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[My Gang] John Lennon - Power To The People : Reco of the Week 16 Jun 09…

16 Jun 2009, 20:58

Track: PlayPower to the People (full track)
Artist: John Lennon
Tags: , ,
Video: Click the pic...

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Well, what else was I going to pick this week, the week of a fraudulent election in Iran, mass protests, banned media, internet censorship, worldwide support and the sudden vital importance of, of all things, Twitter. #iranelection.

This is no ordinary protest and it's not just about a disputed election. It's the biggest rally since the days of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Live shooting into peaceful, silent protestors wasn't limited to Tehran, there are reports that it was happening in many other cities around the country, increasing international concern.

Iran is an extremely sophisticated country when it comes to new technology. There are more bloggers there than anywhere else. They are highly intelligent and well-educated, many having studied overseas. 50% of the population are under the age of 25. 70% weren't even born when the Shah was in power. We have a huge disparity between a very young and vital population and ageing hard-line leaders. It was only a matter of time before years of brewing resentment burst.

The Iranian nation has woken up. People who are not usually vocal are out in the streets. Demonstrations are usually difficult to organise yet Tehran's Azadi Square (Freedom Square), which has a capacity of 500,000, was packed.



There's no leader of the mass protests. No one is giving speeches or directing people. Just thousands upon thousands of people fed up and angry. Initially, it was a foregone conclusion that Ahmadinejad would 'win' then out of nowhere came Mousavi who gave people hope. (sound familiar?)



Initially called the revolution within the revolution, once the news came out that official guards were switching sides, it became reasonable to view events as the beginning of something much bigger.

Foreign journalists were banned from leaving their offices and hotels. Restrictions started on the day of the election. This forced people to get the news out themselves, becoming citizen journalists, posting to social network sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Facebook was eventually blocked. Videos posted to YouTube were being removed. This left Twitter and Flickr to get the messages out. Despite attempts to restrict that too, Twitter leads the way in the cyberwar. Twitter can't be controlled by government. People can tweet via mobile phones, web browsers or specialized applications. It is the ultimate vehicle for freedom of speech. Whilst official news agencies were playing down events, real news from the streets was being tweeted. And as one person put it, "140 chars is a novel when you're being shot at."

'Tweets' poured in at a rate of about 200 per minute at one point in the early hours of Tuesday morning (UK). They came from within Iran, from students and ordinary people, from saboteurs intent on derailing and confusing people, as well as from around the world. I was watching late at night whilst Europe was sleeping. At that time, the messages of support were coming from Americans. People were 're-tweeting' breaking news and information of interest and crucially, were offering private proxies to Iranians who had had their internet blocked. It was hard to keep up. Journalist, Andrew Sullivan, pulled together a list of must-see tweets - Live-Tweeting The Revolution. Tweeters changed their avatars to green, Mir-Hossein Mousavi's campaign color, and some changed their time and location to fool Iranian officials. We didn't see a single celebrity.



Twitter itself was due for a scheduled maintenance last night during peak Iranian hours. Thousands of Tweeters protested. Then the US Government stepped in and requested it stay up due to the extraordinary circumstances.

Images that came in were extremely distressing. Although some were removed from YouTube, newspapers were able to grab them and post them on their own sites. Here's a short list, and of course, be warned.
Excellent photo-journalism: The Boston Globe
Personal photos of the election protests on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi/
New York Times on the Twitter story: Social Networks Spread Defiance Online
YouTube video Iranian dead boy carried by crowd (extremely upsetting): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgz6huzHGY
Videos hosted on Breitbart.tv - http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=360933 The first video shows guards inside a private house beating a man to motionlessness.
The Guardian pulls together more videos: From Iran to the world
Exclusive to UK Channel 4 News: news report
Picasa Web Album - destruction at Tehran University

Must see video: What's going on in Iran? June 2009 Green Revolution Watch it. Share it.

Also see:
Obama's "deeply troubled" speech in full: Peace Action West - blog
Boing Boing issued a cyberwar guide: Cyberwar guide for Iran elections
The Times: Iran curbs rallies and media after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election
The New York Times described the background: Iran
Good blog to watch: Where Is My Vote?
And even the Pirate Bay joined in, the link going to a bulletin board:


Tweeters to follow:
persiankiwi
Change_for_Iran an Iranian student
mousavi1388
Follow the hashtag #iranelection. Don't worry about the lies sending you off to other searches. This one works fine.

