Before we become engrossed in the facts of today, I would like to ask you to join me in prayer not only for their success, but also for their safety from the basijis and IRGC. May they all turn their arms against the government and join the revolution.  Today the fight continues. Most countries have stepped forward and condemned the violent repression by the Iranian government. There are many photos, videos, and articles about this atrocity. I shall provide a list of articles written by others at the end of this post. I will also be updating, so remember to come back. The Iranian TV and newspapers (that is, the ones that are still open) are reporting that 8 people were killed yesterday (I heard it was 10 civilians and 5 basijis) and 300 plus were arrested. Ali Habibi Mousavi, nephew of Mousavi who lost the election this year (we'll never know), was also killed by these creeps. He was shot after being run over and then shot in chest. It was no accident. There are reports that his (Mousavi's) nephew's body is missing. Let me just add one note of importance here. I do not like Mousavi. He is the same as Ahmadinejad. If he was not, he would not have been allowed to run for office. Just so we are clear on this issue. I support the Iranian Green Movement, not the elitist government officials. One of the interesting items I read about was Coup in Iran?. If this is true, we may be a witness to the history of the collapse of the Iranian tyrannical regime! I just pray that they do not turn out to be oppressors. I read something about the December 22nd. Many people and relatives freed two men who were to be hanged, and they were shot dead. The creeps caught the two men which made the crowd even angrier. Eventually, the two men were hanged. AtlasShrugs has this to offer: IRAN REVOLUTION: MASSIVE PROTESTS, DEATHS REPORTED, CHAOS.
Pandemonium as clashes continue in Tehran for 2nd day as protesters defy Islamic Government (more) Eyewitness reports and opposition websites say Security forces fired on the crowds in several places, wounding many, killing at least four that we know of. [Read more.] Many pictures are included. Winston was also watching closely as the riots broke out. They didn't have to turn into riots, but the thuggish government just has to start firing at innocent people (my assessment). I think he may have taken his leave. He does need to sleep, and he liveblogged all day and night. From reading the tweets at #iranelection, it appears that there is much fighting going on between the freedom fighters and the anti-riot goons. It seems to be an uprising all over Iran, but we must wait and see. One thing I know for sure, they want to accomplish this victory by themselves. Do they want our support? Of course they do! They want everyone who is a freedom-loving person who loves peace's support. I shall return in a while, but I must go for a while. Have a nice day, and don't forget to pray for the safety of the freedom fighters and the demise of all tyrants. Update: Here is a cartoon found through twitter's #iranelection. He hopes one day the Iranian people will actually see this! Update II: This is an article I read last night (or was that this morning?), and it is very good. It covers news, photos, and videos. Please be careful though, some of these videos are graphic. Are you brave enough to watch what is really happening in actual life in this world, or are you too cozy? Hmm. Update III: Here is some more live blogging from EnduringAmerica. Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat, the main reformist Student Alumni Organisation, also issued a statement: What a regret that a government that considers itself to be risen from religious teachings and a national revolution, on the noon of Ashura opens fire on innocents and does what even the most notorious rulers of this country throughout the history [e.g. the Shah deposed in 1979] had not dared to do. 2055 GMT: Taking Sides? We’ve posted the video of President Obama’s statement (see 2020 GMT) and it’s even harder-hitting than we thought:”History will be on the side of those who seek justice. [Read more.] If you want to see what has happened so far today, this is a good source. This next articles asks if this is the beginning an Iranian-style anti-fada. The opposition has proven it has the resolve and resilience to sustain its risky challenge, despite the regime’s ruthless use of force, mass arrests, show trials and reports of torture and rape in prison. In the escalating political showdown the opposition has the momentum.
