Tweet by Tweet, The Iranian Rebellion Continues

This YouTube video from Tehran shows how the mass rebellion over last week's disputed Presidential election is playing out. Borrowing a page from the 1979 Revolution, protesters are gathering on their rooftops all over the city to roar at the tops of their lungs Allah-o Akbar, or "God is Great."

In and of itself, this may not seem like rebellious behavior, but within the context that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i, has tried to suppress the rebellion with all the clumsy moves to be expected by a 20th-Century authoritarian, it is.

In a speech today, Khāmene’i warned the protesters that they must desist, or they will be held accountable for whatever violence ensues. That is generally being interpreted as a threat to crush the rebellion by force. Since he is the head of the country's armed forces, this may prove to be no idle threat.

Opposition leaders have been arrested this week. As journalists become more skilled as communicating via outlets like Twitter, reports of violence, arrests, and the scope of demonstrations are beginning to be better documented.

Twitter is still one of the best places to monitor what is going on on the ground inside Iran, including RTs from supporters around the world and the top trending topic is #Iran Election:

* @Iran09World: @iran09 New BBC Persian Satellite: Telstar T12, 15° West , 12.608 GHz (horizontally polarised) #iranelection #GR88 less than 10 seconds ago from TwitterFox

* Tonight in cities across iran, gun shots fired into air to scare ppl,ppl just respond with louder chants of "God is great" #iranelection less than 20 seconds ago from web

* pariya Twitition: Google Earth to update satellite images of Tehran #Iranelection http://twitition.com/csfeo @patrickaltoft less than 20 seconds ago from Twitition

* waxmati How to set up or mirror a proxy: http://r3blog.nl/iran.proxy... #iran #iranelection #gr88 #tehran #iranians less than 20 seconds ago from web

* qrsmania #IranElection Tehran Mousavi Amadinejad Iran - Blocking the Internet in Iran , Stopping FREE communication - http://bit.ly/Z3Dpr less than 20 seconds ago from Twitterizer

* rohnee Khomenei: instead of taking responsibility 4 the chaos HE CREATED in his own country he blamed other countries. Unbelievable! #IranElection 1 minute ago from web


The flow of material is continuous. By monitoring it for 15 minutes or so, you can spot the trends in Tweets and get a fairly good sense of what to believe and what not. Many media outlets, including the BBC and VOA are actively reporting on Iran and being distributed via Twitter and other social media.

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