Iran votes for new president

[Netto Azure]

Record turnout in Iran presidential poll

There has been record turnout for Iran's closely-fought election as incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seeks a second term in office.
"Voter turnout has been unprecedented," election commission chief Kamran Daneshjoo said, as long queues were reported at polling stations.
Polling has been extended by two hours to 2000 local time (1530 GMT).
Mr Ahmadinejad faces a strong challenge from former PM Mir Hossein Mousavi in a campaign dominated by the economy.
The election is being watched closely around the world for signs of a possible shift in Tehran's attitude.
If no candidate gets 50% in the first round, the two front-runners will face a run-off vote.
There has been a surge of interest recently in Iran's presidential election, with unprecedented live television debates between the candidates and rallies attended by thousands.
State-run Irna TV said more than five million people cast their vote in the first four hours of voting.
The country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and both the leading candidates voted early in the day, calling on Iranians to exercise their right to choose the country's next president.
"I recommend them to just vote based on their own views and decisions," Ayatollah Khamenei said as he voted.
"God willing, the best and the most deserving person will be elected as the head of the executive body for a four-year period."
Mr Ahmadinejad thanked the people of Iran "for their goodness, for their greatness, for their selflessness, their sacrifices, and for their forgiveness".
Mr Mousavi said simply: "God willing, with the nationwide participation of the public, we will see better and more beautiful days."

Well either way things will not change right away...it will be a painful dance of diplomacy-military threats/carrots-and-sticks until some change will occur since technically Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the one who holds real power...
​

 

[C7CACorncas12]

Times of London: Scuffles in Tehran as Ahmadinejad and Mousavi both claim victory

It looks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi's respective supporters will be biting their nails this evening. One political consultant is fearing a crackdown similar to Tiananmen Square, and already, several key websites have been blocked, including that of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Ali Khamenei's totalitarianism can only be explainable once this "election" clears up, despite the high voter turnout.:

American Enterprise Institute: Ali Alfoneh: Renewal of Allegiance: Presidential Elections in Iran

The Guardian Council gives the green light for any candidates who wish to run, which can only guarantee the continuation of the ayatollahs' ambitions, right alongside any interference from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Talk about election deception.

 

[Netto Azure]

Iran poll loser in protest rally

Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has joined a huge rally against the result of last week's election, defying a government ban.
AFP news agency reported Mr Mousavi told a crowd of thousands in Tehran he was ready to take part in a new poll.
Mr Mousavi, making his first public appearance since Friday's election, says the results were rigged in favour of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr Ahmadinejad has dismissed the claims and says the vote was fair.
The demonstrators gathered in central Tehran chanting pro-Mousavi slogans.
And Mr Mousavi eventually appeared, addressing the crowd from the roof of his car.
"The vote of the people is more important than Mousavi or any other person," he told his supporters.
Before Mr Mousavi arrived, Reuters reported that his supporters had scuffled with stick-wielding men on motorcycles - apparently supporters of the president.
Following two days of unrest, the interior ministry warned earlier on Monday that "any disrupter of public security would be dealt with according to the law".
The renewed protests come after Mr Mousavi and fellow defeated candidate Mohsen Rezai filed official complaints against the election result with the Guardian Council - the country's powerful clerical group.
State television reported that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has upheld the election result, urged the Guardian Council to "precisely consider" the complaints.
A spokesman for the 12-member council said they would meet Mr Mousavi and Mr Rezai on Tuesday. They are expected to decide on the complaints by next week.

Hay...I'm starting to worry about this even more....

 

[C7CACorncas12]

Hay...I'm starting to worry about this even more....

No kidding, and with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards' recent gains in Iran's power structure, especially under Ahmadinejad, it would seem that Iran's theocracy is getting to be rather militarized.:

Wall Street Journal: Amir Taheri: Iran's Clarifying Election

Having won re-election amid allegations of fraud, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday tried to show that he also controlled the streets where the Khomeinist regime first seized power in the 1979 revolution.

