Green Brief #9

(This was posted from the original site)

I'm NiteOwl AKA Josh Shahryar - twitter.com/iran_translator on twitter - and I've been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my reliable twitter sources. Remember, this is all from tweets. No news media outlets have been used. (There was precious little today to offer so I waited very long)

These are the important happenings that I can positively confirm from Thursday, June 25 in Iran.

1. Protesters continued to swarm the streets of Tehran today, however, the number of security forces deployed to stop them from gathering in large numbers proved effective. We had previously reported that large numbers of motorcycles have been brought into Tehran by the government and given over to Basij and other security forces. They are being used very efficiently to mobilize the security forces and protesters are being hunted down wherever they are suspected to be. In the mess, several people who aren't protesters have also been beaten as the beatings have turned to indiscriminate persecution of citizens of Iran.

2. News of protesters came from different parts of Tehran, but confirmation as always have been a bit tricky as twitter sources continue to give out information that is sometimes uniform and at times widely divergent. What we were able to confirm was that a large mass of people that tried to gather at martyred protester Neda's grave site was beaten and dispersed. No one was allowed to stand near her grave for more than a few seconds as police actively sought to beat the protesters out of the area. There were reports of Basijis firing at people from atop a mosque in Tehran. It can be partially confirmed, however, the number of casualties cannot be.

3. The Minister of Interior in the mean time has declined to issue a request for the holding of requests by Mousavi's supporters. He has stated that any permits need to be sought in person at least 7 days before the planned date. (There are reports, however, that Mousavi has been granted a permit for a small rally tomorrow.) Chants of Allah o Akbar and Ya Hossein echoed across Tehran yet again and there were reports of protests in Shiraz by university students and a strike in Tabriz. (I can only partially confirm this as only a few of my reliable sources could confirm it.)

4. As reported yesterday, no massacre can be confirmed to have occurred in Baharestan square. Readers have sent me several photographs of bodies with gaping wounds that might suggest the use of axes - I have confirmed ISOLATED use of axes in the previous report -, however, all of the photos have been from past protests. As of yet, the claim by Mainstream Media that there was a massacre at Baharestan cannot be confirmed. (At the time of the writing of this brief, many have retracted their previous statements and some have actually began to kill the story that was used to increase viewership of US TV networks...)

5. In new statements today, Mousavi, Khatami and Rezaei have pledged their support for the cause of the protesters yet again. Mousavi released a statement today declaring that he won't back down from their legitimate demands. He also accused the people who have rigged the election of the violence that has wracked Tehran and continues to destabilize the country. Rezaei who has taken back his complaints to the Guardian Council regarding the election has yet against said that he has not abandoned the protesters. According to him, he has only taken back the complaints and the cause of the protesters and just and must be followed until successful. Khatami declared today that everyone should stand up because opportunities like these are rare and will not be granted again.

6. There were reports today indicating that several journalists that have been arrested in the past few days have been transferred to Evin prison. A Washington Time correspondent who was arrested yesterday was about to leave the country through Tehran's main airport when he was arrested. The government's media outlets have claimed that John Layne - the BBC correspondent in Tehran who was forced to leave Tehran days ago - was behind the murder of Neda. They claim that he hired people to gun her down so he could then report on it and use it in a documentary he is making.

7. Seyed Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, the editor in chief of Kalameh Sabz newspaper which is pro-Mousavi, who was arrested yesterday, has still not been released. Of the 70 professors that were arrested after meeting Mousavi yesterday, 66 have been released by the Iranian government. The fate of the rest remains unknown. More and more people were arrested today for even wearing green signs or any clothing that had the color green. The Society for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights has announced that they are ready to provide legal aid to recent detainees and their families. For a list of people so far killed and arrested as well as released, please check this link: List of Killed and Arrested – English

8. Government sources now confirm that eight Basijis have so far been killed in the protests. The number cannot be confirmed using our sources. So far, even the most impartial twitter sources have not confirmed that any protester has succeeded in taking the life of a Basiji. (Apparently, many have wished for their death and would show great joy if it can be confirmed as their brutality has been quite pronounced in the past few days.) Sources also claim that Basijis are receiving extravagant amounts of money as per diem in order to secure their loyalty.

9. A group of Iranian lawyers - most of them female - have released a statement, asking the government to cancel Nobel-laureate Shirin Ebadi's law license. They claim that she has acted unconstitutionally by contacting governments outside Iran and asked them to interfere in Iran's internal affairs. They also accuse her of breaching Islamic verdicts.

10. Meanwhile, Ali Abbaspour, a prominent parliamentarian and the head of the education committee in the parliament, has told the media that they are insistent on impartial investigations being carried out on the attacks in various universities inside Tehran and other parts of the country. Reports also indicate of Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani's continued marginalization by the government. He is being reported as one of the top men inside the regime who is slowly moving towards the cause of the protesters.