Just as important, the emergence of people power is also setting a new precedent in the last bloc of countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. Thirty years ago, Iran’s revolution redefined politics throughout the Middle East by ending dynastic rule and introducing Islam as a modern political idiom. Iran’s uprising is doing it again — this time by taking to the streets to demand an end to dictatorship as well as calling for fundamental rights such as free speech, a free press and respect for the individual vote. [Read more.] The London Times Online seems to think the opposition people have many different reasons that don't necessarily mix. I disagree to a certain point, but that is their right. I won't chop their head off over it. /sarc Source(s): TimeOnline: Seven opposition leaders arrested as Mousavi nephew's body 'missing'. EnduringAmerica: Iran: A Point of No Return? Free Republic: Coup in Iran?. AtlasShrugs: IRAN REVOLUTION: MASSIVE PROTESTS, DEATHS REPORTED, CHAOS. The Spirit of Man: Khamenei is a donkey. Political Cartoons: Iranian Revolution Color. IranNewsNow: Live-blog: Ashura in Iran – December 27, 2009. EnduringAmerica: The Latest from Iran (28 December): The Regime’s Arresting Strategy. TimesOnline: Is this Iran’s Berlin Wall moment? The Spirit of Man: Khamenei is a donkey.
 On September 18, millions of protesters turned the tide in Iran. U.S. media ignored it, and Obama gave zero support to the revolutionaries.By Michael Ledeen Marx would have delighted in the events of the 18th, all over Iran. Groucho, that is, for on the 18th the supreme leader and all his co-conspirators were transformed from figures of awe to objects of ridicule. As Machiavelli likes to remind us, the most dangerous thing for any leader is to earn the contempt of his followers, and the Iranian people made it luminously clear that they would no longer be intimidated. The regime had launched a vicious repression following the challenges to the “election results” of June 12th. For a hundred days they had killed, raped, tortured and threatened. In the runup to the 18th, the stern face of the leader of the Revolutionary Guards had appeared on television and his confident voice had been heard on the radio, warning that anyone who dared wear green, or carry protest signs, or chant criticism of the Islamic Republic, would be treated “very harshly.” His words were like so much spittle in a storm; among the many chants in the streets that day, you could hear “rape, murder and torture will not silence us.” Read more ... Source: PJM
 By John Ellis How much damage did Barak Obama do to the incipient Iranian revolution—and by extension, to peace in the Middle East and to the U.S. national interest—when he failed to support the Iranian protesters, and instead poured cold water on Moussavi as an alternative to Ahmadinejad? His defenders say, not much, for two reasons. First, sending troops or guns was out of the question, and without that mere words were not going to make much of a difference. And second, Obama later corrected himself, and issued a statement which (though he denied it) changed his position to one of support. They could not be more wrong on both counts. The damage Obama did was enormous, and his self-correction did nothing whatever to repair that damage. In the last thirty years we have seen many revolutions around the world in which people took to the streets in large numbers and were faced there by a much smaller number who were heavily armed. What we have learned from these situations it is that one factor matters more than any other: confidence. For the police and security forces, there is no safe course of action. It’s dangerous to follow orders and shoot unarmed people, and it’s dangerous not to follow orders and not shoot. The one might get them tried for murder if the revolution succeeds, and the other might get them executed for mutiny. And so they try desperately to see which way the wind is blowing. If the police become confident that the revolution is failing, they’ll obey orders. If on the other hand they believe that it is succeeding, they’ll join the crowds. Every single one of them is trying to discern the tipping point, the moment when it becomes clear which way things are going, and until then they try to avoid committing themselves. An added factor in this game of confidence is that the people with the guns probably have relatives and close friends among the protesters. Even if they don’t get into trouble with the authorities (whether the old or the new) they also have to worry both about the safety of those dear to them, and how their own actions will be judged at home. Read more ...Source: FPMBarack Obama
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
7:20 pm: Rally for Iran in Tel Aviv, Israel (June 27) 
I received this report from Boaz Arad from Israel: Pictured taken by Iranian born Farhad Moradian that organised this avant in order to show the Iranian people our solidarity in Israel with their suffering and also to convey the massage to Obama. The BBC broadcast to Iran picked this demo and it was broadcast - Facebook as well was us full tool to send this message. Mr. Moradian said that many Iranian respond to it and some did it by saying: "For 30 years we cursed Israel and made a demonstration for the Palestinians people, despite the poverty in Iran our government send our money to Lebanon and Gaza, but we did not received any support from the Palestinians now even not a demonstration... The Israelis do support us and showing solidarity". Read and see the rest here... Source: Atlas
  The best part of the crisis in Iran, is that extremists and fundamentalists everywhere are panicking. They thought that the Iranian regime would remain in place for years, perhaps decades to come. Tehran has been supporting them - think of Hizbullah, Hamas but also dozens of other fundamentalist and extremist* organizations, newspapers, groups, etc. - since the very start of the Iranian Islamic Revolution back in 1979. They rely heavily on the Mullah’s for spiritual and material support. If Khamenei is removed from power, and replaced by a group of reform-minded clerics and politicians, they have a major problem.
