STONES AND COMPUTERS

The split in Iranian society which one month ago when I was there was an underground murmur by the exhausted population has now become an open rift and has reached a level of deafening intensity.

The tragedy is that the regime is filling this rift with the dead bodies of the people of Iran.

The situation in Tehran as the regime unveils its brutal barbaric forces on the Iranians has suddenly turned into an absolute nightmare.

The reports sent in by reliable twitterers since Monday all say that Police and basiji brutality have reached barbaric levels, that they hit and shoot without discern men and women, young and old, protesters and passers-by.

International medias now scarcely report on events in Tehran as they have no possibilities to check information, and they are now monitoring feeds from the few twitterers who remain active in Tehran.

There has apparently been no massive rally since last Saturday’s open battlefield scenes from Tehran (20 june). Information is becoming more and more difficult to obtain and if it wasn’t for the incredible courage of just a few which manage still to report live through twitter, endangering themselves dramatically in doing so, we would have no information whatsoever on the unfolding of the situation.

The regime is brutally hitting back since it was caught by surprise by the resolve of the protesters last Saturday and reports from Tehran are more dramatic as days pass. Police and Basiji are everywhere in the streets and acting with unrestrained violence against all of Iranian population. Reports that they beat with the same fierce brutality men and women.

Reports of rallies did get out of the country Monday and Tuesday, but distressing ones of protesters being vastly outnumbered by the regime’s armed forces and being wildly assaulted.

Reports of bigger rally on Wednesday afternoon on “Baharestan” square (Parliament square) which turned into a vicious massacre as at least a thousand of regime thugs assaulted the protesters and killed many.

Reports of violent street fights again this afternoon (Thursday 25^th june) around Enghalab square are impossible to confirm.

But the flow of information is now so light that it seems it could come to a halt pretty soon. There are very few Photos and videos from the alleged past days events and, as more videos continue to emerge from last Saturday’s street fights, it is in most cases impossible to know when and where they were taken.

It is therefore almost impossible to grasp the situation inside Iran right now. A black cloud of death, terror and rage has covered the country.

It is for the moment impossible to answer the question as to what happens next. Situation is so unclear and so unstable. What is certain though is that there is no turning back. Either the protesters succeed and bring this regime to its end, either Iran falls into a long nightmare of repression, death and torture as the surviving ailing regime would be in a constant state of hysterical paranoia.

At letters from Iran, we published and sent around to different web agencies an account received Wednesday June 24^th by our second correspondent NoU2. This account from doctor at Tehran “Rasul Akram” Hospital is now been widely publicized around the net.

Our primary correspondent, NoU1 told us he would be in Tehran on Baharestan square yesterday. We are now waiting for news. The regime is eagerly seeking to bring to a complete halt information from Iran and the couragous ones who continue exporting information are under very serious threats.

We praise the incredible bravery of the Iranian population who apparently continues gathering despite the now widely publicized extreme violence the regime meets them with.

We believe that the fact that the regime has become so brutal is because they are hysterically frightened now and that they cannot survive many more days like Saturday, when massive rallies and riots against armed forces occurred all around Tehran. Iranians have come such a way in the last 2 weeks that we don’t think they will stop now, especially after the atrocity of the violence they have suffered, they who just hoped for reforms to peacefully occur within the regime but who now risk spending the rest of their lives in a state of perpetual terror if they stop what they have started.

We believe that despite the apparent control the regime tries to display since Sunday of the streets of Tehran, the simple fact that smaller but constant open defiance continued is a good indication of what could happen next. Revolutions don't happen in one week, but this one will not be long to overthrow the regime. Young Iranians fighting the regime with stones and computers have come such a long way in such a short time. I read again our correspondence with NoU1 from two weeks ago, when something like last Saturday’s event seemed impossible, but it happened. Iranian people attacked the regime and the regime is shacking from top to bottom, because they know there are illegitimate, they know revolutions, they know Iranians.

THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

from Letters from Iran
to NoU1
date 21 June 2009 13:33


The world will remember Saturday June 20 2009 as the day Iran tipped from demonstration against rigged elections to revolution against dictatorship. The day when the regime, determined to stop people from demonstrating in the streets , threw it's ugly militiamen into the battle with all the brutality you could expect from them, but encountered infuriated crowds far more numerous than them prepared to continue their fight for freedom whatever the price to pay. And where Tehran suddenly became an open battlefield where resolved and furious demonstrators, fighting an ugly street fight and winning the ground back from the armed police and basiji militias, showed the world how serious they were about changing their lives now.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

The world will remember this day as a day of mourning, for continuous videos, photos and eyewitness testimonies kept on submerging the internet at an incredible rate with dramatic images of women and men shot dead and agonizing in front of mobile phone cameras which caught so many of these events.

The world will remember this day as the day when the internet buried alive the traditional media. Raw amateur videos and photos taken with mobile phones by actors in the crowds were uploaded directly to viewing platforms and were immediately publicised on thousands of blogs, twitter feeds, youtube screens, facebook pages, and information on real-time developing events was possible while traditional media were looping on the same images and discussing the same rusty topics while internet-focused people were following minute by minute development from the multitude of uploads sent from the thousands of improvised journalists/actors present at the epicentre of the event.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

The world will remember this day as the day when an agonizing regime couldn’t stop information flowing out of its country.

The lessons this generation of Iranian and this modern revolution are giving the world are invaluable and have far reaching consequences for the future, as Iran is emerging as the leading nation and model nation for all the oppressed populations around the world. The determination and courage these Iranians are showing are incredible. They said there were not afraid of dying for freedom and proceeded accordingly.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

Four images, four moments, a revolution.

This day had such a building climax, from early reports around 4 p.m Tehran time to late in the evening, for us who frantically followed tens of different internet leads per minute trying to grasp a picture of the battlefield from numerous, contrary and fragmented pieces of information.

First reports were desperate. Images and twitter comments around 4 o’clock (Teheran time) all sent the same terrified statements. Police and Basiji were everywhere, acting very violently, protestors could not reach Enghalab square, they were blocked, cornered, violently beaten. One image showed the situation more strongly than others: rows of fully equipped antiriot police on Tehran street. The situation seemed desperate for a while.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

Then slowly, first without pictures but fed by multitudes of twits, information about violent street fights everywhere. Still in this fragmented extraordinary multitude of news feeds, some contradicting others but all in the end sending the same picture: Things in Tehran were getting nasty and severe fighting was under way in many different places all over the capital city. Reports on twitter were saying people had been shot dead at some places, Basiji were brutally beating people in other places, police was refusing to fight people in other places, Basiji and police were retreating in front of resolved and infuriated crowds in other places. It went on like this for a while, then suddenly a first video footage on BBC Persian’s website showed incredibly violent scenes with hundreds of angry protestors hiding behind what seemed to be a burning car in front of burning building and all suddenly running for cover as intense fireshots were heard and bullet impacts on walls were caught by camera as a man was firing at the crowd from the upper level of a building which was apparently attacked. Then more videos quickly appeared of street confrontations in the middle of hundreds of twits from the ground telling of more fragmented events. It was impossible to grasp a clear picture of what was happening. Were the protestors gaining ground or were they in difficulty in front of the apparent sudden resolve of the regime to crackdown on them. One thing though was certain. Tehran was on fire.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

And suddenly, there was hope, as footages appeared showing in different places images of police and militiamen retreating in front of ever increasing enraged determined fighting crowds. It seemed that on the ground arithmetics and numbers were turning to the advantage of the protesters, that they were regaining the streets which just a couple hours before seemed so thickly occupied by security forces that it would be impossible for anything to happen in Tehran that day.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

Then, suddenly, amid more footages of street fights and civil war with protestors occupying what looked like larger and larger places, the incredible video of a mass rally on a large boulevard, which looked by its number pretty much like last Monday (June 15th) when Iranians suddenly realized they were the people of Iran and their numbers and resolve could change their future. The only difference which immediately my Iranian friend here spotted was that this crowd showed none of the green signs they had so systematically worn the previous week. As a direct result of supreme leader Khamenei’s bid to hush down the civil unrest, this was not any more about elections within the system, this was now an open defiance of the entire regime.

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

And horror struck by surprise, as one of the many links we were constantly opening showed this dramatic footage of young girl falling wounded and rapidly agonizing as she massively started to bleed from her mouth and nose having just been shot in the heart by Basiji. And of many more young people with severe bullet wounds amid unconfirmed reports of helicopters dropping chemical agents on protesters and of hospitals being submerged by wounded and basiji men taking them away and of foreign embassies opening their doors to help the wounded. Meanwhile, in the old media desert, there were very scarce reports from television channels and newspapers of police cracking down on protesters who were they said no more than 2000-3000.

