Less than a month to go before Ahmadi Protest!

I am editing like a green flag waving with might to finish doc before the 64th UN General Assembly. Still proceeding with caution to deliver context and content without negatively impacting the community of Iranians that I filmed for three weeks both before and after the Iranian election in June 2009. Being the only foreign documentary filmmaker who was able to film throughout these weeks was both the biggest treat for democracy as well as perhaps the only unflinching document of what occurred.

We have seen the countless videos filmed from the streets and rooftops documenting the unspeakable violence inflicted on Iranians peacefully rallying against a system that ignored their voices. When the footage emerges from the rapes and deaths that the regime intentionally inflicted on detained people, will the UN demand accountability.

Let me know what your thoughts are on the clips so that I can proceed.

Yours,

Jahan Azadi

A more sinister reading, hopefully that which is ignorant

Unlike in Iran, please excuse the past few days of quiet on this blog.

On Wednesday, when a dramatic showing of opposition to Ahmadi's swearing in ceremony, there was a general reading of the celebratory hug/"shoulder kiss" between the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad: the Supreme Leader is pushing Ahmadi away as if he were the plague of death.

I re-watched it, and the CNN commentator was almost announcing the situation as if it were an American football playoff, which may have impacted my reading. But is it not Ahmadinejad who is the one in control? Is it not he who is going in for a "shoulder kiss" a sign of power over he who is kissed, which is like when a little boy who feels that he has grown into more responsibility attempts to show this to his father through spite?

And if it is Ahmadinejad who feels emboldened with the shake-up in power, I cannot think of anything more sinister that may face the Iranian people. Although most states, especially the US, have presidential policies that effectively believe all Iranian common citizens are terrorists until proven otherwise, these bodies of power have hopefully decided to take a different slant and instead determine that all Iranian cabinet members may be terrorists until proven otherwise, and the grand majority of Iranians are against the tyranny that has been playing out for the past two months.

In this time, Ahmadinejad has passed legislation that allows for internet sniffing beyond what the US even allows; he has dismissed the intelligence minister and now is the acting minister; he has revved up the hatred as found in the three million strong militant aspect of the basij & the Revolutionary Guard and they are more organized and ready for a drawn out siege on the freedom of the Iranian society; more than one hundred fifteen people have been executed by the Iranian state in the past two months (as an aside, GW Bush took almost six years to execute 152 Texan prisoners); and at least ten people who have been detained, but not charged with any crime, have been murdered while in basij custody (this last point is confirmed by the Iranian government which originally stated 20 people have been killed in the streets changing that number to 30 corresponding to those murdered while in police protection).

While in Iran, Ahmadinejad was infamous before he was appointed mayor of Tehran and later elected in 2005 as president of Iran. Before I continue, it must be stated that sometimes in Iran information is passed from person to person, sometimes not allowing for fact checking to occur. I mention the following story to highlight that perhaps unproven facts have a very powerful effect. In the first years after the revolution, Iran had imprisoned thousands of people, executing a great many of them. Many were enemies of the state, either through their words and less often, through their violent acts. Word got around to international organizations that work with human rights: they requested to visit Iranian prisons and determine the treatment that was being offered. The day before, 7000 of these prisoners were executed, with bullets. Ahmadinejad went around with the handgun after the initial shooting to make sure each prisoner was in fact dead, shooting whoever he thought was still alive in the head at point blank range. By the next morning, when the inspection occurred Iran passed with flying colors and Ahmadinejad had his first kills in this vein. For the longest period of time, I at least felt okay that Khamenei was the Supreme Leader because I didn't think him as ruthless as Ahmadinejad: now I am even more frightened with the latest thought, which I hope proves to be ignorant, that the level of sinisterness is much more elevated with Ahmadinejad securing a buffer of insulation allowing him to kill, imprison and otherwise destroy.

The only thing that keeps my faith alive is that the Iranian people overthrew the Shah in a people movement which was summarily stolen by the Islamic factions of society. The Iranians still have vivid memories of the tyranny that existed under the monarchy and its supporters. They also have the present thoughts that the only regime that has time and time again proven itself to be worse than the Shah, is the present non-democratic condition. As an Iranian may say, "Thanks god" that the majority of Iranians are against the present condition and just like the Shah, a shake down will be coming. This shake down will be designed, implemented, organized and responsible to the Iranian people who live in Iran.

I hope, in this last paragraph, that I have never had a less ignorant thought.

AN ASIDE TO A PRELUDE: Ahmadinejad Supports Democracy, albeit outside of Iran

YouTube offers an interesting phenomenon ~ that of being able to go back in time using the anthropology of media to pull from the archives and understand anew. In this case, Ahmadinejad sat down with an American journalist. Although edited out from the official broadcast, here Ahmadi exerts his incredible feelings of the need for Palestinians to be able to express themselves and participate fully in democracy. In these first few days after the election, many Iranians began to question why Ahmadinejad so fully supports Arab democratic participation and was so keen on stopping it in his own country. Beginning on this day, Tuesday, seven weeks ago in Iran on June 16th, for the next three days would be some of the largest and most peaceful marches seen in Tehran (the Saturday, Sunday and Monday protests and marches were all meet with violence by the regime).

