IRAN: Protesters reach out through social and video networking sites

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As the Iranian government continues its crackdown on opposition protesters, activists are turning to social networking and video sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to make themselves heard.

The featured clip allegedly shows destruction wrought by authorities on a dorm at the University of Tehran where about 120 lecturers have resigned in protest. Protesters and government forces clashed after supporters of reformist presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi took to the streets claiming Friday’s presidential election was rigged in favor of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Since then, hundreds of thousands have protested, sometimes violently, resulting in scores of arrests and a number of shootings leaving protesters dead or severely wounded.

Although YouTube and Twitter have been blocked in Iran, many activist bloggers are using proxy servers and other means to get around the restrictions. ‘Iranelection’ and ‘Tehran’ are the top trending topics on Twitter and a number of videos have been uploaded on YouTube depicting riots and police brutality.

The international advocacy group blog Global Voices is translating and compiling Twitter and blog feeds, as well as linking to Flickr albums by photographers inside Iran.

The surge in citizen journalism comes in the midst of a parallel crackdown on foreign and traditional media, in which the government declared press cards invalid, effectively trapping foreign journalists in their offices.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut