the end or is the media just loosing interest?

As the corporate media was writting off the protesters (they're finally catching up about 12 hours late) blood continues to spill on the streets of Iran as anti-demonstration forces crack down. I woke up to some chilling messages on Twitter.

just in from Baharestan Sq - situation today is terrible - they beat the ppls like animals - #Iranelection RT RT RT

I see many ppl with broken arms/legs/heads - blood everywhere - pepper gas like war - #Iranelection

they were waiting for us - they all have guns and riot uniforms - it was like a mouse trap - ppl being shot like animals #Iranelection

saw 7/8 militia beating one woman with baton on ground - she had no defense nothing - #Iranelection sure that she is dead

so many ppl arrested - young & old - they take ppl away - #Iranelection - we lose our group

ppl run into alleys and militia standing there waiting - from 2 sides they attack ppl in middle of alleys #Iranelection

all shops was closed - nowhere to go - they follow ppls with helicopters - smoke and fire is everywhere #Iranelection

phone line was cut and we lost internet - #Iranelection - getting more difficult to log into net - #Iranelection

rumour they are tracking high use of phone lines to find internet users - must move from here now - #Iranelection

reports of street fighting in Vanak Sq, Tajrish sq, Azadi Sq - now - #Iranelection - Sea of Green - Allah Akbar

in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher - Allah Akbar - #Iranelection RT RT RT

they catch ppl with mobile - so many killed today - so many injured - Allah Akbar - they take one of us - #Iranelection

Lalezar Sq is same as Baharestan - unbelevable - ppls murdered everywhere - #Iranelection

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

Everybody is under arrest & cant move - Mousavi - Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guard - #Iranelection -

we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast - #Iranelection

The government has been cracking down on people using Twitter as well.

Despite this crackdown, there has been a stronger focus on regrouping and organizing. To the media, this might mean the movement is dying, but with closer inspection it is just entering another phase. The next few days will be days of mourning for those who have died. From today's Democracy Now:

The latest news, which I just checked, a number of websites that I ordinarily do, because you have to dodge censorship and such, is that Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the senior-most opposition Grand Ayatollah, has called for three days of mourning of the victims of the recent violence.

And Mr. Mousavi has also called for a march of his supporters, with their families—namely, they’re coming with their spouses and their children—to march towards Khomeini’s mausoleum. This is a very shrewd move, because, obviously, if they’re coming with their families, they are a bit more protected from violence. And they’re headed towards a mausoleum, which is exercising a very old and amazing political gesture that we have in Iranian political culture, which means—translates as seeking refuge in a sanctuary, and presumably will be protected from violence there. So they’re using aspects of Iranian political culture in order to navigate through strategies of civil disobedience.

Guest Hamid Dabashi discusses how this is less of a revolutionary movement and more of a civil rights movement for the people of Iran.

On a sidenote I highly recommend listening to Democracy Now! as it's one of the most informative news sources out there. Rather than just give headlines, they actually go in depth on topics of discussion.

I was forwarded an article that gives more a first hand account from a labor point of view in Iran. If the people are successful, the degree of changed that is achieved in Iran will be measured by the strenght of the labor movement in Iran.

One 26 year old worker in Iran who was contacted by Socialist Worker on Thursday of last week said that many people felt it was “like 1979”.

“The protests are very uplifting and most people do not see them as a challenge to Islamic rule,” he said. “We have lost our fear of the state.

[...]

“The police tried to take a shortcut to ambush the protesters. The workers used shovels, bricks and construction equipment to stop the police. At this point the demonstrators joined in to help the workers.”

The involvement of workers and the poorer neighbourhoods is an indication of how this movement is reaching deep into Iranian society.

strike!

To those in the Bay Area, there is a silent candlelight vigil at Civic Center in San Francisco, tonight (Sunday, June 21st) from 7:30 to 9pm. Bring candles

Mousavi has been calling for general strikes in Iran. His Facebook called for anyone with organizational experience to contact him. This is terrific news since strikes will empower the working class and can lead to a popular revolution. The Autobus Workers Union of Iran has joined the resistance.

Add the bus workers to the auto workers and the industrial union sector that creates the means of transportation has emerged as the vanguard in what - thus speaks The Field - will soon become a coalition of industrial workers with the power to spark a general strike in Iran.

