Another day, another gigantic crowd of Iranians demanding democracy.  We seem to be stuck in some sort of staring contest, both sides waiting for the other to blink.  The showdown may come tomorrow, when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will be leading the nation in prayers, which may provide fodder for a confrontation, although Moussavi appears to be trying to avoid the confrontation.  The protesters in Iran have been amazingly well-disciplined so far, showing no signs of non-instigated violence.  This is more than can be said about the Iranian parliament, apparently:

After Ansari, Abutorabi took the floor again and continued questioning the plainclothes security forces once again. At this point Hosseinian, Koochakzadeh, and resaee, the three biggest supporters of Ahmadinejad in the parliament, started a verbal argument which ended with a number of physical fights. As a result a number of pro and ant Ahmadinejad members of the parliament join the fight and start slapping and pushing each other.

In the end, the anti Ahmadinejad block claims that they will expose the identities of those behind the plainclothes security forces.

Keep in mind that the pro and anti Ahmadinejad blocks belong to the same political party! I think the government is starting to crack up from the inside.

Rafsanjani is still quiet, with no news about the unconfirmed emergency meeting of the Assembly of Experts.  Meanwhile, state run news agencies are trying to undercut his legitimacy by attacking his character, and making sure his relatives are displayed prominently in their coverage of rallies.

A new video out shows some of the violence that occurred at Tehran University a few days ago:

Meanwhile, in Washington, Barack Obama is still being attacked for not vocally backing the protesters in a significant way, even though Bush’s former negotiator on Iran is apparently on Obama’s side:

“President Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to see an aggressive series of statements from the United States that would put the U.S. in the center of this, and I think President Obama is avoiding that quite rightly,” Burns said.

Obama said he respects Iran’s sovereignty and that “this is not a dispute for the U.S. to be the center of. It’s up to Iranians to decide who Iran’s future leaders will be,” Burns said.

Obama “demonstrated clear sympathy for the reformers,” the former ambassador said. “I think the fact that he’s been low-key about it and the fact that he is saying denial of rights and violence are of a concern to him, and that he was inspired by the reformers, is, I think, the right thing to say.”

I’ll end with another dispatch from Lindsey Hilsum at Channel 4 News:

Amazing sight from today’s protest in Iran:

Lindsey Hilsum continues her stellar reporting, recapping today’s events, despite a government crackdown on foreign journalists:

One more thing that I will reluctantly post is this video. I’m warning you that it is extremely disturbing and I will not be watching it again. It does, however, provide an isolated example of the brutality that has occurred over the past few days.

According to the AP:

Iranian authorities are restricting all journalists working for foreign media from firsthand reporting on the streets. The rules cover all journalists, including Iranians working for foreign media. It blocks images and eyewitness descriptions of the protests and violence that has followed last week’s disputed elections.

The order issued Tuesday limits journalists for foreign media to work only from their offices, conducting telephone interviews and monitoring official sources such as state television. It comes as foreign reporters in Iran to cover the elections began leaving the country. Iranian officials say they will not extend their visas.

Iranian state-run media is reporting that many opposition leaders have been arrested “with explosives and guns.”

Luckily, we still have Twitter to get the real story.  If you want to help the people in Iran access it, here’s instructions on how to set up a proxy server (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Despite many hot-headed remarks from several members of Congress, Obama wisely stays out of the fray.  This neuters any possible propaganda from Ahmedinejad and others that the unrest is being stoked by outside forces, specifically the United States.

Obviously, all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be, that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes — the United States can be a handy political football, or discussions with the United States [can be].

Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence I have been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent, all those are universal values, and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they are rightfully troubled.

Here’s the video of a Basiji shooting into the crowd, killing at least one person:

That’s the early word via NIAC:

“Reliable news from Iran has arrived that after the death of one person by Basij, the Basij base in Azadi Sq. has been burned down and the commander in that base has been killed.” [The fire is being confirmed by an eye-witness.]

The Basij is kind of like an Iranian secret police.  From Wikipedia:

a volunteer-based Iranian paramilitary force founded by the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on November 1979. The Basij are subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Also, here’s a couple of good reports from Lindsey Hilsum of Britain’s Channel 4 News:

UPDATE:

It appears the AP has confirmed this story:

Gunfire from a pro-government militia killed one man and wounded several others Monday after hundreds of thousands of chanting opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marched in central Tehran to support their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since disputed elections. [...]

Later, a group of demonstrators with fuel canisters set a small fire at a compound of a volunteer militia linked to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard as the crowd dispersed from the square. As some tried to storm the building, people on the roof could be seen firing directly at the demonstrators at the northern edge of the square, away from the heart of the rally.

It seems the Basij is responsible the most egregious violence.  From what I have read, the uniformed Iranian police mostly stood idly by after it became clear that hundreds of thousands had showed up to demonstrate.

It appears that hundreds of thousands showed up for the unsanctioned march organized by Moussavi:

You can real-time updates from those in Iran using this twitter search.

Also, as a side note, I was actually excited to get in my car this morning, because I was sure NPR would be covering this (unlike CNN).  A false hope.  The only thing that was mentioned was Khameini’s call for an investigation, which, to me, just looks like a smoke-screen tactic.

It seems that the only place to find news about this is to get it raw from twitter, or to check with Andrew Sullivan, the NYTimes Lede blog, or the NIAC blog, who have all done an excellent job covering the story.

There are several reports that the dorms at Tehran University have been stormed.  Many students have been injured.  It appears the same has occurred at Isfahan Technical University:

A website I’ve been checking all weekend, tehranbureau.com, has been shut down by the government.

It appears the protestors have been out all night:

Things are starting to get really ugly. There’s also been multiple reports of armed guards blocking entrances to hospitals, not letting the injured through.

It’s now morning in Iran. Moussavi has been trying to organize a march in the afternoon. There’s conflicting reports that he has secured a permit to do so. Regardless, you can expect that the streets will be filled tomorrow.

People of Iran, we are watching. Stay strong.

Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” echo in the night.  This is apparently just like 1979:

Meanwhile, the BBC fills the gap of MSM TV coverage. Watch as the protesters scare off a member of the secret police from confiscating their camera:

This may be the last report like this we see. It’s becoming more dangerous by the minute to be a foreign journalist in Iran.

As more and more news trickles out of Iran, the picture looks more violent.

Videos and pictures are starting to come out showing police beating protesters.

There are conflicting reports that Moussavi has been arrested.

There’s an early report that Iran’s Election Commision has declared the vote a fraud and are requesting a do-over.

There’s apparently an open letter from employees of the Interior Ministry claiming manipulation of votes.

There’s one blog report that 50-100 people are dead.

Meanwhile, CNN is covering the digital television transition and the 25th anniversary of Tetris. MSM ftw.

UPDATE:

You know, I was thinking after I posted this.  Thank god for Facebook and Twitter.  People laugh and joke about these apps, claiming they’re some sort of useless medium to express our own narcissism, but without these things we’d have no information about what’s happening on the ground.  Journalists and camera crews are being locked down, so the only source that we have is the occasional text message that slips through to twitter, or the camera phone video that gets uploaded to facebook.

This revolution will not be televised, but it will be twittered.

UPDATE II:

Sullivan steals my line.