The show was less than impressive. Despite efforts by the Ansar Hezbollah (Militants of the Party of God) and security services to manufacture a large crowd, the massive Maydan Vali-Asr (Hidden Imam Square) was unfilled. The official news agency put the number at "several hundred thousands" while eyewitnesses reported tens of thousands.

Even then, scuffles broke out on the fringes of the crowd as groups of dissidents tried to force their way in with cries of "Marg bar diktator!" (death to the dictator). That slogan may be on its way to replacing the normal greeting of salaam (peace) in parts of urban Iran.

No one knows exactly how much electoral fraud took place. The entire process was tightly controlled by the Ministry of Interior under Sadeq Mahsouli, a general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and a senior aide to Mr. Ahmadinejad. There was no independent election commission, no secret balloting, no observers to supervise the counting of the votes, and no mechanism for verification. It is impossible to know how many people voted and for whom.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was credited with more votes than anyone in Iran's history. If the results are to be believed, he won in all 30 provinces, and among all social and age categories. His three rivals, all dignitaries of the regime, were humiliated by losing even in their own hometowns. This was an unprecedented result even for the Islamic Republic, where elections have always been carefully scripted charades.

Many in Tehran, including leading clerics, see the exercise as a putsch by the military-security organs that back Mr. Ahmadinejad. Several events make these allegations appear credible. The state-owned Fars News Agency declared Mr. Ahmadinejad to have won with a two-thirds majority even before the first official results had been tabulated by the Interior Ministry. Mr. Ahmadinejad's main rival, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, retaliated by declaring himself the winner. That triggered a number of street demonstrations, followed with statements by prominent political and religious figures endorsing Mr. Mousavi's claim.

Then something unprecedented happened. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all issues of national life, published a long statement hailing Mr. Ahmadinejad's "historic victory" as "a great celebration." This was the first time since 1989, when he became supreme leader, that Mr. Khamenei commented on the results of a presidential election without waiting for the publication of official results. Some analysts in Tehran tell me that the military-security elite, now controlling the machinery of the Iranian state, persuaded Mr. Khamenei to make the unprecedented move.

A detailed study of Mr. Khamenei's text reveals a number of anomalies. It is longer than his usual statements and full of expressions that he has never used before. The praise he showers on Mr. Ahmadinejad is simply too much. The question arises: Did someone use the supreme leader as a rubber stamp for a text written by Mr. Ahmadinejad himself? With Mr. Khamenei's intervention, Mr. Ahmadinejad's three defeated rivals are unlikely to contest the results of the election beyond lodging formal protests to the Council of the Guardians, a 12-mullah body that has the legal duty of endorsing the final results.

Buoyed by his victory, Mr. Ahmadinejad has already served notice that he intends to pursue his radical policies with even greater vigor. At yesterday's rally, he promised to pass a law enabling him to bring "the godfathers of corruption" to justice. His entourage insists that former Presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, and former parliament Speaker Nateq Nouri, all midranking mullahs, may be among the first to fall in a massive purge of the ruling elite.

It is too early to guess whether these dignitaries would march to the metaphorical gallows without a fight. Even if they fight, they are unlikely to win. Nevertheless, Messrs. Rafsanjani, Khatami and other targeted mullahs could influence others who wish to prevent a complete seizure of power by Mr. Ahmadinejad's military-security clique, which is determined to replace the Shiite clergy as the nation's ruling elite. Nor is it at all certain that Supreme Leader Khamenei would stand by and watch his power eroded by a rising elite of radicals.

Mr. Ahmadinejad also plans to seize the assets of hundreds of mullahs and their business associates for redistribution among the poor. In his speech at his victory rally yesterday he promised to "dismantle the network of corruption," and vowed never to negotiate about Iran's nuclear program with any foreign power: "That file is shut, forever," he said.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory has several immediate consequences. First, it should kill the illusion that the Khomeinist regime is capable of internal evolution towards moderation. Mr. Ahmadinejad sees Iran as a vehicle for a messianic global revolution.

