Iran protests go on--Iranian gov't divided

Meanwhile prominent figures, many who were part of the Iranian Revolution, issued conflicting statements, a sign that Iran's leadership was far from unified.

The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said Sunday an investigation into claims of fraud in the election will be announced by week's end.

But speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, he called the possibility of irregularities almost nonexistent.

"The possibility of organized and comprehensive disruption and irregularities in this election is almost close to zero given the composition of the people who are holding the election," Mottaki said.

On the other hand, Iran's influential parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani implicated the same people -- the Guardian Council -- of siding with one candidate.

"Although the Guardian Council is made up of religious individuals, I wish certain members would not side with a certain presidential candidate," Larijani told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on Saturday, without naming whom he meant.

Read more at CNN.com.

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Roger Cohen reports from Tehran

I also know that Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”

Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square. Cries of “Death to the dictator!” and “We want liberty!” accompanied her."

Read more at NYTimes.com.

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Ayatollah Khamenei to lead Friday prayers

Ayatollah Khamenei Grits.

According to the Iranian state-funded PressTV: "Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei will lead this week's Friday prayers in Tehran University."

Uh-huh, is that such a good idea after you know, the raids on students dorms at Tehran U. and all?

Real question -- have they made the switch to digital?

Read more at Ayatollah Khamenei to lead Friday prayers:

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Shadowy Iranian Vigilantes Vow Bolder Action

Oh I'm not liking this at all...

The daytime protests across the Islamic republic have been largely peaceful. But Iranians shudder at the violence unleashed in their cities at night, with the shadowy vigilantes known as Basijis beating, looting and sometimes gunning down protesters they tracked during the day.

The vigilantes plan to take their fight into the daylight on Friday, with the public relations department of Ansar Hezbollah, the most public face of the Basij, announcing that they planned a public demonstration to expose the “seditious conspiracy” being carried out by “agitating hooligans.”

“We invite the vigilant people who are always in the arena to make their loud objections heard in response to the babbling of this tribe,” said the announcement, carried on the Web site Parsine.

The announcement could be the first indication that the government was taking its gloves off, Iranian analysts noted, because up to this point the Basijis, usually deployed as the shock troops to end any public protests, have been working in stealth.

Read more at NYTimes.com.

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Will they remove Khamenei?

Appearing on CNN last night, Iran expert Reza Aslan reported this:

There are very interesting things that are taking place right now. Some of my sources in Iran have told me that Ayatollah Rafsanjani, who is the head of the Assembly of Experts -- the eighty-six member clerical body that decides who will be the next Supreme Leader, and is, by the way, the only group that is empowered to remove the Supreme Leader from power -- that they have issued an emergency meeting in Qom.

Now, Anderson, I have to tell you, there's only one reason for the Assembly of Experts to meet at this point, and that is to actually talk about what to do about Khamenei. So, this is what I'm saying, is that we're talking about the very legitimacy, the very foundation of the Islamic Republic is up in the air right now. It's hard to say what this is going to go.

Read more at Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising:

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Keller of 'NYT' in Iran: 'The Iranians Watch Us Closely'

Executive Editor Bill Keller of The New York Times, who has been in Iran for the past week -- and done some unexpected reporting -- tells E&P in two e-mails today that he originally went there to see his reporters in action, but then "plunged in" when the post-election story grew so big.

Keller responded to a request for information on his trip.

"Too busy to do justice to the subject," he wrote to E&P.

"Briefly, I came to watch our reporters in action and to get a (first) taste of a big subject. I try to get out in the field as often as I can, because nothing else gives you as good a sense of the complexities and texture of a story.

"I usually don't write on these trips, but this story got so big, and the correspondents were so welcoming of an extra pair of hands, that I plunged in. It reminds me why I got into this business. (Also, no one here wants to talk about the future of the newspaper business.)"

Read more at Keller of 'NYT' in Iran: 'The Iranians Watch Us Closely'

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Social Networks Spread Iranian Defiance Online

As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions.

Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter, the messaging service. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential election on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications.

On Twitter, reports and links to photos from a peaceful mass march through Tehran on Monday, along with accounts of street fighting and casualties around the country, have become the most popular topic on the service worldwide, according to Twitter’s published statistics.

Read more at the NYTimes.com.

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Iranians Outwit Net Censors

The Iranian government, more than almost any other, censors what citizens can read online, using elaborate technology to block millions of Web sites offering news, commentary, videos, music and, until recently, Facebook and YouTube. Search for “women” in Persian and you’re told, “Dear Subscriber, access to this site is not possible.”

Last July, on popular sites that offer free downloads of various software, an escape hatch appeared. The computer program allowed Iranian Internet users to evade government censorship.

College students discovered the key first, then spread it through e-mail messages and file-sharing. By late autumn more than 400,000 Iranians were surfing the uncensored Web.

The software was created not by Iranians, but by Chinese computer experts volunteering for the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has beem suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999. They maintain a series of computers in data centers around the world to route Web users’ requests around censors’ firewalls.

Read more at the NYTimes.com

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Obama's Speech to the Muslim World

As usual, the NY Times has an interactive transcript with video.

The White House is making translations of the speech available in 13 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Dari, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Malay, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish and Urdu.

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu weighs in with a statement:

"The government of Israel expresses hope that President Obama's important speech will lead to a new period of reconciliation between the Arab and Muslim world, and Israel. We share Obama's hope that the American effort will bring about an end to the conflict and to pan-Arab recognition of Israel as the Jewish state.

"Israel is obligated to peace and will do as much as possible to help expand the circle of peace, while taking into consideration our national interests, the foremost of which is security."

Transcript from the White House.

YouTube - President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt

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