Just saw this reTweet from Neil Gaiman....

http://twitter.com/persiankiwi

i am hearing that tehran uni has been raided. #Iranelection
13 minutes ago from web

unconfirmed but I am hearing that many killed in tehran uni this evening. #Iranelection
10 minutes ago from web

tehran is like war zone. it is unbelievable. i have not seen this for 30 years. fires everywhere. shooting, people shouting. #Iranelection
7 minutes ago from web

we have no satellite tv, internet is blocked to most sites, no texting at al and very limited mobile phone cover. #Iranelection
6 minutes ago from web

tehran university dorm has ben raided and hundreds of students arrested tonight. this is happening now. #Iranelection
4 minutes ago from web

tomorrow if army come we will greet them with roses. #Iranelection
3 minutes ago from web

I am speechless...

That doesn't sound good, free unfettered elections are a doubt. Students get the punishment because they are more clued up. Not good.

wait wtf is happening?

christ thats awful..

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/...ran/index.html

the government is trying to stop free elections. thats what

This doesn't make me hate twitter any less

but regardless that seems unreal.

coming from iran myself this shit is messed up. hope the protesters can make a difference in a peaceful way.

Too late for a "peaceful way", ae.

It's unreal... looking at CNN and youtube videos... hearing of the mass media and communication blackouts... watching a video of the winner dodging the question of the safety of his rival... 'most of the protesters were bused in' bullshite....

I was only vaguely aware of the elections going on prior to seeing Gaiman post on Twitter. I click and then a whirlwind of insanity has opened up...

The only thing I can't understand is why they have elections at all. Isn't Ayatollah Komenai the true ruler of Iran?

http://twitter.com/change_for_iran

Grand Ayatollah Sanei in Iran has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate

hmmmm

Originally Posted by 8FtSpider

The only thing I can't understand is why they have elections at all. Isn't Ayatollah Komenai the true ruler of Iran?

It's a weird hybrid system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Iran

Being Persian myself, I can't help but touch briefly on this subject. I wanted change to revisit Iran; the kind of change that Minister Mosaddeq spoke about in the 40's and 50's.

Regardless of the outcome of this particular election, the youth have shown that the old ways no longer work for them. The next 50 years will tell a tale of Iran's reinvention. Perhaps this change will give a nod to the past as well, and reunite the people with their sense of wonder and progress.

After watching videos on youtube and reading reports on CNN im shocked by how the government acts in response to peaceful protests. Theres women being beaten up for no reason by police with batons and vigilantes running around beating anyone who protests.

But why would they even have any elections if he was such a cruel ruler as the western media say? Btw. same media that used to belaud bush, insisted that iraq is dangerous and has WMD and other b*llshit that leaded to hundred thousands of civilian victims and still counting. Maybe it´s true what they say now, I don´t know, I don´t live there. But why should anybody believe them now? Why should I give a damn about what they say when they already tried to fool me (without any success) in the past?

And there´s another thing I really don´t understand. I saw a field pick-up from Iran yesterday and the reporter was talking about banned internet pages, sms comunication stopped working during the elections and stuff... I was sitting in the room and one simple thing came to my mind. Pick one word from the group that you think doesn´t befit the others:

- internet
- elections
- sms
- Iran

I bet everyone would pick Iran and according to the report he would be wrong. Well, that´s how they describe the country and that´s what they want us to think. After all they do that with everyone they don´t like and mostly when the country has something that they DO like.

Yeah, poor Ahmadinejad, he's so misunderstood. It's all western propaganda. Iran is a glorious progressive nation with legitimate elections!

Originally Posted by rolfness

Grand Ayatollah Sanei in Iran has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate

hmmmm

Has this been confirmed?

BBC:

The result was quickly endorsed by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8099501.stm

But then...

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.co...-dissents.html

So whom is telling the truth?

Checked out Gaiman's friends and found a link to this article which then links to http://memeorandum.com/ - lots of Iran coverage there for anyone looking into the issue...

edit: 14 videos of the riots, protests, violence, people standing up for themselves, bottom of this article:

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/1...road-daylight/

I hope if another revolution is to form it doest take fundamental religion again to unite the masses into demanding their rights. This time let the right to demand what you think is best, be the only vehicle to change.

Originally Posted by Kaskad

Yeah, poor Ahmadinejad, he's so misunderstood. It's all western propaganda. Iran is a glorious progressive nation with legitimate elections!

i wish I could increase the font size to fully express how hard I just ROFL'd


either way, this is the exact same type of reaction I would expect from the US authorities if US citizens attempted anything like this. But US citizens wouldn't because we're too lazy and have cool video games to be playing.

Jesus, I just started hearing about this shit, didn't realize how bad it really is. I really hope that some good comes out of it all... It seems that some change over there is really needed.

Also, I'm really confused as to what Neil Gaiman has to do with this?

[edit]nevermind, never used twitter, didn't know what retweet was. :P[/edit]

here's my view:

if the "global police" of the UN, failed to do anything about Mogabe in Zimbabwe. what hope in fucking hell do they have of doing anything in Iran?

as horrifying, and brutal as things are. all i can think, is that if the people were really, truly, unbearably unhappy, they WILL revolt, and he WILL be overthrown. but until that happens, everyone seems happy to just sit and watch, like it's not their problem.

i know there's nothing i can do, personally, to help. i don't think anyone outside of iran can do anything. but the people IN iran, can do something. so let's hope they do, and let's hope the "world leaders" actually do something about this, instead of just letting it slide, and threatening "sanctions".

Kaskad - well, if you want to be funny, read my post again and find something that doesn´t make sense or isn´t thruth, ok? because I can imagine that similar thing you´d say in 2003 if I told you that Iraq doesn´t have WMD (if they did and they were going to use it to attack usa, why wouldn´t they use it for their defence?). I can almost hear you. and now the same scenario is here and suddenly everyone thinks that they know best based on the same misleading information channells AGAIN. If I was supposed to make a picture about MY country based on what EuroParlament and other organizations say, and if I didn´t live here to see what actually happens here, I would think that we lynch hungarians all the time and in a break we check our tanks before an invasion to Hungary.

almighty_gir - everyone knows that there´s only one country in the "world leaders" team, but why do you think that they should make the decision again? haven´t they been wrong about iraq? a little mistake that INCIDENTALLY brought them oil (it was an honest mistake, really, actually bush came here and he was trying to stay cool, but I swear you could almost see the tears in his eyes saying "why, why didn´t anybody tell me that this can bring us some profit? nobody´s gonna me believe that I was doing it to help the people NOW!!")... why do you think that the same "world leaders" should be deciding again after all the things they´ve done? or is everything forgotten already? I think you were right in one of your points - if the people were really unhappy, they will revolt. there´s nothing you (or me) can do about it. unless you´d go there, check it what it really is like in there and then you can help it from inside.

At the end just one thing: I heard that Ahmadinejad has a lot of fans/voters in villages, and he isn´t that popular in the cities. Now here´s a crazy idea... what if there´s a lot more villagers that do like Ahmadinejad and they´re happy about it, and there´s just couple hundreds of people from the city that don´t like him? Do you think that TV would go around villages showing you people that are doing their everyday things like working, playing with kids maybe... or do you think that couple of protesting people would be a bit better for the showtime? Hard decision there alright... and now another thing. The principles of democracy is that minority of people (by that I mean people who voted for the candidate that didn´t win the elections) has to "adapt", take the loss and wait for another elections. I just want to say that after every elections anywhere in the world, there´s minority of people not satisfied with the elections, but that doesn´t mean that the result of the elections should change, does it? because if you changed it based on protest of a few, the democracy of the elections would be ruined, right?