events happened today:

- Grand Ayatollah Montazeri went directly against Ayatollah Khamenei's wishes and declared a 3-day mourning period in Iran, while Khamenei had ordered mosques to avoid making ceremonies in the memory of the fallen victims of governmental violence.

- The Guardian Council admitted that in 50 cities, there were in fact more vote recorded than there are registered voters and said they were looking into the situation. Seeing as the GC is under direct control of Khamenei, this is very likely an attempt at damage control from people who have yet to grasp how deep the schism in Iran is. This could be an attempt to ultimately blame Ahmadinejad for the irregularities and throw him under the bus in order to save their skin, which would be a sign they don't fully realize yet what is happening.

- Aside from that, as expected there were clashes all over Iran, but subsided since the 20th. The Iranian Government went on the offensive, kicking out a BBC correspondent and attacking Western countries for what they see as meddling in Iranian internal affairs. Tomorrow Mousavi has called for a general strike all over Iran. It seems that business activity that the already paralyzed country will be stopped completely.

From the 19th to the 20th of June. post-Khamenei speech.

If anyone doubted this is a Revolution and that this was bigger than the election, there is no such doubt anymore. While Khameini directly called for them to stop, the population took the street more numerous than ever. This is direct defiance to the Supreme Leader. Here are the major events that happened between the end of Khamenei's speech and midnight on Saturday.

- Before the protest even began, heavily armed men were waiting for the dissidents, planning to prevent them from reaching the rally point. It didn't take long for the peaceful protests to turn into full-fledged riots. Security forces had also closed off the Tehran university to prevent students from leaving to protest or entering to take shelter. Basij, some security forces and what is suspected to be members of the Revolutionary Guard assaulted the protesters. The protesters fought back while chanting "Death to Khamenei" and "Down with Khamenei". The security forces used water cannons and tear gas to try and disperse the protesters. While the tear gas was partly successful, the water cannons were mostly useless, as they were quickly over ran by the protesters.

- A lot of eyewitnesses report that the Basij now fighting appear to be barely older than teenagers, most of them between 16 and 20, taking a real pleasure in the violence. Others report that up to hundreds of both security forces and Basij were injured in the last series of clashes. The Basij forces are using pvc tubes filled with concretes, bats, even knives and are assaulting people everywhere, down to metro stations.

- A bomb exploded at the Khomeini Shrine, killing one and injuring at least two. Most believe that the government is in fact behind it. Khamenei was a major figure of the previous Revolution, and they used a similar tactics then, destroying buildings and blaming it on the Shah in order to turn the population against him. The State television is of course blaming Mousavi for it and calling for a harsher treatment of the protesters. This is also very convenient for the Regime, has Mousavi said he would take refuge there if he feared for his safety, but now all access is blocked.

- In return, the harsher the treatment of protesters by the security forces, the harsher the rhetoric and reaction of the protesters. They are calling for the death of the regime, the death of Khamenei, the death of their oppressors and that they will avenge them. Once the gun shots started, the protesters went wild, beating down security forces and basij forces they caught to a pulp, while the Basij and security forces are showing absolutely no restraint, even less than they previously had.

- There are many reports that the security forces and Basij still ever present in hospitals and clinics. Basij are kidnapping some of those injured, while the security forces is identifying those participating in the protest. In order to arrest protesters, security forces raided the Khomeini Hospital in order to arrest injured protesters. There are rumours that Basij forces have hijacked ambulances and use them as a trap to brutally assault already injured protesters seeking help, or shoot at them. Iranian journalists, Reformist intellectuals and feminists are still being arrested and rounded up to prevent from reporting the news or reaching out.

- As the protests grew, extreme measures started to used by those trying to repress the Iranians asking for freedom. Gun shots were first fired in the air, but it did not take long for them to be fired at the protesters. A liquid was dropped from helicopters, creating severe skin burns on protesters. We are unsure what the liquid was. They are also openly opening fire on the crowds, 40 to 60 people at least were killed in a single day, and scores more injured according to protesters. There are also reports that Revolutionary Guard Helicopters dropped firearms crates to 500 Basij fighters, as they are more willing than government forces to use them on civilians.

