Tuesday 16 June 2009

"Where are our votes?" - More protesters take to the streets of Tehran


More rallies are planned today following several days of unrest across Iran. Yesterday saw between 500,000 to a million people take to the streets of Tehran, demonstrators holding placards reading "Where is my vote?" and chanted "Death to the dictator".

The protests followed the contested results of Friday's election result leading to the deaths of at least 8 people and many others have been wounded. Organisers, on both sides, have planned further demonstrators today with opposition rallies expected to coincide. This has led to worries of violent clashes between supporters of Ahmadinejad and the opposition candidates.

Unconfirmed reports say that the protestors have spread across the country, with demonstrators taking to the streets in every region of the country. Iranian sources have said that there has been violence at Tehran's University, where dormitories have been vandalised and unconfirmed reports say that over 100 students are missing.
Iran's guardian council has announced that there will be a recount in some areas where the result has been contested will take place. However, sources say that Mousavi has rejected this recount, declaring it "meaningless", and has stressed the need for a full re-run off the vote.

Online services such as twitter are playing a vital role in relaying information from Iran, as conventional communication methods have been disrupted. SMS networks have been down for several days and many ISPs have been blocked preventing internet access. International users have established proxy servers so that Iranian internet users can access the internet and are searching for loopholes in Iranian government webpage blocks. Twitter has rescheduled planned maintenance in light of "the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran."

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