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2009 Iranian presidential election protests

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2009 Iranian Election Protests
Protests against the election results on the streets of Tehran, June 16.
Location Iran: Tehran, Ahvaz, Arak, Bandar Abbas, Birjand, Babol, Bushehr, Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah, Khoy, Mashhad, Qazvin, Rasht, Sari, Shahr Kord, Shiraz, Tabriz, Urmia, Yazd , Zahedan

Template:Country data World (By Iranian diaspora worldwide)
 United States: Los Angeles, New York City, San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Charlotte, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Indianapolis, Austin, Miami, Orlando, Madison, Tempe, Arizona
 Canada: Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Halifax, London
 Germany: Berlin, Bochum, Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Münster
 The Netherlands: The Hague, Amsterdam, Delft
 Italy: Rome, Milan, Florence
 Australia: Sydney, Melbourne
  Switzerland: Geneva, Lausanne
 Ukraine: Kiev, Kharkiv
 Sweden: Stockholm
 United Kingdom: London, Manchester
 United Arab Emirates: Dubai
 France: Paris
 New Zealand: Auckland
 Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur
 Portugal: Lisbon
 Austria: Vienna
 Romania: Bucharest [1]
 Armenia: Yerevan
 Czech Republic: Prague
 Japan: Tokyo
 Denmark: Copenhagen
Date13 June 2009 – present
Afternoon 12 GMT (+4)
Deaths19 confirmed and 150 unconfirmed from June 20 protests.[2]

Protests following the 2009 Iranian presidential election against alleged electoral fraud and in support of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi are as of 21 June 2009 underway in Tehran and other major cities in Iran and around the world.[3] The ongoing protests have been given several titles including the Green Revolution due to presidential candidate Mousavi's campaign color and the Persian Awakening.[4] In response to the protests, other groups have rallied in Tehran to support the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[4]

Some analysts called the controversial election results a coup[5][6][7] (or "کودتای ۲۲ خرداد" in Persian—the Anno Persarum 1388 Khordad 22nd Coup d'etat). All three opposition candidates have claimed that the votes were manipulated and the election was rigged, and candidates Mohsen Rezaee and Mousavi have lodged official complaints. Mousavi announced that he "won't surrender to this manipulation" before lodging an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on 14 June.[4]

The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the unprecedented voter turnout and coinciding religious holidays as a "divine assessment" and urged the nation to unite, but[8] later ostensibly ordered an investigation into the claims of voting fraud and irregularities.[9][10] Mousavi is not optimistic about his appeal, saying that many of the group's members "during the election were not impartial".[11] Ahmadinejad called the election "completely free" and the outcome "a great victory" for Iran, dismissing the protests as little more than "passions after a soccer match".[12]

Police and a paramilitary group called the Basij have violently suppressed the protests, firing into crowds and using batons, pepper spray, and other weapons. There have been twenty confirmed deaths during the protests.[13] Iranian authorities have closed universities in Tehran, blocked web sites, cell phone transmissions and text messaging,[14] and banned rallies.[9]

Background

The election of the president of Iran in 2009 was preceded by many Iranian surveys and a survey by the US-based Terror Free Tomorrow organization.[15] The Terror Free Tomorrow opinion poll, conducted from 11 May to 20 May 2009 predicted the high participation and showed similar ratios for the candidates to the later official result, with over a quarter yet undecided.[16][17] The many Iranian surveys show a wide range of differing results. An opinion in the New York Times claims that this is due to the high fluctuation among voters during the campaign season.[18]

The election for presidency took place on 12 June 2009. Unlike the election in 2005, there was a high participation. The official results were rejected by all three opposition candidates, who claimed that the votes were manipulated and the election was rigged. The last presidential election had already been controversial, but this time it escalated. Candidates Mohsen Rezaee and Mousavi have lodged official complaints. Mousavi announced that he "won't surrender to this manipulation" before lodging an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on 14 June.[4]

