Three missing gay stories: Iran, Turkey, Belarus

Still from video of mob hunting gays in Jamaica

It's Russia, Russia, Russia when it comes to 'foreign gay news' these days. But it's a much bigger and badder gay world out there.

Although the video footage of gays being tormented by Russian Nazis is mainstream news, worse footage from Jamaica is failing to attract anything like the same attention. The Jamaican situation is getting so bad, with the government doing nothing about what seems to be a wave of murders and violent attacks, that the veteran, exiled gay leader Maurice Tomlinson is on the verge of calling for economic sanctions.

Should Tomlinson call for sanctions -- and get support from the organised Jamaican LGBT community -- I wonder if that will break through and get anything approaching the attention Russia has? I have to say I'm cynical.

Jamaica, however, does get at least some attention but there have been three recent stories which leapt out at me and I think deserve at least some coverage (as opposed to none) because they obviously qualify as serious news.

LGBT activism now 'terrorism' in Belarus

Belarus is the former Soviet republic now known as Europe's 'last dictatorship'. It's leader, Lukashenko, has accused 'the West' of trying to turn Slavs gay and is known for bon mots on the gays like that 'women become lesbians because men are worthless'.

The country may not yet have a 'gay propaganda' law like Russia's but there have been repeated rumours that it might actually recriminalise gay sex. When a gay group tried to officially register last December police raided gay clubs and activists found themselves hauled into police stations, one had his passport confiscated.

Now the government has adopted new policy on 'the fight against terrorism' which extends the logic of some of the statements coming from Eastern Europe (or from some anti-gay American activists for that matter): gay activism is 'terrorism':

The document also notes that the internal source of a terrorist threat can become a "weakening of patriotism and traditional moral values among the youth due to the insufficient level of development of civil society, the destructive impact of information on the process of socialization of young people, a manifestation of trends towards the increased social stratification, the presence of a significant number of criminal and other unlawful acts against the person and property"

Given all else that has happened to them, local gay activists sound wearied. Alexandr Paluyan from Gay Alliance Belarus told me:

Relative to the new law. Indeed, information about non-traditional family values, as it used to be called in post-Soviet countries, the authorities can really be regarded as terrorism. Due to the fact that since the beginning of this year is the total pressure on the LGBT movement in Belarus, it is not excluded, and this fact is to apply the law in the future, however, it seems to me that this will not happen. But the fact of the possibility of equating LGBT activists as terrorists, and information resources called terrorist, of course, a matter of concern.

Exactly how this might work out for them seems, from the limited information I could find, opaque because exactly how the policy will be applied is not clear. Nor is whether the equation of gay activists with terrorists will spread, but I would not be shocked if it does.

Iran criminalises homosexual identity

Last month amongst the Russia-related coverage National Geographic ran a story reminding everyone that 76 countries criminalise gay sex and ran through details on some of the worst places to be gay. In the midst of which this caused a double take:

An updating of Iran's penal code in May 2013 criminalized homosexual identity, rather than specific acts, making it punishable by 31 to 74 lashes.

There was no source given in NatGeo's story but I tracked it down to the veteran Iran watcher Hossein Alizadeh at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). He confirmed it:

The new Iranian Penal code that was passed by the Guardian Council of the Constitution in Iran on May 1, 2013, states, "male homosexuality , in other cases rather than lavat [sodomy] and tafkhiz [rubbing penis between another man's tights without penetration], such as passionate kissing and lustful touching - is punishable by 31 to 74 punitive lashes of 6th degree." [Article 237].

The wording of the law [such as..] allows the judge to consider any other "homosexual" conduct - whether imaginary or real - as deserving punishment .... This vague law, in practice, paves the way for the punishment of anyone arrested on suspicion of homosexuality, but can't be tried on sodomy charges due to the lack of evidence.

(Here's the full text of the law on the Guardian Council's official website.)

