The Guardian has been liveblogging the election all day, and reporting huge voter turn out, which would seem favorable to Mousavi. Voting should have ended by now, it's about 4pm there, but hours have been extended due to the huge turnout.

If Ahmadinjad does lose, there's a huge temptation in the West to attribute that to Obama, but at best that's just a small factor. Many Iranians are just fed up with him and the crappy state of the economy. Not that the White House wouldn't take some credit though!

Andre Sullivan posts an email from an Iranian living in America at the moment, who points out one of the most startling aspects of this election:

Although I haven’t been there this election season, what I hear from my cousins is that people are really into this election. There has been street fighting and non-stop political debates on university campuses. In a secretive society where having your political opinion too well-known can get you in trouble, tens of thousands of people are showing up every day at rallies that brazenly call the incumbent a liar and a thief.

I'm not sure if that's a change in Iran or merely having a Western perception of Iran pulled away, but if it a change in Iran, it's good to hear that more open elections means you can call politicians names and not get into trouble for it. Yay democracy!

I have a friend from Iran. Haven't talked in a long while, but my impression is generally things are publicly relatively closed off yet privately (at least among the more urban populations) very different behind closed doors. There's alcohol, and secular music, even hip-hop, but mostly in private. I do think the moral enforcers (I forget their actual name) at least in some places look the other way when some things happen, like a car is playing secular music as it drives by. So some of it seems to leak into the public sphere and be ignored even though it's technically illegal. She's from a city, so what she's mentioned here and there for me matches what I've seen in news stories about the urban populations that generally are more supportive of political reform.

And yeah, from news stories my impression is that the rallies and public excitement have been unusual for recent times. For the last election much of the population who dislikes Ahmadinejad was so disaffected and distrustful of the voting accuracy, they just stayed home.

Yah, both candidate won, victories for everyone!

Oh wait, that's not good.

This sounds bad. I think there's potential for angry public protests that get violent and then get crushed.

Yeah, I'm afraid of that, because as outsider the crowd backing Mousavi don't seem intent on backing down and the Revolutionary Guard seem keenly aware of that so they're sending out warnings of "Don't even think it".

State run media says Ahmadinejad is in the lead or has won, so three guesses on how that's going over. There's already calls of vote rigging.

There were accusations of vote rigging before the election even. It seems really stupid to me, for those in power to claim such a strong lead when things have seemed at least somewhat close (to me anyway-- are there reliable polls?). That's adding insult to injury. Seems better to play it like it was kinda close, but not whoopsie-we-lost-a-few-ballots close, and then pander a bit after.

Like Bush, but with a safer lead.

Ahmadinejad declared the winner, but Mousavi saying he'll protest to the higher ups. No real strong protests though so far, as Mousavi's supporters seem intent on not causing a stir at this point.

538 on general trends in Iranian elections. One of his points is that many/most of the polling had serious faults and therefore it would be hard to draw conclusions. But it appears that Iran has after all reverted to prior behavior favoring the incumbent and is bucking the more recent trend. It will be interesting to see Nate's analysis on this, as he seemed to share the general view that this was going to go to the wire.

Not to be a downer, but 538 gets really unreliable once Nate's talking outside of polling statistics and especially outside the US. I would take anything his says about international elections especially with some salt.

BBC News with what is a good summary, I think.

Oh, I see the 538 article was written by someone else and not Nate. Same guy who wrote the EU elections article though.

Video from Iran.

Oh and here's the Kos entry. It seems American media reports (surprise!) aren't quite accurate.

Yeah, after I posted that last comment, I left the house, got in the car, turned in NPR and they said there was street fighting and more going on.

That BBC article has bitter sweet irony in it. The current system that has the Supreme Leader voted into law after the overthrow of the Shah, whom the west was backing.

Ahmadinejad winning sounds odd, since the middle class swore they were coming out in force and seemed to out number the incumbents rural base, but who knows? Perhaps the Western press was seeing what it wanted to see.

The irony is that the election would have been close left to its own devices, Ahmedinijad had sufficient support to at least force a run off and was likely, based on numbers and history, to legitimately win a run off. What little respect I had for him, as well as hope that these regimes would finally understand that Western traditions (like, um, freedom) also have strengths and benefits. For instance getting into power without having to arrest or murder your own citizens. Plus ca change.

Juan Cole lays down some pretty convincing evidence pointing to fraud, such as the Ahmadinejad winning in regions where Mousavi was popular. He's what he thinks ultimately happened:

As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning. Mousavi's spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi's camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory.