And they know it. Which is why both Hamas and Hizbullah sent fighters to Iran a week ago or so. Reports say that Iranians are aware of this, and even talk to Basij militia members before they beat them up, to find out whether they speak Farsi or Arabic. If it is the latter, they can count on no mercy whatsoever. And rightly so. The Jerusalem Post published an incredibly fascinating article about this matter. From it: "Iran spends billions of dollars in different regions for various causes. Iran is the second-largest source of funds in the world, exceeded only by Saudi Arabia, for Islamic causes. From Somalia to Lebanon’s Hizbullah, from Hamas to the Egyptian Shiite movement, Iranian support - whether through direct funding or military and training - will be jeopardized if the theocrats are unseated. So would Iran’s support as a major donor to various proactive Muslim organizations in Europe, North America, and South America. The Iranian government’s role in supporting, training and facilitating the Sudanese Holocaust in Darfur is significant, with only the Chinese playing a larger role." And that’s exactly why people such as Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a pan-Arab newspaper, writes article after article in which he defends the regime, and criticizes the protesters. He fears they will rid themselves of their oppressors, because them doing so would weaken the entire fundamentalist and extremist movement considerably. "It is certain that those groups and organizations that might expect their funding to be in danger would start lobbying various governments to turn a blind eye to events in Iran. Whether Western politicians have any stomach for this type of lobbying at this point is another topic of discussion. Indeed the global Muslim theocracy movement is in danger at the hands of the Iranian people not only financially, but also in terms of the legitimacy of theocracy as a political system. It is too early to say what the long-term impact will be, but it is certain that there has been at least a negative psychological impact on the legitimacy of theocracy as a result of the Iranian protests. There may be those who will try to spin the story and claim that the people of Iran still support theocracy and their beef is only with the election and Ahmadinejad. One can say with certainty that for the first few days the Iranian people tried to manage this evolution leaving some wiggle room for the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But as of last Friday the gloves were off. With Ayatollah Khamenei showing no restraint, people started chanting “death to Khamenei”, a sign of the realization that they could even go further and let the world know what they really want: the abolition of theocracy in Iran. Whether the brave people of Iran are successful in their aspirations to live without theocratic rule is unknown. However, it can be said with certainty that their efforts have changed the face of the theocracy movement not only within Iran, but also globally." To me, that’s the most significant effect of the crisis in Iran.
The Mullahs have proved that their ideology is not merely radical, but also weak and opposed by the majority of Iranians. They rule by the point of a gun, as every extremist group has to. They don’t have support. When push comes to shove, they stand alone. And that is how it will always be. That’s a major setback for fundamentalists everywhere, and that’s also why it’s so important that world news organizations and blogs show this truth - that the Mullahs have failed because their ideology is both wicked and weak - to everyone out there. *Fundamentalist and extremist are not per definition the same. Extremists do not merely wish to live according to a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion, they also want others to do so, and are even willing to use violence to reach their goal. Source: PoliGazette
 An Iranian doctor who claims he tried to save Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death during election protests made her an opposition icon, said today she was apparently shot by a member of the Islamic Basij militia. Arash Hejazi, who is studying at a university in the south of England, told the BBC that the crowd identified the man they believed was the shooter shortly after the young woman died from a gunshot wound to the chest. Footage of Soltan bleeding to death captured in amateur videos posted on the internet and broadcast across the world triggered an outcry over Iranian authorities' clampdown on protests against the disputed presidential vote. Hejazi told the BBC he was visiting friends in Tehran when he heard there were protests nearby, and decided to take a look. When they reached the main street, they saw anti-riot police coming on motorcycles towards the crowd. “All of a sudden everything turned crazy,” he said. “The anti-riot police threw teargas among people and the motorcycles started rushing towards people.” He continued: “We heard a gunshot. And Neda was standing one metre away from me ... We were just standing and all of a sudden I turned back and I saw blood gushing out of Neda's chest. “She was in a shocked situation, just looking at her chest, which blood was gushing out ... We ran towards her and lay her on the ground. “I bent over her and I saw the bullet wound right in the chest below the neck with blood gushing out. My experience says that it was the aorta that was hit and the lung as well.” He added: “Her blood was draining out of her body and I was just putting pressure on the wounds to try to stop the bleeding, which wasn't successful unfortunately, and she died in less than one minute.” The people around her took her body away in a car, Hejazi said. The protesters thought the gunshot had come from a rooftop nearby, but later saw a member of the Basij militia on a motorcycle. They stopped him and disarmed him, the doctor said. “He was shouting, 'I didn't want to kill her'. I heard him,” Hejazi said. But the protesters did not know what to do with the man so let him go, but not before taking his identity cards and taking his photo. The doctor returned to his office to wash off the blood on his hands, but recalled: “I didn't sleep for three nights afterwards. He said he had decided to speak out, despite the potential risks which meant he would probably not return to Iran, because “I don't want her blood to have been shed in vain”. Iran's hardline media sought today to deflect blame over the killing of Neda, saying that someone with a smuggled gun had opened fire in the street. The doctor rejected this version of events.
