At the height of the pouring out of mass demonstrations on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, I started writing the post which is appended to this one.
But I hadn't finished it when tonight, one of the key Twitterers from inside Iran came back after a silence of several days. Over the last hour or two, he's been running a series of tweets telling the story of what happened to some of his fellow Tehran university protesters as they got rounded up by the security apparatus of the Iranian regime.
So I'm editing together the series of tweets to form this continuous post. I don't know if it's safe to give his Twitter name. I want to pay tribute again as I did repeatedly on Twitter, and as I did in the original draft below, to his honesty, his courage and his unfailing commitment to bear witness to what's going on in this uprising.
The tweets from him presented here run backwards--latest first (it came up four minutes ago), down to the first of the series, which he put up about an hour ago. I'll keep updating them as long as he's able to go on telling this story of what's been happening to the arrested protesters.
It's classic police state stuff.
May the Almighty protect him and his fellow protesters, strengthen them and keep them safe.
the biggest help: spread the news & don't desert us! it may take some time but we will take what is rightfully ours!8 minutes agofrom web
why BBC & CNN reporting things like it's all over now? how can it be over after what gov done to us?3 minutes agofrom web
the numbers of protectors were far more than 5000! the entire district was full of people
this is going to happen on every national occasion & gov has no excuse to stop us!13 minutes agofrom web
Karoubi was there in person & Mousavi said he was stuck in traffic but we heard him through his cellphone & loudspeakers15 minutes agofrom web
it may work on a short period of time, but they can't stop what is already started, today's rally was a clear proof18 minutes agofrom web
Gov is working hard on State TV trying to depress people & stop them from fighting back20 minutes agofrom web
we passed a letter to Karoubi today describing everything we know about various students conditionsless than a minute agofrom web
the student community will stand to the very end! we won't forget what they have done to us!
and I don't want to put him in more pressure of any kind right now6 minutes agofrom web
I skipped some of the incidents as Reza requested. he's very weak both mentally & physically7 minutes agofrom web
Reza had no idea why they suddenly released him & some of his inmates1 minute agofrom web
at night around 10PM they Released Reza & his family instantly moved him to a hospital for internal bleeding4 minutes agofrom web
he promised if one of them confess in front of camera he will free them all & they will blur his face & nothing to worry!9 minutes agofrom web
in morning a man introduced him self as Intelligent (intelligence?) came saying he will record their confections (confessions?) with camera1 minute agofrom web
they prevented them from sleeping by kept them standing all the nightless than 20 seconds agofrom web
according to Reza some students from Polytechnic university were also there5 minutes agofrom web
and after they knew Reza is a student they moved him to a more harsh environment with some other people6 minutes agofrom web
the man promised Reza's family they will release him if he's really innocent1 minute agofrom web
unfortunately Reza's mother told everything she knows over the phone to a man calling from Evin3 minutes agofrom web
in last days Reza said it looked they get a little more organized and start searching for any special case in arrested people
a man came and say they will be released today and an hour later another came & say they will be in prison for 10year!2 minutes agofrom web
Reza said it looked like they have no idea what should they do with so much people4 minutes agofrom web
all types of gov agents came & go in the next couple of days, moving people, forcing them to walk or just stand for a long time6 minutes agofrom web
according to Reza some of the injured people already passed out and a taxi driver looked like dead by that time10 minutes agofrom web
In first day at Evin prison staff started searching for severely injured people & gave them some first aid4 minutes agofrom web
and another hour passed just standing in the row at the entrance of prison & filling out forms8 minutes agofrom web
it took near 3 hours to get to the prison, Reza said the driver seemed enjoys wandering in the streets11 minutes agofrom web
Reza had no idea why they select some of the people and where they moved the others16 minutes agofrom web
apparently they released some people on that night & move Reza & some of the selected people to Evin17 minutes agofrom web
around 3am day 2 they started moving people in vans, Reza said a driver was talking to a Basiji about Evin prison is full and what shoul ...20 minutes agofrom web
Reza said some people sign them & some other just faked their signs & names, there were not enough confession papers for all people24 minutes agofrom web
and they paid to go to streets and say things & they know they have violated national security & Islam26 minutes agofrom web
the papers were prewritten confessions all in different hand writings saying the signer is a member of organization by mousavi27 minutes agofrom web
He said in the second day some pain cloth people came with papers forcing people to sign them32 minutes agofrom web
there was also a awful problem of only one toilet for all people in there and a impossible time limit of around 1min for each person34 minutes agofrom web
Reza said the only exception was they didn't hit arrested people directly in the face39 minutes agofrom web
they didn't open the plastic handcuffs for a day & half, & randomly beat up people in there44 minutes agofrom web
Reza estimated around 200 people were in each room and there were not enough space to even sit on the groundabout 1 hour agofrom web
he said all sort of people were there & some of them were just unlucky people just walking in streets and captured for no reasonabout 1 hour agofrom web
he spent his first 48h of arrest at level -4 of ministry of interior building without food or waterabout 1 hour agofrom web
my connection is very poor & I don't know how long I will be able to sustain itabout 1 hour agofrom web
Reza released from Hospital yesterday he is banned from university and now is a stared [marked by gov] studentabout 1 hour agofrom web
1:17AM finally managed to load twitter! HTTPS protocol is still blocked by some ISP & no chance getting to twitter with apps
Drafted on 16th June:
I'm keeping up with what's going on in Iran via this Tweetgrid link, which shows the tweets of protesters in Iran alongside a flood of messages from commenters across the world.
It was Twitter that alerted me to what was beginning to roll on Sunday. I picked up a couple of Tweeter names from my usual followees which were putting out angry protest messages in some contrast to what was running on the MSM-- who were running Ahmadinejad's contemptuous dismissal of the protesters as a variant on disappointed football team losers.
The BBC was running headlines about Mousavi as "the loser", as if to imply that there was certainly no question of doubt about Ahmadinejad's victory.
Then I began reading the tweets of two Iranian students, one obviously under siege in the University of Tehran, the other seeming to have a broader set of contacts across Iran. Then there were the tweets coming from non-Iranians picking up messages and videos coming out of Iran.
I sat up till 3:00am on Sunday night following the tweets from the students besieged in Tehran University. By Monday morning, I emailed my daughter and son-in-law the Tweetgrid link and urged them to follow it.
One of the things that most impressed me and convinced me of the potential power of this movement was the way in which one of the besieged student tweeters sent message after message where he acknowledged his own fear-- he described himself as shaking and sweating with fear-- as he saw the security forces attacking the adjoining building and sought help for a severely wounded friend. He also felt fear at the thought of what might happen at the demo called for the next day. I saw the tweets reporting government threats that the proposed demo must not go ahead because it had been declared illegal, and that protesters would be met by live bullets. He wasn't sure whether to go or not--it was clear that disinformation was being spread fast.
He went offline for almost a day but by that time it was clear
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