Information From Iran

There are some amazing websites tracking Iran right now.

For faxes out of Iran (since much of the Internet is blocked right now) - though no faxes yet (just started a few hours ago): http://iranfax.org/

Here's a picture from Twitter (found here) of the protest yesterday:



For live blogging: Both The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jun/18/iran-unrest) and the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html) are live blogging events in Iran. I'm sure there are more bloggers. Those are the ones I've found. According to the blogs, the protests have numbered between 500,000 and 1 million.

I would post something about Twitter, but apparently some news organizations' use of twitter entries is putting some people in danger.

YouTube has decided to relax its normal "no violence" standards, and instead is permitting Iran posts that show what is going on there.

A few things I have read so far: the march yesterday was eerily and powerfully silent; a supposed "spot check" of ballots by the government has revealed no fraud, but those same people refuse to allow a review of the ballots themselves by opposition candidates (one of the minor candidates from the election was specifically denied); this candidate has asked all those who supported him to send them their names and voter i.d. numbers - so far he's received 200,000 responses; the police have been protecting the protesters from the police...

And then there is this column by NYTimes' Roger Cohen, written last week, when all this first began. "She was in tears like many women on the streets of Iran’s battered capital," he wrote. "'Throw away your pen and paper and come to our aid,' she said, pointing to my notebook. 'There is no freedom here.' ... [A man] grabbed me. A purple bruise disfigured his arm. He raised his shirt to show a red wound across his back. 'They beat me like a pig,' he said, breathless. 'They beat me as I tried to help a woman in tears. I don’t care about the physical pain. It’s the pain in my heart that hurts.' He looked at me and the rage in his eyes made me want to toss away my notebook."