The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the unprecedented voter turnout and coinciding religious holidays as a "divine assessment", and urged the nation to unite,[8] and later ordered an investigation into the claims of vote fraud.[10] Referring to Mousavi's appeal letter about the irregularities, Khamenei said that "the Guardian Council has been emphasized to carry out investigation into this letter carefully," and probe allegations of electoral fraud.[10] Mousavi is not optimistic about his appeal, saying that many of the group's members "during the election were not impartial".[11] Ahmadinejad called the election "completely free" and the outcome "a great victory" for Iran, dismissing the protests as little more than "passions after a soccer match".[12]

According to a scientific analysis by Professor Walter R. Mebane, Jr., from Department of Statistics of University of Michigan, considering data from the first stage of the 2005 presidential election produces results that "give moderately strong support for a diagnosis that the 2009 election was affected by significant fraud".[19] This notion is also supported by the NGO UK-based thinktank Chatham House for a number of reasons:[20]

  • In two Conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded.
  • At a provincial level, there is no correlation between the increased turnout, and the swing to Ahmadinejad. This challenges the notion that his victory was due to the massive participation of a previously silent Conservative majority.
  • In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, and all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former Reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.
  • In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. The claim that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces in 2009 flies in the face of these trends.

Timeline

Further information: Timeline of the 2009 Iranian election protests

On Saturday June 13, after election results announced that Ahmadinejad had won, supporters of Mousavi took to the streets to protest. The next day, protests grew, as did violence. On the night of June 14, the pro-Ahmadinejad Basij paramilitary group raided Tehran University, injuring many. On June 15, Mousavi made his first post-election appearance, speaking before a crowd of as many as a million.

On June 16, protests continued, and the Guardian Council announced a partial recount would be conducted; however, the vote was not annulled. On Wednesday June 17, another large protest occurred; some members of the Iranian national football team wore green wristbands in support of Mousavi during their game against North Korea. Thursday June 18 more than 100,000 protesters held a candle-light vigil in Tehran following Mousavi's call for a day of mourning for those killed in protests. The Guardian Council invited the three major challengers to meet to discuss their grievances.

Friday June 19, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini spoke during religious services, saying the election was legitimate and protests would no longer tolerated. Protests occurred on a smaller scale. The next day, June 20, fewer protesters took to streets. At the protests that did occur, said to number in the tens of thousands of people, much violence occurred, causing many would-be protesters to stay in their homes the next day, Sunday, June 21. June 22, riot police broke up the main rally in Tehran with tear gas and live fire into the air.

Government reaction

Arrests

See also: Law enforcement in Iran and Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran

On the weekend of 13/14 June, in a series of raids across Tehran, the government arrested over 170 people, according to police officials.[21] Among them were prominent reformist politicians, including MIRO founder Behzad Nabavi, IIPF leader Mohsen Mirdamadi, and former president Mohammad Khatami's brother Mohammad-Reza Khatami, who was later released.[22][23][24] Also arrested were Mostafa Tajzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, whom the IRNA said were involved in orchestrating protests on 13 June.[23] Unidentified sources said that the police stormed the headquarters of the IIPF and arrested a number of people.[8][25] Iranian journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin claimed that presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi was put under house arrest, although officials denied this.[26] An estimated 200 people were detained after clashes with students at the University of Tehran, although many were later released.[27]

Former vice-president Mohammad-Ali Abtahi was among those arrested on 16 June, according to Reuters.[28]

Acting Police Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan stated via the state press service on 14 June that "in the interrogation of related rebels, we intend to find the link between the plotters and foreign media".[29] A judiciary spokesman said they had not been arrested but that they were summoned, "[and] warned not to increase tension", and later released.[30] Intelligence minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehei linked some arrests to terrorism supported from outside Iran, stating that "more than 20 explosive consignments were discovered".[31] Others, he said, were "counter-revolutionary groups [who had] penetrated election headquarters" of the election candidates.[31]

On 16 June, Reuters reported that former vice-president Mohammad-Ali Abtahi and former presidential advisor Saeed Hajjarian had been arrested.[28] Human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani, who had been demanding a recount of all votes, was also arrested on the the Tuesday according to Shirin Ebadi, who said that security officials had posed as clients.[32] Over 100 students were arrested after security forces fired tear gas at protesters at Shiraz University on the same day.[27] Reporters Without Borders reported that 5 of 11 arrested journalists were still detention as of 16 June, and that a further 10 journalists were unaccounted for and may have been arrested.[27]

