Hi,
I’m Josh Shahryar AKA NiteOwl and I’ve been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources and have tried maximally to avoid listening to media banter. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my tweets to have happened in the past day and in the past week in Iran. Remember, this is all from tweets. There is NOTHING included here that is not from a reliable tweet. No news media outlets have been used in the compilation of this short brief as I would like to call it.
These are some of the happenings that I can positively confirm:
1. During the last protest in Tehran, several policemen have been spotted by protesters who were wearing green bands which is the color of the revolution. The policemen have told them candidly that they support them.
2. During the protests, on several occasions, Baseejis who have attacked peaceful protesters have been arrested on the spot by the police. This seems to have occured in several spots, yet it hasn’t been a crackdown of sorts. A few cases only!
3. Several Baseeji militiamen have been spotted laying down their arms and going home after being asked to interfere with the protesters.
4. By far the biggest threat people are facing right now are plainclothesmen. They seem to be everywhere and are targetting people who are not in groups. These men have been mostly linked with Ansar e Hezbollah. They are responsible for beating people up, arresting people, threatening protesters, arresting reformists from their homes and such.
5. So far, it has been confirmed that 15 people in Tehran and 32 people around the country have been killed. Hundreds more have been injured and in excess of 800 people have been detained. Among these there are dozens of reformists. Most of these arrests have been made by the notorious plainclothesmen mentioned above.
6. During yesterday’s protests, mullahs have been spotted joining rallies within Tehran and in several other cities. No one could confirm what the status of these Mullahs was or is within the clerical society, but their numbers have been very visible this time.
7. Protests have occured not just in Tehran yesterday, but in Ahvaz, Mashhad, Kermanshah, Qazvin, Shiraz, Tabriz and EVER Qom.
8. Pro-Ahmadinejad protesters’ numbers have been greatly exaggerated by the state media in comparison to Mousavi’s supporters’ numbers. In reality, Pro-Ahmadinejad protesters were only a pocket full of people. Most of these people have been identified by other protesters as either people who work at government offices or people who were brought from the countryside.
9. After downplaying the protests for days, the state-run media has finally started to announce news of the events a little more accurately.
10. Text Messaging is still down in Iran and internet is extremely slow. People are unable to get sattelite channels on their televisions. At the same time, police and plainclothesmen are going door to door and taking away people’s sattelite dish antenas.
11. Mohsen Rezayee, one of the candidates, is going to declare his support for a reelection tomorrow. The fourth candidate, Mahdi Karoubi openly joined yesterday’s rally.
12. A group of prominent officials within the Ministry of Interior have written a letter to the Guardian Council declaring that they have witnessed widespread irregularities within the voting and counting processes during the election. They have asked this matter to be investigated fully.
13. As of today, not a single report of the military’s intervention into the peaceful protests has been established. Not a single one.
14. Khatami and Mousavi have both asked the Ministry of Justice to investigate the involvement of the plainclothesmen in the violence that has been sparked during the protests.
15. Several eye-witnesses have seen non-Iranian Arabs waving Hamas/Hezbollah flags around the protests. These reports have been fully confirmed and are NOT a rumor spread by Israel.
16. Finally, the big news. It seems that the Green Revolution has garnered the support of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Nateq Noori, Tabatabayee and other prominent clerics and politicians. The Rohaniyone Mubarez organization that which has in its ranks pretty much most of the clerics except for the ones in power and includes Mr. Rafsanjani and Mr. Noori has declared their support for the annullment of the election and holding of new elections. Ayatollah Montazeri has yet to declare clear support.
Finally a few words to those who are reading this:
People Outside Iran: This is as clear and concise as I can be. I have not included ANYTHING that I have sensed to be remotely fishy, but human error will always manifests itself in even the most flawless of non-mathematical things. However, this includes nothing from the Western media, including the BBC which I have been generously using to inform people and I laud them for their courageous journalism.
People Inside Iran: Don’t believe a WORD of what I am telling you. Do what you think is best, keeping everything in mind. I know LITTLE of what you know so make your decisions based on your OWN judgment.
People Who Want to Send Me Tweet Links: You don’t need to find me, I will find you. Don’t hassle yourself. Your voice will be heard through millions of others like me.
People Who Want to Hunt Me Down: I’m an Afghan. If you ever tried to attack me, you’ll see my back only after your back has met the ground.
P.S. Please post this around. I will be writing one brief of this kind everyday until this ends.
[ame="http://iran.whyweprotest.net/showthread.php?t=486"]Iran – Why We Protest[/ame]