And finally what? As day turned to night in Tehran the flow of information significantly reduced and became irrelevant as Americans argued over Obama’s tactic and others compassionately fed us with uninteresting insights about what they felt in 12 words. Protestors had vanished into the dark night, cries resumed with ever more drama and intensity from the roofs of Tehran as exhausted and distressed citizens shouted "Allah u Akbar" in clear reference to the 1979 revolution and in continuing defiance of the hated regime which today showed the deep ugliness and totalitarian aspect of its nature. The fight was fierce, both sides showed resolution, no clear winner emerged. The battle for Iran continues…

Tehran war - Saturday June 20 2009

THE POWER STRUGGLE STARTS NOW

from Letters from Iran
to NoU1
date 20 June 2009 02:49
subject Re: Tehran

Hi, I'm happy I got news from you. And nice ones too! I totally agree with your change of opinion. I had this strong impulse last saturday when I wrote you "Maybe it's time for revolution in your country. If they play you and aggressively keep power, you have no choice but to organise and start a war. That's how things usually go. Maybe it's just time for you people who want change to go into illegality and fight the regime down, whatever it takes... Taking control of your destiny requires passion and sacrifice".

This regime is dead. You have won. Maybe not just now, and surely some dramatic times lay ahead, but it's over.

Don't bother sending photos that you pick on the web, I got them already. On the contrary the pictures you take of demonstrations are great!!!

Tehran demonstration, Thursday 18 june 2009 (NoU1)

Actually what I do want to say right now is that the real power struggle starts now. Everybody was so surprised about what happened in the past 7 days, and the rapidness at which the situation is evolving is extraordinary. The demonstrators, you, your friends, everybody suddenly coming to conscience that you are so massively many, and astonished, shocked in strange disbelief by this fact. But once you realize this power you have, you understand you want to use it, and now you are afraid because you realize you will not step back and that the real fight starts today. Step by step you realized this week it is not against Ahmadinejad you are fighting but against Khamenei himself. At first you thought you respected the regime and just wanted Ahmadinejad to resign but now you understand it's really the whole regime you want to destroy. At first you very strongly supported Moussavi but now you realize he was the less worse choice and you are growing so much stronger than him than even him and his friends will be swept away by the tidal wave which all of you are about to unleash on the regime.

Tehran demonstration, Thursday 18 june 2009 (NoU1)

The regime is helping you so much by making mistake after mistake. First they let you have hope in election, second they steal your votes and mock you, third they kill you, and now the biggest and most unbelievable mistake which shows how desperate they are: the Supreme leader himself enters the battle. It's like a game of chess, once the king is exposed means that he will be chess mate very soon. It's a basic of politics, why we have a prime minister here? So that he takes all the shit and protects the president, once the PM is totally burnt out, the president appoints a new one and stays protected in his "presidential aura". The fact that Khamenei exposed himself today in this bad joke organised television show with this silly crowd of silent people shouting at the exact same moment the exact same slogans in the exact same tempo (!!!!) means that he has nobody else to put in front line because Ahmadinejad is already burnt to the bones (and they really know how burnt he is because they know the real results of the election). Therefore this means that now the protesters will show they don't respect the supreme Leader and attack him personally, and by massively taking the street again tomorrow despite the fact that he himself went on television to forbid it means he also has no credit left and that he is also burnt to the bones. THe people now fight him and by fighting him they are fighting down the whole system. The beauty of autocracy is that the whole system and the leader are tightly tied up together.

The question now is not if the regime will fall or when the regime will fall but how the regime will fall. They can go peacefully because you are so many again on the streets that they realize they can't stop you, or they desperately hang to power and it becomes bloody and they are crushed because all of you have already decided you will not stop because you've had enough of this mascarade. My Iranian friend here tells me that emails he got from his Tehran friends tonight show that right now they are all afraid of what happens next. This is because they have already decided not to stop and are frightened at the prospect of dramatic times to come because of your collective resolve to shape a new Iran.

Take care,
Francois

Tehran demonstration, Thursday 18 june 2009 (NoU1)