On 17 June, former foreign minister and Secretary-General of the Freedom Movement of Iran, Ebrahim Yazdi, was arrested while undergoing tests at the Tehran hospital.[27] In Tabriz, other Freedom Movement activists and eight members of the IIPF were arrested, with reports of at least 100 civic figures' arrests.[27] The total number of arrests across Iran since the election was reported as 500.[27]

Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the international campaign for human rights in Iran, stated that "Iranian intelligence and security forces are using the public protests to engage in what appears to be a major purge of reform-oriented individuals whose situations in detention could be life-threatening".[27]

In Esfahan Province, prosecutor-general Mohammadreza Habibi warned that dissidents could face the death penalty under Islamic law.[33] He also accused the protesters of being a "few elements controlled by foreigners [who were] disrupting security by inciting individuals to destroy and to commit arson" and urged them to stop their "criminal activities". It was not clear if his warning applied only to Isfahan or to the country as a whole. [34]

Militia violence

Several Basij members have been filmed breaking into houses and shooting into crowds.[35][36][37][38][39] A number of hospital staff protested after people have been transported to the hospitals dead or in critical condition because of gunshots. One person has been brought to the hospital after he was killed by a sniper shot to the head.[40]

The IRG and the Basij also attacked Universities and students' dorms at night, destroying property and killing students.[41][42][43]

The Los Angeles Times reported that militiamen from the hard-line Iran-based Ansar-e Hezbollah group "warned that they would be patrolling the streets to maintain law and order".[44]

A female journalist, writing for Der Spiegel, witnessed Arabic-speaking Gardisten (IRG) using chains as weapons against a fleeing crowd of demonstrators. In the same 16 June article, Der Spiegel reported that Voice of America had a report that the Iranian government had recruited as many as 5,000 fighters from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia to clash with protesters.[45]

Censorship

See also: Censorship in Iran and Communications in Iran

News media

File:Tehran protests (18).jpg
A protester holding up a photo of a bloodied protester casualty and men carrying him to safety, Tehran, 16 June

According to the Telegraph, on 14 June "Iran's regime was doing its utmost to choke off the flow of news from its capital".[46] Al Jazeera English has leveled allegations of direct media censorship by the Iranian government, stating that "some of the newspapers have been given notices to change their editorials or their main headlines".[47] The Al Arabiya's offices in Tehran were closed on 14 June for a week by Iranian authorities, who gave no explanation for the decision.[48] NBC News offices in Tehran were raided, with cameras and other equipment confiscated. Meanwhile, the director of BBC World Service accused the Iranian Government of jamming its broadcasts to the country. Peter Horrocks said audiences in Iran, the Middle East and Europe had been affected by an electronic block on satellites used to broadcast the BBC Persian Television signal to Iran, adding: "It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by the Iranian authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of the disputed election".[49][24] A BBC corporate official has referred to the network's conflict with the regime as 'electronic warfare'.[50]

On 15 June, Belgian national TV reporter Jef Lambrecht and his sound technician, were arrested in Teheran. They had been doing a story on the riots, and had gotten caught in the middle of the violence. While Lambrechts had taken a punch, Vandervorst was arrested by riot police. When Lambrecht went to check where Vandervorst was being taken, he was promptly arrested as well. Both were taken to the Ministery of Information and detained in the basement. They were both released after two hours with strict instructions not to make any photos or film recordings of the protests. At the same time, two Dutch reporters from Nova were also arrested and deported. [51]

On 16 June, the Ministry of Culture issued a directive banning all foreign media from leaving their offices.[52] This directive stipulated that international news outlets could still talk about rallies in their live reports, however they were not allowed to leave their hotel rooms and offices to witness the protests. Iranian government-run television was not affected by the restrictions.[53] On 20 June, the Ministry of Culture intensified the restrictions by banning international media from reporting on the demonstrations altogether unless they received permission from Iranian authorities.[54]

