Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Regime becomes more tech savvy... sort of

Following the announcement by the Islamic Republic's security forces that a cyber-police squad had been formed, it was interesting to note the recent creation of a dozen pro-regime Twitter accounts.

They're a bit far from properly impersonating independent and grass-roots accounts as the following screen capture shows: identical tweets lauding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were posted by several different 'users' at exactly the same time.

Brick in the wall: Saneh Jaleh story continues

Yesterday I wrote an article describing the Iranian regime's desperate claims that Saneh Jaleh, a protester who was killed by security forces during demonstrations on February 14, was actually a Basij militia member and had been killed by opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Friends, classmates, and others have denounced what they consider the regime's cynical exploitation of the slain protester. They have posted documents, photos, and now a video clip to show who Jaleh really was: a Green dramatic arts student, interested in writing, who had participated in past protests against the government.

Here is the student film featuring Saneh Jaleh as an actor in some of the opening scenes. The film was apparently banned at the Arts University, which is also shown at the start of the video: