To the noble people of Iran- We know how great you are. You have been killed, jailed, tortured and silenced by the illegal regime which has hijacked your country for the past thirty-two years, and yet you still rose up last year against a force that you knew meant you harm. They may kill one person every eight hours, but they can’t kill your fighting spirit. They can’t kill your freedom. Know that we support you. Know that you are not alone.~statement from participants in #OpIran

It’s hard to imagine someone who doesn’t remember the post-election unrest in Iran. Some protesters called for a totally new government, but most everyone was calling for a new election. For anyone with doubts about whether the election in Iran was fixed, here are quotes from the wikileak of a US government cable arguing just that:

“In a conversation today with Iran Watcher, a [Source removed] in Ashgabat labeled the announcement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in Friday’s presidential election a “coup d’etat,” and called Iran’s incumbent President “another Pinochet.” [Name removed] said that based on calculations from Mousavi’s campaign observers who were present at polling stations around the country and who witnessed the vote counts, Mousavi received approximately 26 million (or 61%) of the 42 million votes cast in Friday’s election, followed by Mehdi Karroubi (10-12 million). According to his sources, Ahmadinejad received “a maximum of 4-5 million votes,” with the remainder going to Mohsen Rezai. He said that more than anything else, the huge turnout of voters on Friday was a reflection of the Iranian electorate’s overwhelming “anti-Ahmadinejad” sentiments.”

How it was done:

“the authorities embargoed the results from individual precincts and announced instead that they must be conveyed directly to the central election authorities, who would announce the overall results after all the votes were counted. The Iranian authorities knew, he said, that attempts to falsify individual precinct counts could be countered by observers from the Mousavi and the other campaigns, so in order to engineer a “lopsided” Ahmadinejad victory, they had no choice but to conceal the precinct results.”

But what about Iran’s plans for nuclear weapons? The BBC published an article in January that says if Iran chose to make a nuclear bomb it could take anywhere from “a few months” to years. The tensions with the International Community and Iran’s hardline stance? Another wikileak explains Iran is probably ratcheting up tensions to increase their control over society. From the cable:

“A long-time contactXXXXXXXXXXXX claimed that it is in the current Iranian government’s interest to fuel a military confrontation with the West. A view shared by a number of IRPO interlocutors, he said that such a confrontation would allow the Iranian government to control civil society to the extent seen immediately following the 1979 revolution. A military row would also distract domestic focus away from current economic difficulties and unite the people, said the businessman. Furthermore, such a clash would silence criticism from Expediency Council head Rafsanjani.”

In light of all this and more, the opposition has applied for a permit for a demonstration on February 14th in Tehran. A facebook page has gone up and already has over 20,000 members.

To complement the physical demonstrations, online activist group Anonymous has launched another operation, #OpIran or Operation Iran. Already the website of “Supreme Leader” Khomeini has been brought offline with another DDOS protest.

Tunisia, Egypt, Italy, and now Iran, this global unrest is striking a chord with many and spreading faster than anyone could have imagined. More news as these stories develop.

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Posted in nonfiction

Tags: #opiran, Anonymous, ddos, egypt, february 14th, iran, karubi, mousavi, operation iran, opposition, protest, revolution, tunisia