Iranian elections give Ahmadinejad massive majority; Tehran goes to shit.

Facebook reports are saying that there were helicopters that sprayed an "unknown liquid" over the crowd that caused some very serious burns on some of the protesters.

Who the hell sprays acid on their own citizens?!?

KelinciHutan wrote:

Facebook reports are saying that there were helicopters that sprayed an "unknown liquid" over the crowd that caused some very serious burns on some of the protesters.

Who the hell sprays acid on their own citizens?!?

Way too many dictators.

I always knew that fiction can never be as dramatic as reality.

How does this clusterfuck compare to V, for Vendetta so far?

Psy-4 wrote:

How does this clusterfuck compare to V, for Vendetta so far?

Not nearly enough Natalie Portman!

KelinciHutan wrote:

Facebook reports are saying that there were helicopters that sprayed an "unknown liquid" over the crowd that caused some very serious burns on some of the protesters.

Who the hell sprays acid on their own citizens?!?

Iran, obviously. There was...tension at my job today among workers. Some people were very obviously not in good moods and there were a lot of hushed conversations in other languages.

Those people. All those people, their own people. And the protestors just keep going. They're really going for it this time, aren't they? No backing down, no concessions. They want their country back.

So there's a video of a Iranian woman being shot and bleeding to death on Youtube now.

She wasn't wearing green or protesting or anything. Maybe she was showing too much face.

He's serious, all right...seriously psychotic.

Just reading all this makes me incredibly scared for Iran and those who are trying to make a stand. The Guardian Council has finally acknowledged that more votes were cast than there were eligible voters - the protesters aren't going to give up with that news - not peacefully at least. Hundreds of people have been arrested now, I don't want to think about what the authorities are doing to them in custody, let alone what's going on in the streets.

It's the right thing, but sad that foreign countries have little power to help in this situation. Their foreign minister accused the UK of planning to sabotage the election and threatening everyone else, so now it's definite that no government wants to get on their bad side. It's possible that if the protest goes badly and any countries have tried to do something, it'll turn into a war.

Damn, I hope this all gets resolved quickly. ;_;

Raine wrote:

It's the right thing, but sad that foreign countries have little power to help in this situation. Their foreign minister accused the UK of planning to sabotage the election and threatening everyone else, so now it's definite that no government wants to get on their bad side. It's possible that if the protest goes badly and any countries have tried to do something, it'll turn into a war.

There is an excuse now, though, if the Iranian population asks for help. In one of the recent rounds of arrests, several non-Iranian journalists were arrested and are being held in Iran. My suspicion is that the reason some of them were arrested was because they look ethnically middle-eastern. Like this guy.

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His name is Maziar Bahari, he's a Canadian citizen, he works for Newsweek, and he was arrested without charge on June 21 in Tehran. Newsweek is not happy about this turn of events, but the most they can do at the moment is issue a strongly worded statement, which they have done. However, something tells me Canada isn't too chuffed about having Iran hold one of its citizens without charge in a country that is none-too-stable at the moment. If the Iranian people want to ask for help, this kind of stunt is exactly the pretext they'd need to ask for it.

Lapin wrote:

Those people. All those people, their own people. And the protestors just keep going. They're really going for it this time, aren't they? No backing down, no concessions. They want their country back.

Check out the last thirty seconds of this (awesome) video. I still get goosebumps every time I watch it.

Pelican wrote:

Lapin wrote:

Those people. All those people, their own people. And the protestors just keep going. They're really going for it this time, aren't they? No backing down, no concessions. They want their country back.

Check out the last thirty seconds of this (awesome) video. I still get goosebumps every time I watch it.

Ah man that's cool. When did that actually happen, do we know?

Hey, Kel, why was that guy still in the country after they told western reporters to get out?

Hopefully, keeping an eye on things, and getting information out.

This is one thing we can do for them: keep the data flowing. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google's new English-Persian website translator, the press. After all, the first priority for any underground movement AND any revolutionary army is communications. If the Man isn't powerful enough to shut out the voice of dissent, then they're halfway to losing already. Western companies and even Anonymous have pledged to help, and the great thing is, no government can stop them.

I cried watching that.

That's one good thing about the internet age, nothing can be properly shut down. There are forums for anonymous (lowercase a) to keep the information flowing. Info on first aid in the street, gunshot wounds etc.

I think that t'interwebs is helping to sustain the protests. Iranian people know that everyone is watching and want to help and support them.

Quote :

If the Man isn't powerful enough to shut out the voice of dissent, then they're halfway to losing already

This is why anonymity is important.

Too bad that's going down the tubes as well.

Quote :

even Anonymous have pledged to help

WHOA

Sadly I think the killing is stepping up another notch now though. There are reports of unarmed students being shot and killed, videos too apparently. I haven't wanted to watch them though.

There was a particularly gruesome and sad video of a young woman getting shot. She's already been called a martyr, which is pretty serious business, and dubbed 'The Call' in the original Farsi. Looks like things are just gonna get worse.

As for foreign powers, the best thing they can do is stay the fuck away. If the USA or Europe don't interfere, the guys in charge can't use them as scapegoats. The trick is to get them hanging by their own rope. If that means other countries have no choice but to sit in their hands, so be it.

Heating up? They're going thermonuclear.

Call me cynical, but I'm afraid that if the ruling regime gets thrown out violently, it'll just be an opportunity for somebody else to come in and oppress people--maybe even somebody worse.

I'm also against foreign intervention, but not just for the stated reasons. We've been trying to make this happen for years - decades! - in Iran, and it hasn't happened. This is what we were trying to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. And now, it's going to happen on it's own, and even if it somehow doesn't, it's going to mark the birth of a large anti-Hating Us opposition movement, which could lead to reforms down the line.

This is an incredible opportunity, and we need to study it. There's so much we need to learn from this. What's making this happen? Why these people? Why now? Can it happen again, elsewhere?

I want to hope that they can keep going. That this time, they really can change their country for the better. Iran oppressed their people for too long, and with all the tension and craziness going on around them now, maybe they just sort of bubbled over at this one last straw. I'm just hoping that things don't dissolve into pure anarchy. People are already dying. If that happens, everyone's dead.

Do you think the North Koreans will end up rebelling too? They're starving to death, their leader is so far around the bend he's doing another lap, and they're cut off from the rest of the world. If the Iranians are successful, who will try next?

Post-revolutionary Iran was built on the idea that the supreme leader and his clerical hierarchy were extensions of the will of God, an instrument of divine moral justice. This means the same thing to them that ideals like liberty mean to Americans, that rich history and culture mean to Europeans. It's the basis of their national identity, the driving force of their loyalty to the government.

Khamenei himself declared that the election results were "divine." That means, to them, this was a direct order from God.

Half the country - even half the clerics - refused to believe it.

Imagine the very idea of liberty dying. How long could our government endure, even by force?

No, that Iran is dead. The whole foundation is dead, and the rot is already setting in, live on our computers. The government will fall eventually. It will either collapse suddenly from the inside, or reform itself out of existence later on as successive generations achieve power.

Change is coming. It's too late to contain it, now.

So basically, by frauding the election, and probably not for the first time, so blatantly, the government destroyed any bit of faith their people had left in them, and opened up a big can of worms?

Guess you can't exactly close the can again, huh?