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Iran Cuts Internet Access and Threatens Telegram Following Mass Protests (bbc.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: As seething discontent has boiled over in Iran leading to mass protests, protesters have taken to the streets and social media to register their discontent... The government has been closing schools and shutting down transportation.
Now, as mass protests in Iran go into their third day there are reports that internet access is being cut in cities with protests occurring. Social media has been a tool for documenting the protests and brutal crackdowns against them. Iran previously cut off internet access during the Green Movement protests following the 2009 elections. At the same time the Iranian government is cutting internet access they have called on Telegram, reportedly used by more than 40 million Iranians, to close the channels used by protesters. Telegram is now closing channels used by the protesters while Telegram itself may be shut down in Iran.
Now, as mass protests in Iran go into their third day there are reports that internet access is being cut in cities with protests occurring. Social media has been a tool for documenting the protests and brutal crackdowns against them. Iran previously cut off internet access during the Green Movement protests following the 2009 elections. At the same time the Iranian government is cutting internet access they have called on Telegram, reportedly used by more than 40 million Iranians, to close the channels used by protesters. Telegram is now closing channels used by the protesters while Telegram itself may be shut down in Iran.
Leave them alone . . . . Iran was once a democracy until they elected the "wrong" leader and America and Britain fixed it by putting in the Shah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Unfortunately your history is a bit off. The Shah was in power before the Prime Minister's coup, and was in power after the British & American counter-coup. You may note this section of the Wikipedia article:
Execution of Operation Ajax
The official pretext for the start of the coup was Mossadegh's decree to dissolve Parliament, giving himself and his cabinet complete power to rule, while effectively stripping the Shah of his powers.[10][11][12] It resulted in him being accused of giving himself "total and dictatorial powers."
The "pretext" has the "unfortunate" quality of being true and understated in Wikipedia. The Prime Minister overthrew the Iranian democratic government, and effectively the Shah who then fled the country. The Prime Minister took the power of ruling by decree, in other words a dictator. After a quick look it appears that the Wikipedia article fails to mention that there was a fraudulent election staged to justify all of this. The Time magazine article that I saw on it mentioned that Iran's Prime Minister received a higher percentage vote than either Hitler or Stalin received in their elections. I wonder what the Farsi word for chutzpah is? Anyway, the counter-coup restore the Shah to power, it wasn't what put him in power to begin with.
As long as the rank and file soldiers and police don't feel that the internal turmoil in Iran won't be exploited by outside forces they likely will tolerate peaceful protests. There is a good chance the Iranian leadership won't order any kind of crack down for fear the police won't obey them. If the rest of the worlds leaders can resist opening their mouths there is a good chance Iran can be another success story like Tunisia.
We can expect the Iranian government to be at least as violent as they were in 2009 when they unleashed the Revolutionary Guards, Basij paramilitary units, and Lebas Shakhsi paramilitaries on the Green Movement protesters. Those forces are loyal to the Iranian revolutionary Islamist regime as are willing to attack civilians in the streets to maintain the regime.
It appears to be starting now.
Two reportedly killed after Iranian forces 'open fire on protestors' as demonstrations continue for third day
Two people are understood to have been killed after Iranian security forces reportedly opened fire on anti-government demonstrators on Saturday as the largest protests seen in the country since 2009 continued for a third day. ...
There is no knowing how this will turn out, but it may turn quite bloody. The Iranian revolutionary Islamist government won't go down peacefully.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The real question you should be asking is, why did it take the US media(and most of the western media) so long to do any stories on this in the first place. My guess? There's another journolist type organization deciding what "type" of media to present again. This stuff was all over Japanese media well latish 3ish days ago now, it was in the A section of the Mainichi Times print publication, right next to the article on Japan looking at full revoking article 9, or partially rewriting article 9 of their constitution to allow proactive military defense with the increasing of China in the Sea of Japan and N.Korea. It however isn't in the english online daily or the JP online daily, though the article 9 story is, but it was published early(10am) on the 30th.
Om, nomnomnom...
You know it's been going on since the 27/28th right? CNN reported nothing on it until yesterday. It was covered heavily in SEA media(JP, S.Korea, and Singapore) in both local and english dailies though. They have a point, these are major protests and it took CNN 2 days or call it 3 days before they reported on it, but they were talking damn near non-stop on all of their channels about that white truck. Hell it was the top thing on CNN while I was waiting for the train to pick me up on the 28th in Tokyo.
Om, nomnomnom...