The wonders of technology - and despite their efforts to do otherwise, the inability of the Iranian authorities to shut down the internet, Twitter, YouTube, etc. - news is still getting out of the country now seemingly wracked with huge protests against the result of last Friday's so-called election.
ABC News [Australia] affords the means via its web site "Tweeting from Tehran: social media and the Iranian election" for getting information about what is happening, virtually in real time:
"In the aftermath of Iran's presidential election, the world has seen how activists have organised protests and spread their message on a global scale using social media.
This special presentation from ABC News Online collates some of the citizen journalism coming out of Iran since Friday's poll.
Official figures show incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with over 60 per cent of the vote, but supporters of his main rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, claim to have evidence the election was rigged.
"My father has a truck load of ballot boxes that were to be burned in the back of his truck," a student calling himself Abdul-Azim Mohammed wrote online just hours after state media reported Mr Ahmadinejad's win.
Since then the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has promised a review".
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports in "Twitter Is a Player In Iran's Drama":
"The State Department asked social-networking site Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance earlier this week to avoid disrupting communications among tech-savvy Iranian citizens as they took to the streets to protest Friday's reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The move illustrates the growing influence of online social-networking services as a communications media. Foreign news coverage of the unfolding drama, meanwhile, was limited by Iranian government restrictions barring journalists from "unauthorized" demonstrations.
"One of the areas where people are able to get out the word is through Twitter," a senior State Department official said in a conversation with reporters, on condition of anonymity. "They announced they were going to shut down their system for maintenance and we asked them not to."
Finally, whilst the Iranian authorities have banned foreign journalists, in Iran, from reporting from the country, not one to be deterred by such minor inconveniences or restrictions, Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, has still reported from Tehran in "Fear has gone in a land that has tasted freedom":
"The fate of Iran rested last night in a grubby north Tehran highway interchange called Vanak Square where – after days of violence – supporters of the official President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at last confronted the screaming, angry Iranians who have decided that Mirhossein Mousavi should be the president of their country. Unbelievably – and I am a witness because I stood beside them – just 400 Iranian special forces police were keeping these two armies apart. There were stones and tear gas but for the first time in this epic crisis the cops promised to protect both sides.
"Please, please, keep the Basiji from us," one middle-aged lady pleaded with a special forces officer in flak jacket and helmet as the Islamic Republic's thug-like militia appeared in their camouflage trousers and purity-white shirts only a few metres away. The cop smiled at her. "With God's help," he said. Two other policemen were lifted shoulder-high. "Tashakor, tashakor," – "thank you, thank you" – the crowd roared at them.
This was phenomenal. The armed special forces of the Islamic Republic, hitherto always allies of the Basiji, were prepared for once, it seemed, to protect all Iranians, not just Ahmadinejad's henchmen. The precedent for this sudden neutrality is known to everyone – it was when the Shah's army refused to fire on the millions of demonstrators demanding his overthrow in 1979."
ABC News [Australia] affords the means via its web site "Tweeting from Tehran: social media and the Iranian election" for getting information about what is happening, virtually in real time:
"In the aftermath of Iran's presidential election, the world has seen how activists have organised protests and spread their message on a global scale using social media.
This special presentation from ABC News Online collates some of the citizen journalism coming out of Iran since Friday's poll.
Official figures show incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with over 60 per cent of the vote, but supporters of his main rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, claim to have evidence the election was rigged.
"My father has a truck load of ballot boxes that were to be burned in the back of his truck," a student calling himself Abdul-Azim Mohammed wrote online just hours after state media reported Mr Ahmadinejad's win.
Since then the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has promised a review".
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports in "Twitter Is a Player In Iran's Drama":
"The State Department asked social-networking site Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance earlier this week to avoid disrupting communications among tech-savvy Iranian citizens as they took to the streets to protest Friday's reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The move illustrates the growing influence of online social-networking services as a communications media. Foreign news coverage of the unfolding drama, meanwhile, was limited by Iranian government restrictions barring journalists from "unauthorized" demonstrations.
"One of the areas where people are able to get out the word is through Twitter," a senior State Department official said in a conversation with reporters, on condition of anonymity. "They announced they were going to shut down their system for maintenance and we asked them not to."
Finally, whilst the Iranian authorities have banned foreign journalists, in Iran, from reporting from the country, not one to be deterred by such minor inconveniences or restrictions, Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, has still reported from Tehran in "Fear has gone in a land that has tasted freedom":
"The fate of Iran rested last night in a grubby north Tehran highway interchange called Vanak Square where – after days of violence – supporters of the official President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at last confronted the screaming, angry Iranians who have decided that Mirhossein Mousavi should be the president of their country. Unbelievably – and I am a witness because I stood beside them – just 400 Iranian special forces police were keeping these two armies apart. There were stones and tear gas but for the first time in this epic crisis the cops promised to protect both sides.
"Please, please, keep the Basiji from us," one middle-aged lady pleaded with a special forces officer in flak jacket and helmet as the Islamic Republic's thug-like militia appeared in their camouflage trousers and purity-white shirts only a few metres away. The cop smiled at her. "With God's help," he said. Two other policemen were lifted shoulder-high. "Tashakor, tashakor," – "thank you, thank you" – the crowd roared at them.
This was phenomenal. The armed special forces of the Islamic Republic, hitherto always allies of the Basiji, were prepared for once, it seemed, to protect all Iranians, not just Ahmadinejad's henchmen. The precedent for this sudden neutrality is known to everyone – it was when the Shah's army refused to fire on the millions of demonstrators demanding his overthrow in 1979."
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