BBC correspondent John Simpson was arrested, his material confiscated, and then released.[55] Reporters from the Italian public television broadcaster RAI stated that one of its interpreters was beaten with clubs by riot police and the officers then confiscated the cameraman's tapes.[8] ABC News reporter Jim Sciutto has also had material taken. People from the German public broadcasters ZDF and ARD have been harassed as well, with men carrying batons and knives reportedly storming the ARD's Tehran office.[citation needed]

Ahmadinejad responded to civil liberties concerns by stating Iranians enjoyed "absolute freedom" of speech. "Don't worry about freedom in Iran ... Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don't worry about it."[56]

Internet

On Saturday following the elections, Mir-Hossein Mousavi's supporters started DDoS attacks against president[57] Ahmadinejad's site and exchanged attack tools through sites such as Facebook and Twitter.[58] After the attacks, the government stopped internet access.[58] On 13 June as the election results were being announced, Iran shut down all Internet access for about 45 minutes, then restarted it apparently with lower bandwidth; this may have been in order to set up filters to block sites like YouTube that could be used for political purposes.[59] When thousands of opposition supporters clashed with the police on 13 June, Facebook was filtered again. Some news websites were also blocked by the Iranian authorities. Mobile phone services including text messaging also stopped or became very difficult to use.[60] Specifically, all websites affiliated with the BBC were shut off,[61] as well as those affiliated with The Guardian.[citation needed] Associated Press labeled the actions as "ominous measures apparently seeking to undercut liberal voices".[8]

Statements by Iranian figures

Government figures

  • Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei initially urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, labeling a victory by him as a "divine assessment".[8] On 15 June, however, Iran's supreme leader ordered an investigation into the claims of vote fraud.[62] Referring to Mousavi's appeal letter about the irregularities, Khamenei said that "the Guardian Council has been emphasized to carry out investigation into this letter carefully".[63] On 19 June he condemned the conduct of the Western World during the elections, claiming that the United Kingdom is the most "evil".[64]
  • Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said that he had not received any "written complaint" about election fraud or irregularities. He also remarked that the vote proceeded in a way that "ruled out the possibility of cheating".[65]
  • Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was reported to have called a meeting of the Assembly, as they have the constitutional power to elect and dismiss the Supreme Leader.[66]
  • Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani condemned the attack by police and militia at Tehran University, saying that the "[I]nterior minister is responsible in this regard".[67]

Candidates

File:Tehran protests (17).jpg
A protester holding a photo of Mousavi in the silent demonstration from Hafte tir Square to Enghelab Square, Tehran, 16 June
  • Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a live address on state run television on 13 June, called the election "completely free" and the outcome "a great victory" for Iran. He also said, "[T]oday, the people of Iran have inspired other nations and disappointed their ill-wishers ... propaganda facilities outside Iran and sometimes inside Iran were totally mobilized against our people". Ahmadinejad praised the country’s youth as well, but made no direct mention of the protests.[60] He later dismissed the protests, comparing them to "the passions after a football match".[24]
  • Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the main opposition candidate, issued a statement saying, "I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation." Mousavi lodged an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on 14 June.[4] He is not optimistic about his appeal, saying that many of the group's members "during the election were not impartial".[11]
  • Reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, another opposition candidate, echoed Moussavi's demand for the election to be canceled. He said, "I am announcing again that the elections should not be allowed and the results have no legitimacy or social standing ... Therefore, I do not consider Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the republic."[22] He later declared in a speech to his supporters in Khoramabad that "this phase [Election dispute] will not subside until we [Reformist leaders] suggest so".[68]
  • Conservative candidate Mohsen Rezai, on 17 June, gave an ultimatum to Interior Ministry to release details of the results by that day, otherwise he would call for re-election. He said that "unprecedented delay has raised doubts about the possibility of manipulation in the results".[69]

