A citizen's guide to monitoring Iran

Ideas, thoughts, and resources from the permanently curious.

Living

World

Politics

A citizen's guide to monitoring Iran (7/7/09)

In "Iran Goes on Strike", Reza Aslan talks of the big demonstration planned for July 9th in Iran and recalled the words of a Mousavi aide: "please tell the Western media to keep paying attention to us. Please let them know that if they are watching, fewer of us will be killed. It is when America stops paying attention that the regime loses all restraint."

I don't have control over the media, but I do know a thing or two about unorthodox predictors that will tell if things are happening in Iran even when the news orgs and social media aren't able to. All of these can display information about disruptions to the norm, and the webcams could even show pictures of those disruptions. It's important to remember not to get hyped up over just one of them though. Odds are good we'll see traffic jams in Tehran on a normal day, for instance. Many of these must show problems before we can conclude something big is happening.

Note: There are legitimate concerns for posting all of this. These sites may be taken down and the people behind them imprisoned, or worse. I've tried to stick to commercial entities for that reason, and as far as the sites being taken down, I hope they do. The government would knock itself back to the pre-internet days, and that'd have to be a sign of how illegitimate they really are. That isn't an excuse to DOS them though. The only intervention we've been asked to do is observe. If the Iranians want more we'll hear from one of their leaders.

Note #2: Information in Farsi is usually more complete than the English information provided, so use Google Translate's Persian Alpha service.

In addition to the Green Brief (the latest is usually a sticky there) and Twitter, here's what I'm watching:

Iran's Media
Some newspapers aren't government controlled and hence might be able to sneak some things through. Here is a good list of newspapers in Iran. In particular try Aftab e Yazd, Andisha e No, Etemad e Melli, Khabar, Hambastegy Hayat e No, and Seday e Edalet. All have been censored already for trying to get the news out.

Radio is more limited. Most FM, AM, SW and TV stations are controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). Still, breaking news is breaking news and these stations did provide some of the first confirmations of the Azadi Square protests in Tehran, though they said the protestors had been attacking a military installation. Also, Radio Arazel seems to be a pirate station that does a weekly podcast and has managed one since the election.

Stock Market
Markets are funny things. Investors get jittery and/or excited over anything and if they act as a group, as they would for any large scale incident, the market will change. Take the Tehran Stock Exchange as an example. Choose the "Primary" index and then scroll down and set the dropdown above the chart to "Recent Month". You'll see something like this:

See that fall after June 10th? That's the protests. June 14th, when Mousavi lodged his official protest to the results, the market dropped 52 points, which is the 5th largest drop this year.

Internet Traffic
Changes to Iran's internet architecture after the election have been noted by Arbour (1, 2) and Renesys (1). 24-hour statistics for three of the core Iranian internet routers are available:

fe0-0.bbr1.bahar.kimianet.ir
gi0-1.thr-001-core-1.ctel.ir
router1.iust.ac.ir

Tor also saw a huge increase in traffic from Iran (1, 2). Ian put together a good intro to Tor and if you install it in Relay or Bridge mode you can watch the bandwidth graph to see how much your computer is being used for the network.

Traffic congestion
Traffic congestion in Tehran is available and would get worse if the streets are blocked by protestors. I especially like the map.

Plane/Ship/Train arrivals and delays
Flight information is available for two airports that serve Tehran: Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA/OIIE) and Mehrabad Airport (THR/OIII).

IKA	THR
Arrivals	Arrivals
Departures	Departures

All of Iran's ports are controlled by one organization. Voyage schedules can be viewed on GCOMS by following the Voyage Schedule link under shortcuts in the upper right. Leave the "From Date" as it is and open the calendar for the "To Date." Choose the "Today" button and then the "Close" button, which will exit the calendar. Click the "View" button.

Train info wasn't available from Raja. I don't know if there are other ways to get it.

Conferences
Check websites of current conferences for last minute changes or cancelations to avoid large demonstrations and the like. Here are the websites for the large conference venues and companies:

Isfahan Int'l Exhibition Center
Isfahan Int'l Exhibition Company - Has events in July.
IRIB Conference Center - livecast (currently down)
Kish International Exhibition Center
Mashad Fair Grounds
Tehran Permanent Fairground

Webcams
All the webcams, including the traffic cams in Tehran, are down at the time of this writing - though they may be down due to lateness of the day (see Time in Tehran), the holiday, or the elephant in the room. Here are the traffic cams:

http://www.iranesabz.com/ttcc.php
http://www.adsdot.net/ttraffic.html
http://www.tehrantraffic.com/liveCamera.asp

Others (also down): Isfahan University, Artificial Intelligence Rise Co.

Schedules
Having a great deal of difficulty finding these. Justices and court websites are listed here, but translating all the pages to find a link to the court schedules seems a bit fruitless. Anyone want to help? Email me.