The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable. And, apparently, he and other top leaders had been so confident of an Ahmadinejad win that they had made no contingency plans for what to do if he looked as though he would lose.

They therefore sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts.

This clumsy cover-up then produced the incredible result of an Ahmadinejad landlside in Tabriz and Isfahan and Tehran.

The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election.

This scenario accounts for all known anomalies and is consistent with what we know of the major players.

The crazy and obvious shenanigans being pushed out by state run media would be explained by this. If even true, it points to how insulated and closed off the Supreme Leader is, to think this'll be swallowed by anyone. Hell, they should have made it a close election, as Tehanu said, so it at least looked plausible.

The BBC has photos of photos and a bit of fighting between citizens and cops.

Blogger Gary Sick has reconstructed a timeline of events:

* Near closing time of the polls, mobile text messaging was turned off nationwide

* Security forces poured out into the streets in large numbers

* The Ministry of Interior (election headquarters) was surrounded by concrete barriers and armed men

* National television began broadcasting pre-recorded messages calling for everyone to unite behind the winner

* The Mousavi campaign was informed officially that they had won the election, which perhaps served to temporarily lull them into complacency

* But then the Ministry of Interior announced a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad

* Unlike previous elections, there was no breakdown of the vote by province, which would have provided a way of judging its credibility

* The voting patterns announced by the government were identical in all parts of the country, an impossibility (also see the comments of Juan Cole at the title link)

* Less than 24 hours later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene`i publicly announced his congratulations to the winner, apparently confirming that the process was complete and irrevocable, contrary to constitutional requirements

* Shortly thereafter, all mobile phones, Facebook, and other social networks were blocked, as well as major foreign news sources.

More from YouTube.

Still a lot of conflicting reports it seems. NPR radio was saying Mousavi had conceded this morning, but their website and others say he's asking that the election be canceled and fighting is continuing in general. Frankly the Western media or at least parts of it maybe be in over its head in terms of figuring this stuff out.

Andrew Sullivan has riveting coverage, if you can ignore the "rah, rah, it's a revolution, rise up people" pulsing through every post.

My general sense is that no one, not even Mousavi and his supporters, want a violent revolution, with good reason. They're messy and ugly and end up destroying parts of society even as they create a new. Being able to vote in a more moderate leader is what they would have preferred and now faced with being ignore, I don't think the middle class has the guts to shake off their middle class lifestyle and risk everything for it. This isn't an indictment on Iranians, I suspect most middle class are like this, there's just too much to lose with long term violent clashes.

True, but Mousavi supporters trend young. And the young trend hasty.

I need a nap, for a second hasty looked like tasty.

I was thinking more Ent than Orc when I wrote that. ;)

HuffPost (a bit slow to load-- lots of stuff on page).

Crap, they're kicking out foreign journalists and confiscating their equipment. The major social sites are being blocked ('cept for Twitter), along with tv.

Say what you want about Twitter, but it's the only thing the Iranian government hasn't managed to block.

Mousvi's wife made a public appearance calling for peaceful demonstrations on Monday and a strike on Tuesday. Interesting, I keep expecting this to be winding down and it doesn't seem like it wants to at this point. I have not particular expertise or knowledge of the area or region, but it seems as though, at this point, it's going to have to go to another level. Considering the blocking of everything and the kicking out of foreign journalists, I'm guess the government is going to start cracking down hard.

The 3:45 EDT HuffPost update suggest things are getting more violent.

Twitter gets an undeserved bad rap, in my opinion. I've caught a lot of breaking news from Twitter. Verify it elsewhere, I've learned the hard way, but it's been remarkably accurate in terms of tweets from the sources I check, so far.

Do you know why Twitter hasn't been blocked? China blocked it for the Tiananmen Square anniversary.

No, I haven't seen any commentary on why that might be. It's certainly a curious omission.

An Iranian reporter is saying they didn't even bother to try to do a real election; this is not a fraud but a coup.

Please don't use the word "fraud" because it is mitigation of what has happened in Iran. Fraud is what was happening in the past 30 years. This is not fraud. They haven't [counted ] people's votes. Using the word fraud is like calling a deep cut a small scratch. There was no fraud; it was a coup.

There's more and it's pretty bad.

It looks like some savvy internet users have found ways to get past the government filters. For example.

This Twitter user is tweeting a lot of interesting stuff.

Hmm, so dawn is breaking in Iran right now, public marches are being called, communications have been cut and foreign journalists are being kicked out. It's going to be quite a Monday.

