Ahmadinejad and Photoshop

I love this:


They needed to beef up the image a bit to make the crowd look bigger. After all they have to compete with the other ongoing rallies in Tehran - if not in real life at least virtually... :)

(The picture is from the Daily Kos website.)

Death penalty for bloggers

I feel we must act before it is too late. The Iranian government is thinking of introducing capital punishment for blogging offenses, a notion open to interpretation. I found this report on YouTube, in it there is a reference to Hossein Derakshan's arrest.



I am doing what I can, but no news yet of Hossein...

Victory for Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Revolution

Ahmadinejad's "landslide victory" created sad flashbacks in my mind of all those inevitable landslide victories of communist leaders in Eastern Europe during my youth. Just as leaders like Fidel Castro or Bashar al-Assad, who still win by landslide in every election. There will also be a de rigeur celebration party tomorrow, where, I am sure, employees of entire institutions will be ordered to appear (under threat of loosing their jobs if they didn't) at Vali Asr Square in support of the newly elected beloved leader.

Media reports showed mathematically near-impossible consistent hourly breakdown in the incoming election results, which is very suspect given the demographic diversity of Iran. During the election text messaging services were jammed, news and social networking websites were blocked. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the results "divine assessment". The divinity, of course, flows through the divinely inspired religious leadership of the Islamic Republic.

During the elections Ahmadinejad talked about alleged "treasonous elements". We can expect purges now aiming to clear the country of a sizable part of the opposition to the regime. The purges can mean lengthy jail time for dissenters, or even the death penalty. Not good news for people in similar situation as our Hoder...