The End of the Mullahocracy?

The upheaval continues in Iran, with the daughter and four other kin of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who ran unsuccessfully for a third term against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, arrested by Iranian authorities. Rafsanjani is also chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which names the Supreme Leader.

But if there's any threat to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, it's the gruesome images that are leaking out of Iran despite how hard they try to keep a lid on citizen and accredited media coverage. This video (beware: very graphic content) of a teenage girl who was apparently shot and killed by the Basij (paramilitary forces loyal to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad) is spreading like wildfire across the web tonight. Her name was Neda, and Iran Press News has a photo of her and more on the tragedy in Farsi. The video of her death, which is very difficult to watch, stands to have even more impact than the Economist cover of Ahmad Batebi in 1999 -- a photo that got Batebi thrown in prison and tortured for years.

Iranian blogger Lebasshakhsi is capturing and posting photos of the Basij armed with all manner of weapons, unleashing on their fellow Iranians.

And more bad news: Amir, an Iranian blogger and photojournalist at Tehran Live whose stunning early images of the protests I recommended in an earlier post on this blog, has gone missing. His comments sections are filling with comments from worried readers. His last post was Wednesday.