I looked. This story got no publicity, in English at least.Why did the Iranian regime do this and what might it portend? I know reporting from Iran is difficult if not impossible but it would be good if some news outlet at least reported that this happened, and answered that question.

Turkey writes LGBT into draft constitution

Alongside Albania, Turkey is a Muslim-majority country which does have legal protections for LGBT people.

Contrary to preconceptions, those protections aren't the result of European Union pressures but of Turkey's thriving LGBT movement and the political support it receives.

The proposed new constitution is controversial, with many seeing it as a power grab for the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and Prime Minister Erdogan. However the current draft does, in a concession from the AKP, include "sexual orientation and gender identity, and other factors" as protected classes.

The language is in the preamble rather than the main text but even that concession, won by opposition politicians from the BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) and CHP (Republican People's Party), is being seen as a "milestone", according to Turkish politician Rıza Türmen and IGLHRC:

That identities be recognized at a constitutional level, even if it is in the preamble, by constitution drafters, is a significant gain for the LGBT. This step is a milestone for LGBT people in the Republic of Turkey’s constitutionalism.

If the constitution is passed it would be Turkey which would become the third country (after South Africa and, as I discovered, another very surprising African country) to offer LGBT explicit protections in its countries founding legal document. Yes, Turkey ...

There may be different reasons why these three stories aren't surfacing in international media but they're all information which should be more widely known.

A challenger to the Webbies?

Image by jdlasica via Flickr

The immensely influential Arianna Huffington has decided to launch her own version of the 12 year old Webbys Awards (which are kindof like the web's answer to the Oscars, complete with star-studded red carpet).

The HuffPost Game Changers awards [are] to honor and celebrate 100 people who are using new media to reshape their fields and change the world.

Note the use of 'world'. Unfortunately and predictably it's extremely likely that, like the Webby awards, they're unlikely to feature many non-Americans in the eventual nominations.

But at least they're free to enter, you just add a comment to her post. So these are the ones which sprung off the top of my head (I know I've forgotten some) and I'd encourage readers to go there, add some more and get some US attention (and possible support) for some amazing non-American 'game-changers'.

• The Iranian blog/twit-osphere - it seems a bit churlish to single out one person, although this may make it harder to pick.
• MySociety - the UK geeks who, before anyone else in the world (yep!), have been liberating data from government, mashing it up and making it available to the public. Their work has inspired gov geeks around the world, including the US.
• Ushahidi - an amazing African work, set up to monitor Kenyan post-election violence and now monitoring elections around the world (more).
• Global Voices - an amazing site which brings together bloggers from every corner of the globe.
• Committee Addiopizzo - young Sicilians using the web to fight the paying of 'pizzo' (extortion) to the mafia (more)

And some Americans:

• Samasource - who team with tekkies in the third world doing socially responsible outsourcing using the rapidly expanding cell phone networks (more on this here)

People + Power - Iran: Inside the protests

This is a really excellent account from a reporter from Al-Jazeera English in Tehran of the protests. Starting from the election results announcement she follows students and protesters and gets a unique perspective.

23' well spent to watch.

Using a translation widget

On LGBT Asylum News I recently added a Google Translation widget. I've just got my first feedback on it and it's good, apparently it's a useful add-on!

The widget is from madtomato and shows flags for six languages. You click and it sends you to Google Translate, where you can pick another language.



It's not perfect - the widget should say the following 'Click any flag to select another language' - I've modified it to say that.

Google Translate isn't perfect either - it misses the titles of posts on LGBT Asylum News for some strange reason - but I use the service often and find you can generally get the sense of what an article is about and fill in most mistranslations or non-translations.

It also now has a much wider range of languages. They recently added Fasi (Persian) due to demand and I know that's been heavily used, and useful.

Gay Iranians and the 'Green Revolution'

Photo source

Iranians are struggling for their rights and we, LGBTQs, are within people. We are active in this battle as citizens of Iran but we do not want to make any problem or additional pressure on our oppressed community.

