Funeral Crackdown in Iran

What the heck is going on in Iran? The Iranian regime put more constraints on its people and now they even have a problem burying their dead. On Thursday, more than 7 people were arrested while attending a funeral for the father of one of the reformist leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The Green Movement website says that government security forces surrounded Mousavi’s home in Tehran as people were gathered for a funeral. It says that there was a confrontation between mourners and policemen in plain clothes who seized the coffin, forcefully placed it in a ambulance, and took it to a burial ceremony.

Furthermore it says, while a confrontation erupted between mourners and police forces, the police forces in plain clothes attacked mourners, beaten them up and arrested more than seven funeral attendants.

It has been since February 14 that opposition’s leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi along with their wives have been put under house arrest, after they called for a rally in support of Egyptian uprising.

Twitter and users

Last week I tweeted: "I had a bizarre morning, lost keys and forgot my power adapter at the coffee shop, one of the laundry dryer machines did work, had to redo it," a few minutes later, I got this tweet from a user saying: " We can get you a new set of keys!"

There was also another company who tweeted me saying that they sold the best key leashes. These companies advertise their products through twitter, watching for key words and checking who tweets what, isn't that amazing?

Compare these tweets with the tweets that are being sent out from the Middle East, telling of how many people died in anti-government protests while government media denies them. It's quite ironic that on the other side of the world, people use twitter for their liberation from oppressive regimes while on this side of the world, people use twitter to advertise their products.

For one part of the world, twitter has become a powerful source of communication, spreading out their angers, organizing their protests, reporting about regime's brutality, whereas for another part, twitter still is being used as a source of communication, but also as a tool for marketing and celebrities.

For me personally, twitter is a source of getting update news from the Middle East, South Asia, Afghanistan and around the world. I use it as a micro-blogging tool to share links and comments related to those regions.

Happy Fifth Birthday Twitter!

Today, March 21, 2011 marks the fifth anniversary of the first tweet ever sent. PCWorld has counted five milestones from the past five years, two of them are the most important to me:
1. The role of Twitter in coverage of Iranian elections.
2. Twitter in Tunisia and Egypt which help protesters organizing their protests and finally we unexpectedly saw the demise of authoritarian regimes one after another.

Here is a fascinating video of some important figures telling why twitter is important to them.