I've read in several places (such as here) that some of the "police" are actually Hezbollah.

Yeah, I've heard that too, but don't know what to make of it. Possible, yeah, but like many reports coming from there, there's a cloud of "who knows?"

CNN is getting panned for not really following the story, but I doubt CNN and the audience it caters to cares.

Yeah I don't know what to make of it either.

CNN is more or less ass unless you want terrifying breaking news of the latest US crises.

Hee, I'm watching CNN now and they're making a big deal out of covering the crisis LIVE, at least until midnight tonight. They just had a Professor from Tehran University on, who was going on and on about Mousavi was an amateur and hadn't filled out the proper forms to contest the election and whatever, he's never been elected anyway, the Prime Minister position is an appointed one. The anchorman then asks him if he's an Ahmadinejad supporter and the professor goes quiet for a second and then says, "Yes, but.." and launches into a defense of Ahmadinejad. Tragic comedy indeed.

CNN would like to thank its iReporters for covering the story, despite the Iraninan government suppression and if you want to know more you can go to the CNN Twitter stream. God, TV for news is pretty much bottom of the borrow these days.

The Supreme Leader of Iran has ordered an investigation into voter fraud. Sounds like a move made because the protests aren't stopping, which he can then spin to either side, depending on how things go. "Nope, no fraud" if the protests are defeated or "Oh hey, there was fraud, arrest all those other people who did this" if it looks like the protesters are winning.

I can't find much news about the march going on nowish. The Supreme Leader's change makes me wonder if they're going to try to use Ahmadinejad as a scapegoat to appease the angry opposition.

Like I was speculating, it could go either way. If things get too heavy, then I bet Ahmadinejad will be sold out.

persiankiwi: "world must understand that ppl who atended ANejad rally were all civil servants, they are sacked if they dont participate."

Same person links to photos and video from today.

#IranElection on Twitter is a the real time update of tweets. Moves pretty fast.

BBC video of the protests. Pretty massive and peaceful and not the pitched battle I feared it would be.

More video from #Iranelection. just a massive stream of people moving forward, incredible to see.

Mousavi is on the streets also, in the crowds.

Another photo, from Tehran I think, of just how freaking big the crowds are. I'm thinking the size of the protests and the photos and videos have put a damper on any huge crackdown.

There was some violence last night, although I haven't seen reported deaths of students by police confirmed yet.

http://twitpic.com/photos/madyar is the same acct we both linked to. It's uplifting to see the crowds, which look peaceful, but then my dread grows as I scroll down as see the aftermath of last night's university raid. Yes that user is in Tehran.

Here's a real time, or close to it, stream of pics being linked from Twitter. There's redundancy and some really odd stuff (Mr. Potato head?!) along with a few violent scenes.

A few snapshots of the aftermath of the attacks at Tehran University. Nothing grisly, clearly a targeted attack on computers and communications.

persinkiwi and others have mentioned a few times that the situation in Ahvaz is different-- it's been violent there today. Have you noticed any photos from there rather than Tehran? Tehran seems to be the most covered in terms of photo/video uploads. So far the violent photos I've seen were from Sunday daytime and last night. Mostly destruction of property but also some police hitting people with batons. I didn't see the harsher videos of beatings I saw mentioned here and there. And then also the aftermath of the university raids looked pretty suggestive. Tehran you linked to and there was also University of Esfahan (be aware: more blood/injuries in that photoset).

There are Twitter rumors of violence in Tehran now and people hearing gunshots. And some comments about how young people are being targeted. I saw a mention early this morning (Eastern time) of Tehran's side streets not being safe, unlike the big main protest crowds. Maybe that dynamic is shifting now.

Scattered reports of gunfire in the crowds now, with a few people 1-3 being killed, via #iranelection

No, most of the photos I've seen have been from Tehran.

I just saw a a news report on CNN about the protests and Mousavi. One thing that caught my eye was the sheer number of digital cameras in the crowd, so there's going to be a lot more photos coming out later.

Conflicting reports on the number of dead in Tehran protests, but only small numbers, less than 5, cited so far.

Also reports that the entire staff of Tehran University has resigned in protest of the attacks there, with some students dead.

All of this is unconfirmed, of course, just raw tweets.

There are tweets calling for the hacking of all Iranian government sites. Unconfirmed reports say these attacks have been somewhat successful.

The Big Picture has a gallery of the best photos from Iran. No. 10 is interesting as it shows members of the Basij, a kind of hard line citizen's militia, forcing their way into Tehran university.