Monday June 15, 2009: The rooftops come alive, elevated beyond the regime from below

Monday was the day it all changed. Yes on Saturday and Sunday, the authorities killed people; they stormed universities arresting people, throwing some students out of windows and tear gassing those who looked on for too long. The Basij militia had clearly been on the streets during the nights over the weekend as well. As we made our way to the June 15 march, scenes of the police state were everywhere: a drill line of young Army soldiers marched; on the highway we passed a driver's Saba car with both the rear window completely smashed out and the front windshield smashed to a pulp ~ clearly this driver had not seen the Blues Brothers for he drove it normal, without sticking his head out the driver's window in a grotesque fashion; on the other hand, he was probably not in the mood to be funny. Later on the freeway we passed a rogue element of Basij numbering approximately 50 on their small-engined motorcycles with a further group of them piled into the back of a pick-up truck ~ they were decked out in make-shift camouflage, clubs some meters long and very long and thick chains. To be honest, I didn't like what I say ~ who would? Already on Saturday I had shared with others that I thought the Iranian government would shortly be kicking journalists out of the country ~ some of the big name Western magazine journalists fled for fear of their safety on this day. I dug my boots in and waited patiently for what was coming ~ we just didn't know if it would be colored with more red or as we hoped, peacefully diffused with green.

Hmmm, what a difference four years makes!

This video compares and contrasts the acceptance ceremony of four years ago (2005) to Ahmadinejad's latest appearance at the side of the Supreme Leader who approves of his next four years.

Sunday: June 14th, 2009 - Calls of Congratulations from the World Leaders"

By Sunday, everybody had the same logic to explain the results, just different numbers. One person thought that the authorities had simply mixed the names and the numbers, giving Ahmadi Mousavi's 63% with Mousavi getting Ahmadi's 33%. Others thought it went further then that: 80% for Mousavi, 15% for Karrubi, and Ahmadi getting around 5%. We were next to the husband of a college professor when the basij stormed the campus shooting of tear gas wildly. People were still feeling the sting of robbery, but Ahmadi's statement of dirt and dust at the news conference shown sure didn't help out. The government continued to bus in people to fill the streets in support of Ahmadi. The green movement didn't need this type of fabrication. Nonetheless, a few world leaders to call Ahmadi and offer their congratulations, many coming from countries without fair elections, or no elections. It does show also just important Iran is to the region through its relationships with other parties/countries/organizations, for instance Hizbollah. There was a major feeling in Iran that the Ahmadinejad cabinet directs too many resources to people other than Iranians receiving the distinction of being considered more Arab than Iranian. I hope that he begins to place as much important on ethics and people's choice in the days to come as he did in the days after the election. For up to date project information, please visit http://azadi.dj

First Week Playlist

Embed playlist using this link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FDD08E96DAFB2CC9

SATURDAY: June 13, 2009 - Even the victors don't celebrate

The soonest I could get to a TV was around 3:45 AM on Saturday, less than four hours after polls closed. The efficiency of the Iranian government absolutely amazed me. First, more than 40 million paper ballots were cast. The authorities did not allow the ballots to be counted on site - instead all of the votes, from all 45,000 polling stations stretching across a land larger than Alaska, were transported from each station to the Interior Ministry, as ordered in an unprecedented move by its head, a multimillionaire ally of Ahmadinejad (http://bit.ly/19sxJO for original article).

On Election Night, we were directly facing a polling station, yeah, we just "happened" to be facing it. Polls were originally supposed to close at 8PM; there were still too many people in line so it was extended to 10PM; again, that was not going to get through the line, so it was extended a second time until midnight. I guess the polling station we witnessed ran out of ballots for it closed an hour early, with people still in line.

Returning to the question of efficiency, the Iranians can count. Granted, they are amazing money counters, but still. Who can possibly count 40 million votes in less then three and one half hours. It boggles my mind: it took Minnesota eight months to count the Franken/Coleman votes, all 2.5 million of them. How can the Iranians count so much faster? In Minnesota they average about 312,500 votes that they can count in a single month: Iran, on the other hand, manages around 11.5 million votes per hour! Now that's what I'm talking about. I'm sure that the government response to voter fraud accusations included the procedure so that other countries can learn from it because its probably not fraudulent, but damn, it is a wee bit too freaky for my taste! I mean, that is just too damn fast, right?

The first shot of the posted video was shot at 3:43 AM on Saturday morning ~ at that point Ahmadinejad was in front of Mousavi, 66% to 31%. Less then twelve hours later, the final result was announced with Ahmadi winning handsomely - he was on a role. In the first round of his first campaign, in 2005, he won less then 20% when 63% came out to vote. In the runoff, again in 2005, when less then 48% came out to vote, he won around 61% of the vote. In 2009, when almost 85% came out to vote, which should have helped Mousavi more than Ahmadi, the latter actually increased his performance to 66%, er, the latter 63%.

I only had one question: why were there so few people that were happy? I mean, its more like a mourning period than a celebration. To have seen the tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters in the week before Election Day, and clearly there are twice as many Ahmadi supporters, but were are they? Eating potatoe pies or what?

We did hear of violence and death in Tehran. We didn't see any where we were ~ but on each street corner was one person by themselves holding the V sign with their fingers or wearing a small green ribbon. If there were more than one, trouble would have come their way. I wanted to cross the river to the Mousavi side but someone thought it best if I stayed in the dark shadows ~ he wasn't sure if it would be safe for me with the Ahmadi supporters. I thought to myself I can take on 20 people by myself ~ but tens of thousands, that could have been a very serious problem.

NOTE: as with the prior two video clips, music has been added. Song info will be coming soon.