Iranian protests began over a disputed election only seventeen days ago. A “do-over” was all that the demonstrators really wanted. It is absolutely astonishing how radically their collective concept of governance has changed in that short time, refined in the crucible of the regime’s bloody brutality.

The insightful world affairs journalist and author Frida Ghitis describes the current mood — Theocracy mortally hurt:

Soon after Iranian authorities declared that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election, Iran’s most powerful man, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei summed up the result of the vote as a “divine assessment,” meaning God’s candidate had triumphed. Not all Iranians shared this view, as the drying blood on Tehran’s streets now attests.

That’s just one of the problems with theocracy. Who gets to decide what God wants?

To anyone contemplating the adoption of Iran-style government for their country, the system today looks much less appealing.

More than 200 years ago, the concept of separation of church and state gained a foothold in the Americas. A Muslim version of the idea will now find increasingly fertile ground in Middle Eastern soil….

It is impossible to know what will transpire in Iran in the coming days and weeks. What is certain is that Iranian-style theocracy has become much less appealing to Muslims seeking more representative government. Political Islam has suffered a serious wound….

It defies credulity that rulers who butcher their citizens with axes are acting on a mandate from the God who created them.

Grand Ayatollah Sistani today talked against the Islamic regime and gave his old Fetva that religion and politics should not mix.

Meanwhile, supporters of questionably defeated presidential candidates Mousavi and Karoubi are planning to form a human chain across Tehran at 6PM this afternoon, from Rajrish Square to Raah-Ahan Square.

Also, some of the teen-age protesters who have been tortured and released are telling their stories. In prison, they are continuously beaten, and have their fingers broken and the flesh webbing between fingers cut.

Families of the missing form a crowd outside the gates of Evin Prison. When a tortured body is released from the morgue, the family is forced to pay a “bullet fee” of several thousand dollars to reclaim the body for burial. Also, they are forbidden to hold a funeral ceremony or bury the body in Tehran. All the mosques in Tehran have been ordered to refuse such services.

According to reports coming out of Iran, Omidvar Rezaei, brother of third place presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, has noted that in some precincts 70% to 80% of the ballots are written with the same pen and in the same handwriting. Also, in 50 of Iran’s 366 precincts, voter turnout exceeded 100%, while across the country and diaspora, it was reported at 85%. Two scholarly analyses so far extant include:

• University of St. Andrews
• University of Michigan

But it doesn’t take a statistician to know that something is fishy. Just look at the first column of numbers in this precinct tally sheet:

Meanwhile, new media technology continues to thwart the Iranian theocracy’s attempt to control information flowing in and out of the country — Persian Station in Britain Rattles Officials in Iran:

….an archaic political system has been shaken by the use of powerful new weapons: foreign-based satellite television channels like the BBC’s that beam their signals into Iran, social networking tools like Twitter and sites like Facebook that act as running diaries on the upheaval and as forums for coordinating protest activities, and cellphone videos that have captured the confrontation in Tehran for worldwide audiences, perhaps most importantly in Iran itself….

Update, 6PM: Evin prison is full. Arrested demonstrators are now being taken to the football stadiums at Zendan Ghasr and at Karaj (20 km west of Tehran) and to the Sepah (Revolutionary Guard) headquarters.

In an effort to thwart communication among the citizens, the regime cut electricity and phone lines in most parts of Tehran today, beginning in Vanak.