It's Not Too Late To Care
Grabbed from vulva from ontd_twatlight. Thanks bb!
Very Very brief breakdown of the situation in Iran.
On Friday, elections were held.
A mere 2 hours after the polls closed, an announcement was made declaring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the re-elected president. This seemed impossible because of the 85% voter turn out.
Peculiarly, text messages weren't sending during this time. (They still do not work).
This meant over 10 million ballots. Which were counted by hand in less than 2 hours.
The projected winner was Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
What is important to know about Iran is that while the country does have a President, the Supreme Leader Iran is Ali Khamenei. Essentially he is the highest ranking religious and political leader in the country.
Grand Ayatollah Khamenei himself said that Ahmadinejad was the elected President.
Social Networking Internet sites like Facebook were blocked, and cellphone access was denied.
Protesters (mainly in Tehran) took to the streets. There, we saw police brutality and civilian uproar.
On Saturday, protests took place on the streets.
From here on out, protesters wear the colour green, which is Mousavi's campaign symbol.
Basijis, which are volunteer militants (armed yet dressed in plain clothes) took to the streets and began pouring in to Tehran by the bus loads.
Students at the local University were protesting, visibly upset. In the middle of the night, the Basijis forced their way into dormitories where they savagely beat students, destroyed computers, and furniture.
We have one confirmed death during this incident, but are hearing reports that up to 5 university students have lost their lives from one university campus.
On Sunday protesters once again took to the streets of Iran, and organized a protest that was to be held in Tehran on Monday. The Government (Ahmadinejad) forbade protests. Mousavi was to speak at this peaceful protest.
Sunday saw brutal beatings on the streets as riot police tried to take control of the situation.
At this point, the only source of information was coming from Twitter. Students and bloggers managed to find proxies that could help them access the site and tweet news to the Western World.
On Sunday night, cries of Allah o Akbar (God is great in Farzi) were shouted from rooftops and windows constantly throughout the night.
Monday, the protest took place. Mousavi showed up and talked to the people from a green car.
Things are still a blur to us right now. We have many unconfirmed reports.
There were shots fired into the 1-2 million strong crowd. People were shot, and we have reports of 7 casualties. Keep in mind that at this point, it is no longer the police who are killing or beating... it is the Basijis.
During this time, people are disappearing. Reports come from the Toronto Globe and Mail; one of their reporters gets caught up in Sunday's protests and is beaten and arrested and jailed. What he sees in somber. When the police find his Canadian passport, suddenly all is ~cool~ and they let him walk away. Others are not so lucky as to be foreigners.
News starts to trickle down through the Mass Media outlets. They are very very behind. BBC seems to be the only one paying attention.
The situation grows more violent. Apparently, the Basijis are now flooding to hospitals to stop doctors and nurses from treating patients/protesters.
More universities are attacked, people are offering their homes as shelter, but homes are being invaded and people taken away.
CNN goofs and absentmindedly names the twitter accounts where some information is coming from. Some of these sites suddenly disappear.
During this time, Western scumbags (us!) decide to stick it to the man (the Iranian 'government') and crash their websites. Many of us reboot their sites (meaning to constantly refresh every second thus crashing web servers and sites). Some of us are, erm, warned that our IPs are logged (lol, okay there).
People start making proxies for our Iranian brethrens. (Whenever you use a site, you have an ID... it's called an IP address. They are 'unique' to your computer -not always, but it's too much to get into, tbh- this is how the Iranian government was stopping the use of Facebook and other sites, by blocking these addresses from being accessed by Iranian IPs.) So, by using a proxy, they could theoretically access any website. This is how they accessed Twitter.
So, people began making proxies. Which you can do too!!
The protest eventually died down. And now, here we are Tuesday morning (EST).
The BBC are now reporting that there WILL be a recount, however, Skynews just said that the council would meet and discuss whether or not the elections were a fraud. They would then decide IF they would hold an election recount.
At this point, Skynews blogger/journalist/dude @Itwitius is keeping us informed.
An Iranian tweeter, @persiankiwi has also been giving us heart-wrenching updates.
I ASK THAT NONE OF YOU TWEET ANY IRANIAN TWEETERS, AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO 'RE-TWEET' THEIR MESSAGES, THAT YOU REMOVE THEIR NAMES.
Iranian agencies are monitoring social networking sites, specifically Twitter, and their lives may be in danger.
At this point, all we can do is wait, but I implore you my friends to EDUCATE yourselves on this, and support the people of Iran in their revolution.
Show your support by wearing green. Show your support by talking with friends and family and explaining to them the situation.
Participate in local protests that are being organized. Share links on Facebook, email your friends. Anything.
This is our generation, boys and girls. Let's show them that we are a GLOBAL nation.
HERE ARE SOME LINKS
Andrew Sullivan's blog, nice and easy.
A Coup in 3 easy steps
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Help to make a proxy
Huffington Post, a good source
PICTURES
PICTURES
Once again everyone, I can not stress how important it is that you GET INVOLVED!!