I don't think we're witnessing 'unrest'. I think we're witnessing change on a massive scale. I am just old enough to remember the Iranian Revolution of 1979. I was still young but I'd started taking an interest in the news and my Dad took the time to explain things to me. 1979 was also the year Pakistan's President Bhutto was sentenced to death. And no, he wasn't hanged like it says in Wikipedia. He was tortured to death in his prison cell and his battered corpse was hung. That was when his wife and children were allowed to see him. 1979 was the year Islam shifted from a progressive, forward thinking mindset to the virtual opposite. 30 years down the line and to me, it looks like we might be witnessing the beginnings of a reversal. Just a few days ago, an anti-Taliban muslim cleric was bombed by the Taliban, presumably for not being 'muslim enough'. In his speech in Russia, Ahmadinejad talked about the coming of 'an end of empires', meaning the USA. More like it's an end of his own. Inshallah.

The world is watching.


UPDATE: 17 June 09 - I won't update this journal but if you wish to keep up with things I find, see my StumbleUpon tag for iran-election

Last.fm group: Iran (The Green Revolution)


Babs My Gang

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Ahmadinejad getting "Clicked to death"!!


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Comments

  • lizvelrene wrote:
    17 Jun 2009, 17:58
    This is a great report, Babs. I hope all of these twitterers are very, very careful out there. I worry for them.

    I'm following this NYT site right now which is doing a decent job of providing fast updates: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    17 Jun 2009, 18:00
    Thanks, lizvelrene. :) And thanks also for the link. I've SU'd it so more people see it.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    17 Jun 2009, 18:17
    7.16pm, (UK), Weds, day 5. Just saw 948 tweets in the space of 1 minute. There's spam in amongst all this. Momentum hasn't dipped at all.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 01:02
    Mashable reports "Mindblowing #IranElection Stats: 221,744 Tweets Per Hour at Peak" http://mashable.com/2009/06/17/iranelection-crisis-numbers/

    also reported:
    The Blogosphere: 2,250,000 Blog Posts in 24 hours
    YouTube: 184,500 Videos on Iran, 3000 in One Day

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  • Tecfan wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 05:57

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  • HodgeStar wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 09:45
    Thanks for your journal post. Though, i don't agree with your fazit. We do witness unrest. An unrest going on for years now erupting amidst change on a global scale. just like in GDR 1989 - "We are the people"

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 15:48
    I meant it's not the 'ordinary' kind. It's not 'merely' unrest. I meant it's more than that. Or that's how it seems or maybe that's what I'm hoping for.

    Thanks for the comments, guys.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 16:09
    Cyberwar guide for beginners http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIAatnvH_rY

    This isn't a meme. You could get someone killed if you don't know what you're doing.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 16:26
    Observation:

    Old media (newspapers) vs New media (Twitter / blogs): articles written for established news agencies are already out-of-date by the time they've been written, let alone then gone through the proper channels before going to print.

    Watching news come in on Twitter is like being wired on caffeine. Thousands of messages pour in per minute. What you have to do is work out your own filters - what's spam? what's porn? who are the usual culprits and therefore safe to ignore? who should you NOT click on? All this at a glance. Then you have to figure out who you CAN trust, then quickly click on the link and speed-read. Then, either 're-tweet' or forward to your trusted network. If you forward, you have to briefly say what it is you're forwarding so your recipients know immediately what it is and why they should spend a few minutes reading it. Time - there isn't any.

    Sources / links can disappear as fast as they appear. News is old by the next page refresh. Some items seem to be stuck in a time warp - I'm still seeing some links that were new on Monday. Some of these are being 're-tweeted' to spam the messages. i.e. if they're full of crap, the real messages are buried. But some 'old' links are so serious, everybody must understand what they are. They keep the momentum going.

    Old media - journalists are 'enjoying' having a significant event to sink their teeth into. It's kind of sad though - newspapers are struggling, old media might not exist for very long yet it's their integrity, their hard work and their sheer bravery, not to mention their training in making sense of confusing situations, that are being contrasted against cyber-speed and cyber-speak. Right now, we can use both. But I worry for their future.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    18 Jun 2009, 17:45
    From Spiegel: "Ahmadinejad's Fear of the Internet" -
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,631170,00.html says what I just said above and expands on it.
    At the same time, the entire international media are now relying on material from amateur sources -- material which was once viewed with much skepticism -- because there are hardly any other images coming out of the country and the world is desperate to see what is happening on the ground.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    19 Jun 2009, 21:36
    Blog - Iran, citizen media and media attention
    ...the Iran story is huge not because of the social media aspect, but because protests in Iran are a huge story independent of citizen media.

    Slate - Doubting Twitter: Let's not get carried away about its role in Iran's demonstrations.
    One of the sharper Twitter critics I've read this week is Evgeny Morozov, who, writing in Slate's sister site ForeignPolicy.com yesterday, posed the heretical notion that tracking or blocking the tweets and blog postings by in-country Iranian protesters just might not be the regime's top priority. "When you've got real riots in the street, Twitter-riots do not look that threatening," he writes. Morozov also doubts that Twitter has been instrumental in organizing protests as opposed to publicizing them.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 00:39
    Very disappointing day. The Ayatollah's speech fell short of anything wise or measured. Instead, he effectively declared war.

