*Reports of Twitter*, FaceBook, YouTube, Blogger, WordPress *blocked
in*Iran, you can google it for updates.

http://twitter.com/kiraber

 Challenging the President's Right-Hand Man. Yesterday we posted this video
of a crowd surrounding Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai at
a rally on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KGa0EMlByU&feature=player_embedded#at=152
Egyptian Activist’s Message to Iranians: Learn From Egyptians, And We
Learned From You
Tags: wael ghonim <http://www.iranhumanrights.org/tag/wael-ghonim/>
[image: 
Print]<http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2011/02/wael-ghonim-on-iran/print/>
<http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php>

Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian activist hailed by observers worldwide as a hero
and one of the leaders of the Egyptian uprising, talked to the International
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and thanked the people of Iran for
organizing a demonstration on 14 February in solidarity with the people of
Egypt and Tunisia, and thanked the Iranian civil rights movement.

Ghonim played a major role in organizing the protests that have shaken Egypt
for the past two weeks. His Facebook page is widely credited with inviting
Egyptians to their first public protest on 25 January.  Wael Ghonim has
appeared with a green wristband during his public speeches and interviews.
As the peaceful protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election in
Iran came to be known as the “Green Movement,” Ghonim’s green wristband has
become a source of interest for Iranians.

When asked by the Campaign whether the motivation behind his green wristband
is Iran’s Green Movement, he said: “That was just a coincidence, but I’m
happy you guys made the connection!”

*“I would tell Iranians to learn from the Egyptians, as we have learned from
you guys, that at the end of the day with the power of people, we can do
whatever we want to do.  If we unite our goals, if we believe, then all our
dreams can come true,” is the prominent Egyptian activist’s message to
Iranians on the threshold of the 14 February demonstrations.*

Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who took time off from his job to be in
Cairo during the protests, was freed last Monday after being held by
Egyptian authorities for 10 days. He is one of the best known speakers for
the Egyptian people’s movement.

The Latest from Iran (12 February): The Regime's Day Came and It Went
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 7:09AM
Scott Lucas in 25 Bahman, Ali Larijani, BBC Persian, Babak Dad, EA Iran,
Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Middle East and Iran, Zahra
Eftekhari

1715 GMT: Clash of the Day. *Aftab News* is reporting that four supporters
of President Ahmadinejad disrupted a
speech<http://aftabnews.ir/vdcezz8zvjh8wei.b9bj.html>by Speaker of
Parliament Ali Larijani in Qom.

1620 GMT: A Difference from Cairo. The reformist Islamic Iran Participation
Front has issued a statement making clear that, in contrast to the uprising
in Egypt, it is not pursuing regime
change<http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2011/02/110212_l44_majma_mosharekat_statement.shtml>
.

1525 GMT: You Can't Satisfy Everyone. Babak Dad is just a bit
sceptical<http://babakdad.blogspot.com/2011/02/22.html>about the
regime's claims of a successful show yesterday.

1520 GMT: Challenging the President's Right-Hand Man. Yesterday we posted
this video of a crowd surrounding Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar
Rahim-Mashai at a rally on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. We
re-post it with translated extracts: "Why do you have 17 positions?/Mashaei
haya kon, Ahmadi ro raha kon! (Have shame, quit Ahmadi!)/Marg bar monafegh
(Death to MKO)/Monafegh boro gomsho! (MKO get lost!)/Leave Ahmadinejad for
the sake of Supreme Leader and people:

1510 GMT: 25 Bahman. A coalition of seven university student organisations have
called on political groups and senior
clerics<http://www.rahesabz.net/story/32264/>to support Monday's
rally.

*Persian2English*has more on statements by student
groups<http://persian2english.com/?p=20040>across Iran.

*Daneshjoo News* carries a statement from university
organisations<http://www.daneshjoonews.com/news/politics/5722-1389-11-23-12-42-06.html>in
Tabriz.

The Facebook page for 25 Bahman <http://www.twitter.com/persianbanoo> now
has more than 41,000 supporters.

1500 GMT: Jamming the Airwaves. An EA reader wrote an hour ago, "I was just
watching BBC Persian and there was no sign of jamming. BUT as soon as the
they announced your 0815 GMT update about the Qom seminary supporting the
protests, THE FEED WAS GONE....Now the screen is all black and you can just
hear a deafening signal sound!"

1420 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Tehran University student and Mousavi
campaign activist Zahra Eftekhari has been arrested.

RAHANA summarises that at least 14 activists have been
detained<http://www.rahana.org/en/?p=9729>in the last three days.

1340 GMT: Censoring Bahman. We reported last night and repeated this morning
0705 GMT) that Iranian authorities have blocked Internet searches for
"Bahman", the 11th month of the Persian calendar and the month of the 1979
Islamic Revolution celebrated yesterday by the regime. CNN has now followed
up<http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/12/egypt.iran.rally/index.html>the
story, citing two Tehran sources.

1100 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. A series of arrests just before Monday's
rally, including Mojtaba Shayesteh <http://hrana-iran.com/00/6746-1.html> of
the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front.

Labour activist Mansur Osanloo, who has been detained since 2007, has
reportedly suffered a heart
attack<http://hrana-iran.com/1389-01-27-05-27-21/6740-1.html>and is in
hospital.

0815 GMT: Supporting Protest. Seminary scholars in the religious centre of
Qom have issued a statement of
support<http://irangreenvoice.com/article/2011/feb/11/10786>for the
people of Tunisia and Egypt against imperialism, domestic
dictatorship, and religious radicalism.

0800 GMT: 25 Bahman. The activist site Unity4Iran posts the routes for
marches inside and outside Iran on Monday.

0705 GMT: And so there were speeches, including one by President
Ahmadinejad, and a ceremony for the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution.

There may be no better illustration of how the day came and went than this
declaration from
<http://kayhannews.ir/891123/image.jpg>*Kayhan<http://kayhannews.ir/891123/image.jpg>.
*According to the newspaper, 50 million --- two-thirds of the Iranian
population --- came out for the regime

Debates over the size of the crowd for the day continue. But far more
significant may be whether the day had any significance beyond a setpiece to
make the ritual statement of Iranian progress and to denounce the "arrogance
of power" of the "West".

The Iranian publicity machine featured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hour in Azadi
Square in Tehran, but the speech had little of signficance beyond a brief
passage setting out the President's challenge to his rivals within the
establishment over his economic programme. Ahmadinejad set up the subsidy
cuts and his expansion of power as moves for "justice", but he prefaced this
with the unreal claim that he would eliminate unemployment by the end of his
term in 2013.

Press TV, with its international audience, soon left behind the events to
focus on Egypt. And while State TV continued to loop images of the
ceremonies in Tehran and elsewhere, this morning the anniversary of the 1979
Revolution has been relegated, even by the Islamic Republic News
Agency<http://www.irna.ir/>,
to a place well behind the departure of Hosni Mubarak. (Indeed --- and make
of this what you will --- IRNA's report on Ahmadinejad and the 22 Bahman
ceremony cannot be loaded.)

Meanwhile, the regime was also attempting to break up any prospect of an
opposition show on Monday. There were more arrests of journalists and
activists on Saturday and disruption and jamming of communications.

It is impossible to tell whether the Green Wave will make any appearance in
48 hours. But perhaps the symbolic measure of the continuing struggle for
legitimacy came last night.

A report came through that, if someone in wanted to learn of the full extent
of the regime's celebration of 22 Bahman by typing "Bahman" into a Google
search, he/she would be out of luck. The word is now blocked.

Article originally appeared on EA WorldView (http://www.enduringamerica.com/).

See website for complete article licensing information.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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