The Adventures of Chester: Thunder and Lightning Silent and Invisible; "Blogosphere Supports Real Democracy in Iran Campaign"

I'm saving my next map for when there's some news. No news about Thunder or Lightning in Baghdad for two full days now.

Instead, check out A Daily Briefing on Iran over at Regime Change Iran. RCI is starting a new campaign to publish as much news about Iran as possible in the weeks leading up to the Iranian election. Here's a blurb from RCI:

The next few weeks in Iran may prove critical to the efforts of the pro-democracy forces there.

On June 17th, Iran has scheduled its Presidential elections and as the LA Times said recently:

It was already one of the most important elections in the world this year. It now also promises to be one of the most watched.

This time the world will see for itself that the elections in Iran are a fraud. The regime permits only those candidates that support the present regime to run. As Amir Taheri says, the outcome of the election is certain. The Supreme Leader of Iran will remain in complete control, the Presidency is meaningless. But the regime needs a high voter turnout to fool the world community that they are the legitimate representatives of the people.

This is why the people of Iran are boycotting the election as they did in the last Parliamentary election. They want a real democracy. But this time the world media will be watching. We need to make sure the world is watching.

Those of us in the blogosphere need to publish the news on Iran in order to help Iranians searching for news know that we support their efforts to replace the existing regime with a real democracy. This is why we ask you to publish our campaign logo on your blog.

Why republish the news? Because the regime is blocking access to most major news sites and the blogosphere is a means to frustrate their efforts. It is also important for the people of Iran to know that people around the world are standing with them in their struggle. This support has proved invaluable to others that successfully overthrew their oppressive regimes in other places around the world, such as Georgia, the Ukraine, Lebanon and elsewhere.

This struggle will likely not end on June 17, but has the opportunity to pick up steam over the coming weeks and months. There will almost certainly be a run off election and a few weeks later a major anniverserary of a bloodly crackdown of pro-democracy forces there. There has never been a more volitatle situation in the Islamic Republic that that it faces this summer. Now is the time to act.

I've joined the campaign (and will post the button shortly) and will be posting a weekly roundup from RCI on Sundays. I encourage all to participate, as I've been a proponent of changing regimes via awareness myself as well.

Posted by Chester on June 1, 2005 12:05 AM to The Adventures of Chester