By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz (IsraelNN.com) Iranian anti-regime activists are hoping for an Israeli technological hand to help them fight the Islamic Republic. As of now, hundreds of protesters have been killed by the regime, which is evidently using Arabic-speaking armed thugs from Hizbullah to help perpetrate the violence. "Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters," writes Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost, "Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful. Please help opposition television and radio stations which are blocked and being jammed by the Islamic Republic (Nokia and Siemens) resume broadcast to Iran. There is a total media blackout and Iranians inside Iran for the most part are not aware of their brave brothers and sisters fighting and losing their lives daily. And the unjust treatment and brutal massacre of the brave Iranians in the hands of the mullah's paid terrorist Hamas and Hizbullah gangs are not seen by the majority of the Iranians. Please help in any way you can to allow these stations resume broadcasting to Iran. "And, please remember that we will remember, as you have remembered Cyrus the Great's treatment of you in your time of need," Irandoost concludes, signing his blogged call for help "Your Iranian Brothers and Sisters!" In an interview with Israel National News, Iranian expatriate pro-democracy activist Amil Imani said that Irandoost's message represents the sentiments of much of the youth in the streets in Iran. They have a strong belief in the technological know-how of the Israelis to overcome the Iranian regime's attempts to block communications. "This is going to be the most massive, impressive revolution of the 21st century," Imani said, "and we're seeing it live." However, he added, it is now too dependent on Internet communications, so the protesters are very much in need of outside assistance to fight the technological and information war. More generally, Imani said, the Iranian people are lionizing any leader of any nation who comes out strongly against the Islamic Republic at this time. According to Imani, at least 500 people have been killed by Iranian government forces, with another 5,000 injured. But the hospitals are no longer safe, he added, as the gunmen from the basiji militia enter the emergency wards looking for wounded protesters. Therefore, Imani said, sympathetic doctors have taken to treating the wounded wherever they can, including in private homes. Even outside Iran, thousands of protesters are out in the streets every day, especially in the United States. Imani said he thinks the phenomenon represents unprecedented unity in the Iranian expatriate community. As for the basijis themselves, Imani reported, many of them are Lebanese and Palestinian Authority Arabs hired by the regime to do its bidding. Iranians reportedly captured seven basijis who spoke no Persian, only Arabic. According to Imani, 10,000 more Arab hired guns arrived in Tehran to serve the mullah-led regime. But they are not the only ones thinking about guns at this point. Some Iranian protesters, Imani reported, have taken to threatening their oppressors, "God help you when we get weapons!" Even outside Iran, thousands of protesters are out in the streets every day, especially in the United States. Imani said he thinks the phenomenon represents unprecedented unity in the Iranian community, within Iran and abroad. "There is no turning back," Imani concluded. Source: Israel National News
H/T: Atlas
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Today the fight continues. Most countries have stepped forward and condemned the violent repression by the Iranian government. There are many photos, videos, and articles about this atrocity. I shall provide a list of articles written by others at the end of this post. I will also be updating, so remember to come back.
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