From a letter to the author by Iranian gay students

Since the declaration of the results of the Iranian Presidential election on June 12 the world has been following what's been termed 'the green revolution' on the streets of Iran's cities.

Much has been written about how women are leading the protests and demands for democracy:

For these wives, mothers, sisters and daughters, their march to oust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has everything to do with their desire for equal rights.

The regime in Iran obviously feels threatened by peaceful female activism. They branded as illegal the One Million Signatures Campaign initiated by women's rights groups in Iran, a campaign to change discriminatory laws against women in that country. Dozens of women involved in the effort have been harassed or jailed by the government.

But there are other, minority, groups suffering in Iran who have bravely joined the protests.

Lesbians and gays suffer severe social disapproval in Iran as in much of the Muslim world (or the Christian, see Uganda or Jamaica) but, as in Iraq and Lebanon, have historically been discreetly tolerated - gay nightclubs existed during the Shah's rule as they did under Saddam's.

Following the Islamic revolution in 1979 they have faced a state which threatens them with death (Iran is one of only a handful of countries where death is the penalty in law for what Iran's version of Sharia law calls 'Lavat') and which uses entrapment and 'morality police'. The regime's homophobic violence has also spilled over into Iraq where Shia death squads hunt gays.


Click image to enlarge map

Over the past ten years Human Rights organisations have documented numerous executions however getting hard information has been clouded by the regime's tactic - aware as they had become of their international image - of using other charges than homosexuality, such as rape.

This is what was alleged in the infamous case of teenagers Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni which produced images whose currency internationally against the regime is as strong as those of Neda, the young women shot by a Basiji militia during the protests on the streets of Tehran.

It is not confirmed that they were in fact gay and information about this and other cases is also clouded by their use by competing exile groups as well as right-wing American groups as propaganda. Nevertheless executions are known to have taken place. The boyfriend of the young Iranian gay asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi. who eventually won refuge in the UK, was killed by the regime.

The use of rape charges in particular is part of the hypocrisy and violence at the heart of the regime - rape is a tactic they themselves use to suppress and torture:

"It was on Saturday or Sunday that they raped me for the first time. There were three or four huge guys we had not seen before. They came to me and tore my clothes. I tried to resist but two of them laid me on the floor and the third did it. It was done in front of four other detainees.

"My cell mates, especially the older one, tried to console me. They said nobody loses his dignity through such an act. They did it to two other cell mates in the next days. Then it became a routine. We were so weak and beaten up that could not do anything.

"Then the interrogations started again. They said: 'If you don't come to your senses we will send you to Adel Abad [another prison in Shiraz] to the pederasts' section so that you receive such treatment every day.' I was so weak I did not know what to say. Then they asked for my contacts. I told them I had no contacts and I was informed about the demonstrations through the internet."

With the knowledge of what they face if arrested, the bravery of those not only on the streets but those who defy the regime and get word out via the censored and monitored internet is heroic.

All those (and it is around 32000) who have been following one young student on Twitter, Change_for_Iran, have heard first hand about the violent raid on Tehran University dormitories, his going into hiding in the city, his fears for his friends who could not be contacted and then his disappearance then reappearance on Twitter having got himself out of the city.

Gay students from Iran tell me that:

Iranian government is very sensitive about western media and they are monitoring the internet very carefully.

The students contacted me because of a letter which claimed to come from a gay Iranian student organisation which had been circulated by a Toronto, Canada, organisation. It had been quoted in an article I had distributed which was published by the Boston gay magazine Edge but none of them had signed it and they contacted 286 others throughout Iran and none of them had either.

They warned, in a letter signed by 28 named people:

"You will make a big problem for us by publishing this letter especially in this situation that many of students are subject of arrest by Iranian authorities."

The fear comes from the suggestion of the existence of an organisation of gay students. Hossein Alizadeh, of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission says that these fears are well-grounded:

"The reality is that gay people are always the easiest target for the government to go after. I’m worried that if there is a crackdown, they will be targeting gay people. LGBTs have a lot to lose if the result of this is that the current government is more entrenched."