Wow, that is awesome. And terrible at the same time. It's so much clearer at that resolution just how many people are plain clothes militia trying to get to protestors, weapons in hand. :(

President Obama chimes in with words about Iran.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZErZx9JVS0&feature=player_embedded

Overall, I think he strikes a good tone, saying it's to the Iranians to choose Iranian leaders, trying to send a message that the U.S. isn't meddling and has no intention of meddling.

Evidently Iranians who are twittering are being targeted, so the those outside Iran are being asked to change their twitter profile's timezone to to GMT +03:30 and location to Tehran to make it confusing.

Seems like the rulebook for communications during protests are being rewritten.

4:30 b/c of daylight savings, isn't it? But that's awesome.

Hey, good catch, it looks like you're right. That sucks, it'll help sort who's real and who isn't. Twitter giveth and taketh away.

Iran's Guardian Council has agreed to a recount of specific ballot boxes. However, Moussavi doesn't want a recount, he wants a election, arguing that the votes have already been tampered with so a recount isn't legitimate.

Ahmadinejad is has left the country to go to a previously scheduled meeting in Russia, which is shame because a Pro-Ahmadinejad rally is planned for today in Tehran. That rally is scheduled about two hours before an anti-Ahmadinejad rally in Vali Asr Square in Tehran.

Iranian state media says seven people were killed in the rally yesterday.

One of the Twitterers said the ballots have been destroyed. Also, webpage describing the different kinds of militia/police/guards targeting the protestors. It's in Farsi but illustrated by pictures.

I'm seeing rumors of army being sent against protesters (that I'm unsure of but would guess is likely true) and more certain, of the militia readying another attack on student dorms. Most recent tweet.

Hmmm, I had heard that the military was adopting a neutral position.

Al Jazeera has a short report on the Pro Ahemedjindad rally, which they're saying was arranged by the government. The Intelligence minister alleges foreign elements are backing some of the counter revolutionaries.

Foreign journalists told to stay in their hotels or be arrested. A BBC crew was filming anyway and came under scrutiny only to be saved local protests.

Despite the violence, things have been going much milder than I expected. The government is obviously holding back to some degree, but why? Fearful of being seen too oppressive? Is there disagreement over how far to go?

Tehran University will be attacked tonight, they are saying. Students trying to get off the street for the night for safety. Many have stayed in the dorms b/c they have no local relatives to stay with, but there are militia gathering there.

Comment, via New York Times, by Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council under Ford, Carter and Reagan.

If the reports coming out of Tehran about an electoral coup are sustained, then Iran has entered an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history. One characteristic that has always distinguished Iran from the crude dictators in much of the rest of the Middle East was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear.

In 1997, Iran’s hard line leadership was stunned by the landslide election of Mohammed Khatami, a reformer who promised to bring rule of law and a more human face to the harsh visage of the Iranian revolution. It took the authorities almost a year to recover their composure and to reassert their control through naked force and cynical manipulation of the constitution and legal system. The authorities did not, however, falsify the election results and even permitted a resounding reelection four years later. Instead, they preferred to prevent the president from implementing his reform program.

In 2005, when it appeared that no hard line conservative might survive the first round of the presidential election, there were credible reports of ballot manipulation to insure that Mr Ahmadinejad could run (and win) against former president Rafsanjani in the second round. The lesson seemed to be that the authorities might shift the results in a close election but they would not reverse a landslide vote.

The current election appears to repudiate both of those rules.

Mr. Sick was also featured in the video we embedded below (EDIT NOTE: can't get the video to play, here's a link to transcript), speaking on Monday night on the PBS Newshour. After that appearance, he added this note to his blog:

What I was planning to say, when I was so rudely interrupted as time ran out :-)) was that the situation is certainly not a revolution at this point, but the main players are faced with the decision of whether to push things to the brink, realizing that it could run out of control and perhaps bring down the entire system of Islamic government. In the past, opposition forces have recoiled at that prospect and retreated. It is very likely they will do so again, but they are perhaps closer to the line today than they have been in the entire 30 years of the post-revolutionary experience.

A Grand Atollyah, Husayn (Hossein) Ali Montazeri, who was supposed to be a Supreme Leader, but was forced out after disagreements with the government, has come out in support of the protests and questions the election results.

Montazeri has been a long time critic of the current regime and supporter of civil and women's rights. He's widely respected, especially among reformers, so this gives a boost to the protesters and further highlights cracks in the current system.