Clerics

  • The Combatant Clergy Association, a moderate clerical body headed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued a statement posted on reformist web sites saying the election was rigged and calling for it to be canceled, warning that "if this process becomes the norm, the republican aspect of the regime will be damaged and people will lose confidence in the system".[22]
  • In a letter published on his website, reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri stated that government used elections "[in] the worst way possible. Declaring results that no one in their right mind can believe, and despite all the evidence of crafted results, and to counter people protestations, in front of the eyes of the same nation who carried the weight of a revolution and 8 years of war, in front of the eyes of local and foreign reporters, attacked the children of the people with astonishing violence. And now they are attempting a purge, arresting intellectuals, political opponents and scientists".[70]
  • Several clerics in the religious center Qom were given house arrest and cut off from communication.[71]
  • The clerics Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hasan Rowhani are trying to assemble an emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts in Qom that could depose the Supreme Leader Khamenei.[71] However, official Iranian media report that on 21 June the Assembly expressed "strong support" for the Supreme Leader.[72] It remains unclear whether the statement has been signed by all experts and reflects their voice.

Exiled groups

  • People's Mujahedin of Iran leader Maryam Rajavi said that the "religious dictatorship and all its suppressive institutions must be done away with so that the Iranian people can hold free UN-supervised elections". [2]
  • The Tudeh Party of Iran declared that "the Supreme Leader and the coup d'état perpetrators under his leadership must be defeated vigilantly and by relying on the power of the masses". [3]
  • The Worker-Communist Party of Iran call for "the overthrow of the Islamic regime". It launched a six-points minimal program[73] and call women to remove their veils.[74] Its satellite TV, New Channel, broadcasts in Iran.[75]
  • Reza Cyrus Pahlavi, son of the former Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was ousted in 1979, said: "I would love to help them [the protesters] reach complete, real freedom under a secular democratic system where there's a true separation of religion from government".[76]

Other

International response

  • European Union On 15 June, EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg issued a joint statement expressing concern about the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators in Tehran. "This is a situation that the Iranian authorities must investigate," their statement said.[82]
    • United Kingdom British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on 16 June: "There must be no violence in response to peaceful protests... the relationship they [the Iranian authorities] will have and the respect they will have from the rest of the world will depend on how they respond to what are legitimate grievances that are being expressed and have to be answered."[83] C.f. 2009 G-20 London summit protests
    • France French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner called the government response to the protests "brutal".[84] On 16 June, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the unrest was a direct result of Ahmadinejad's failings in his first term.[85] "The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction," Sarkozy added.[85]
    • Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that "the German government is very concerned about the current situation". She also criticised the use of "completely unacceptable force against protesters", the "wave of arrests" during the demonstrations and the fact that foreign media were being hampered from reporting on the developments.[82][86]
    • Netherlands On 16 June, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen summoned an Iranian diplomat to protest Tehran's crackdown on protesters and to call for the immediate release of detainees. He also protested against interference with foreign journalists and the arrest of a Dutch television crew, and demanded an explanation from the Iranian authorities for the intimidation and seizure of footage of Dutch journalists.[87]
    • Poland The Polish Foreign Ministry announced: "[The ministry] calls on the government in Tehran to avoid actions which could result in bloodshed, and also expects the government to take responsibility for finding a peaceful solution to the crisis, according to its obligations within the international community".[88]
  • Australia On 16 June, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament: "We are very gravely concerned about the very serious breaches of human rights we have seen."[89]
  • Canada Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said: "The security force's brutal treatment of peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable." Canada also summoned Iran's top diplomat to explain the reported beating and detention of a freelance Canadian journalist in Tehran.[90]
  • United States Vice President of the United States Joe Biden said, "[I]t sure looks like the way they're suppressing speech, the way they're suppressing crowds, the way in which people are being treated, that there's some real doubt [about the true election results]".[56] On 15 June, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly declared that the US was "deeply troubled by the reports of violent arrests and possible voting irregularities."[91] President Obama echoed the statement later that day.[50] The President has been criticized for not showing more support for the demonstrators.[92] The New York Times reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had hoped Obama would lend more vocal support to the demonstrators,[93] although the State Department insists that Clinton and Obama are in agreement.[94] On the other hand, several commentators such as United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chairman John Kerry[95] (Democrat) and ranking Republican Richard Lugar,[96] or former Nixon Secretary of State and McCain advisor Henry Kissinger,[97] support Obama's muted response, arguing that any hint of United States intervention would only hurt the protesters by helping Ahmadinejad to portray them as US puppets. On 19 June, the United States House of Representatives voted 405-to-1 in support of a resolution supporting "all Iranians who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law" and condemning "ongoing violence against demonstrators".[98] On June 20, the White House released a statement by way of President Obama on the events in Iran stating, "We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights".[99]
  • Japan Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said on 16 June: "We are extremely concerned about the confusion in Iran. We are carefully monitoring the situation ... [W]e hear about shootings. We hope that the situation will come to an end as soon as possible."[83]
  • New Zealand On 16 June, Foreign Minister of New Zealand Murray McCully said: "The New Zealand government is concerned at the reports coming out of Iran of mounting violence, and calls on all involved to help restore calm ... New Zealand shares the view of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and several European Union leaders, that the election process needs to be carefully explained."[100]
  • Norway Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said: "There is much unrest in Iran around the results, and there are allegations of electoral fraud. This is alarming".[101]
  • Sweden On 18 June, the Foreign Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt stated in a public pronouncement concerning the violence: "It is obvious that this is totally unacceptable ... [I]t is now of utter importance that the authorities respect the complaints which have been directed at the election and the counting of votes; and handle those in a correct and transparent manner".[102]
  • Bermuda Bermudan Premier Ewart Brown expressed outrage over the Iranian government's violent acts against its people, saying "The free world must stand on the side of democracy and human rights. The Iranian government has crossed the line."