11. Finally, we can now confirm that Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has broken his silence and denounced the current spate of violence that's been carried out against peaceful protesters. He asked the people of Iran to seek their rightful demands through peaceful means. He also criticized the government's actions and said that the violence carried out against protesters is clearly different from what Islam teaches.

12. Ayatollah Khamenei has a planned speech during the Friday prayers today in Tehran. That will commence at 2:30 AM Pacific Time. I will upload the transcript of the speech in English within an hour of it's delivery on iran.whyweprotest.net and posting a link on my twitter account. You can also tune into BBC if you want to see it live with an English translation. (If I wasn’t able to do the translation, please forgive me.)

(There is simply too much on the tweets about where Mousavi is at this point. According to last reports, he was being sternly watched by the government and his movement is restricted, but it's an ever evolving situation.)

Read this if you want to help or get help!

The government in Iran is still increasing internet filtering and throttling in an attempt to silence their people. Anonymous info shows that many in Iran are looking for proxy and Tor information in Tehran and all around the country. Please donate your bandwidth to help bring down the Iran Curtain. Here are links on how to help and get help on this:

English: Tor and the Iranian Election - Bring down the Iran Curtain | Ian's Brain

Farsi: Tor: ?????? Tor

For the more savvy, try these if you want to connect from Iran:
67.174.201.136:9001 AE4DE948A8F37F18D886C5545F375AB246647837
(trad. tor port)

67.174.201.136:3074 AE4DE948A8F37F18D886C5545F375AB246647837
(xbox live port)

(Thanks to Alexander)

Images and vids and instructions on how to send them to us:

Why We Protest – IRAN

Helpers with expertise in the field of medecine, translation and such:

“Medici Cu Internet is a collaboration between piratbyran.org, HackersWithoutBorders and werebuild.eu trying to organize contacts with medical expertise online since there are problems in Iran with hospitals being monitored by the government. Join the IRC-channel at #mci-ir - WebIRC - AnonNet or send an email to us at embassy [at] piratbyran.org for more info. Medical experts, Farsi-translators and people who know the medical situation in iran are welcome to join and collaboratively set up an index with common injuries and their best treatments.”

People Outside Iran: This is as clear and concise as I can be. I have not included ANYTHING that I have sensed to be remotely fishy, but humans always err.

People Inside Iran: Don't believe a WORD of what I am telling you. Do what you think is best, keeping everything in mind. I know LITTLE of what you know so make your decisions based on your OWN judgment.

P.S. Please post this around and tweet and retweet.

Green Brief #3

(Reposted from the original site)

Hi,

I'm Josh Shahryar AKA NiteOwl and I've been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources and have tried maximally to avoid listening to media banter. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my tweets to have happened in the past day and in the past week in Iran. Remember, this is all from tweets. There is NOTHING included here that is not from a reliable tweet. No news media outlets have been used in the compilation of this short brief as I would like to call it.

These are some of the happenings that I can positively confirm from Friday, June 19 and early Saturday, June 20 in Iran.

1. Khamanei – the Supreme Leader of Iran – today at the Friday prayers announced that the protests were unacceptable and were a direct result of meddling in Iran’s affairs by Zionists, the evil UK and the US. He said that unless the protests stop, they will result in bloodshed. He called upon the protesters to stop protesting because elections have winners and losers. According to him, if there were any complaints, they were going to be heard through legal channels and that these protests were results of plans from foreign countries that’d been waiting for a chance for years. He said that if the protests did not stop, protesters and their leaders must ready themselves for the consequences.

2. He candidly hinted that he had been an Ahmadinejad supporter before the election, but the people shouldn’t had been influenced by his decision, thus, he didn’t publicly declare his support. He blamed the youth of being fooled by foreign spies and turning into thugs. Yet he claimed that by going back to spirituality, the nation’s problems could be solved. For a transcript of Khamenei’s speech please check this link: Khamenei's Speech in English - Why We Protest - IRAN

3. It is to be noted that neither Mousavi nor Karoubi joined Friday prayers under Mr. Khamanei, according to our reliable sources. But they had already decided not to hold a protest on Friday. It has also been confirmed that a large number of people were brought from the more religiously conservative rural areas of central Iran in order to fill the mosque and give the country a false sense of unity. Our sources also confirmed that many reform activists who had decided not to go were promptly arrested even as the Friday prayers were being held. The number of these people soared after the end of the prayers.

4. Reports of Mousavi being in danger have been refuted. His office was not burned or trashed as reported on main-stream media. According to my sources, he was been threatened to not say a word to his supporters, but he was not arrested by the IRG (Iranian Revolutionary Guard). He is safe and free and is preparing for tomorrow’s protest. Saturday’s rally that was planned in Tehran will take place at 4 PM near Enghelab Field. This is at a time when the government has officially denied Mousavi and Karoubi’s request to hold a rally on that day. Sources, though, claim that he has given the go ahead for the protest to be held on Saturday and urged all his supporters to participate in the similar fashion as before.

5. SMS is now working inside Iran, though, foreign news outlets; social networking websites and messengers still don’t work. Though sources have indicated that most twitter users have said that this is a potential trap so that the government could more easily be able to find out what their identities are and arrest them.

6. Large numbers of Basij and IRG troopers have been stationed within the city. There have been reports of attacks on the Basijis by armed Iranians. Sources claim that Basijis are being arrested by these men who seem to have some level of support by the police. Although confirmed by several sources that the young men are getting organized and call themselves the National Iranian Resistance, this Brief will not go so far as to confirm it entirely. Please wait for confirmation by either us or MSM.

7. Sources have also confirmed that several high-ranking IRG members have been arrested today. They join several other members who were arrested in the past two days. At the same time, it is being reported that a few members of the IRG were seen laying down their arms around isolated pockets of protesters, telling them they won’t fight fellow Iranians and had gone home. Sources also claim that the military is currently the only body that has not taken part in arrests, violence or other abuses. But according to them, Ahmadinejad has the support of the IRG and the Basji at this point.

8. It has been also reported that the IRG has been given full authorization to suppress the protests. Even though confirmed by twitter sources, again, this is too important a piece of information to be taken lightly. Coupled with Khamenei’s statements today, it potentially sets up a violent crackdown on any protests that will take place on Saturday.

9. Negotiations are ongoing within Qom between leading clerics to determine what they should do in case protests continue. Sources have not confirmed anything beyond this, though in the past, multiple high-ranking clerics, including Ayatollah Montazeri and Ayatollah Sanei had called on the government to negotiate with protesters. This seems to put Khamenei in a position where he lacks support from two very revered clerics.

10. Reformist activists are still being arrested in large numbers. The number of people being arrested now stands upwards of 5,000. Sources indicate that some key reformists have been tortured and are being forced to sign confessions stating they were guilty of inciting violence.

11. Twitter sources that have been able to tweet have told us that they will be most definitely joining the protest tomorrow even though it is very possible that they might be injured or killed. Some have even indicated that they are fully prepared to die as they are simply too tired of living under a repressive regime with little to no rights that they desire.

12. Protests are planned for many other major cities in Iran, including Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Mashhad and Qom. After the call by Mousavi, other protests are currently planned around the world to show solidarity with Iranians.

Finally, a bit of inside journalism from myself…

13. Anonymous and the Pirate Bay are working as hard as they can to provide proxies to people so they can at least use twitter to get us what is happening. At the time of the writing of this brief, the majority of helpers involved in helping Iranian voices to be heard have not slept for days or very little. One helper confirmed that he hadn’t had warm food until today since the protests began on Saturday (Although he’s a n00b and we don’t care about him much, j/k ). But still, fully half of the sources who were used in compiling the past two Green Briefs and this Brief have gone quiet, left Tehran or have been arrested as their identities are being found by the government. The paramedic who made people cry by his distress about his missing daughter that he found has left Tehran and is in a safe place now. Our hearts and thoughts go to all those who are bravely going to participate in tomorrow’s protests.


Finally a few words to those who are reading this:

Iranians who are trying to connect to twitter or other sites and need a way to connect please visit this website: Why We Protest - IRAN - View Single Post - Using Tor in Order to Surf Anonymously

Images and vids and instructions on how to send them to us: https://trancy.net/iran/

For my announcements, see @iran_translator

People Outside Iran: This is as clear and concise as I can be. I have not included ANYTHING that I have sensed to be remotely fishy, but human error will always manifests itself in even the most flawless of non-mathematical things. However, this includes nothing from the Western media, including the BBC which I have been generously using to inform people and I laud them for their courageous journalism.

People Inside Iran: Don't believe a WORD of what I am telling you. Do what you think is best, keeping everything in mind. I know LITTLE of what you know so make your decisions based on your OWN judgment.

People Who Want to Send Me Tweet Links: You don't need to find me, I will find you. Don't hassle yourself. Your voice will be heard through millions of others like me.

People Who Want to Hunt Me Down: I'm an Afghan. If you ever tried to attack me, you'll see my back only after your back has met the ground.

P.S. Please post this around and tweet and retweet. I promise to make the next one faster than this one. I had to wait to make sure everything was as accurate as humanly possible.