2145 GMT: The Karroubi Story. We’ve worked tonight through the stories, the rumours, and possibilities to post an interim analysis of Mehdi Karroubi’s statement today on “Mr Khamenei” and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “the head of the government of the regime”.
2140 GMT: In Case You Missed It. Persian2English reports: “Abolfazl Eslami, former Counselor of the Iranian Embassy in Tokyo, writes that he has decided to join people’s movement in light of the Islamic Republics’ violence and oppression.”
1955 GMT: And on the Clerical Front. Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani has renewed his criticism of the regime, asking Iran’s leaders to do “nahy az monker” (repent from the bad way).
1945 GMT: Remember the Economic Front? Most of the management of Bank Melli have been replaced.
1935 GMT: We are hoping to have a thorough, on-the-mark analysis, from an EA correspondent with excellent sources, of the Karroubi statement about 2130 GMT. (To be blunt, I got it wrong earlier today, but I think, thanks to a lot of help, we’ll have the best possible reading by the end of tonight.)
Meanwhile, another piece of evidence to put into the mix, indicating that Karroubi is not recognising Ahmadinejad as President but merely as a “selected leader”. He told Rah-e-Sabz that he stood by his comments, but the people have problems which must be solved by the government, which is responsible for the situation. He repeated a statement he had made to an English newspaper: “I am convinced that Ahmadinejad will not stay for four years.” Read the rest of this entry »
Today 36 members of Iran’s Parliament tabled a bill ensuring that anyone designated by the courts as a “combatant” be executed within five days. The bill seeks to amend an existing law that states that anyone who “tampers” with public opinion, a clause used mainly these days to indicate calling for protests or joining them, can be designated as a combatant. Iranian protesters are being accused of treason and for attempting to stage a “velvet revolution” even when all they are demanding is the rights granted to them by the Constitution.
While observers inside and outside Iran may be baffled by the claims of such a revolution, the Iranian government has some cause. There may be no facts for a foreign-instigated regime change; however, some outsiide the country — both “foregin” and Iranian — may give the regime the pretext to prosecute peaceful protesters. Read the rest of this entry »
Austin Heap, one of the most prominent activists on the Internet and Iran (see, for example, “The Haystack Project” to provide unfiltered Web access to Iranians), writes a guest blog for Enduring America on yesterday’s diversion of Twitter users to the page of the “Iranian Cyber Army”:
There were probably a few odd text messages whizzing around in San Francisco at 11 PM on Thursday night at a place called Dyn. It’s a company that most people had not heard of, even though it powers websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and Vimeo. They even have a catchy motto: “Uptime is the Bottom Line”. Now, however, a group calling itself the “Iranian Cyber Army” had hacked Dyn’s servers and changed only a tiny line of text. The outcome was the “occupation” of Twitter, causing a two-hour outage of service for Tweeters around the world.
Dyn offers a service called managed DNS hosting. Essentially a yellow pages for the Internet, DNS translates lettered website names into an IP address, like phone numbers for computers. When you type in enduringamerica.com on your browser, a request is sent out to a DNS server. The DNS server responds to your browser and says, “enduringamerica.com’s IP address is XX.XX.XX.XXX”, then your browser “calls” that IP. Read the rest of this entry »
2200 GMT: We took a break tonight to recuperate from the drama of Friday. To be honest, almost all the chatter is a recycling of the events and images of Qods Day.
There are intriguing developments surrounding the clerical opposition to the Government. Mowj-e-Sabz reports that Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was forced to cancel an important annual prayer.
The Green Movement is highlighting the possibility that marjas, the highest-ranking senior clerics, will not declare that Ramadan has ended Sunday and can be celebrated with the feast of Eid al-Fitr. In particular, it is noted that the websites of Ayatollah Montazeri and of Ayatollah Sane’i have not yet declared that the Holy Month is over.
Ayatollahs Mousavi-Ardebili, Safi-Golpaygani, and Bayat-Zanjani are also declaring that they have not seen the crescent of the moon. And now Hojatoleslam Taghdiri, the head of the crescent observation committee of Tehran Province, has said that there is no way that the crescent can be observed tonight, permitting Eid al-Fitr to proceed tomorrow.
As #iranelection is overwhelmed, the conversation risks becoming diluted. But Twitter, having recognised its important role in post-election Iran, needs to act.
We are signing off for the night. Thanks to all who kept up with us today and our thoughts with friends and colleagues in Tehran. We’ll be back about 0530 GMT.
2230 GMT: Reports indicate that, although it is 3 a.m. in Iran, people are still milling about and shouting on the streets.
2100 GMT: Claims are coming in that tanks are on the streets of Tehran.
2045 GMT: We’re sifting through reports of killings and of political developments; the latest is that Mir Hossein Mousavi will not be allowed to speak at the Tehran rally tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, we have posted latest video from protests yesterday and today.
1920 GMT: Protestors claim to have taken down Ahmadinejad’s website by “swarming” it. They are now targeting Ayatollah Khamenei’s website.
1845 GMT: Reports of four people killed in demonstrations in Rasht. There are claims of additional minibuses arriving with extra security forces and police. Read the rest of this entry »
2230 GMT: We’re signing off until the morning. Thanks to everyone who sent us information today. To friends in Iran: our thoughts are with you.
2200 GMT: We have now posted the English translation of the letter released by Mir Hossein Mousavi to his supporters this afternoon.l
2145 GMT: In addition to the video of this afternoon’s protests in Tehran, which we posted in this entry, we now have posted footage that the riots have spread this evening to the university in Shiraz and to the city of Mashhad..
The State Department yesterday announced that it had sent a nine-member delegation of senior representatives from major technology companies- including Google, AT&T, Twitter and Automattic/Wordpress- to Iraq to (quoting CNN), “provide conceptual input as well as ideas on how new technologies can be used to build local capacity, foster greater transparency and accountability, build upon anti-corruption efforts, promote critical thinking in the classroom, scale-up civil society, and further empower local entities and individuals by providing the tools for network building.”
Back in January we made a couple of posts about State’s use of Twitter. Scott was critical of then-Under Secretary of State Colleen Graffey’s discussing buying a Mac while the Israeli incursion into Gaza was at its peak. One of the other criticisms of Graffey’s twittering was that she was only going to reach those privileged enough to have regular internet access, and that this wasn’t likely to include a huge number of, for example, Iraqis. Monday’s announcement appears to mark a move from State simply twittering, to State helping others twitter. I’d like to think that the State Department has realised that its new blog and video updates are missing a huge swathe of their intended audience due to a lack of internet access. But this seems to me more like an attempt to put US companies at the forefront of any internet goldrush in the Arabic-speaking world.
2145 GMT: The Karroubi Story. We’ve worked tonight through the stories, the rumours, and possibilities to post an interim analysis of Mehdi Karroubi’s statement today on “Mr Khamenei” and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “the head of the government of the regime”.
Austin Heap, one of the most prominent activists on the Internet and Iran (see, for example, 
2200 GMT: We took a break tonight to recuperate from the drama of Friday. To be honest, almost all the chatter is a recycling of the events and images of Qods Day.
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