Blood runs in the streets of Tehran

There is a logical end to what happens when people without guns stand up to people with guns. It’s only a matter of time until the people with guns attempt to take control of a situation at the expense of people without. That threshold was crossed yesterday in Tehran, as police and militia aligned to the state-approved victor of the Iranian Presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attacked an absolutely massive crowd of defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. An unknown number of the crowd were injured with deaths also reported – a tragic end for a few of the perhaps million people who turned out in clear defiance of the established order that rules Iran (perhaps if only for the time being).
Despite sustained efforts by the Iranian government to block media access to the country – to the point where journalists have been arrested, detained, or outright kicked out of the country, the story and the pictures are indeed getting out:

There have yet to be any official backing down on the stated election result totals, which are being more and more regarded as outright fraud as time ticks by. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has however ordered a probe into “vote rigging” – which is being seen by outside observers as a dramatic shift in his policy, the closest the Ayatollah has come to saying that the election was fixed and the outcome was outright wrong. Still, the odds of anything actually being turned over and results resembling what actually happened are very slim.

As of now, the “official” vote count still stands:

Official Iranian Election Results
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	24,527,516	62.63%
Mir-Hossein Mousavi	13,216,411	33.75%
Mohsen Rezaee	678,240	1.73%
Mehdi Karroubi	333,635	0.85%

This, in contrast to as yet unconfirmed but supposedly “accurate” leaked vote totals:

Unofficial Iranian Election Results
Mir-Hossein Mousavi	19,075,623	45.39%
Mehdi Karroubi	13,387,104	31.85%
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	5,698,417	13.56%
Mohsen Rezaee	3,754,218	8.93%

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The people, however, are not laying down over this.

The protests have continued to gain momentum, having a crescendo thusfar at a pro-Mousavi rally that extended more than five miles (according to Associated Press accounts) and contained hundreds of thousands – perhaps more than a million people at its peak on Monday. The rally dwarfed the one the state put on in support of Ahmadinejad – the one the state wanted the world to see while forgetting about everything else that was going on. It was at this rally that the movement was taken to the next step – which is unfortunately a violent one. While there are many videos out there showing the Iranian protesters making efforts to not harm police that have been deployed against them, militias aligned to Ahmadinejad have not returned the favor – and in fact have turned violent against the protesters with fatal consequences. At the moment those protesting against the regime still do not have the guns and are ultimately at the mercy of those who do. The attempts going on now are those of intimidation and fear – hoping to drive the people back into their homes and off of the streets, trying to end the revolts before they blossom into a revolution.

Thankfully unlike the roll over job that the European Union displayed on Sunday night, the United States – led by President Obama – seem to offer tacit support of the people revolting against the government. From a statement:

It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of iran, which sometimes — the United States can be a handy political football, or discussions with the United States [can be]. Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence i have seen on television. I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent, all of those are universal values, and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, they are rightfully troubled.

Shining through as a beam of hope from what has the potential to turn into a bloody disaster is the use of the new social networking tools of the day to get the word out, keep the word out, and give the world to pay attention with absolutely no content filter of any kind, as the Associated Press took notes about:

One Twitter user who identified himself only as Mohsen, speaking to the AP from Tehran, said while he’s been using Twitter for about two years, he’s intensified his “tweets” over the last few days.

He said he sends alerts about “what I see in the streets, about police hitting people, and people who are not police who are hitting Mir Hossein supporters,” he said. “These are frames of horror and hate. I think one of the strategies the authorities are doing is stopping news and information, and I use whatever I can to stop them from doing that.”

Traditional media is being left in the dust on this one, but it seems like in this case, that’s not that much of a bad thing. A government can shut down media outlets and jam international television feeds, but a government can not shut down thousands of people – perhaps even more – doing everything they can to get the word out to the world by any means necessary.

It should come as no surprise then that in addition to targeting the citizens and students who are leading the charge against the established order, the state is also looking to target the very technology that is being taken advantage of to humiliate the state on a worldwide stage. The gadgetry taken advantage of by the younger generation can get around the traditional censors and means of control, and the only reaction the state has left is to destroy. Unfortunately for the efforts of the state, the odds of smashing every last device that communicates on the Internet within the next couple of days is next to nil – so until further notice the word is going to continue to get out, and the world is going to continue to watch Iran try to suppress its people one more time.

How far and to what extreme remain to be seen.