Interesting times in Iran..
 

Iran is trying to lock down all media right now, but it honestly looks like they tried to rig the Iranian election, and we could be in for some serious upheavel out there.

Apparently Iran's own election monitors have declared the victory fraudulent (the #'s came in steady at 66-69% for Ahmadinejad, which is pretty much ridiculous).

There have been reports of 50-100 dead as Iranian police/religous police are trying to crack down hard on the protests/riots that are going on.

The pictures coming out are very disturbing, let's hope that things get better there.

Mousavi got like 40% of the votes in his own hometown. Um.

Not only were the results steady in over all numbers, they apparently are also very steady from region to region. With what little I've seen through secondary sources it certainly looks clear that Knamenei stole the election.

That being said, I'm not sure what's going on or where it will lead. I've heard a lot about protests in Tehran, but I'm unclear as to whether or not they've spread. If it stays isolated to Tehran it will be an ugly crackdown, but the final result doesn't seem in doubt. If a popular uprising breaks out in other cities, who knows where this could lead.

was anyone really thinking that the election was going to be fair??

i was always under the impression it would be rigged

Election Liveblogging – Saturday « niacINsight

Good stuff.

Re: DT; the thing is, Iranian elections are generally fair; they're just limited powers being elected. In this case, the fraud seems so obviously simplistic that its stunning.

generally fair yes, but i dunno - i was under the impression that the Ayatollah basically will get his man in power however he has to. now usually maybe he hasn't had to resort to outright fraud to do that, but that doesn't really mean it's a fair and open election.

Good thing we don't have problems like unfair elections in our country! :lol:

I was thinking the same thing.

:devil:

The election was fraudulent? That's shocking.

It is a curious decision, though. One would think with Obama now leading the US, that a new "moderate" voice would ensure some degree of smoothness in US relations, given the US plan to pull out of Iraq and the more "carrot"-y approach that the Obama admin is inclined to use. I'm guessing they really don't like Bibi running Israel all that much.

In all reality, until the mullahs and their power apparatus is dismantled, it's hard to see things improving there regardless of who they let win the election. Could we be witnessing a revolution? I'd like to think so, but I'm skeptical until it actually happens. We marked Tiannamen Square not too long ago (notably, the Chinese didn't except in Hong Kong).

You know, JFK was elected half a century ago. You really need to get over it. ;)

Gold. :D

Moreso than that, instead of amateurishly committing vote fraud they rigged them by only allowing hand-picked candidates to run. Khatami and Ahmadinejad were both surprising "reform" candidates when they won, although clearly neither was actually moderate, and Ahmadinejad didn't even bother to keep up the farce.

In the same vein, Mousavi isn't exactly a moderate by any stretch, he's just the convenient oppositional rallying cry. Similar to how some Palestinians were saying privately Likud could have run against Fatah and won.

This absolutely blows my mind. What is the point of rigging a meaningless election? Do they WANT unrest?

How uncouth, to speak like this about JFK. ;)


I think Iran may be worse than the precinct in Ohio back in 2004 that supposedly went overwhelmingly for Bush. So much so that more than 5000 votes more than were even registered were supposedly tabulated.

When the poll results were about even, then the election is this far off it smells about as clean as Ahmadinejad looks.

I'm beginning to think that the only way to get honest elections is to put every single vote out on the internet.

Juan Cole gives six reasons why he thinks the election was stolen.

Just like MLB All Star balloting? ;)

SI

7) According to the BBC World News this morning the BBC polled the 2000 absentee Iranians in London - 90% said they voted against Ahmadinejad. The figure quoted from Iran, however, was that 80% voted for him.

What is surprising is that the fraud was so crude. It as if Ahmadinejad has done this deliberately to put across the message "fuck your democracy, it'll change nothing here".

I really hope this doesn't end with another Tiananmen Square.

Moussavi has been arrested for traffic violations? Did anyone else watch Ahmadinejad's press conference just now?

I heard on NPR that they disabled the text messanging system for the country, as well as heavily restricted usage of the interwebs. I could believe that Ahmadinejad won the election, but not by the statistical improbabilities that they're saying he did.

Thanks for the website tip.