There are also reports, unconfirmed, of Army Generals being arrested, possibly for conspiring with the protesters.

Also, Moussavi's Facebook page says today's protests were non-violent, that riot police watched, but did not attack. It also has a link to the Daily Show coverage of the protests, heh. It's in Farsi of course, but according to Huffingtonpost's liveblog via translators, that what it says

You know that planned maintenance on Twitter last night that was delayed? Evidently the U.S. State Department asked that it be delayed. A nice gesture, but it's so going to be used as proof of U.S. interference.

According to Reza Aslan on CNN, the Assembly of Experts, who are the only group empowered to select or remove the Supreme Leader, have been been called into an emergency meeting.

Not enough people at your pro-Ahmadinejad rally where attendance is required if you are a state employee? Photoshop to the rescue!

Brussels, 16 June (AKI) - Two Iranian filmmakers on Tuesday presented a document to Green Party MPs in the European parliament claiming to show that defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had received over 19 million votes in the weekend election.

No way to verify the document, though there were reports of these when things first started blowing up.

I've seen various reports of 32 dead, again unconfirmed, and no breakdown of when and where they died.

A report from the BBC on today's protests.

The situation seems to have entered into a surreal stage, with each side getting more non-violent so as to take a moral high ground. Whoever attacks would give cause to the other to respond, enabling the defender to claim a moral victory. So now, they both appear to racing against some unknown clock to remain calm and quiet and the government forces have the upper hand in that. The protests have brought the country to a standstill, but there's only so long that can last. Eventually people have to go back to work, school and life and if they don't see their cause moving forward, many will raise the question "why continue?" All the government has to do is show up, stay calm and not attack anyone. They have a better chance of maintaining that over the long haul.

Amazing video from Tehran of a long stream of protestors. What's amazing is how silent they are as they march.

Cell phones were turned off today. That's got to hurt, yet infuriating. Having a cell phone is almost a necessity these days, so to have it just turned off by government forces is probably just going to stiffen resolve.

It should be noted that many comments ago I said the middle class probably wouldn't be able to hold out, due to being middle class. Yet the length and strength of the protests have proven that line of thought wrong and I'm thinking there's also a flip side. The middle class knows how good it can be and isn't going to give it up easily.

Interesting background info on why a lot of the Iranian cops have the English word "Police" on their gear. It's simple really, everybody knows English, so it's understandable to be both citizens and tourists.

Another massive protest planned for today. People will be wearing black, to mourn those killed in earlier rallys.

The losing candidates, Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai, have been invited to a special session of the Guardian Council to "discuss their issues with the members."

The partial recount has begun, and to everyone's surprise, no irregularities have been found.

A Michigan GOP congressman sees parallels between the Iranian protests and the GOP protests of last summer.

Anyway, what are the chances, really, of Mousavi becoming President of Iran?

The first item is, to me, the key point:

Khamenei blessed the election as a "divine miracle" on Sunday, crediting the "miraculous hand of God" with high voter turnout. This is seen as an endorsement of the whole election--including the results--and perhaps an irreversible step for Khamenei. If the results are nullified, Khamenei's supreme authority would be questioned.

It's pretty hard to walk back the miracle statement, so I don't see it happening unless it looks like Khamenei would be overthrown. The protests have called for new elections, but that's been flatly rejected and even if there were new elections, who's to say it would happen again, just with a closer vote to make it seem more legitimate?

So what, if anything, would make the protesters accept the status quo, besides a violent crackdown?

Twitter response to Hoekstra.

A photo from today's march, along with selected tweets. Still amazing to see so many people out protesting.

The New York Times reports on Friday's speech by Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who strongly repeated his belief in that the election was fair. He also called for an end to the protests.

“Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “This is challenging democracy after the elections.” He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.

And there you have it, the government has said "Enough is enough."

Neat: Interactive wordcloud of tweets about Iran. Click on word to see the individual tweets.

Tomorrow is the day when things get bloody or die down. The government has explicitly denied permission for a rally and with the Supreme Leader backing the election results and warning protesters to essentially knock it off, it looks like a line has been drawn.

U.S. House, unable to be quiet and full of self-importance, passes resolution that condemns the Iranian government's crackdown. Because the world had no idea where America stood on this and just had to know.

Interesting article from the Washington Note that mentions something called 'Basij Hunting'

By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things ... as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets 'Basiji hunting'.

Their resolve is no less than these thugs -- they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks -- they're organised and they're supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they're after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again - and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour -- they're community-connected.