Second, the election eliminates the elements within the regime -- men such as Mr. Mousavi and Mahdi Karrubi (another of the three unsuccessful candidates who ran against Mr. Ahmadinejad) -- who have pursued the idea of keeping the theocracy intact while giving it a veneer of democratic practice. According to a statement published yesterday by Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister who was among 132 anti-Ahmadinejad activists arrested over the weekend, the regime's "loyal opposition" would now have to reconsider its loyalty. With Iranian Gorbachev wannabes like Messrs. Khatami and Mousavi discredited, advocates of regime change such as former Interior Minister Abdullah Nouri and former Tehran University Chancellor Muhammad Sheybani look set to attract a good segment of the opposition within the establishment.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory has the merit of clarifying the situation within the Islamic Republic. The choice is now between a repressive regime based on a bizarre and obscurantist ideology and the prospect of real change and democratization. There is no halfway house.

The same clarity may apply to Tehran's foreign policy. Believing that he has already defeated the United States, Mr. Ahmadinejad will be in no mood for compromise. Moments after his victory he described the U.S. as a "crippled creature" and invited President Obama to a debate at the United Nations General Assembly, ostensibly to examine "the injustice done by world arrogance to Muslim nations."

Iran's neighbors are unlikely to welcome Mr. Ahmadinejad's re-election. He has reactivated pro-Iranian groups in a number of Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. He is determined to expand Tehran's influence in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially as the U.S. retreats. He has also made it clear that he intends to help the Lebanese Hezbollah strengthen its position as a state within the state and a vanguard in the struggle against Israel.

Even Latin America is likely to receive Mr. Ahmadinejad's attention. The first foreign leader to phone to congratulate the re-elected Iranian leader was Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, whose "brotherly message" received headline treatment from the state-controlled media in Tehran. Later this year, Mr. Ahmadinejad plans to attend the summit of the nonaligned movements in Cairo to claim its leadership, according to Iran's official news agency, with a message of "unity against the American Great Satan" and its allies in the region.

Buoyed by his dubious victory, Mr. Ahmadinejad appears itching for a fight on two fronts. He thinks he can have his way at home and abroad. As usual in history, hubris may turn out to be his undoing.

Many have affirmed that Ahmadinejad is Khamenei's mouthpiece, but at this point, I'm beginning to wonder if the opposite is really the case.

 

[Netto Azure]

No kidding, and with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards' recent gains in Iran's power structure, especially under Ahmadinejad, it would seem that Iran's theocracy is getting to be rather militarized.:

Wall Street Journal: Amir Taheri: Iran's Clarifying Election



Many have affirmed that Ahmadinejad is Khamenei's mouthpiece, but at this point, I'm beginning to wonder if the opposite is really the case.

Well this is quite something...I'm somewhat agreeing with you. But eh...It's still Khamenei who has power. D:

 

[C7CACorncas12]

Ahmadinejad, or Khamenei? Unfortunately for either of them, the Iranian people are spreading the message around the world through... Twitter.:

Fox News Channel: Twitter Links Iran Protesters to Outside World

YouTube and Facebook may be blocked, but Twitter has become the Iranians' primary means of communication with both each other and the rest of the world. Incredibly, some infamous mullahs are among the protesters, including Mohammed Khatami. This could be the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I would welcome such a prospect.

 

[evkl]

The next few days will be pivotal to see the outcome.

 

[Netto Azure]

Iran 'to hold election recount'

Iran's powerful Guardian Council says it is ready to recount disputed votes from Friday's presidential poll.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election is being contested by rival Mir Hossein Mousavi and other moderate candidates, who are seeking a rerun.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Tehran says they may not accept the recount offer.

Several people died in a protest on Monday and Mr Mousavi urged followers not to take part in a rally planned for Tuesday, amid fears of new violence.

"This headquarters calls on people to avoid the trap of planned clashes," a Mousavi spokesman told AFP news agency.
See map of central Tehran

The authorities announced tough new restrictions on foreign media, requiring journalists to obtain explicit permission before covering any story. Journalists have also been banned from attending or reporting on any unauthorised demonstration.

Our correspondent says they are the most sweeping restrictions he has ever encountered reporting anywhere.

The march was due to have taken place in Tehran's Vali Asr Square at the same time as a demonstration there by supporters of President Ahmadinejad.

