This week, we are all witnessing a tragic story in Iran. Young voters in Iran led an uprising at the polls, but vote suppression and fraud has cast the results into serious doubt. And now people are dying in the streets and in university dorms for demanding their right to have their votes counted. There is no free flow of information – text messaging is turned off, Facebook is disabled, journalists are being told they risk dangerous consequences for filming the protests. This is nothing less than a fight for democracy and basic civil rights.
The recent riots, demonstrations, and reports, stating that people under 30 made up a large portion of the long lines outside polling stations, all support the idea that the young voters turned out in full force.
Here’s a quick overview of what’s happening:
Currently, 50 percent of Iran’s 70-million population is under 25 years old and 60 percent are under 30. Also, of the 46 million registered voters in Iran a little over a third of them are 25 and younger. The youth are definitely becoming more and more politically active and their main tool is the internet.
As many of you already know, many of the social networking tools in Iran such as Facebook and text messaging have been restricted, filtered or banned on a number of different occasions. The only one that remains almost untouched is Twitter, therefore leaving it to be the most popular throughout this election. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding Twitter and how many Iranians actually use it. “Twitter’s impact inside Iran is zero,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, manager of a Farsi-language news site based in Los Angeles. “Here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look . . . you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.” Users around the world following the election drama in Iran found that it was listed as the most popular discussion topic on Twitter yesterday and Monday. Many users, logging on from outside Iran, said they changed their account’s location listing to Tehran, in a move to confuse government censors who might be trying to shut down communications from Iran.
As for the government restrictions, it goes a lot deeper than just banning Facebook and text messaging. Iran’s government on Tuesday barred all foreign media from leaving their offices to report on the street protests in Tehran. And now Iran’s most powerful military force, The Revolutionary Guard, is threatening to cut off all foreign media outlets until the riots and demonstrations have settled. Also, as of this morning Iran has completely blocked all access to a number of different sites including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, along with several pro-Mousavi news websites, and also has blocked all SMS in the country.
This story is something that we all need to be paying attention to – not only in the United States, but in the world. Check out this video from our friend Kowsar, a long time political organizer in Iran:
Tags: international elections, iran
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daniel Bio: Email the author at: blog(at)rockthevote.com |
I am truly amazed at the strength of spirit the Iranian people has. Your struggle is not going on unnoticed, keep fighting peacefully for your rights. You have so much support, even if the “government” is trying to make you think you don’t by cutting off communication with the rest of the world. Love and much respect, keep your heads up.
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