Subtitled version of “INJA KOJAST INJA IRAN AST SARZAMINE MANO TO” (link below) – a woman speaking about the state of her country while filming the rooftop shouting of “Allah-o Akbar” in Iran on Friday June 19th.

You can hear the narrator fighting through tears as she recites the poem over the sound of gunshots and hundreds of thousands of her fellow Iranians, struggling desperately to have their voices heard.

Today is the day that the authorities have promised a violent crackdown on what could be well over a million protesters, aware that something is very wrong with the results of an election in which a staggering 85% of the country turned out to vote. The hardline president Ahmadinejad defeated presidential candidate Mousavi in the country’s recent elections, which have been reportedly rife with corruption and false numbers. Now reports are flooding in the police are shooting freely into unarmed crowds, severely beating protesters and using tear gas & water cannons on anyone in the streets.

 

Iranian authorities have gone to great lengths to paint the demonstrators as more violent than they have been, justifying brutal crackdowns on “rioters,” having been caught numerous times in the past week sending out plainclothes police to incite violence and create destruction to tarnish the image and message of the protesters.

Security forces are swarming the area, and conflicts have already begun on a larger level than we’ve seen so far. Tear gas is being used, “Heavy clashes on Azadi Street, chants of death to Khameni! The street is full of rocks and fire.”

History is being made and lives are being lost as I type these words. A 10-part video chronology of the events involving the Iran elections can be found here. Our President summed up the role of journalists in these moments appropriately in a speech he gave a few nights ago:

“I am here tonight because I appreciate all of the work that you do and the role that you play. You report the news as it happens and you cover history as it is made, with a hand-held camera or a microphone. You bring the truth to people and allow people to bring truth to the world.We are seeing that now as history is unfolding in the sounds and images of broadcasts from Iran over the last week. We have seen professional and citizen journalists act as a voice for those who want to be heard, bearing witness to the universal aspirations of democracy and freedom, often at great risk and sometimes with great sacrifice. They do it because the rest of us need to hear the stories that they tell. We have seen the same courageous reporting and Iraq and Afghanistan, Congo, every dangerous corner of the world. everywhere, there is a story that needs to be told.”

A supporter of Ahmadinejad:

A supporter of defeated presidential candidate Mousavi:

An attacking protester gets tear-gassed:

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