Mir Hossein Mousavi, a leader of the Iranian Green movement has a facebook page (and was also
named to Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010). While facebook is blocked in Iran (along with Google and a few others) Mousavi still boasts a following of over 125,000 followers on the social networking site. Mousavi doesn't run the site himself but has relegated responsibility over it to Mohammad Sadeghi--an German-Iranian living outside of Iran. Sadeghi also manages the facebook site of Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard (
also on Time's 100 list). The two have utilized social networking sites for some time now--Sadeghi said he christened Mousavi's page the before President Obama's inauguration.
I found the article regarding Mousavi's facebook site on a blog site called
Global Voices (it may sound familiar because there is a live feed from their site on the right-hand side of this website). The site interviewed Mr. Sadeghi about his work, his opinions on the elections, and his thoughts on citizen journalism among other things. They ask Sadeghi about the impacts of citizen journalism in Iran--if it has slowed in recent months, if it helped Mousavi. Sadeghi responded as follows, "I would summarize the impact of Mousavi’s Facebook group as a 'process innovation' to incorporate existing social network platforms into the Persian language media bandwidth...[a] second revolution in my opinion has been initiated by Mr Mousavi who called for 'citizen staffs' and hence the automatized use of a wide range of suppressed potential for fundamental change. This decentralized campaign had the opportunity to exploit a wide range of communication methods - as the very tool of a campaign- while working out a consensus for a model of change. The Facebook page initiated and evolved the process of information by transforming the campaign into a non-political atmosphere of social networks" (
Source)
Sadeghi is a believer in the power of the PC. It is no secret how much the internet has helped this movement sustain itself even while it has confronted threats and acts of violence, a decentralized leadership, and a whole gamut of other obstacles. The internet's effects on post-election Iran is both undeniable and immeasurable. We value the internet in the US because it lets us stay in touch with our family and friends, check news and scores, etc.; but Iranians have taken things like twitter and facebook--social networking sites that here in the US are pretty trivial and even causes of social development or interactive issues in teens--and have turned them into an all-powerful weapon of mass construction. The Green Movement is lives thru facebook posts, text messages, and YouTube videos. My first "thousand word post" was of a man threatening a violent mulla with the statement "Stop or I'll tweet!" People laugh and remark "how interesting" it is, but the power of that cartoon is not in its hilarity but in its truth. These thug basijis and mullas are running scared--they are terrified of the Iranian people for their ability publicize their crimes and abuses. People like Muhammad Sadeghi are criminals in Iran because of they expose the actions of the government and bolster the opposition. Sadeghi and his associates are prime examples of fine journalists--and more importantly the prime examples of the Iranian regime's worst nightmare.
