The Silent Protest and the Haunting Rooftop Chants

Here is video of a massive silent protest that was staged by the opposition in Iran today. It is striking how silent this scene is despite the enormous amount of people:



The protests even continue into the night with the rooftop chants. Every hour at 10PM, 11PM, and midnight protesters shout "Allaho Akbar" from their rooftops. Video of last night is below. There is also a female voice speaking over the video in what I believe is Farsi. A reader over at the Huffington Post helped to translate what she is saying:

The woman in this video is saying something that really touched me. She is saying that they can take our phones, our internet, all our communication away, but we are showing that by saying "allaho akbar" we can find each other. She ends it my saying that tonight they are crying out to god for help.

The New York Times is reporting that the so-called recount is underway in Iran and has thusfar shown no irregularities:

The Fars news agency also reported that the partial recount of votes ordered Tuesday by the Guardian Council, the 12-member body of jurists which supervises elections and holds veto power over legislation in Iran, had begun. A recount of votes in Kermanshah, a Kurdish province, showed that “there has been no irregularity,” the news agency reported.

The recount, intended as a effort to meet the opposition’s concerns, has failed to halt the unrest. On Tuesday, a large protest by thousands of supporters of Mr. Moussavi stretched for miles along a major thoroughfare in Tehran. The marchers, dressed largely in black and green, marched mostly in silence, some carrying signs in English asking, “Where is my vote?”

Farideh Farhi is from the University of Hawaii and has years of experience studying voting in Iran and in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, he says that the election results were "pulled out of a hat":

My personal feeling is that Ahmadinejad could not have gotten anything more than 10 million. And I really do have the data from previous elections, each district, how they voted, each province, to make comparisons with these numbers that the Ministry of Interior have come out.

I am convinced that they just pulled it out of their hats. They certainly didn't pull it out of ballot [boxes] or even stuffed ballots, they just made up numbers and are putting it out. It just doesn't make sense.

I do take the numbers of the Interior Ministry very seriously. I pore over them every election. I did it last time in the parliamentary election, to determine the orientations and what they mean. I always do that.

In this election, I am not even going to spend time on this, because of all the [problems].

[...]

They simply are not interested in these people continuing to be interested in politics in Iran. The want them to become demoralized and cynical, because their participation in the Iranian electoral process is extremely destructive for the [Islamic] system ...

What they have not counted on, of course, is a group of people that they essentially think of, for lack of a better word, Westernized wishy-washy liberals, who never stand for anything, would actually be upset that this election was stolen in such a brazen way.

They assumed: 'Ah, you know, we go into the streets, we yell at them, and a couple of shots and they go home and close their doors.'

They knew that they were a minority, and that's why they tried to pull this off. They thought they could bully people, through violence. And they may ultimately be correct. But it seems they have underestimated, not only the crowds, but Mr. Mousavi.

and some recent tweets out of Iran:

IranRiggedElect:

Basij requested Faezeh & Mehdi Hashemi be arrested for helping the riots http://www.entekhabnews.us/... #iranelection

Change_for_Iran:

according to the unofficial reports the sum of arrested people in whole Iran is reaching 750 person

TwitPersia:

in Tehran placards reading Annulment of the election is our right - a play on Ahmadinejad's slogan Nuclear power is our right #iranelection

Morning Updates on Iran

I wish I had more time in the day to devote to passing along all the information that I am seeing on various blogs about the situation in Iran. It is riveting and captivating to see how the Green Revolution is continuing to push back against the coup d'etat in their country.

For starters, it is apparent that the way that most information is being gathered is through Facebook, Twitter, and other elements of "new media". There are some foreign media outlets that are managing to do their best to cover this story despite the media crackdowns, but Robert Farley sums up just how badly the traditional media outlets have dropped the ball on this:

So, I'm trying to find out something about what's going on in Iran, and on CNN I can watch a rerun of Larry King interviewing several gentlemen without shirtsleeves who apparently assemble choppers. On Fox Mike Huckabee is trying to explain why Jesus hates credit card relief. MSNBC is rerunning something about a prison in New Mexico. CNBC is evaluating whether college students should be able to afford Chanel tote bags.