    The Times: Defiant Khamenei warns Iranian protesters and attacks 'most treacherous' Britain
    In his first public appearance since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hotly-disputed re-election, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set the scene for further confrontations between his regime and the millions of demonstrators who have taken to the streets of Iranian cities in the past six days, by insisting the political establishment would not bow to such pressure.
    Britain was singled out as the evil scapegoat, most likely because we're an easier target than the US who they want to improve relations with. Our response: "unacceptable". Foreign Office summoned the Iranian Ambassador but only a junior went in his place. Later in the day, the UK froze $1.6 billion (£1 billion) of Iranian Assets (Press TV).

    Tehran Bureau - Gauntlet Thrown in Iran. Blog.

    Tehran was quiet today. Plus it was raining. A march is planned for tomorrow although no permits have been issued. People are afraid. They were told to be silent. Here is the sound of Tehran tonight - everybody is shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) as loud as they can. (very moving)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oM6l9PO6Yo

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 17:00
    Sound of Tehran video translated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CrgJzSQcpg

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 18:00

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 18:20
    CBS News: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates Calls Twitter "A Huge Strategic Asset"
    http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/18/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5096183.shtml

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 22:02
    BBC - summary of today's events, including eye witness account of a BBC reporter
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8110582.stm

    Today is being considered possibly the most important.

    Girl killed in Facebook video shown on Al Jazeera (UK) but they said she was receiving first aid. People are deeply shocked by this video, which shows a girl, who was standing next to her father, shot by a Basiji hiding on a rooftop. A doctor was nearby but the girl died 2 mins later. I apologise - it is graphic - but this is the image of the day and this could escalate things further. (warning: distressing)
    http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=89928823259

    I haven't stopped weeping since. :(

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 23:38
    Obama's message: Whitehouse, June 20, 2009, Statement from the President on Iran
    The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

    As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

    Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.


    Andrew Sullivan shares my feeling: Obama's Response
    Did you notice how many times he invoked the word "justice" in his message? That's the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance. What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy - refusing to be baited by Khamenei or the neocons, and yet taking an eloquent stand, as we all do, in defense of freedom and non-violence. The invocation of MLK was appropriate too. What on earth has this been but, in its essence, a protest for voting rights? Above all, the refusal to coopt their struggle for ours, because freedom is only ever won, and every democracy wil be different: this is an act of restraint that is also a statement of pure confidence in the power of a free people.

    I share the confidence. I wrote a couple weeks back that something is happening in Iran. But it is not the only place where something is happening. The rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ground-up election of Obama in America; and now the rising up of Iranians for freedom and civility with their neighbors: these are the green shoots of recovery from 9/11 and its wake. Empowered by new information technology, chastened by the apocalyptic conflicts of the last few years, determined to shift course away from civilizational warfare, the people of many countries are grasping for a new order and a new peace. It will not be easy; and it will not be short. But it is the only path worth taking.

    And these Iranians are now leading the rest of us.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    20 Jun 2009, 23:48
    Twitter also being used for survival tips:
    http://twitter.com/WOTN/status/2258794885

    "Don't WET MASK WITH WATER-vinegar & Lemonjuice effective against teargas"

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    21 Jun 2009, 00:27
    The girl in the video - her name was Neda - which means voice or call in Farsi. She has come to symbolise today - the call of the people. She was martyred.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    21 Jun 2009, 02:58
    Tehran Bureau - Iran Makes History Again, Beirut | 19 June 2009
    http://tehranbureau.com/commentary/iran-makes-history-again/

    The spontaneous mass defiance of the ruling power structure, though, is not Iran-specific. If this turns out to be a serious challenge to the very legitimacy of the Islamic Republic’s system of government, rather than a narrow protest about the presidential election, we should not be surprised to see the Iranian precedent spilling over into other, Arab, parts of the Middle East, in a way that the 1979 Islamic revolution did not.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    21 Jun 2009, 20:08
    Power to the people! BBC video showing crowds overpowering security guards yesterday. Listen out for the ecstatic cheer at the end. An incredible piece of footage.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/06/090621_ag_street_clashes.shtml

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    22 Jun 2009, 02:17
    Wow. Because of Neda.

    Al Arabiya, Mon, Jun 22, 2009, Iranian clerics seek supreme leader alternative
    TEHRAN/DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)

    Religious leaders are considering an alternative to the supreme leader structure after at least 13 people were killed in the latest unrest to shake Tehran and family members of Ayatollah Rafsanjani were arrested amid calls by former President Mohammad Khatami for the release of all protesters.

    Iran's religious clerks in Qom and members of the Assembly of Experts, headed by former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, are mulling the formation of an alternative collective leadership to replace that of the supreme leader, sources in Qom told Al Arabiya on condition of anonymity.