- The protesters are fighting back, taking over anti-riot trucks and burning them, attacking Basij bases and burning another one to the ground. There are report that a security forces truck was actually blown up by the protesters. In many instances, government forces have been force to fled under the constant assault of the people. Another report mentioned a security forces post was burning as well.

- The Iran Fatemiyeh Hospital in Tehran has confirmed at least 40 dead as well as 200 injured. Other sources report that hundreds of security forces and hundreds of basij fighters were injured as well.

- At night the protesters joined each others on the roofs in Tehran, shouting "Allah-u Ackbar", "Margh Bar Khamenei" and chanting "I will welcome death, I will welcome death, but no subjugation, but no subjugation". None of the rhetoric is addressed to Ahmadinejad anymore, all of it is directed to Khamenei and the regime. Many of the popular chants throughout the day were "I will kill those who killed my brother/sister", "Death to the Government", "Death to Khamenei" and "Seyed Ali Pinoshe, Iran won't be Chile".

- China has been censoring all news coming from Iran. Obama's restraint has been useless, as the Iranian government has shown a video of him with a false translation where Obama declared his support for the protesters, and that they should keep on protesting.

- Mousavi gave a speech and declared that if he is arrested, then the whole nation should strike. He also told the people that he is ready for martyrdom.

- There are unconfirmed reports that the Army is now refusing to follow orders and will not attack the protesters. The newest strategy from the government seems to be arming the Basij, dressing them in riot gear, team them up with IRG soldiers, and try to prevent massive rallies and keep them localized instead, as they are easier to stop spreading.

Istill don't think people realize the hugeness of all this. This is one of the most hardline Islamic countries attemtping to overthrow thier Islamic dictators.

The Fighting Keyboardists

Concerning the interweb support for the Iranian revolution, I felt it necessary to list the different regiments, and the function of each.

The 101st Chairborne Infantry Division - (A catch all for most interweb units) - "Duty, Honor, 127.0.0.1"

The 1337th Fighting Keyboards Mechanized Division (providing proxies, DDoSing sites, and such)- "From dev/null We Stab At Thee"

Special Forces who are simply Anonymous (The ones on the ground in Iran twittering) - "Alone, Unarmed, Unafraid"

32nd Mechanized Heavy Farktillary Division - "Baffle them with brilliance, or bombard them with bullshiat."

501st Hacktivists division (hacking sites) - "What's that on our webp... OH GOD, MY EYES! KILL IT WITH FIRE!"

The Irregular Internet Militia - Everybody else

58008th SAC Squadron, - tasked with moving and lifting the 101st Chairborne Division as part of 1st Joint Task Conundrum.

The 404th Logistical Support Battalion (proxies) - "We Hide With Pride So Others May Be Found"

Special Investigations: Tatsuma Unit - "Because isn't kosher."

I am a proud member of both the 1337th AND the 32nd. Sort of an inter-service thing.
We're currently working on unit patches, I'll post them when available.

It Has A Name: The Green Revolution

So the revolution has a name now: The Green Revolution. The GreatMoose offers his solidarity to these folks. Wish there was more I could do. When I get home, I may try to see if I can support the hacking attacks 4chan has broiled up. If nothing else, I'll make a Proxy server that Iranians can use to bypass the government blocks and filters. If you'd like to help try this: http://www.pagereboot.com/ie/ , and then put in the target site you'd like to help overload. Here's some suggestions:

http://www.khamenei.ir/
http://presstv.ir/
http://irna.ir/
http://www.president.ir/ (Ahmedinejad's site)
http://police.ir/