Media fail.

dday over at Hullabaloo also weighs in on this issue:

A few national newspapers do seem to have decent reporting on the ground. And thanks to the Internet, we can access a good deal of information about the world from local sources. And some bloggers, like those at the National Iranian American Council and Tehran Bureau (until they were shut down, allegedly by a denial of service attack from inside Iran), are doing heroic work. I would highly recommend this post by Brian Ulrich, positing the entire enterprise as a military coup, with the Revolutionary Guard consolidating power. However, I think we all remember how the networks would pull away from programming for hours to cover international crises as they unfolded. There's clearly an attitude of indifference this time around, but that is as much budgetary as it is cynical. Television simply cannot cover the story anymore. And that's to the great disservice of the still-overwhelming mass of people around the world who depend on it for news and information. The triumphalism of those who would see the sorry spectacle of TV news shoved aside fails to account for the remaining digital divide in the country as well as the tendencies of a mass of people who are not likely to otherwise be reached. And they become more closed off to the world, more uncomfortable with opposing points of view, more clueless about international relations or foreign affairs. And there are clear dangers to such an environment of mass ignorance.

As for the latest developments inside of Iran. It is being reported that Iranian police are now invading the dorms of students, attacking and detaining them, and gassing their rooms. Here is a video clip:



Andrew Sullivan has compiled a list of Tweeters in Iran who are providing important information to the outside world. You can find that list here.

There is an interesting account that kind of gives you a timeline of how events went down. Muhammad Sahimi interviewed Mousavi's spokesperson, Mohsen Makhbalbaf:

According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, in the early hours after voting had ended, the Interior Ministry had called Mr. Mousavi’s campaign headquarters to inform them that Mr. Mousavi would be the winner and, therefore, Mr. Mousavi must prepare a victory statement. Mr. Mousavi was, however, asked by the Ministry not to boast too much, in order not to upset Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters. Many of the president’s supporters are among the ranks of the Basij militia, and thus armed. According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also informed of the developments. He also recommended a “good management” of the victory statement, meaning not boasting greatly about the victory, because that would be in Iran’s national interests and stability.

At the same time, the reformist newspapers were also informed that they can prepare their Saturday edition to declare Mr. Mousavi the winner, but were not allowed to use the word pirouzi (victory) in their articles, in order not to upset Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters. One reformist newspaper prepared its front page with the title, “People took back the flag of their country [from Mr. Ahmadinejad].” But, just a few hours later, a center that had been set up by Mr. Mousavi in Gheytarieh (in northern Tehran) for monitoring the election and vote counting, was attacked by armed security agents. They ransacked the center, destroyed computers, and attacked the staff. Supporters of Mr. Mousavi intervened and arrested 8 security agents. The police was called to take them to prison, but the police released the attackers. According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, the central headquaters of Mr. Mousavi’s campaign was also surrounded by security forces, as was the Interior Ministry building. Then, new data began to be released by the Ministry, indicating that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won the elections decisively. Mr. Makhbalbaf then declared that, “I have been authorized by Mr. Mousavi’s campaign to officially declare that a political coup has taken place, in order to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad the victor.”

There are also signs that the protests and demonstrations are having an effect. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has now reportedly called for a probe into the election results. This was after Khamenei had endorsed the orginal election results a second time and had called them a "divine assessment".

Despite the ban on protests and rallys, the BBC is also reporting that thousands have marched to Enghaleb Square:

Thousands of Iranians have staged a protest rally against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defying a government ban.

AFP news agency reported that defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi appeared at the rally. He wants the election results annulled, alleging fraud.

Other reports said marchers had clashed with Ahmadinejad supporters.

Mr Ahmadinejad claims that the election result was rigged, saying the ballot was free and healthy.

Following two days of unrest, the interior ministry warned on Monday what it called "seditious elements" that "any disrupter of public security would be dealt with according to the law."

Mr Mousavi's campaign initially announced that the event had been called off, but his website later said he and Mehdi Karroubi, another defeated reformist candidate, would address the crowd.

AFP says the demonstrators gathered in central Tehran chanting: "Mousavi we support you!"

For more up to date, minute to minute coverage of the situation in Iran, I continue to urge you to visit Andrew Sullivan's blog. He continues to do a great job in covering this important moment in history.