This post is currently on the DailyKos recommended Diaries. Thought you should know, there is a coup happening in Iran.

Update V: I’ve lost my translator (Payman) for the night. He promised a birthday dinner to a Bosnian friend. We’ll be back at it very early tomorrow. People are finding ‘other’ ways to get the news out, so we hope to have more news by morning.

Update IV:

Link: A committee of respected Ayatollahs (the spiritual fighters) have requested that the election be invalidated for the purpose of restoring the people’s trust in the Islamic Republic. “We request the people to stay calm and not to provoke the government agents.”

Pyknet: Mousavi has been place under house arrest. He was arrested on his way to Khamenei’s house. All communication has been shut off. Khamenei has issued a statement claiming that HE that he is leading this coup to SAVE the Islamic Government (Nezam)

Update: Sianat az ara (Protectors of Votes) Iran’ Election Commission, have called the result fraud and are calling for new election. They pointed to the suspension of text messaging Thursday night and the disruption of phone service for the campaigns and pthers, and ballot shortages. Sianat az ara is a group of election monitors chosen by the four candidates. Ahmadinejad campaign is rejecting the claim of fraud and dismissed the committee as pro-Mousavi.

It is almost 9:30pm in Iran. In the north (rich part) of Tehran, the curfew is being ignored.

Photos here. Mo’ pix here. peiknet.com is reporting; Translation -

Rafsanjani has resigned all duties in protest to Supreme Leader Khamenei’s endorsement of Ahmadinejad as winner of yesterday’s election.

This article from Forbes on Thursday provides recent background on Rafsanjani’s case.

Rafsanjani, known in many circles as the Godfather, responded in kind with an open letter to the supreme leader demanding punishment for the aggression. That was perhaps the fuel on the fire for the streets. The anti-Ahmadinejad protesters felt more secure and confident after the division among the ruling elite became public and the streets went wild with human chains and slogans demanding Ahmadinejad’s resignation.

****** First Diary from this morning ***** Just uploaded to YouTube, this video shows Iranian police and Revolutionary Guards (Bassiji) CLEARLY running away from the protesters. From a video from a popular independent Iranian website Peykieran.com

Cliff here reporting for famous (around here ) Iranian exile and writer Payman here in Salt Lake City. The title of the video is “Demonstrators Election Announcement.”

The guy in the white shirt in the center of the frame at 7 seconds in is ‘plain clothes guard.’

We will continue to post video from ‘the inside’ as they come up.

American news outlets such as NBC are reporting that the police are keeping things under control, but we are hearing and seeing otherwise. Iranians expect Khamenei will begin rounding up the more visible activist but also current public officials who did not support Ahmadinejad.

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