One of our favorite preschool teachers had her last day at school on Friday, and was heading home to Iran to visit. I was worried that she might have been caught up all the chaos that Tehran has been experiencing since Saturday, so I called her to leave a message.
Fortunately, she has not left the states yet, so I was able to talk with her. She said that due to the forced cell phone outages, she was not able to get through to her parents for three days to make sure they were safe (they are). She said she is not worried about returning home during a potential revolution, as she participated in demonstrations and events previously, so it’s not that scary to her. Cell phone calls are being limited to five minutes.
When I asked for her perception of the government corruption that is being exposed during this election cycle, she said that the election results were announced a mere two hours after the polls closed, and that the ballots had all been hand-written; there was no way all the votes could have been counted! One of the candidates was announced to have zero votes in his favor, which that candidate immediately protested because he knows that he voted for himself!
One other sign of blantant corruption: she said the “election results” were forwarded to an “official” source, saying “this is what we are going to announce” even before the votes could have been counted.
Iranian protesters are hoping the U.N. will step in to help, but she had no idea if or when that would happen.
Another friend alerted me that the best way to stay tuned to what’s really happening is to monitor Twitter feeds coming out of Iran (search on #iranelection). The pictures and stories I’ve seen pouring out of that country are quite astonishing. I also applaud YouTube for leaving up videos uploaded by protesters in an attempt to preserve “their documentary value.”
While it remains unclear if this situation will turn into the political revolution many have hoped for, I do pray for our friend’s safety and for those that seek a true reporting of the actual election results.