Part of the government's crackdown on the 'Green Revolution' has been to, quoting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, label them "thieves, homosexuals and scumbags".

Yet the irony of this statement, apart from the fact that Ahmadinejad told an American audience in 2007 that "in Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country", is that, in the case of gays, they do form part of the opposition.



'Morality police' assaulting a young man on a Tehran street

"The Iranian LGBT community is angry, in addition all minorities. These are the people you see in the streets of Iran," says Arsham Parsi, of the IRanian Queer Railroad (IRQR). Like women and young people who face harassment and worse from the regime's morality police they are unhappy with the discrimination and being targeted by the government, he says.

"Enough is enough. They’re going to the street to support the green movement and saying, ’We do exist, we didn’t vote for you and we want our votes back.’"

LGBT activists in the west and their supporters and allies owe it to their incredibly brave brothers and sisters in Iran to do all we can to support the 'Green Revolution'




At a protest outside the London Iranian embassy

Update: A SocMed history moment

Following up from my post about the kerfuffle in the White House press corps when a blogger got to ask Obama a question. The question was solicited by the Huffington Post live-blogger on Iran, Nico Pitney,from Iranians and was a hardball one which Obama dodged.

Today Nico said on CNN that President Obama's selecting him for a question during a press conference was not orchestrated, as the MSM has worked itself into a tizzy about.

He debates MSNBC's Dana Milbank, who wrote what Nico called a "dishonest" column about the exchange (it ended up having to be corrected). He calls Milbank - and by extension most of the rest of the press corps - out for using their opportunity to ask questions for frivolous ones like why Obama gets photographed in a swimsuit.

Go Nico!



Nico writes about the encounter; claims Milbank called him a "dick".

Music: Beat it! (you fanatics, get out of my land)

My previous post, although with extremely appropriate lyrics for Iran, has images about Obama. This one (made today by an Iranian - they love their MJ) really effectively merges the two 'memes' of the moment: Iran and Michael Jackson!

Brilliant. moving and inspiring. Watch and tell others to help it go viral

Music: The Jackson 5: The Young Folks

This track from the ABC album seems apropos what's happening in Iran



HT: Nico Piney

Am-a dick-in-a-jar Tweets Back

With a high five to Benny Hill (RIP).

A SocMed history moment

This has caused quite a stir. The White House press corps seem mightily upset that some blogger upset 'protocol' and got in a question to Obama.

Only it wasn't just some question, or just some blogger.

Huffington Post's Nico Pitney, who's been doing near 24/7 stellar work aggregating and blogging news from Iran, got a question at the press conference, delivering a query from an Iranian reader about whether Obama would ever now recognize an Ahmadinejad government

As Arianna noted, the press pack hated it. Here's the moment.



Pitney talked first about the live-blog he's been running to Rachel Maddow.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here he speaks to C-SPAN's Washington Journal explaining the question and how he got it, and how he 'orchestrated' its delivery with the White House.



This is a historical moment. A question from Iranians, via social media, gets asked of the US President. Mark this one down ...

'This is a massacre!'

This is an incredibly emotional affecting report from Iran. Today eyewitnesses are reporting a massacre. Live, with Twitter et al - a massacre. I am ashamed to say this is not being relayed prominently via the BBC, who appear to have down-ranked Iran over the past two days.

From Twitter:

"In Baharestan Sq we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat blood everywhere like butcher"

'What can you say to the family of the 13 year-old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?'

world needs to know of the atrocities and massacre at Baharestan Sq. & lalezar sq., ppl butchered today

they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us

@persiankiwi we must go dont know when internet they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names now we must move fast

Via @dailydish More then 150 killed on Saturday? #iranelection http://twitzap.com/u/Gjk

A witness describes beatings at a new protest under way in downtown Tehran.