[...]

The regime can take out Mousavi. It can take out every operative in his orbit. But it cannot force an educated and organized workforce - with long memories of 56 years of struggle against Western and Eastern regimes alike - to show up on the job.

The Autobus Workers Union released the following statement:

In recent days we have witnessed the passionate presence of millions of women and men, the old and the young, and ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, people who want their government to recognize their most basic right, the right to freely, independently, and transparently elect, a right that in most societies around the world is not only recognized officially but for whose protection no effort is neglected.

In the current situation, we witness threats, arrests, killings, and naked persecution, which threaten to grow in dimension and lead to the shedding of innocent people's blood thus bringing a rise in popular protests and not in their decline.


Iranian society is facing a deep political and economic crisis. Million-strong protests, which have manifested themselves with a silence that is replete with meaning, have become a pattern that is growing in area and dimension, a growth that demands a response from any responsible person and organization.


The Autobus Workers Union in an announcement issued before the elections declared, "in the absence of the freedom for political parties, our organization is naturally deprived of a social institution that can protect it."

"Workers of the Autobus Workers Union consider their social involvement and political activity to be the certain right of each member of society and furthermore believe that workers across Iran as long as they submit the platforms of presidential candidates and a practical guarantee about campaign slogans can choose to participate or not participate in elections."

The fact that the demands of the vast majority of Iranian society go far beyond those of unions is obvious to all, and in the previous years we have emphasized that until the principle of the freedom to organize and to elect is not materialized, any talk of social freedom and labor union rights will be a farce.

Given these facts, the Autobus Workers Union places itself alongside all those who are offering themselves in the struggle to build a free and independent civic society. The union condemns any kind of suppression and threats.

To recognize labor-union and social rights in Iran, the international labor organizations have declared the Fifth of Tir (June 26) the international day of support for imprisoned Iranian workers as well as for the institution of unions in Iran. We want that this day be viewed as more than a day for the demands of labor unions to make it a day for human rights in Iran and to ask all our fellow workers to struggle for the trampled rights of the majority of the people of Iran.

With hope for the spread of justice and freedom,

Autobus Workers Union

The Internet and International Solidarity

The recent events in Iran, dubbed the Twitter Revolution by some, have been unprecedented in which the Internet has been used during such events. In a country where the theocratic regime blocked nearly all access to the press, baffling mainstream media outlets, social networks, Twitter in particular, have become the main sources of information. While CNN could barely figure out what was going on, users on news website Fark.com give up to the minute updates deduced from a handful of Iranian “tweeters” they have deemed reliable from the past days events. By the time the mainstream media caught on it was difficult to separate truth from lies by the Iranian government trying to undermine the service. By this time the Fark users knew who provided factual information.

Twitter allows users to give updates to their followers in 140 characters or less. The service, often called more a novelty than practical form of communication, has proved invaluable for organizing and giving the outside world a glimpse of what is going on in Iran. Tweets are mostly factual information. “News: Eyewitness confirmed arabic speaking riot polices "definitely NOT Irani-arabs"” says a post by StopAhmai. Others show hope and astonishment; “Thursday Sea of Green was more than ONE MILLION people,” posts another user. Sometimes the wear of the struggle comes out; “I'm sorry about being negative, we're are doing all we can and still we have zero progress & I'm feeling bad about it.” Some users request their user names are not revealed in fear of retaliation by the government. Due to the nature of the service the government would have to shut down the Internet to silence Twitter, as was done in Moldova a few months ago. With the use of proxy servers set up abroad, tech savvy Iranians are able to go around government filters.

The most amazing aspect of the service is not the information it brings but the people it connects. Even workers on the political right, that months ago would have agreed with a U.S. strike against Iran, stood with Iranians. Users on Fark shared concern, support and anger, deep emotions, with people they had never met nor even held a conversation with. Users would worry when a tweeter had gone hours without posting, discuss wearing green armbands to work, help each other with setting up proxy servers, and pass along any information they can to help the movement. For many, this broke their assumptions of Iran as a backwards country behind the times. Historically this is the first time such an event has been told from the strugglers' perspective. Maybe more importantly this is the first time the working class of the world has united in solidarity through such direct personal means.