Very Very brief breakdown of the situation in Iran.
On Friday, elections were held.
A mere 2 hours after the polls closed, an announcement was made declaring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the re-elected president. This seemed impossible because of the 85% voter turn out.
Peculiarly, text messages weren't sending during this time. (They still do not work).
This meant over 10 million ballots. Which were counted by hand in less than 2 hours.
The projected winner was Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
What is important to know about Iran is that while the country does have a President, the Supreme Leader Iran is Ali Khamenei. Essentially he is the highest ranking religious and political leader in the country.
Grand Ayatollah Khamenei himself said that Ahmadinejad was the elected President.
Social Networking Internet sites like Facebook were blocked, and cellphone access was denied.
Protesters (mainly in Tehran) took to the streets. There, we saw police brutality and civilian uproar.
On Saturday, protests took place on the streets.
From here on out, protesters wear the colour green, which is Mousavi's campaign symbol.
Basijis, which are volunteer militants (armed yet dressed in plain clothes) took to the streets and began pouring in to Tehran by the bus loads.
Students at the local University were protesting, visibly upset. In the middle of the night, the Basijis forced their way into dormitories where they savagely beat students, destroyed computers, and furniture.
We have one confirmed death during this incident, but are hearing reports that up to 5 university students have lost their lives from one university campus.
On Sunday protesters once again took to the streets of Iran, and organized a protest that was to be held in Tehran on Monday. The Government (Ahmadinejad) forbade protests. Mousavi was to speak at this peaceful protest.
Sunday saw brutal beatings on the streets as riot police tried to take control of the situation.
At this point, the only source of information was coming from Twitter. Students and bloggers managed to find proxies that could help them access the site and tweet news to the Western World.
On Sunday night, cries of Allah o Akbar (God is great in Farzi) were shouted from rooftops and windows constantly throughout the night.
Monday, the protest took place. Mousavi showed up and talked to the people from a green car.
Things are still a blur to us right now. We have many unconfirmed reports.
There were shots fired into the 1-2 million strong crowd. People were shot, and we have reports of 7 casualties. Keep in mind that at this point, it is no longer the police who are killing or beating... it is the Basijis.
During this time, people are disappearing. Reports come from the Toronto Globe and Mail; one of their reporters gets caught up in Sunday's protests and is beaten and arrested and jailed. What he sees in somber. When the police find his Canadian passport, suddenly all is ~cool~ and they let him walk away. Others are not so lucky as to be foreigners.
News starts to trickle down through the Mass Media outlets. They are very very behind. BBC seems to be the only one paying attention.
The situation grows more violent. Apparently, the Basijis are now flooding to hospitals to stop doctors and nurses from treating patients/protesters.
More universities are attacked, people are offering their homes as shelter, but homes are being invaded and people taken away.
CNN goofs and absentmindedly names the twitter accounts where some information is coming from. Some of these sites suddenly disappear.
During this time, Western scumbags (us!) decide to stick it to the man (the Iranian 'government') and crash their websites. Many of us reboot their sites (meaning to constantly refresh every second thus crashing web servers and sites). Some of us are, erm, warned that our IPs are logged (lol, okay there).
People start making proxies for our Iranian brethrens. (Whenever you use a site, you have an ID... it's called an IP address. They are 'unique' to your computer -not always, but it's too much to get into, tbh- this is how the Iranian government was stopping the use of Facebook and other sites, by blocking these addresses from being accessed by Iranian IPs.) So, by using a proxy, they could theoretically access any website. This is how they accessed Twitter.
So, people began making proxies. Which you can do too!!
The protest eventually died down. And now, here we are Tuesday morning (EST).
The BBC are now reporting that there WILL be a recount, however, Skynews just said that the council would meet and discuss whether or not the elections were a fraud. They would then decide IF they would hold an election recount.
At this point, Skynews blogger/journalist/dude @Itwitius is keeping us informed.
An Iranian tweeter, @persiankiwi has also been giving us heart-wrenching updates.
I ASK THAT NONE OF YOU TWEET ANY IRANIAN TWEETERS, AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO 'RE-TWEET' THEIR MESSAGES, THAT YOU REMOVE THEIR NAMES.
Iranian agencies are monitoring social networking sites, specifically Twitter, and their lives may be in danger.
At this point, all we can do is wait, but I implore you my friends to EDUCATE yourselves on this, and support the people of Iran in their revolution.
Show your support by wearing green. Show your support by talking with friends and family and explaining to them the situation.
Participate in local protests that are being organized. Share links on Facebook, email your friends. Anything.
This is our generation, boys and girls. Let's show them that we are a GLOBAL nation.
HERE ARE SOME LINKS
Andrew Sullivan's blog, nice and easy.
A Coup in 3 easy steps
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Help to make a proxy
Huffington Post, a good source
PICTURES
PICTURES
Once again everyone, I can not stress how important it is that you GET INVOLVED!!