Set that to reboot that page as much as possible and help bring down the gov't servers. If you'd like to set up a proxy server for iranian citizens to use, go here: http://blog.austinheap.com/2009/06/15/how-to-setup-a-proxy-for-iran-citizens/


Anyway,

There's some SERIOUSLY disturbing tweets out there, one of them from Change_for_Iran:

"it's worth taking the risk, we're going. I won't be able to update until I'm back. again thanks for your kind support and wish us luck"

And no one has heard from him since. That was several hours ago. Persianwiki is still around, talking about how plainclothes Basij (milita members, brownshirts, if you will) are massing near a basij station, waiting for something...

we only want freedom - we are peaceful - we have no life no future in IRI without freedom - #Iranelection 39 minutes ago from web
we are all tired - no sleep for 3 days - one of us is injured from baton - waiting for doctor #Iranelection 44 minutes ago from web
it is very hard here - we are under big pressure and risk - we are being tracked on twitter - #Iranelection about 1 hour ago from web
thanks to all people following us and trusting us. we are trying to give you correct info - #Iranelection about 1 hour ago from web
more than 100 students missing from Tehran Uni dorms - reports of several dead from last night #Iranelection about 1 hour ago from web
unconfirmed - up to 7 dead in Azadi sq today #Iranelection about 1 hour ago from web

pedestrians avoid military baraks off Pasdaran St - something is going to happen from there - #Iranelection about 1 hour ago from web
large number of plain clothes with bikes hiding in military barraks off Pasdaran - dont know what they are planning - #Iranelectionabout 1 hour ago from web

The tweets from this morning and the Tehran University attack were extremely unnerving. people crying out for help on twitter as they are being attacked... and follow along.

UPDATED EARLIER POST. Also, I've changed the color scheme to Iranian green as a show of support.

UPDATED: Major Happenings In Iran

In short, Iran may be in the beginning of new revolution. They held elections three days ago, and it appears that they were rigged (that nutbag Ahmedinedjad won, even though Mousavi was projected to win). So, there's massive protests all over the country right now. What we know:

Iranian elections were held.
Results seemed really sketchy. Like Florida 2000, but in the entire country except for California and New York sketchy.
The "losers" called for a re-election.
The Big Boss Men in charge said "We'll take a look at it *wink*"
Citizens of all ages threatened to protest.
Gov't said "If you protest, we'll shoot you"
Citizens protested.
Everything was tense, but peaceful.
Eventually a few people got shot, at least 1 dead.
Protesters beat the shooters to death (allegedly).
Other "losers" will give speeches tonight to support the rally.



Amazingly enough, twitter is actually the best place for current info, mainly by a couple of guys: Change_for_Iran, persiankiwi, and StopAhmedi.

You can follow along with stuff here: http://iran.twazzup.com/

The wikipedia entry has a lot of helpful info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_election_protests

More as I know it. This is a big deal, folks.

There's talk of this picture winning the Pulitzer prize:



It's a protester helping protect an injured riot cop. Wow.

EDIT: Major Update, lots of info

One confirmed dead as police start shooting protestors. here's a REALLY LONG but incredibly useful breakdown of what's going on:

Suppression of Dissent - The Players

Currently, there are two or three groups who are suppressing the students on the ground that you'll read about throughout this thread:

1. The Basij (confirmed)
2. Ansar Hizbullah (confirmed, which I will refer to as Ansar)
3. Lebanese Hizbullah (unconfirmed but highly probable in the mind of Persians, many different independent reports and video point that wa; I will refer to them as Hizbullah)

- The Basij are your regular paramilitary organization. They are the armed hand of the clerics. The Basij are a legal group, officially a student union, and are legally under direct orders of the Revolutionary Guard. Their main raison d'être is to quell dissent. They are the ones who go and crack skulls, force people to participate in pro-regime demonstrations, and generally try to stop any demonstrations from even starting. They are basically located throughout the country, in every mosque, every university, every social club you can think of. They function in a way very similar to the brown shirts.

