When they're not out on the streets demonstrating, anti-government activists spend their time finding other ways to inconvenience the authorities. Their most recent offensive involves banknotes and green pens. Read more...
As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received the official endorsement of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday, the crackdown on opposition protesters continued in the streets of Tehran. Our Iranian Observers tell us that the police are still arresting demonstrators. One, however, already handcuffed, managed to escape. See the footage...
So brutal was the post-election crackdown that anti-Ahmadinejad protesters no longer dare to organise outdoor demonstrations. They have not given up the fight, however. One of our Observers in the country, Sara, took part in "operation blackout" on Tuesday. Armed with an iron and hair strengtheners, she tried, along with many others, to cut the president's televised speech with an electricity blackout. Read more...
Iranian public television claims that 12 protesters have been killed since the beginning of the post-electoral crisis. This number is impossible to verify independently because foreign journalists are barred from covering the event. Defying censorship, one of our Observers in Teheran managed to send us an exclusive video testimony on the effects of police repression on the opposition movement. Read more...
Neda’s blood-stained face and frozen stare has come to symbolise the violent clashes between protestors and police or militia forces in Iran. She has become the icon of democracy advocates opposed to the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the authorities are trying hard to break her aura. Read more...
According to the Wall Street Journal, a joint venture between mobile phone companies Nokia and Siemens built a "monitoring centre" within the government's telecom monopoly enabling authorities to inspect and intercept Web traffic. Read more..
Iranian Internet has slowed down massively over the last ten days, and is down to 5kb/s. More and more websites and social networking sites (Facebook, etc) are filtered. One of our Observers, Sara M. (pseudo), a student in Tehran, managed to send us a short video in which she shows how state censorship works on the Web and on text-messaging services. Watch the video...
The day after Ayatollah Ali Khameni's speech in Tehran, thousands of demonstrators poured onto the streets, despite being told not to. The response from the authorities was severe. One of our Observers there gives his account of what was possibly the most violent day since the start of the protests. Read more...
In his first public address since the demonstrations began, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that the government will not surrender to the protesters. Two of our Observers, one a supporter and the other a critic of Ahmadinejad, give their opinions on the speech. Read more...