Allahu Akbar

I cannot in any way claim to know what people are thinking or meaning on the ground, but for centuries, 'Allahu Akbar' has been in the Muslim world a battlefield of meaning and ultimately of political legitimacy. They are five syllables pregnant in meaning, mutability and richness, not simply a ritualistic or fundamentalist dogmatic trope. Nor is 'Allahu Akbar' simply a prayer. In fact, despite all its negative, violent connotations in the West, 'Allahu Akbar' has been uttered by Muslims throughout history as a cry against oppression, against kings and monarchs, against tyrannical and despotic rule, reminding people that in the end, the disposer of affairs and ultimate holder of legitimacy is not any man, not any king or queen, not even any supreme leader, but ultimately a divine force out and above directing, caring and fighting for a more peaceful, rule-based, just and free world for people to live in. God is the one who is greatest, above each and every mortal human being whose station it is to pass away.

The fact that 'Allahu Akbar' is echoing through the Iranian night is not only an indication of the longing of people there to find a peaceful and just solution to this crisis. It also points to how deep the erosion of legitimacy is in whosoever acts against the will of the people, in whosoever claims to act on God's behalf to oppress his fellow human, including in this case some of the 'supreme' Islamic jurists themselves. This all goes to show that Islam, far from being merely an abode of repression and retrogression, has the capacity of being a fundamentally restorative and democratic force in human affairs. In the end, so it seems, at least in the Iranian context, 'Allahu Akbar', God is greatest, is a most profoundly democratic of political slogans. So deep is this call, that what is determined out of this liminal moment may very well set the terms for (or against) a lived, democratic Islamic reality for decades to come.

From Huffpost's (Nico Pitney's) incredible coverage

Get you stylish green avatar 'ere

Peeps are changing their avatars on Twitter to show solidarity with Iranians by throwing a green gloss over them, which makes everyone look like they're caught with a night vision camera.

Here's the one stop-shop which will do that for you.

Instead you might want to pick from the following!
















Having attended a very stylish demonstration opposite the Iranian Embassy this evening, taking the trouble with your avatar seems to me to be entirely at one with the Iranian opposition!

Iran: video from the frontline

I am publishing YouTube clips from Iran on mattwardman.com.

More on Twitter and the events in Iran

Expanding on the points made by the head of BBC News, Richard Sambrook, about the issues with sorting through the outpouring of tweets from Iran, Kevin Drum writing for Mother Jones underlines some lessons about the way in which Twitter is best used at a moment like this.

Firstly he actually quotes me, unwittingly:

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers writes:

Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's websites were taken down yesterday — I saw the latter go down within a couple of minutes because of a DDOS attack organised via Twitter. @StopAhmadi is a good source for tweets on this. The other important use of Twitter has been distribution of proxy addresses via Twitter. This would be how most video and pictures of today's rally have gotten out.

That was Andrew quoting from my email (but no credit). It was late GMT Sunday and @stopahmadi linked to an auto-refresh address for Khamenei's website. Literally within a minute of his tweet the site was showing an error.

Drum cites what I'd seen happening by the middle of Sunday with Twitter:

There was just too much of it; it was nearly impossible to know who to trust; and the overwhelming surge of intensely local and intensely personal views made it far too easy to get caught up in events and see things happening that just weren't there.

I kindof agree with Drum but as I pointed out yesterday this was if you just followed the hashtag(s) and hadn't sifted out the best sources (like @stopamadi). I have had a big lot of new followers, I assume because I'm retweeting news and tweeting links on the situation and people have spotted this in the hashtag stream.

Looking at the past few days coverage, who Drum rates are:

The small number of traditional news outlets that do still have foreign bureaus and real expertise. The New York Times. The BBC. Al Jazeera. A few others.

The Times did have a good newsblog up by Sunday, However, on Sunday the BBC's reporting and The Guardian's was terrible because, I assume, it was a Sunday and maybe because the reporters on the ground couldn't get stories past weekend editors. It was very noticeable that the latter launched a 'liveblog' on Monday and the first few hours were spent with the blogger catching up.

