A peek into the life of an Iranian blogger

Today at the Friday prayers in Tehran something very strange happened. As usual, the mullahs required the congregation to scream out "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" but the determined revolutionaries shouted out "Death to Russia" and "Death to China". Please Note UPDATE: July 18: This blogger is not in Iran, although his origins are Iranian. He is a conduit for other bloggers and friends in Iran who pass on their experiences to him. I found a reference to this Iranian blogger on Twitter and his narrative of the events of today make compulsive reading. Here are some bits: "The crowds were massive. But one other difference was that there were guards everywhere. It would definitely be harder now to speak up in unison. I didn’t want to get beaten up, so I shut my mouth and went further to Taleghani St. It was the same story throughout. Hoards and hoards of security guards everywhere. I could make out voices, but the dominant voice all around was coming from Taghavi [the speaker who went to the podium before Rafsanjani]. As I was walking, one of the militias turned to me and said: “Hello!” And I was startled to see how everyone had changed today. I had only gone a few steps further when I suddenly heard people chanting loudly: zendaniyeh siyasi azad bayad gardad [Free the political prisoners]. Everyone was chanting this. I suddenly realized everyone there was on our side!" "The man in charge of leading the chants loudly asks the participants to say Death to Israel and Death to America, Death to Britain but people respond with Death to Russia! He also invites them to say the blood in our veins is a gift to our leader but they respond with the blood in our veins is a gift to our nation." "After the sermon, we got up to pray. And we suddenly noticed how cozy everyone had become [Many leading clerics believe that men and women should not stand side to side when praying (Sane’i is amongst those who doesn’t). But today, they were praying next to each other which is unprecedented]." Vid where you can hear people rebelliously shouting "Death to Russia" and "Death to China" instead of "Death to Isreal". blog here