Wishful thinking?
Ignoring YouTube, Ayatollah Sees No EvilTwo days after Iran’s opposition returned to the streets of Tehran and other major cities, using a day designated for demonstrations against Israel to protest their own government instead, the country’s ruling cleric sought to counter the mass movement by completely ignoring it...
Since it is unlikely that Ayatollah Khamenei is actually unaware of the protests, or of what seems to be clear video evidence of them online, his remarks on Sunday may be a sign that the men who control Iran are struggling to adapt to a new media environment in which the state has lost its near-monopoly on information about events inside the country.
[Anti-government protesters, basiji on motorbikes and brandishing chains attack the protesters and are attacked by the crowds. At least one of the motorbikes is set on fire. Anyone have a translation of the comments recorded on the video?]
Indeed, in his speech on Sunday, Ayatollah Khamenei tried to blame “foreign media” for “poisoning Iran’s atmosphere” in recent months, in what may have been an oblique reference to the social networking services that have allowed Iranian citizen journalism to flourish...
Reporters Without Borders noted that in a court session last Monday, a member of Iran’s judiciary claimed:
"The United States supported Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube with the aim of influencing the rioters and undermining the government’s position both nationally and internationally. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube were devised by the United States in order to wage a psychological war against Iran."...Despite... restrictions, supporters of Iran’s opposition continued to post reports of Friday’s protests on the Web, which appeared to clearly contradict the official line that Iranians turned out solely to protest Israel. The remarkable video embedded at the top of this post, showing crowds of opposition supporters flooding Karim Khan Boulevard in Tehran — and defying a government cheerleader’s repeated urgings to chant slogans against Israel or the United States — was published on the Web site of Human Rights Activists in Iran on Saturday. The site also published this photograph [above], which shows how Iranians threw the government’s slogans back at it, in this case by appropriating signs denouncing Israel and using them instead to denounce the governments of Russia and Venezuela, which have supported Mr. Ahmadinejad:
Do you know What You Need to Know?
Labels: civil society, Iran, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:33 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home