Use of social networking

The Internet and, specifically, social networking has been instrumental to organizing many of the protests in Iran.[103] Online sites have been uploading amateur pictures and video, and Twitter, Facebook, and blogs have been places for protesters to gather and exchange information.[103] Twitter has also been used to organize protests.[104][105]

Mousavi's supporters, through social networking sites, exchanged scripts for launching distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) against Ahmadinejad's website.[58][105] British citizens were reported to support the DDoS attacks against president Ahmadinejad by providing software for launching them.[106] The DDoS attacks have slowed down connections throughout Iran and those who have been DDoSing websites have been asked to call off their attacks to help the Green party communicate. [citation needed]

Twitter in particular has been a key central gathering site during the protests.[107] The U.S. State Department urged the company to postpone a scheduled network upgrade that would have briefly put the service offline.[108][109] Twitter delayed the network upgrade from midnight American time/morning Iran time to afternoon American time/midnight Iran time "because events in Iran were tied directly to the growing significance of Twitter as an important communication and information network".[110][111]

Some foreign activists, have engaged in DDoS attacks against Iranian ISPs, but their actions have been criticised as cutting off Internet access for protesters within Iranian borders.[citation needed] Many anti-Ahmedinejad activists have attacked the websites of Ahmedinejad and the government, rendering them inaccessible. The government's official website (ahmedinejad.ir) has at various times been rendered inaccessible.[112]

Aside from the use of social networking sites by protesters to gather and exchange information, individuals around the world used these sites to gain news and information on the events in Iran. Due to strict foreign media censorship by the Iranian government, social networking sites became the primary source of information, videos, and testimonials of the protests. Major news outlets, such as CNN[113] and BBC News,[114] gained much of their information from using and sorting through tweets by Twitter users and videos uploaded to YouTube. However, The Economist magazine stated that the Twitter thread IranElection was so deluged with messages of support from Americans and Britons that it "rendered the site almost useless as a source of information—something that Iran's government had tried and failed to do". The Economist asserted that the most comprehensive sources of information in English by far were created by bloggers who pulled out useful information from the mass of information, of whom it singles out Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic and Robert Mackey of the New York Times.[115]

Twitter hashtags used most frequently in tweets about the protest included #iran, #iranelection, #neda, and #gr88. #neda refers to Neda Soltani. #gr88 is a contraction of "Green Revolution 1388", 1388 being the Iranian calendar year when the election was held.

See also

References

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