They were the ones who first started the crackdown after the election but it wasn't enough. While they are violent and repressive, they are still Persian and attacking fellow citizens. A beating is one thing, mass killings another.

- Another group was working with them, who are even more extreme, is Ansar. There is a lot of cross-membership between the Basij and Ansar, though not all members are members of the other group and vice-versa. The vast majority of Ansar are Persians (either Basij or ex-military), though a lot of Arab recruits come from Lebanon and train with them under supervision of the Revolutionary Guard. They are not a legal group, they are considered pretty much a vigilante group, but they pledge loyalty directly to the Supreme Leader and most people believe that they are under his control. They are currently helping the Basij to control the riots, but due to the fact that they are Persians and in lower numbers than the Basij, they are not that active.

- (the following paragraph includes some speculation based on reports from ground zero) Hizbullah flew in a lot of their members in Iran, most likely a good deal even before the elections in case there were trouble. They are the ones who speak Arabs and are unleashing the biggest level of violence on the Persians so far. Another wave arrived recently and there is chatter that yet another wave of Hizbullah reinforcements are coming in from Lebanon as we speak. According to Iranians on the ground, they are the ones riding motorcycles, beating men women and children indiscriminately and firing live ammunitions at students.

The Lebanese Hizbullah is a direct offshoot (and under direct control) of the Iranian Hizbullah (itself under direct control of the Supreme Leader) and cooperates closely with Ansar though Ansar occupies itself only with Iran's domestic policies, while Hizbullah occupies itself only with Iran's foreign policy unless there is a crisis like right now. However, Hizbullah has been called to stop violent riots in Iran in the past.

What will happen

Unless the army decides to intervene in the favor of the Council and to stop the (what now looks like) early beginnings of the new Revolution, Ansar & Hizbullah members will be the ones doing the brunt of the killing and repression with Basij as a support while also protecting government buildings and try to do crowd control. The police seems to have for the most part disbanded in centers like Tehran according to all reports, including international media. If the police decides to come back, they will focus less on protection and crowd control, so the Basij will start to crack more skulls).

Currently, this is what is happening.


Timeline
note: I built this through both articles and twitter feeds, so I do not claim that this is a 100% factually correct representation of reality, but this is the general narrative.

- When the first spontaneous riots erupted, the first wave the Iranian Riot Police was called in, and short after the Basij also took the scene. The RP concentrated mostly around public buildings and streets while the Basij took position around student groups, especiallly universities.

- As things got more out of hand, more and more Basij troops were called in, as the police started dispersing. The riot police are less inclined (or, rather I should say the Basij are more inclined) to use violence so they retreated and leaving the place to the

- With the second wave of Basij also came Ansar Hizbullah members. This is the point where firearms started being used. There are reports of a few murders but it was mostly fired in the air or on walls in order to scare away protesters in University dorms.

- It's around the time of the second wave that the first reports and videos of an important number of non-Persian thugs shouting in Arabic and violently beating people with chains, clubs and electric batons (similar to cattle prods). The end of the second wave came right before the beginning of the current manifestation. Things were getting quieter with only sporadic reports of dissenters being assaulted. Important to note: at this time. the Supreme Leader has authorized these militias to use live ammunition against the crowd if things get out of hand (source: BBC)

- - This brings us to the third wave, which just began around 12:30PM for those of us on the East Coast. According to all reports, plainclothes militia have opened fire on civilians protesting peacefully. Chaos erupted in the streets, with reports of fighting all over Tehran and spreading over Iran. Pictures of people shot, some to death, surfaced and were published in the mainstream media. Things very are ugly and this is spreading in other cities as well. Violent and murderous repression has started. At least a twenty people have been killed so far. Things will spiral down fast, and very soon.

There is a major crackdown on students, especially those with connections to the outside world going on right now. Some people report that the students are fighting back in some areas. Telephones are being bugged and everyone twittering and sending videos outside of Iran are being rounded up. ISPs were shut down, government hackers are threatening people who twitter, and some of them have vanished in the last 24 hours.

