Free Lantern

The March 18 Movement was born out of a tragedy. On this day in 2009, Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger and journalist, died in Evin Prison in Tehran. The December before his death, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Omid Reza was the first blogger to die in prison and his death reveals that getting censored is far from the worst thing that can happen to a blogger. Join the March 18 Movement, created in his memory, to prevent this from happening to other bloggers in the future.
Watch their great YouTube add:

The Guardian council confirmed the election results saying that there has been “no tangible irregularity”. They have published photos of a partial recount on national news agency, the photos is a good confirmation of the rigged election. In these photos the ballots are not even folded! A paper ballot cannot normally go into the ballot box without being folded. The pictures that are out show many ballots all nice and new!!
Looking more deep into other photos it is obvious that the handwritings are very similar in many Ahmadinjads votes confirming what Rezai’s brother, Omidvar Rezai, said earlier on Rezai’s web site that a previous recount of 10,000 ballots by the Interior Ministry showed that between 70 and 80 percent of the votes had been “written with the same pen and same handwriting.” !
Here is an example: (See more phtos here, as I don’t want to link to the lying website of Iranian government see some more photos in this weblog!)

Meanwhile the internal ministry spokesman said that in some areas we ran out of ballot because a candidate [being Moosavi] told his supporters to vote in schools! (Confirming that most people voted in schools did vote for Moosavi!). I couldn’t find an English report of his notes.

There are more and more videos and photos showing the Iranian “Police” destroying cars and public properties. Basiji’s and Riot “Police” enters people’s home at night to frighten those that are chanting “Allaho Akbar” (God is Great) at night. Watch this video where a citizen is describing how riot police entered their house at night, breaking windows and destroying their home.

The project of accusing foreign countries is continuing with arrest of 8 Iranian staff of British embassy in Tehran.

1) We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people’s legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution which emphasizes “Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.”

2) We consider the violations in the presidential election, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.

3) Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.


A part of the large community of Iranian bloggers

June 26, 2009

While the Iranian government is repeating in national media that Police and Basiji’s never shoot at protestors and they accuse of foreign countries and protestors of “staging the Killing of Neda” another video captured by citizens has been published on Aljazira television showing the Basiji’s shooting at protestors from the roof of a building.
Watch this video here.

Meanwhile the Dr. Hejazi that was present at the moment when Neda was shot has talked to BBC about the series of actions that resulted in Neda being shot dead. You can watch this interview here.

Weapons X has made a song for the Iranian green movement.

As I mentioned here Jason Jones went to Iran to prepare a Comedy report about Iran when things changed and his plans changed as well!
Watch this report where he is interviewing Ebrahim Yazdi, Abtahi and the Maziar Bahari (Newsweek journalist) who all three have been arrested after last weeks protests. As John puts it “Jason went to Iran to pursuit a comedy piece but he met people that were in pursuit of much more”

YouTube has added a new feature to follow Iran’s protest called CitizenTube. Watching the video changing our world
Watch the following video from BBC Persian showing Police officers destroying cars and writting slogants on the wall with spray:

This is the Iranian riot Police! They break car windows and then arrest the protestors accusing them of destroying cars…

A video captured by a citizen is a proof to the pictures that have been published. This video was published on BBC Persian.

This Saturday, Police and Basiji militia attacked people who were trying to go to one of the main squares of Tehran for another peaceful protest, similar to those peaceful protests we have witnessed last Wednesday and Thursday. Many were killed and injured during the shootings; up to 500 people were also arrested. One of the most shocking images were from a girl captured on the camera in the last minutes of her life.
This image is made from the video on which Neda a young Iranian girl were murdered by the bullets of basijis to tell Neda that WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

- The state media is accusing people of being rioters, and they even photoshop gun in the hand of people. The only video’s they show on national TV are the guards or Basiji’s being beaten by people!
Meanwhile there are images like these showing the police destroying car windows so that they can arrest people with a “reason”!

Read: The Devil In the Digits (Washington Post)