In this case, I can't believe Ahmadinejad won. For the simple fact that if he had, no funny business would be required. He must have actually lost for them to have bothered to do fraud on this level.

At this point is it even fraud? It seems like they just made up the results. No fraud needed.

Making up the results is fraud.

Wow.. if these reports are right, Iran has imported Hamas/Hezbollah to crack down on the students.. some of the graphics I'm seeing on The Daily Dish etcetera are fucking disturbing

To me fraud means taking the time to cast votes for people who are dead. Throwing out ballots because they don't meet some made up standard that wasn't there to begin with.

Fraud to me entails some sort of effort to make things happen to back up your claims of victory. This is just the idea that people went to vote, nothing mattered, and the results were decided by somebody saying...let's go with 62%.

linky

I'm more upset with how stupid they are in perpetrating the fraud. Don't they have an Iranian Nate Silver that could come in and make the results look realistic? I mean why 62%?

That's what I told my wife...it's like someone who cheats on a test....normally gets 60s and then pulls down 100 on the test. If you're going to cheat, go for the high 80s/low 90s.

In this case, why would you do anything above 55%?

Regardless of what you think fraud is, making up results is still fraud. Just saying...

To rub it in the people's faces maybe.

Probably right...basically telling everybody f-u.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

It's probably more important to show a landslide to regional powers than to make it believable to skeptical "outsiders" for obvious reasons similar to the crap that Hussein used to try and get away with.

As for why it was 65%? There might have been some calculated methodology. I'm going to guess that the 35% who voted for Alihamejed (sp?) won't care if it was rigged, and the 30% that could have gone either way will believe it. That's 65% of the population right there and how many of that 65% are really going to pursue the truth against a very hostile dictatorship? My guess is none of the smart ones.

The Iranian spin machine is hard at work, comparing this election to the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when GWB got the most votes in American history, in spite of going into the election with a 40% approval rating.

Its surreal. What's even dumber is people like Mike Pence, who think the Obama screaming will help the cause of the protesters; does he not realize that the same pride prevalent here exists in Iran? Having foreigners meddle will only hurt the cause of the reformists.

Sullivan has later corrected that to make it clear Ansar is a hardcore Iranian group.

This Huffington Post thread is doing a great job of updating what's happening in Iran.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_215189.html

The "We Want Freedom" chants choked me up a little bit. I know we can't do it, but I hope someone goes in there and gets those kids backs before the government mows them all down.

Has anyone seen or heard from Moussavi since the election? Did they jail him or kill him yet?

Last I heard about him, he was supposed to meet with some of the Ayatollahs. If he's disappeared, he's either jailed or dead.

I last heard under House Arrest (housing complex surrounded by Basij/IRGC). He's allegedly planning a march tomorrow at 4pm Iranian time (not sure precisely what that is to EST)

well sooner or later they'll get it. nice to see that there's a progressive generation there though that will push for it over time. they may have to wait till the Ayatollah's generation dies off though.

1:57 AM ET -- A plea from Mousavi. Andrew Sullivan passes along a telephone plea from Mousavi, via his contacts at BBC Persia:

I AM UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE TO ACCEPT THE RESULTS OF THE SHAM ELECTION. THEY HAVE CUT ME OFF FROM ANY COMMUNICATION WITH PEOPLE AND AM UNDER SURVEILLANCE. I ASK THE PEOPLE TO STAY IN THE STREETS BUT AVOID VIOLENCE.

Iran's supreme leader orders ballot probe - CNN.com

This is something we discussed in the Obama thread the other day. Iran was teetering on a revolution even before the election results. This could easily be the powder keg that sets off another revolution in Iran.

are there any other videos from inside Iran?

Plenty, check twitter mostly. The Huffington Post above has some too.

Give it one week. Without the intervention or pressure from the United States, the UN, or other foreign countries, these rallies are going to be snuffed by sheer military show of force.

i.e., the Monks in Myanmar in '07.

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=61206

My reaction to that (and others I'm sure shared this) was: So the people who likely committed election fraud will look into the allegations of election fraud? That should work out well.

a. Riots and such are put down and stability returns, committee amazingly finds no election wrongdoing.
b. Unrest continues and worsens, international pressure, etc... Ahmadinejad is used as a scapegoat so the Supreme Leader can continue leading.

