Iran

Editor's Note: GlobalPost correspondent Iason Athanasiadis reported on the demonstrations in Iran. He was arrested in Tehran and held in jail for three weeks. In his first piece for GlobalPost since his release, Athanasiadis writes of fellow journalists who have been jailed.

I noticed the image as I scrolled down my Facebook page and it chilled me to the bone. Staring back at me from the screen was a younger version of me flanked by two Iranian photographer friends, in a personal photograph taken almost three years ago.

Though street demonstrations in Tehran have largely died out under the government's strict security measures, Iran's protest movement is gearing up for a big showing at Friday prayers this week – an action that would mark the hijacking of a conservative bastion by the media-savvy opposition.

In Iran, the burial Monday of 19-year-old student Sohrab Erabi has caused a fresh flood of sympathy similar to that occasioned by the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death at a protest last month was caught on video and watched by millions around the world.

Female flight attendants in head scarves had begun attending to passengers inside the Iran Air aircraft bound for Dubai. But as long as the plane remained on the tarmac, I couldn't feel free.

What began as a planned, weeklong trip to cover Iran's presidential elections had turned into a monthlong saga that included nearly three weeks of solitary confinement and a final indignity: a night in a jail cell at the airport for no apparent reason. Perhaps an alternative power center ordered that I be kept, or the same faction that had decided to release me had second thoughts.

Iason Athansiadis, a journalist reporting from Iran on a grant from the Pulitzer Center, has been in Iranian custody since June 17. The Greek government has taken the lead in efforts to secure his release. The article below, written for Salon by University of Southern California professor Sandy Tolan, tells of Iason's remarkable career and why he has touched so many people, in journalism and beyond.

Kelly Mallahan, Pulitzer Center

UPDATED: Iason was visited by the Greek ambassador in Iran's Evin Prison on Thursday.

Iran's guardians of the Islamic revolution struck back Tuesday by sending thousands of supporters of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the streets and ordering foreign journalists to stay indoors.

But rival rallies quickly turned the capital into a schizophrenic panorama of competing demonstrations.

Backers of Mr. Ahmadinejad filled the screens of state-run television while supporters of rival candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took over Vali Asr Avenue, the city's north-south spine, for the second consecutive day.

Based on his resume, Mir Hossein Mousavi is an unlikely hero to have sparked the massive protests that have paralyzed Iran's capital since presidential elections Friday ended in allegations of fraud.

A supporter of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, Mr. Mousavi was Iran's prime minister in the 1980s when the nation revived a nuclear program that now worries its neighbors and the West.

In an outpouring of people power not seen here since the 1979 Iranian revolution, tens of thousands of Iranians marched through the streets of Tehran on Monday to protest allegations that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election through massive fraud.

Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who many here think was the real victor of Friday's elections, emerged from seclusion for the first time since the vote to address the crowd, which was estimated to number as many as 1.5 million people.

Iason Athanasiadis, for the Pulitzer Center

Tehran tensed itself for more violence on Monday as the Iranian government denied opposition politician Mir Hossein Mousavi a permit to hold an opposition rally and Iranian state media reported that any attendees will be arrested and charged with "incitement".

Iason Athanasiadis, for the Pulitzer Center

Despite being in his late thirties, Shahram Khanalizadeh had never voted in an election until last Friday. But when he entered a humble polling station in a South Tehran mosque, he dabbed his finger in ink and voted for reformist candidate Mir Mohammad Mousavi.