Iran's reformist movement has taken to the streets and to social media to challenge the Mullahs. And once again, they're facing harsh repression from Iranian security services and flourish on Facebook.
In Tehran today, an estimated 4,000 protesters showed up in Azadi Square for a scheduled "25 Bahman" protest (14th of February in the Iranian calendar) in solidarity with the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, with reports of anti-regime chants taken up among the crowds. The response has been swift and violent. Riot police fanned out in advance of today's demonstration and have since tried to break up the protests with tear gas and paintball guns. Video from Iran today also shows apparent members of the country's paramilitary thugs, the Basij, assaulting protesters while undercover in plainclothes.
"We're getting lots of reports of heavy clashes with police and people getting beaten," a spokesperson for a popular 25 Bahman Facebook page tells Danger Room. The spokesperson asked to remain anonymous in order to protect herself from reprisals by the Iranian government. She says her colleagues affiliated with the support page have been communicating with contacts in Iran. Thus far, they've received no reports of fatalities.
Today's protests had been scheduled by reformist Iranian leaders Mir Hussein Muosavi and Mahdi Karroubi. The two leaders, seeking "to show solidarity with the popular movements in the region and in particular the freedom-seeking movements of the Tunisian and Egyptian people against their autocratic regimes," were denied a permit for their protest by the Iranian government.
An online infrastructure, including the25 Bahman Facebook page, quickly sprung up after their call in order to spread news of the demonstrations and counter the Iranian government's censorship."What we've tried to be is a support team for the leaders in Iran," says the 25 Bahman spokesperson, who asked not to be named out of safety concerns.
There's apparently a large audience for that support not just among curious outsiders, but inside Iran, according to the spokesperson.
"Within days of the announcement for the solidarity rally, almost 50,000 users came onto the Facebook page and the hits and the views were upwards of 12 million, she claims. "When we ran the numbers, up to 90 percent of them were coming from Iran."
Iran's crackdown today stands in stark contrast to its recent triumphant rhetoric over events in Egypt and Tunisia. Iranian officials have been keen to lay claim to the protest movements sweeping through the region, painting them as inspired by Iran's 1979 revolution and aimed at creating Iranian-style theocracies. Their
Today's events, perhaps not coincidentally, come just in time for the roll out of the State Department's new Farsi Twitter account, @USAdarFarsi, which launched its first tweet yesterday. Twitter played a very public – and hotly debated – role during the Green Movement protests against in the summer of 2009. The State Department successfully convinced the micro-messaging site to delay a scheduled maintenance that would have taken the service offline for a period. If this new round of protests continue, it'll be interesting to see what role the social media service takes.
See Also:
- Web Attacks Expand in Iran's Cyber Battle (Updated Again)
- NYC Tweeters Give Iran Boss the Green Middle Finger
- Egypt Hacked Vodafone to Send Pro-Regime Texts
- Egypt Arrests 4 Facebook Activists [Updated]
- Jihadi 'Media Whores' Piggybacking on Egypt Unrest
- Pentagon's Prediction Software Didn't Spot Egypt Unrest
- Egypt's Internet Shutdown Can't Stop Mass Protests