I also watched the BBC go from 'Amadi won' to something a bit more nuanced and taking much more reporting from their Tehran guy and their Persian service by yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately we were still treated to the ramblings of the sort of star, flown-in reporter as seen in Drop The Dead Donkey.

Everyone appeared to be caught off guard by Tuesday's events, including most noticeably the BBC's star foreign reporter, John Simpson. And perhaps this was becuase they weren't paying enough attention to Twitter where there was intense chatter about the rally, almost all about encouraging people to go. The UK MSM reporter who has impressed me the most is Channel Four's Lindsey Hilsum.

The real star reporters has been HuffPost. Their Nico Pitney has been going with frequent updates on a liveblog since early Sunday and appears to have had little sleep.

Andy Sullivan, as well, has been open all hours and has been very good but has he repeated a lot of rumours, some posts have consisted of just a lot of tweets, and not put them in context. HuffPost has been a lot more careful and made clear what is rumour and what isn't. Where he has been good is in linking to articles which discuss the shenanigans going on in the background as well as the reaction in American politics.

~~~~~~~

If you are on Twitter and want to help Iranians then this is a MUST READ: #iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners by Esko Reinikaine.

Esko's website appears to have been taken down, so I have taken the liberty of republishing his guidance:

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.
2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.
3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.
4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.
5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind.
6. Denial of Service attacks. If you don’t know what you are doing, stay out of this game. Only target those sites the legitimate Iranian bloggers are designating. Be aware that these attacks can have detrimental effects to the network the protesters are relying on. Keep monitoring their traffic to note when you should turn the taps on or off.
7. Do spread the (legitimate) word, it works! When the bloggers asked for twitter maintenance to be postponed using the #nomaintenance tag, it had the desired effect. As long as we spread good information, provide moral support to the protesters, and take our lead from the legitimate bloggers, we can make a constructive contribution.

Please remember that this is about the future of the Iranian people, while it might be exciting to get caught up in the flow of participating in a new meme, do not lose sight of what this is really about.

~~~~~~

Rachel Maddow discusses the use of the web by the opposition with NBC correspondent Richard Engel. Importantly, Engel notes the use of Twitter as an organisational tool.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Twitter and the events in Iran

Head of BBC News, Richard Sambrook, has blogged about the issues with sorting through the outpouring of tweets from Iran.

He cites a list of rumours which I've also seen flowing around. None are yet confirmed but many have the ring of truth (or past practice) behind them.

Interestingly, he doesn't use the rumours to damn Twitter, saying:

If you had a reasonable understanding of social media, how to set up and assess feeds, how to compare and contrast information, if you had a reasonable understanding of news flows, a developed sense of scepticism, and an above average understanding of the political situation in Iran, you would have emerged much better informed than the lay viewer relying on TV or Radio news. The information online ran significantly ahead of the news organisations (who hopefully were taking time to check what they could) but it came at a high noise to signal ratio....(at one point I measured almost 2500 updates in a minute - though usually it was closer to 200)

There are at least two other uses which I have watched Twitter be put to.

• To co-ordinate take-down operations against government websites


• To distribute locations for proxy servers so people in Iran can get news, pictures and video out

This is in addition to being an information distribution channel inside Iran - there is an official Mousavi Twitter account - and a great boost for the protesters seeing the support from the rest of the world.

As well thousands of followers around the world have narrowed down the individual accounts they should follow from the fast-flowing river that #iranelection has become.

Many have been following Change_for_Iran, a student who has been tweeting, sometimes harrowing messages, throughout the siege of Tehran University.

Another good source has been StopAhmadi who has tweeted at a furious rate but has made a point of saying if information is confirmed or not.

For more see this FriendFeed compilation of messages coming from Inside Iran.

• Previous post: Twitter: let the last doubter now shut up

Twitter: let the last doubter now shut up

Cartoon by Nikahang Kosar

First they came for the newspapers, like they always do. Then they went after the opposition's leaders, like they always do. Then they shut down the TV, like they always do. Then they cut the telephone lines including the mobile networks. Then they slowed down the internet and tried to block youtube and social networks, like they now have to.

