Persiankiwi disappears...

In one of the last updates from persiankiwi, our ears in Iran informed us,
we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast - #Iranelection from web
For people following the twitter stream of persiankiwi (PK) on the situation in Iran, we know that bloggers must change locations to avoid government detection. We also see here what many people have suspected all along: that PK is a team of people rather than one individual.


Based on one of PK's last updates, the government was tracking phone line use, as the vast majority of Internet users in Iran still have dial-up connections.* In addition, we learn that Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami are reported to be under house arrest.

But the news of the day was the carnage that took place at Baharestan and Lalezar Squares in Tehran. I heard the chilling audio account from a young woman who was at Baharestan Square on CNN.

The disappearance of PK is particularly worrisome in light of the June 23 report from Reporters Without Borders: 26 journalists had been arrested and imprisoned since the disputed Iranian election on June 12.

What is still more alarming was the appointment of Saeed Mortazavi, the notorious Iranian prosecutor, who is to oversee the cases of imprisoned Sea of Green protesters in Tehran. Mortazavi, also known as "the butcher of the press," was implicated in the torture and murder of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist who died in Iranian custody on July 11, 2003.

The emergency-room doctor who examined Zahra Kazemi in Tehran, Shahram Azam, testified at his asylum hearing in Canada that the photojournalist had been brutally raped and tortured, and he implicated Saeed Mortazavi.

Zahra Kazemi was taking photos of a student demonstration outside the notorious Evin prison on the day she was arrested. The 54-year-old photojournalist had worked throughout the Middle East and was a champion of women's rights.



*The OpenNet Initiative reported that only 250,000 Iranian Internet users had high-speed access in 2007.

Sources:
www.twitter.com
www.CNN.com
The Globe and Mail
www.cbc.ca
Reporters Without Borders
The OpenNet Initiative: Iran


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