#IranElection weekend continues

It has been an exhausting, heartbreaking, riveting, emotional, inspiring, unforgettable weekend.

It wasn't too long after I posted my previous entry that it all became old or common news. The #CNNfail twitter phenomena was noted and talked about in several articles on a half dozen news sites as well as many blogs. We were hailed as "media watchdogs." I don't doubt that CNN's coverage would have increased dramatically as events unfolded, and I don't want to overestimate the effect the online beating they took from twitter and the organizations that ran with the story - but man, did they step it up. Props to CNN, as they are currently running at least a half dozen separate articles on the situation, as well as Q&A interviews on if and how the elections were rigged, etc.

I continued following #IranElection on Twitter yesterday and through the early hours of the morning. Over the weekend, about a dozen men and women inside Tehran became the voice of their plight online. Their accounts gained hundreds, then thousands, of followers, and their twitter user names were listed on many websites for people who heard about the Twitter coverage of the election and wanted to know who to follow. Watch the feed for a while, and you can separate the conversation into three groups - the Iranians providing updates, the core group of followers who are familiar with them, and newcomers who are astounded by what they are reading and are tagging #IranElection to alert their friends.

Thousands of us watched the feed anxiously as one of the Iranian students sent increasingly urgent messages from a Tehran University dormitory, where he was barricaded inside with several friends, some of them injured and in need of medical attention, shortly before daybreak in Iran today. Many dorms were raided that night by what the Iranians say were the Ansar-e Hezbollah, the unofficial thugs of the Ayatollah. Most accounts agree that about 100 students were arrested and over a dozen killed that night.

Here are some frightening photos of the aftermath.

Some of the Iranians we were following on twitter left us to find friends and family, go to prayers, sleep, or lost communication. There was always a palpable sense of relief when they reappeared, and the #IranElection feed would flood with comments welcoming them back. Some of the Iranians I have been following have not been heard from in some time, but most have managed to send the occasional update if not more.

There was a growing sense of community as users began to change their avatars to reflect their support for the Iranian protesters - either by shading their current pictures green, the color of Mousavi's campaign, or changing altogether to messages, white on green, reading "FREE IRAN" or "Solidarity" or "Where are their votes?" or just green images. The feed became a steady stream of green on the left hand side of the column, and people were linking to websites that had changed thier logos or backgrounds to green as a show of support (and yes, that is the reason for this temporary color scheme). A movement started as people around the world pledged to wear green today, and for a while, that became the dominating message, followers tweeting friends, celebrities, asking them to do the same.

The color of our clothing and websites will not have the slightest impact on the developments in Iran today and in the coming days, but it gave people a sense of solidarity, and a small way to feel like they were doing something. As the support and awareness grew, so did a sense of helplessness, and this alleviated that a little, symbolic though it may be. These dozen Iranians we were communicating with had become the core of our community, uniting tens of thousands of strangers in support of their plight. Everyone wants to help them, everyone wants to do something.

I began seeing people I know, my friends on my contact list appear in the feed, offering messages of support. Some began retweeting important updates. Neil Gaiman showed up, and I saw him retweeting the latest working proxy servers. #IranElection remains the number one trending topic on Twitter as of this posting.

I spent a lot of the evening doing what little I could. In my exhaustion I wrote a passionate, emotional letter to the Obama administration asking him not to legitimize the stolen election by accepting the results*. I contacted local media. I used the best Farsi to English translator I could find to follow Iranian news sites. I used the reverse translation to send (hopefully not too garbled) emails to those reformist sites, with the IP addresses and ports of working internet proxies for the protesters to use (these were being created and shut down constantly and spread via the twitter feed). And yeah, I wore green today. I would be very surprised if anyone thought twice about my choice of clothing today, let alone had any inkling of the "wear green" movement. Doesn't matter. I know why.

*Note: I am fully aware of the consequences of such an action, regarding our offer of open dialogue, our aims at diffusing their nuclear ambitions, our relationship with Israel, our tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan whose governments support Ahmadinejad, and a dozen other issues that could/will be affected by Obama's response. I understand the arguments. I understand what is at risk. Please don't reply and try to engage me in a dialogue or argument about what Obama should do and why if you disagree. That's fine if you do. I don't want to argue about it, I'm too tired, and that's not what this post is about. Another time.

What touched me the most, and what will stay with me long after this weekend, was the unity and understanding of the issue at hand. The people showing support came from all across the political spectrum here in America, and I would assume as well abroad. Yet we did not argue our politics or how we should respond. This was about them, and we understood that. Every so often, someone would wander in and ask if it really would have made a practical difference had Mousavi won, doubting that much in Iran would have changed. When that question came up, people in the feed were quick to point out that it didn't matter - that wasn't the point. This was about Iranians fighting for the voice and the vote that they had been promised. This was about how their election had been stolen from them. They had been told that their voices mattered, even if under the limitations imposed by the Ayatollah, and that had been a lie. It didn't matter who the candidate was, or their platform - their fight is for the very cornerstone the United States was founded upon - freedom to elect representation. And everyone, everyone got that. I have never seen such a large and diverse group of people uniting behind one common cause, one that did not benefit them, in my life. It moves me to tears.

When the sun was coming up here in South Carolina, the Iranian protesters were organizing for the march today, that is taking place right now. There was a great deal of confusion at the last minute - conflicting reports of whether or not Mousavi had called off the protest. That message went up on Iranian sites, then disappeared, then reappeared. BBC reported it, then took the story down. Ahmadenijad had declined to issue a permit for the march and declared it illegal. Word was that Mousavi had been warned that police had been armed with live ammunition and had been given the go-ahead to open fire if the protest took place. The Iranians in Twitter, these dozen people we had come to know this weekend, traded messages back and forth - was it on? No, Mousavi called it off. Yes, it was on, the regime was simply spreading rumors in an attempt to disorganize the protesters. Mousavi's account had been hacked. He would be there.

I didn't know then, and I still don't know, if there was a legitimate effort by Mousavi to call off the protest and if the rumors of shoot-to-kill orders were true. In the end, it was too late to stop the march even if it was true - hundreds of people were already congregating in front of the University. The march was taking place regardless, and no one seemed to know if Mousavi would be there, if they would be walking into machine gun fire.

What I do know is that I watched our core group of Tehran-based protesters tell us they were unsure if they should go, and were discussing it amongst their friends and brothers. Were they willing to die for this?

In the end, the answer for nearly all was yes. We watched them sign off, going to join the crowd, fighting for their voice to be heard and counted. Unsure if they would face batons or bullets, they went. Their bravery moved us all.

Change_for_Iran's last updates, posted around 6 AM this morning, EST:

• IRG threaten to open fire at people if they try to participate in Mousavi's rally
• I'm not sure about going to mousavi's rally anymore, we're talking about possibilities.
• there are now rumors of mousavi's site being hacked and the whole rally is IRG's trap. gun placements at azadi square confirmed
• government is now playing a masterpiece mind game, all people here are so confused about what is real and who to trust

And, finally:

• it's worth taking the risk, we're going. I won't be able to update until I'm back. again thanks for your kind support and wish us luck

He has not updated since.