Twitter and the Iranian protests

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contested re-election has seen mass arrests, newspaper closures, heavy censorship with many reformist internet sites and social networking sites such as Facebook blocked.

Even the mobile phone messaging services (SMS) have been shut down. But people have found ways to get their message across and to organize protest rallies that have included hundreds of thousands of people that are unprecedented since the eve of the revolution 1979. With several tragic fatalities; many have been forced to retreat into their homes by the security forces and the Basij militia that thunder through town on their powerful motorbikes, many are armed. Ironically mirroring a practice used as protest against the monarchy thirty years ago; under the cover of darkeners protesters shout “Allah Akbar” or “God is great” on the rooftops.

Yet for Iran’s tech-savvy youth there are other options of getting the word out. It was a simple tweet in the early hours of the morning June 13, by Gholamhossein Karbaschi – the proposed vice-president to Mehdi Karroubi challenger in the Presidential race – that first alerted anyone to the unexpected poll results. His Twitter message read,
"We too are in a state of shock, the things that are happening, are truly unbelievable".