This left Twitter as the last channel of opposition organisation standing.

And after midnight in Tehran this led to:

@pauloCanning #iran thousands on Tehran rooftops chanting 'Allah O Akbar' http://twitzap.com/u/wC8 sound 'deafening'

This was the update which did it:

ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection

Followed by:

0:05 PM ET -- Twitter goes dark? I noted earlier that Twitter was the only major social network still operating in Iran. Now something has changed. All of the Iran-based Twitter users I've been reading haven't posted for at least 30 minutes or so. The reasons are unclear. Some on Twitter are claiming there is a complete electricity shut-down in Tehran. One Iran-based Twitter user, @tehranelection, last posted an hour ago: "I have to shut down for a bit, the police are looking for satellites." Will update as soon as I hear more.

It is coming to something if in order to completely silence opposition you have to shut off the electricity.

The events I describe here are completely absent from almost all of the MSM (BBC, CNN, Fox) The New York Times is an exception, they have a liveblog running which they're promoting from their homepage. Also, the best UK reporting from Tehran seems to be coming from Channel Four's Lindsey Hilsum.

Not for the first time, has the place to watch and find out the latest been blogs and social networks.

Mapping Iran’s Blogosphere on Election Eve

John Kelly and Bruce Etling have produced some very interesting maps.



The first one maps total mentions of the elections across the blogosphere. The second one shows the proportion of bloggers from which sector are linking to the candidates' sites.





They say:

Based on our monitoring of the Iranian blogosphere on election eve, it looks like Mousavi has broader support in the online blog community than Ahmadinejad.

This site has been covering the Iranian election online, where video has played a key role. See this post by Hamid Tehrani as well as various posts by Andrew Sullivan.

One of the, perhaps, surprise facts about the Obama victory was just how closely the online interest, such as searches, matched election results. For example, when he lost New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton this mirrored a search decline.

Be extremely interesting to see if this translates into a country like Iran.

HT: Michael Tomasky

Britain run by philistines

The Cannes Palm, world renowned Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami has pulled out of a English National Opera production of Cosi Van Tuti, because he was "humiliated" by UK visa requirements.

The Telegraph has a source saying:

"Abbas found the visa application process unduly time-consuming and complicated. He was not treated in a respectful way by the British Embassy in Tehran. The ambassador did try to intervene at the last minute to help him, but by that stage it had all gone a bit too far. This is not him being a diva -Abbas is not that sort of person. He has worked freely in Italy and France and has never had an issue with his visa applications."

I have blogged about Jacqui Smith's new anti-culture, bowing to the tabloids and the hate-mongers regime on visas for international artists.

Here's what some d**wad at the the UK Border Agency was quoted as saying in response to Kiarostami's statement:

He denied that staff had shown Mr Kiarostami disrespect and said "tough rules" were in place for all applicants. A spokesman said: "Fingerprint visas mean we can check everyone who wants to come to the UK against immigration and crime databases. These checks are a crucial part of securing the border and they are not something we will apologise for – they have already detected at least 5,000 false identities. The system is strict but it is also speedy – we complete most visa applications within a week.

"We demand the utmost integrity and professionalism from our staff and are determined that the UK continues to stay open and attractive to visitors. That is why we have taken many steps to ensure that everyone – including foreign artists who make an important contribution to the UK – know about our tough rules, which include having a licensed sponsor."

"Not something we will apologise for", "visitors", "securing the border", "licensed sponsor" - 'Cool Britannia' is officially dead.

Iranian, Gay & Seeking Asylum

A remarkable insight into the lives of two gay Iranian men living in Leeds. We follow them as they establish their new lives in the UK and the setting up of a new support group by the two who have become friends since arriving in Bradford. They both fled Iran after after their boyfriends were captured by the authorities, one of whom was tragically executed.

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