Free Republic

The dogged courage of pro-democracy protesters in Iran was on full display Thursday, the latest in a string of demonstrations against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since last June’s rigged presidential elections. Thousands took to the streets despite organized pro-government rallies and the many tactics of fear used by a regime that is ever more isolated by its acts of violence – in the name of God – against peaceful democrats. The latest fear tactics include executions of demonstrators, arrests of top intellectuals and rights activists, detention of a group called Mothers in Mourning (mothers of political prisoners), and torture of detained...

"Death to Russia," the protesters chant in the video above, countering the pro-government slogans of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" on Thursday during the 22 Bahman. 4 Videos at the link - 1 showing protesters chanting death to Russia, 2 showing people chanting support for Mousavi, and the last one showing line of buses used to bring in "regime supporters" for the rally.

WASHINGTON DC, United States—Iranian users are having trouble accessing Gmail, Google said Wednesday following a newspaper report that Iran's telecoms agency had permanently suspended the Internet giant's email service. "We have heard from users in Iran that they are having trouble accessing Gmail," Google said in a statement. "We can confirm a sharp drop in traffic and we have looked at our own networks and found that they are working properly," the Mountain View, California-based company said. "Whenever we encounter blocks in our services we try to resolve them as quickly as possible because we strongly believe that people everywhere...

Rumour of Day (Week? Month?) — Rafsanjani “Ultimatum” to Supreme Leader. The Green site Rah-e-Sabz, without citing a source, makes the following claim: Authorities went to arrest the wife of Mir Hossein’s chief advisor Alireza Beheshti, who was already detained, on Tuesday, but could not find her. She then called Hashemi Rafsanjani from her hiding place and told him, “Look where we have got to that the grandchildren of Shahid Beheshti have to be on the run in dahey-e fajr (the 10-Day Dawn preceding the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution).” This allegedly upset Rafsanjani to the point to tears. During...