My money is unfortunately on a. but I'll continue to hope.

FWIW, option A is quickly becoming less of an option if the Supreme Leader and his council want to avoid a revolution. Whether the revolution would be successful is certainly in question, but a sham probe at this point won't likely quell the opposition. Given that they couldn't even rig an election to look legitimate, I'm not sure anyone has much faith that they'll rig an investigation to look legitimate either.

I have a co-worker who was born in Iran who still has family over there. They are telling her via e-mail that the protests are going to get much bigger over the coming days and they're worried that the troops will fire on the protesters and kill some of them. Their hope is that if that does happen, it will be reported in the rest of the world.

This whole thing is incredibly interesting, scary, and exhilarating at the same time.

It's hard to explain - but I can't think of a time in my lifetime when I saw a revolution building, in such a significant country, in such a significant way.

It's probably true, but the fact that they are publically stating this is some kind of victory, if one were to consider that they could have ignored it completely and just stated the results were correct.

In recent years the ruling clerics have become secure enough in their power to allow what's essentially a hand-picked slate of candidates to contest the election, who may vary somewhat in ideology. So, the Ayatollah doesn't necessarily get "his man" but he's guaranteed to get a "man" who won't be too divergent from his worldview.

Do we have an idea yet if the fraud was perpetrated by Ahmadinejad and his allies, or by elements in the Guardian Council itself? I'm having trouble believing that the latter would do this, especially on orders from Khameni when they simply could have introduced a slate of candidates to contest Ahmadinejad who had no hope of winning.

20 years ago. Hope to God it ends differently.

in my mind that counts as "getting his man" - it's just that his man is "one of a few"

Very very very very scary. Specially for the people who are rallying in the streets.

In 1986, we overthrew the posterchild dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, I was only 4 years old, but my parents went to the rallies. There were thousands of people in the streets marching up against tanks and armed soldiers. Marcos refused to give the order to shoot, the United States switched allegiances and pressured Marcos to flee, and the military switched sides, leading to his ouster.

In 2001, I joined a similar rally to oust one of the most corrupt presidents in Philippine history, although this time around, the military had already declared their loss of confidence in the President and had refused to intervene.

We were lucky those two times, but I see this revolution in Iran to either end up being squashed or to result in bloodshed, similar to what happened in 1989 in China. :(

Without a revolution that has the backing of a foreign power, I don't think anything will change much in Iran.

Let's not kid ourselves here. The U.S. has pumped billions of dollars into the opposition effort. It may not be reported, but there's no question that it's there.

Oh, I'm not pointing to the US specifically. :)

Without the overt support of other nations, perhaps from other Islamic countries (riiiiight. In a million years?), the revolution will most likely fail.

Well

A) I was 10 years old 20 years ago
B) We did not have either the Cable News Coverage or the Internet coverage 20 years ago that we do now. The visuals coming constantly would not have happened in 1989.

The blogosphere gets on my nerves at times, especially with their trumped up sense of importance, but I think the criticism of the MSM over this event is justified. Getting ready for work, neither CNN, MSNBC, or FOX were showing video, talking about this, or anything. Just a stark contrast to CNN's work at Tiananmen. Sullivan said "The Revolution will be twitterized" and I'm not sure he's wrong on this one.

I never knew that you could search twitter by location, but I guess you can find tweets coming out of Tehran here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+...n:15mi&lang=en

The pictures from the Daily Dish are amazing.

teh br1t1sh r comin!1!!!1!
teh br1t1sh r comin!11!11

http://twitter.com/persiankiwi

BBC reporting shots fired at a rally in Tehran.

From that video, it looks like quite a few people on the streets.

Tehran is 8.5 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone, so it is currently about 9PM there.

.

Lots of tweets coming in saying there is gunfire.

NPR: Death Reported At Tehran Rally; State Dept. 'Deeply Troubled' By Events

Confirmed gunfire, at least one death.

Man, this is such a volitile situation right now. Interestingly enough, a revolution within Iran could have big implications for Iraq. Many of those causing instability would likely head to Iran to try to preserve the islamic republic over there. Just SO many ramifications to what happens in the coming days in Iran.

I was sure off base on how I thought this would all play out (see Obama thread).

