While many of the first person accounts are unconfirmed (who is there to confirm them?), the sheer number of tweets, as well as a wrenching live interview with an alleged witness of the carnage aired on CNN, suggests a violent hightening in basij attacks against demonstrators and bystanders, particularly at a gathering in Baharestan Square, is taking on the scale of a full scale massacre. I agree with most here that the US should resist the call to take an active roll in the Iran situation, that our intervention would be inappropriate and wrongly direct attention to US-Iranian relations and away from the just cause of the protestors (I felt the same way, in fact, about Hussein's war crimes against his people -- that his justice should come through the world courts, and not unilaterally).
That said, I am not naive enough to think that the UN will actually do something about Iran's massacre its citizens. But they should. More on today's news after the jump.
Besides Twitter, the Guardian UK and Huffington Post have been live blogging on the Iranian uprising. CNN also aired a wrenching interview with a shaken young woman who witnessed horrific events at Baharestan Square. I don't have the imbed code for the video, which is available on Huff Post, but here is an excerpt:
"I was going towards Baharestan with my friend. This was everyone, not just supporters of one candidate or another. All of my friends, they were going to Baharestan to express our opposition to these killings and demanding freedom. The black-clad police stopped everyone. They emptied the buses that were taking people there and let the private cars ... We went on until Ferdowsi then all of a sudden some 500 people with clubs came out of [undecipherable] mosque and they started beating everyone. They tried to beat everyone on [undecipherable] bridge and throwing them off of the bridge. And everyone also on the sidewalks. They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood and her husband, he fainted. They were beating people like hell. It was a massacre. They were trying to beat people so they would die. they were cursing and saying very bad words to everyone. This was exactly a massacre... I don't know how to describe it."
And this, taken from The Guardian, from a Medical Student inside a hospital in Tehran:
5.20pm:
An account from a medical student inside Iran. I am trying to find out where the medical student is.
I only want to speak about what I have witnessed. I am a medical student. There was chaos at the trauma section in one of our main
hospitals. Although by decree, all riot-related injuries were supposed
to be sent to military hospitals, all other hospitals were filled to
the rim. Last night, nine people died at our hospital and another 28
had gunshot wounds. All hospital employees were crying till dawn. They
(government) removed the dead bodies on back of trucks, before we were
even able to get their names or other information. What can you even
say to the people who don't even respect the dead. No one was allowed
to speak to the wounded or get any information from them. This morning
the faculty and the students protested by gathering at the lobby of
the hospital where they were confronted by plain cloths anti-riot
militia, who in turn closed off the hospital and imprisoned the staff.
The extent of injuries are so grave, that despite being one of the most staffed emergency rooms, they've asked everyone to stay and help--I'm sure it will even be worst tonight. What can anyone say in face of all these atrocities? What can you say to the family of the 13 year-old boy who
died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?
This issue is not about cheating (election) anymore. This is not about stealing votes anymore. The issue is about a vast injustice inflected on the people. They've put a baton in the hand of every 13-14 year old to smash the faces of "the bunches who are less than dirt" (government is calling the people who are uprising dried-up torn and weeds). This is what sickens me from dealing with these issues. And from those who shut their eyes and close their ears and claim the riots are in opposition of the government and presidency!! No! The people's complaint is against the egregious injustices committed against the people.
Reports on Twitter have described people being hacked apart with axes, people being ambushed by Basij forced in alleyways as they try to flee the scene, and have confirmed bodies being thrown in trucks and hauled away immediately from the scene.
And who is doing this killing? Again from the Guardian UK:
Newspaper Roozonline has an interview (in Persian) with one of the young plainclothes militiamen who have been beating protesters.
UPDATE: Robert says the man is paid 2m rial per day, which would be about £1220 for ten days of work. A hefty fee, even by UK standards. A reader writes: "You can imagine what that kind of money means to a villager from Khorasan".
The Guardian's Robert Tait sends this synopsis:
The man, who has come from a small town in the eastern province of Khorasan and has never been in Tehran before, says he is being paid 2m rial (£122) to assault protestors with a heavy wooden stave. He says the money is the main incentive as it will enable him to get married and may even enable him to afford more than one wife. Leadership of the volunteers has been provided by a man known only as "Hajji", who has instructed his men to "beat the counter-revolutionaries so hard that they won't be able to stand up". The volunteers, most of them from far-flung provinces such as Khuzestan, Arak and Mazandaran, are being kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran. Other volunteers, he says, have been brought from Lebanon, where the Iranian regime has strong allies in the Hezbollah movement. They are said to be more highly-paid than their Iranian counterparts and are put up in hotels. The last piece of information seems to confirm the suspicion of many Iranians that foreign security personnel are being used to suppress the demonstrators. For all his talk of the legal process, this interview provides a key insight into where Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, believes the true source of his legitimacy rests.
It was clear to me from the minute I checked my Twitter account this morning that things had escalated catastrophically. The desire for action is intense, but what can we do, really, except bear witness, keep records, take notes? It is clear, and evident, that an American-led intervention will undermine the message of the protestors. That is why the world community at large must act together as a whole. If there was ever a reason for the UN Human Rights Commission, would this not be it? And where have the UN been through all of this? I KNOW they are spinelss and ineffective, but they are the best thing that we have. Iran's brutal suppression of dissent demands the swift action of the global community. It is an affront to us all. Iran must be deeply shamed.