The Basiji's are not.

These are not the students in the dorms, they're the street young -- they know the ways better than most thugs - and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.

Obama comments (video) on Khamenei's hardline speech from Friday.

"And I'm very concerned based on some of the tenor -- and tone of the statements that have been made -- that the government of Iran recognize that the world is watching. And how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard will, I think, send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and -- and is not."

Friday night, in Iraq. It's about 7am Saturday morning there now and it promises to be quite a day there.

Scattered reports of SMS being turned back, the suspicion is that it'll be used to track people. Mousavi isn't under arrest by he's been forbidden to speak to journalists and stand at microphones at rallies.

I've been out all day, doing previously scheduled training for volunteer work, so I'm just getting back to computer.

What I see is a day of fighting between Iranian citizens and the government (additional BBC report). This struggle is continuation of the 1979 revolution, with two sides attempting to take the country in different directions. As bloody as today was, the government still seems to be holding back, even as the protesters show no signs of backing down or growing tired. Every day that there's violence the government looks weaker, even if it's actually winning (and theres no clear sign that it is). Ultimataly the authorities may be backed into corner (it may have done this itself with it's clear support for the validity of the elections), forcing them to unleash massive crackdowns. Think about it, citizens are blatantly calling a guy with the title "The Supreme Leader" a liar and calling for his death. That's not something you can walk back.

It's not clear where Mousavi is, but there were reports earlier in the day that was willing to be martyred.

Speculation from the AP about Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his possible role in the protest. Rafsanjanit is former President of Iran and lost to Ahmadinejad in 2005 and so Rafsanjanit isn't too keen on the current President. Though the Supreme Leader respects, he's also said there are clear differences. Time will tell if Rafsanjani has anything do with the protests.

Fascinating account from the streets from a New York Times journalist. In it he mentions that some police commanders aren't interested in attacking the protesters and do appeal for calm.

One thing I'm seen in whatever reports that are filed, in whatever tweets and websites, indeed any communication from protesters on the street, no matter the age or sex, is similar language in describing their stance: No way we're backing down.

a surprising number of them girls

If anyone has a reason to despise the Basij, it seems like young women would be at the top of such a list.

Indeed, I think it just stands in stark contrast to what Western eyes are used to seeing.

Rafsanjani's daughter has been arrested for "agitating" the protesters.

There are various reports of the Assembly of Experts issuing a statement in support of the validity of the election results. Iranian readers of the Huffingtonpost blog offer a fuller context:

10:05 PM ET -- More on the Assembly of Experts statement. Earlier today, the Tehran Times posted an article claiming that the powerful clerical group, the Assembly of Experts, had on Saturday "expressed its 'strong support' for the Supreme Leader's statements on the presidential elections on Friday." It would have been a major blow to reformists' efforts to win the support of many senior clerics.

But as it turns out, it's not true. Reader Ali writes in:

I just wanted to point out that the letter of support written by assembly of experts in support of Khamenei's sermon is only signed by the deputy leader of the assembly, who is a former head of the judiciary and a staunch supporter of ahmadinejad, as well as a rival of Rafsanjani for the assembly's leadership election. He is the only one signing the letter and the government sponsored news media are reporting it as a letter from the full assembly.
And reader Majid provides more details:

Once again thanks for the great job in reporting the events. Just a comment about your 7:33pm item about the Assembly of Experts. The statement is not by the Assembly of Experts, but by Mohammad Yazdi, the head of the "Dabirkhane" of the Assembly of Experts. His statement doesn't carry much weight and definitely not a blow to the freedom movement. After all, there are certainly many Khamene'i loyalists in the Assembly of Experts and such comments could be expected from these cowards.

Meanwhile, state controlled tv has taken to calling the protesters "terrorists".

No large rallies were held today, due to the massive police presence.

The Globe and Mail has links to various video snapshots, including that of Neda, a young woman who was shot. The video of her death is becoming a symbol of what's occurring in Iran.

Brief roundup of where things stand now, by Juan Cole. He attributes the lack of protests on Sunday to mourning those killed on Saturday and speculates that the resistance (my words, not his) is just regrouping. Mousavi is calling for more protests on Monday.

Guardian Council says there will be no re-vote and that Ahmadinejad will be sworn in some time between July 26 and August 19. Notable because it's the second or third time they've said there will be no recount. It looks weak.

Meanwhile, Neda, the woman who's death was caught on video, has become a symbol of the movement, even as the government tries to prevent that from happening.