Well, I remember what happened over 30 years ago in Iran and the Shah fleeing out of there and the taking of the American emabassy. Been down hill for Iran ever since.

Hopefully, this will lead to a more progressive Iran, but, I'm not holding my breath.

As I've seen noted on several sites, the protesters HAVE to keep pushing and showing up every day. We've seen similar protests in 1999 and 2003 that died out.

That's really, REALLY easy for us to say...

Way too big to post here, but what a shot:

Twitpic - Share photos on Twitter

Yes, we're extremely blessed that we live in a country where we have a government and military that protect that right for us.

With that said, it's pretty clear judging from the switch to investigate by the Supreme Leader that the initial pressure by the opposition is heavy enough that they couldn't ignore the calls of fraud. They have to keep that pressure up. Right now, world leaders are just expressing concern. If casulties start mounting, the world will swing heavily behind them and they'll be in a bit more of a pickle.

I saw that the opposition took out two of the government-run news sites. Amazing how technology introduces the opportunity of a form of warfare fought by people sitting at a keyboard. Andrew Sullivan said that his site has been under attack by gov't supporters as well trying to stop the flow of information out of Iran.

...and Twitter finally became meaningful to me.

Apparently Obama will speak at 5. Interesting to see how he handles this.

Twenty years ago I was sure I'd be out with the protesters if I lived in China. Now, with a four year old daughter, I'm not sure I could risk not coming back home and any reprisals by the government on my family.

RIP inner revolutionary.

That is a hell of a shot. For some reason - that I haven't really investigated yet - pictures like this induce a major twinge of brotherhood. It really is exhilarating to see these people come out peacefully demanding better of their country. It is also nice to see the Islam = Honesty signs. We see (via our media) the name of Islam asserted for so many bad things, it is nice to see it being asserted for something positive. Nice to see some evidence of what we already knew...that there are plenty of moderate Muslims. If there ever is an international presence in Iran backing these people, I hope it is in response to a request for aid.

More HQ photos of events since Sunday.

Iran's Disputed Election - The Big Picture - Boston.com

I think it's great that people of opposing political viewpoints in america can agree this is totally fucked. Hopefully at some point the Iranians can have the right to elect their own leadership peacefully and justly(even if we hate who they put in office).

Someone's eyewitness account (for what that's worth) of what happened. He's twittering about it now.

http://twitter.com/naeimkarimi

Wow. Confirmed reports that the protesters followed the unofficial religious police back to their headquarters after they opened fire. Protesters burned down their headquarters and killed the commander of that base.

I can only imagine what will be going on 24-48 hours from now.

What a powerful photograph.

Yeah. Our typical red-state/blue-state bitch fest about marginal tax rates really does seem petty compared to what is happening in Iran.

I'd love to see the people of Iran have the freedom to lead themselves. Here's hoping that they are able to take it. And that we do whatever we can do as a people to help make it happen.

Scott Adams had a post about the Iranian election today and a prediction.

Being somewhat realistic here, might be a good idea for someone to follow up on the status of that injured riot cop at some point. He probably didn't get those injuries playing Rollerball.

Really amazing the similarities between this and what happened in Tiananmen Square. It is the young generation, the students in particular who are leading this movement in Iran, very powerful. I almost cried when I saw the picture of the how the "basij (civilian militia)" went after the University of Tehran and destroyed the property of students, the essence of knowledge, tolerance, and understanding... education. How brave they are facing that dark machine. I'd like to think I would do the same in that situation, but I am not so sure.

wow. seriously.

also loved the pic by JohnnyBGood under your original post - showing real human compassion.

+1

seriously

Confirmed, or unconfirmed? If confirmed, where? Because I can't seem to find it (and I'd like to, because it's potentially one hell of a development).

All I can find is that at least one protester at that site was killed & several others seriously injured (according to a photographer who talked to various reporters) as they attempted to storm the building. Also a reference to one person being arrested in connection with the shooting (according to the BBC) but the story was vague about whether that was a militia shooter or a protesting shootee.

JiMGA - As far as I can tell, "confirmed" right now means a couple of people posted about it on twitter.

Twitter is such a nightmare.

you say nightmare i say "positive tool for revolutionaries looking to fan the flames"

Oh, you mean this guy?