Later, the people started to fight back. First, they took over and burned down a Basij base, killing its commander. Later, a Basij shot a young man in the face in front of their HQ, at which point a policeman went to confront them. The Basij beat the policeman, at which point students stormed the compound, throwing molotov cocktails, burning it to the ground. This is very big.

Tomorrow (or today as of the 16th of June)

Supporters of Moussavi have a manifestation planned for 5pm, Tehran time. Roughly the same number or more is expected to attend. Plenty of twitter chat about dressing in black.

The pro-Ahmadinejad crowd however are planning a counter-demonstration at the very same place the supporters are supposed to gather at 3pm. Most agree that basically they are simply going to gather for a confrontation. Basij from all over the country are moving to Tehran and supporters are being bused from all over the country.

A major showdown is expected to unfold

The Supreme Leader has also called for a 10-day inquiry into the claims of fraud, but it has been widely dismissed as cosmetic. The Revolution lives on.

Demands from the protesters

1. Dismissal of Khamenei for not being a fair leader
2. Dismissal of Ahmadinejad for his illegal acts
3. Temporary appointment of Ayatollah Montazeri as the Supreme Leader
4. Recognition of Mousavi as the President
5. Forming the Cabinet by Mousavi to prepare for revising the Constitution
6. unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners
7. Dissolution of all organs of repression, public or secret.

Who is Grand Ayatollah Montazeri?

Ayatollah Montazeri is a pro-Democracy, pro-Human Rights Ayatollah who was at one point on the short list of possible successors of Khomeini, but became marginalized as he adopted what was seen as a too pro-Western, pro-Democracy stance.

Since the beginning of the Revolution, he has been one of the fiercest critics of the Regime, and one of the biggest proponents of women and civil rights for ALL Iranians, including much-maligned minorities like the Baha'is. In fact he goes further than the protections afforded to them under Sharia.

He is also a big critic of Ahmadinejad and has been seen for years as the best hope for Iran if he ever was to come to power, something that was unthinkable a mere week ago.

Big things are afoot.

UPDATE: Lots of reports of gunfire, and a growing internet war with the Iranian government. The gov't is hacking all non-pro-ahmedinejad sites, but the protesters are using twitter to get people to hack the gov't sites. Pretty amazing stuff. The dsiplays of solidarity from around the world are incredibly moving. Will post some images shortly. Titterer "persiankiwi" has made CNN, there's protests all over the globe (New York, LA, Paris, Toronto, Dubai, and many others). this is really happening, folks. It's not every day you get to see a people free themselves from thier oppressors (of course, if your in the US, you won't really notice it all, since NO ONE IS FARKING CARRYING IT!!!) I hate our media.

I'll be posting personal thoughts here:

1. Twitter is politically significant, and 4Chan is helping with the fight? I think hell just froze over.
2. I REALLY hate our media.
3. This is what happens when a people truly care about thier freedom.
4. I wonder if America will ever be at that point again?
5. Inconsequential as it is, I'll never look at the Iranian people the same way again. Seeing a civil war erupt in near real time via twitter and other sites, seeing up to the minute coverage and the inner thoughts that could never get reported on MSM coverage, and seeing pleas for help from real people (not talking pundits) has completely changed my mind.

Keep fighting folks, and stay as safe as you can. You're making history.

5. The following pictures don't look like Kent State, or Tienemen Square. They look like regime change.







This Picasa Web Album has tons of stuff in it; http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bahramks/RiotsInTehran#

Absolutely incredible images here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html. If you want to see the whole story in pictures, go there.

Just In Case You're Still Confused...

...about the DTV switch that happens TONIGHT, here's a handy flowchart from our friends at Consumerist.com:



Hope that helps. You've only had 3 years to prepare, so I know you might be caught off guard. Of course, none of my regular reader* will have this problem.



*No, that's not a missprint.