The Green Brief #13 (June 29) (Re-post)

These are the important happenings that I can positively confirm from Monday, June 29 in Iran.

1. There was a human chain planned for today. The plan had been to form it between Tajrish Square and the Railway; however, the route was guarded heavily by Basijis, plainclothesmen and security forces. Nonetheless, people at gathered Mellat Park, Valiasr Field, Vanak and Valiasr Avenue and were trying to form a human chain. The police tried to disperse the crowd and stop the human chain from being formed. There were reports of clashes as well which cannot be fully confirmed. Reports of police smashing people’s windows for honking their horns and slashing their tires with knives.

2. Cell phone services were cut off around Valiasr as well as other parts of Tehran. The Basiji had Daneshjo Park under their control and helicopters were flying all over the place, especially over Valiasr. Today was one of the few times when the government cut off phone lines in order to disrupt communications between protesters and hinder their coordination of the event. During the event, several people were arrested as well. Most of Tehran was crawling with Basijis carrying sticks, some on motorcycles sporting camouflage vests. Protesters and some other people were wearing green wristbands in support of Moussavi.

3. Larijani, the speaker of the parliament today said that CNN had given money and cell phones to protesters to portray a wrong image of Iran. He added that the unrest was not an important event and it will be easily overcome and that it was just another experience for the Islamic Republic.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How #iranelection became the place to see the Twitter revolution (timesonline.typepad.com)