    Five family members of Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most powerful men, were arrested Sunday, including his eldest daughter Faezeh Hashemi.

    A new structure for Iran

    The influential Rafsanjani, 57, heads two very powerful groups. The most important one is the Assembly of Experts, made up of senior clerics who can elect and dismiss the supreme leader. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.

    Members of the assembly are reportedly considering forming a collective ruling body and scrapping the model of Ayatollah Khomeini as a way out of the civil crisis that has engulfed Tehran in a series of protests,

    The discussions have taken place in a series of secret meetings convened in the holy city of Qom and included Jawad al-Shahristani, the supreme representative of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the foremost Shiite leader in Iraq.

    An option being considered is the resignation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president following condemnation by the United States and other European nations for violence and human rights violations against unarmed protestors.

    Rafsanjani issued no statements following Khomeini's speech last Friday in which the supreme leader praised him and Ahmadinejad as Iran's new president.

    The moderate Khatami called Sunday for the immediate release of protesters arrested in the country since June 13, saying their release could "calm the situation in the country," the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

    Protesters killed Saturday


    Screenshot from video allegedly showing female bystander being shot to death

    His statements came after Iranian state television reported Sunday that 13 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded during clashes in Tehran the previous day.

    Government restrictions prevent foreign media from reporting on demonstrations, including Al Arabiya, and the scale of any casualties or arrests was unclear.

    But one amateur video appeared on the internet showing a young girl being fatally shot.

    "The robocops beat us up badly," one protestor told AFP. "Men and women were beaten up.... My whole body is bruised.... They confiscated my camera."

    Another witness said: "Lots of guards on motorbikes closed in on us and beat us brutally. "As we were running away the Basiji were waiting in side alleys with batons, but people opened their doors to us trapped in alleys."

    According to statements posted by witnesses on the social networking site Facebook, foreign embassies even opened the doors to injured protesters, among them the Danish embassy. The report was not confirmed by the Danish foreign ministry.

    “Ready for martyrdom”

    Mousavi, the focus of the biggest protests since the Islamic Revolution ousted the U.S.-backed Shah in 1979, said the June 12 elections that delivered an overwhelming victory to hard-line anti-Western Ahmadinejad were fraudulent and must be annulled.

    Mousavi, who claims victory in the poll, told supporters he was "ready for martyrdom," according to an ally, but also said he did not seek confrontation with the Islamic establishment.

    "We are not against the Islamic system and its laws but against lies and deviations and just want to reform it," he said in a statement posted on his website at the end of a tumultuous day Saturday. But was quoted by a witness as calling for a national strike if he is arrested.

    Iranian newspapers reported on Sunday that Iran's police chief warned Mousavi that officers will "decisively confront" any further unrest.

    "I announce that if the current situation continues the police, in line with preserving the society's and people's order and security, will decisively confront illegal activities," Ahmadi Moghaddam said, according to the Etemad-e Melli daily.


    They also carried the video of Neda's last moments, which I've already linked to (above). There aren't enough warnings for this video. I cried and cried and cried.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    22 Jun 2009, 02:28
    The Facebook video for Neda has been removed.

    CNN reported on the story and the effect it has had across the internet.

    Her Name Was Neda http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5KBrsz1oxs

    They talk over the footage so you don't hear how her father at first tried to reassure her, then, when he realised she had gone, lost it.

    The video is constantly uploaded and pulled, so if you search for it, you should be able to find it.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    22 Jun 2009, 02:34
    The power of Neda - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tINs1-7FwIU

    Same video with further analysis, from CNN. Women are at the forefront of this movement.

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  • Babs_05 wrote:
    22 Jun 2009, 02:49

    Neda Soltani

    New York Daily News, June 21st 2009, Neda, young girl brutally killed in Iran, becoming symbol of rebellion

    Read more:
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/21/2009-06-21_neda_young_girl_killed_in_iraq.html#ixzz0J7htORjK&C
    Her name is Neda, which means "voice" in Farsi, and her death has become the central rallying cry of the Iranian rebellion.

    The fresh-faced teenage girl killed by what appears to be a single sniper shot on the streets of Tehran Saturday is now a potent symbol for Iran's pro-democracy protesters.

    Her shocking and quick death in the arms of her howling father was captured on closeup video, posted to Facebook and came to life on computer screens across the globe

    ... Within hours of her death, posters of the girl's face, open-eyed and bloody, were being brandished by demonstrators in Los Angeles and New York City.

    ... The graphic video was originally posted to Facebook by an Iranian expatriate in Holland who said it was sent to him by a friend in Tehran, a doctor who tried to save the girl.

    He identified her as Neda Soltani, a 16-year-old philosophy student.

    A Facebook group created to mourn her calls her "The Angel of Iran."


    The story also carries a link to the video.

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