Thousands of the president's followers have converged there in a show of strength, cramming into tree-lined boulevards, some waving the national flag, as well as ones of orange, yellow and green.

Well recount?

I highly doubt that this changes anything since Ahmadinejad "has 60+% of the vote"

>.>

 

[Fig]

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090616/wr_nm/us_iran_election_twitter_usa_2

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

The U.S. State Department contacted the social networking service Twitter over the weekend to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that could have cut daytime service to Iranians, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

"We highlighted to them that this was an important form of communication," said the official of the conversation the department had with Twitter at the time of the disputed Iranian election. He declined further details.

(Reporting by Sue Pleming, Editing by Sandra Maler)

State Department...Twitter...same sentence...

Seriously, I know how useful Twitter is being over there. But it is still mind-numbing to see State Department intervening to keep Twitter running!

Internet. Serious business.

EDIT : Also, the Iranian Interior Ministry (eg, the secret police) are apparently looking for opponents by looking up accounts on Twitter that have Tehran for a location, or are set to the Iranian (tehran) timezone.

So if you feel like you want to do your little bit in this whole mess...well, there's always the old "I am Spartacus" trick - register on Twitter (if you haven't already), set your location to Tehran, your timezone to GMT +3:30 (Tehran), etc. Sure, it won't fool them if they actually look at your page, but if you double, or triple, or quadruple the number of account they check (and if you repost - IN YOUR OWN WORDS - actual news from Iran...)

It may not end up doing much if anything at all, but the effort involved is about five seconds of your time.

 

[C7CACorncas12]

We might want to get our Internet abilities up to speed for these protests, because a practical cyberwar has erupted against the ayatollahs, and computer junkies around the world are jumping into the fray. (Note: All weblinks are in the original weblink.):

The election crisis in Iran has ignited a full-on guerrilla cyberwar, with Twitterers and techies across the globe pitching in to help protesters in that country access the Internet, and official Iranian government Web sites being knocked offline.

The U.S. State Department even reportedly weighed in, with an unnamed official telling Reuters Tuesday that it had asked Twitter not to "shut down its system in Iran."

Early on Monday, bloggers outside Iran began posting and tweeting links to Web proxy servers that Iranians could use to dodge censorship — and others put up how-to guides for setting up even more proxies.

Some efforts took a more aggressive tone, as "hacktivists" talked of taking down Iranian goverment Web sites, and at least one American blogger posted instructions on how to do so.

As of midday Tuesday, Web sites belonging to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were unreachable.

• Click here for more on Iran's disputed presidential election.

• Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center.

Twitter itself, realizing how vital it had become, put off a scheduled maintenance outage until 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday (1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Tehran) so that Iranians could get in a full day of uninterrupted tweeting.

Iranians used the proxy servers to upload dozens of video clips to YouTube, despite an official block on the Web site within the country.

One blurry YouTube clip, likely shot with a cell phone, showed what appeared to have been a member of the Basij paramilitary force firing down from a second-story window into a courtyard with an AK-47 as protests continued behind a high wall.

The footage broadly matched an incident in Tehran Monday evening, when protesters broke into a Basij compound. Seven were reported killed.

Back in the U.S., the Iran protests drew support, and maybe even some collateral damage.

"My website has been attacked by Iran. My servers are melting," wrote blogger Austin Heap, a San Francisco IT professional who's become one of the leaders of the cyberinsurrection.

"But individuals in the opposition are still able to use technology to mobilize each other," he wrote. "And the tech community around the world is still able to support them."

He at first posted proxy links late Sunday, then switched Monday to instructions on how to set them up, and finally posted code on how to disable Iranian official servers.

Also in San Francisco, Twitter sacrificed the convenience of millions of users in the Americas for the greater cause of Iranian freedom.

"A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight," co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the official Twitter blog Monday afternoon.

"However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran)."

There was no comment from Twitter regarding the Reuters report that the State Dept. had asked it to keep Twitter up.

Late Monday, top Iranian crisis tweeter Moussavi1388, an unofficial mouthpiece for officially defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, tweeted: "Twitter is currently our ONLY way to communicate overnight news in Iran, PLEASE do not take it down."

