Slashdot Mirror
Mass Arrests of Journalists Follow Iran Elections
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the fact that no less than 23 journalists have been arrested in Iran in the week following the elections, making Iran one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Online activists are trying to counter this trend by giving advice for helping Iranian protesters. One problem is that Iranian leaders are trying to delegitimize the reform movement by pretending that the reformers are puppets of foreign powers, so special discretion is required for anyone wanting to help the Iranian people."
Honestly, I was surprised the backlash against this didn't happen sooner. I guess this just confirms western fears that the elections in Iran were indeed a farce.
The regime seems to be fighting the last media war. They've been very effective in deporting and isolating professionals, only to discover how irrelevant that is when thousands of phone-cams are in the streets. Their attempts at jamming and filtering have clearly been quite porous. There's no such thing as a media blackout once word of mouth goes world wide.
My heart goes out to the Iranian people, but this is something they have to do for themselves.
their governement has to learn to respect the people they govern. as one post i read had stated, "we've traded one dictatorship for another".
if we in the west get involved there will always be accusations of puppets and strings.
the only way for the Iranian people to earn the respect of those that run the country and the other countries of the region is to do this on their own.
the worst is yet to come, but i wish them all the courage and strength they may need.
I'm not asking a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious about what the historical precedent is for regimes to be overthrown since it doesn't seem to happen.
My Russian friend used the colloquialism "every country is three meals away from a revolution" to describe the threshold for revolution, to make the case that nobody missed three meals during the Great Depression but did before the Russian Revolution.
I also read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in which Heinlein asserted that revolutions are never started or run by ordinary people, but by well organized political factions.
There's also 1984, in which Orwell points out that revolutions always involve the middle class, and the proletariat never drives revolutions.
There's also the wild card of alleged CIA involvement, which was behind the Orange (Ukraine) and Rose (Georgia) revolutions.
All of these tidbits of information aren't helping me to predict the outcome of the latest situation in Iran. What's driving the protests other than the election results? Will the revolutionaries succeed?
This space left intentionally blank.
Whether there are only "a few differences on paper but little substantial difference" between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi, that is not the point. The point is that the election was rigged. The fact that the mullahs felt the need to rig an election where both front-runners only have "a few differences on paper, but little substantial difference," speaks volumes about how much "dissent" will be tolerated by the Ayatollacrats.
Best,
In some countries the people would just give in when an unelected legislature tries to overturn a majority decision.
The reason it's so important to cut through the misinformation is that the Iranian government is now tweeting with false information, and it's crucial to keep track of what is real and what is FUD. They are taking other measures as well; there are several reports that a speech by President Obama (who has yet to speak in support of the protesters) was translated as a speech calling for revolution and the overthrow of the regime. This lets Iran claim that the protests are the result of meddling by the Western powers.
Fark seems to be doing a really good job of cutting through the FUD and getting solid, reliable information out there. One of their users, Tatsuma, has a quite detailed and extensive analysis of the crisis, the players, and what is happening now. Their Iran threads would be a good place to start.
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
Frankly I think most observers have extremely little information about what is real and reliable half way around the world.
The most reliable things I've seen so far are the large events, and the events reported independently in a similar way by several different sources: there was an election, it has led to unrest. One group in power is now in rising conflict with another group that wants power. Several people have died. Really beyond that, assertions of any particular thing day-to-day are pretty unreliable for me, and I've been reading and following this pretty closely.
As to whether a foreign power is involved, I think that is an extremely difficult question to answer as a remote consumer of "news" and Internet reports. Any group or nation powerful enough to be involved inside Iran now would have as a prerequisite the ability to control tightly the access and dissemination of information internally and the stories released to the public, plus would probably have a desire for secrecy regarding their involvement.
Given recent history of multiple invasions in the region, the high value of resources in the region, plus historical precedent for outside regime support (specifically in Iran) - on what basis of reliable fact does one base the conclusion of foreign involvement or non involvement in the current demonstrations and issues in Iran? What do you consider to be the most reliable sources in the current fog of conflict and disinformation? Twitter? Some random Blogger? CNN? Your government? People you know personally?
My only point is this: Even if there were outside groups directly influencing events, how would people know about it? I don't think they would.
That really is a load of crap. In the 1950s, Iran was well on its way to becoming probably the most secular society in the Middle East. It had a burgeoning middle class, and seemed to be moving away from authoritarianism. And then the Americans and the Brits, not liking the nationalization of oil by Mohammad Mosaddeq, helped the Shah to overthrow that government. That created the deep divide between Iran and the US and Great Britain, and it didn't help that the Shah became a ruthless, Western-backed dictator.
I doubt a lot of the Iranians who supported Ayatollah Khomeini did it because they wanted to replace the Shah's oppressive regime with a fundamentalist Islamic regime just as oppressive. They wanted the Shah out and flocked to those who seemed capable of a leadership position. Was it a mistake? Probably, but if there's still lingering distrust of the United States, it's hardly because Iranians are somehow culturally more likely to live willingly under dictators (which I don't buy, it doesn't really reflect where Iranian culture was going for the first part of the 20th century). It's because the US, shortsightedly, opted for a man they viewed as a friend as opposed to a man they viewed as an opponent who threatened both key oil reserves and who (in they're view) might be more prone to siding with the Soviets.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I find it amazing that this much of a stink wasn't made during the Zimbabwean elections...where anti mugabe supporters were being raped and murdered by the thousands Then again, I guess there are no economic interests in that part of Africa, like there are in Iran (read: oil)
I praise the internet for being able to illuminate to us all, the double speak and forked tounge of the supposed 'freedom force (or farce rather)' known as America.
Hypocritical Liars.
My main source of news about the elections in both Iran and Zimbabwe was national public radio, which is about as American as you can get. NPR made a big point about exposing the massive corruption and manipulation of the election in Zimbabwe, and with Iran it is taking a very different path, pointing out that there are allegations of fraud but that the only verifiable story so far is the unrest in Iran itself. The difference in coverage is quite appropriate for the differences in context.
America is many things, but above all else it's diverse. It's not accurate to characterize all Americans of sharing a single interest or world view.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Whatever the truth of cultural differences, the reality is that the claims that Mosaddeq was going to cut a deal with the Russians was a smokescreen, a complete pile of B.S. concocted by the Brits and the Americans to give some justification to turfing a guy who was clearly trying to break Iran free from both Western subservience and trying to give more weight to the democratic institutions than to the Shah.
None of this history is very much disputed any more. The CIA, with Eisenhower's approval, helped the Shah overthrow Mosaddeq's government in return for allowing foreign oil companies to gain valuable contracts to extract Iranian oil.
You need to read up on Anglo-Iranian Oil Company here. The coup d'etat that ousted Mosaddeq had nothing to do with differing cultures or with the fear of the growth of the Soviet sphere, and everything to do with the Brits being really pissed off that Mosaddeq had nationalized their oil company, and the Americans lending a helping hand and trying to firm up their control over the Shah, who they viewed as a chief ally in the Middle East and Central Asia. It was a shortsighted policy that ended in absolute disaster.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
YAY! Liberal American Moral Relativism to the rescue! Lets show that an act of war 65 years ago gives us no moral standing to criticize the modern crushing of dissent by a government against its own citizens! For our next trick, we'll equate Guantanamo bay with Auschwitz!