Meanwhile, #iranelection soared to the top of Twitter's most-searched-term list, with new tweets coming in even faster Tuesday than they had the day before.

"Unconfirmed rumours — army generals arrested — many rumours of coupdetat by army," posted PersianKiwi, another top Enlish-language Iranian Twitterer, on Tuesday morning.

One big question lay open — if Chinese officials were able to block Twitter just before the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, why couldn't Iran?

"[Users are] using proxies to break the filters. So twitter is even being blocked too," answered Michelle Moghtader of the National Iranian American Council, responding to a question during a live chat on WashingtonPost.com.

"You can say it's online warfare of constant censoring and breaking of filters," she added.

Internet expert Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard, wrote on his blog that Twitter's own sloppiness helped it evade Iranian blockers.

"Twitter isn't just any particular Web site. It's an atom designed to be built into other molecules," said Zittrain. "More than most, Twitter allows multiple paths in and out for data."

"The very fact that Twitter itself is half-baked, coupled with its designers' willingness to let anyone build on top of it to finish baking it," he added, "is what makes it so powerful."

Fox News Channel: Crisis in Iran Sparks Global Guerrilla Cyberwar

The tweets are flying across cyberspace like crazy, and the common message is a plea to keep Twitter up and running despite any demands -- and actions -- from the ayatollahs or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. If these Iranian protesters and their allies around the world can keep this up, then they might actually topple the regime that's been tyrannizing that country for the past 30 years. I don't necessarily pay attention to Twitter, but I will certainly welcome its efforts against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his associates.

 

[evkl]

Twitter isn't in any real danger of going down. The key is to keep the internet in Iran up, and provide a steady stream of proxies for the resistance.

 

[Nekusagi]

Set up my Twitter to Tehran. Do I repost news, or what?

 

[Eredar Warlock]

They asked this on Fox News earlier, and I'll ask it here: What would the mess in Tienanmen Square have looked like if social networking sites like Twitter were out there floating around?

This could be big. The State Department made a good move in asking the techies to keep Twitter running. Twitter is essentially the only way we can get news on what's happening in Iran.

We quite possibly could see a revolutionary war in the making here. The nuclear situation in Iran just bumped up very high on the priority watch if it wasn't there already.

 

[Fig]

Yeah, the Twitter implication is something...unheard of. Revolutionary.

And I've been in Tehran for the past few hours.

 

[Phoenicks]

Whatever happens, it's going to be interesting. We're certainly slowly reaching the climax of whatever's been going on in the Middle-East for the past couple of decades. All in all, the only scenario I can imagine that could be worse than what we already have is if Iran went Nuclear soon. If that happened, than a Nuclear Civil War might tear the World apart. Otherwise, this could help us.

 

[Nekusagi]

..aaaaand when I click #iranelection in my saved searches on Twitter now I get nada.

This is not good.

 

[Fig]

#iranelection still work for me.

Watch for another thread on this. Many Bulbagardeners are not entirely novice cyberwarriors, and we just might be able to put some of our experience being highly effective online pest (to Joe, among others) to good use - particularly if we coordinate and brainstorm together.

 

[Nekusagi]

#iranelection still work for me.

Watch for another thread on this. Many Bulbagardeners are not entirely novice cyberwarriors, and we just might be able to put some of our experience being highly effective online pest (to Joe, among others) to good use - particularly if we coordinate and brainstorm together.

Weird. I'll try again.

EDIT: yeah, I just get a big blank screen when I do the #iranelection search, instead of tons of tweets. Is it cache related?

 

[Eredar Warlock]

This Twitter business is fascinating. I'm watching that page, and tweets are pouring in by the hundreds within minutes. A lot of people all over the world are in support of the Iranian public in this.

Wow. Now there's talk of DDOS attacks on the Iranian governmental websites. This is turning into real cyberwarfare.

 

[Fig]

The DDOS have been happening for a while, but I'm not sure they're any good (and in any event, they aren't exactly legal, so not my cup of tea).

There are other, perfectly legal aspects of cyberwarfare that could be useful here, though.