Updated 12:44 p.m.

President Barack Obama just made a statement on Iran at the White House, saying the Iranian government is operating outside of "international norms" and that he shouldn't have to apologize for criticizing a post-election government crackdown, as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for yesterday.

"The violence perpetrated against [the protesters] is outrageous. In spite of the government's efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it."

Obama spoke at a joint White House appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Read the whole transcript here.

Updated 12:09 p.m.

This photo was just uploaded to Twitter, said to be from today's green balloon protests in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran:

Updated 11:23 a.m.

A group of Iranian bloggers has released a statement condemning crackdowns against protesters and calling on Iranian authorities to bridge a "huge gap between people and the government."

We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people's legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Constitution which emphasizes "Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam."

We consider the violations in the presidential election, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.

Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.

Updated 9:00 a.m.

When Iranian authorities began to restrict foreign journalists' ability to report from inside the country after the disputed June 12 election, millions of people turned to blogs and social media channels to exchange the latest information about what was happening in Iran. However, in recent days, real-time accounts have become increasingly difficult to come by and verify. Some videos and photos have emerged on the web, but many of them appear to be of Saturday's rallies; the last several days have gone largely undocumented.

A typical Tweet making the rounds yesterday encouraged Iranians to film a newspaper showing that day's date to prove that the events captured on film were in fact new.

"Letters from Iran", a blog that has been publishing dispatches from its contacts inside the country, wrote about the situation today.

Information is becoming more and more difficult to obtain and if it wasn't for the incredible courage of just a few which manage still to report live through twitter, endangering themselves dramatically in doing so, we would have no information whatsoever on the unfolding of the situation....

But the flow of information is now so light that it seems it could come to a halt pretty soon. There are very few Photos and videos from the alleged past days events and, as more videos continue to emerge from last Saturday's street fights, it is in most cases impossible to know when and where they were taken.

It is therefore almost impossible to grasp the situation inside Iran right now. A black cloud of death, terror and rage has covered the country.

Our colleagues at Slate believe that the internet may actually be easier for a repressive state to control than organizing methods of the past.

Over the last couple of weeks, those who believe in the transformative powers of technology have pointed to Iran as a test case--one of the first repressive regimes to meet its match in social media, the first revolution powered by Twitter. Even in the early days of the protest, that story line seemed more hopeful than true, as Slate's Jack Shafer, among many others, pointed out.

Since last week, though, when the state began to systematically clamp down on journalists and all communications networks leading out of the country, hope has become much harder to sustain. The conflicting accounts about what happened at Baharestan Square are evidence that Iran's media crackdown is working. The big story in Iran is confusion--on a daily basis, there are more questions than answers about what's really happening, about who's winning and losing, about what comes next. The surprise isn't that technology has given protesters a new voice. It's that, despite all the tech, they've been effectively silenced.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists says roughly 40 journalists have been detained since June 12, most of them working for Iranian news organizations.

--Liz Heron

The BBC has posted a video interview with a doctor who tried to save the life of Neda Agha Soltan after she was shot and killed at a rally on Saturday. Amateur video of Soltan's apparent death has become a YouTube sensation and galvanized the opposition movement.

In the video, Dr. Arash Hejazi relays how bystanders grabbed an armed Basij militiaman who appeared to admit to killing Soltan.

Widely cited Twitterer IranBaan said that visitors to Soltan's grave today were chased off and in some cases detained. The Post has not independently verified this.

A group of people went to Neda's grave today but the forces didn't let them stay or even pray....Today on Neda's grave whoever had a green sign got arrested right away.

Reports surfaced yesterday that authorities forced Soltan's family to leave their apartment in east Tehran.

Updated 1:34 p.m.

A report in The Nation by an Iranian journalist (writing under the pseudonym Babak Sarfaraz) suggests that Hashemi Rafsanjani is making behind-the-scenes moves against Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani is the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which has the authority to appoint and remove the supreme leader from office.

According to a well-placed source in the holy city of Qom, Rafsanjani is working furiously behind the scenes to call for an emergency meeting of the Khobregan, or Assembly of Experts--the elite all-cleric body that can unseat the Supreme Leader or dilute his prerogatives. The juridical case against Khamenei would involve several counts. First, he would be charged with countenancing a coup d'état--albeit a bloodless one--without consulting with the Khobregan. Second, he would stand accused of deceitfully plotting to oust Rafsanjani--who is the Khobregan chairman and nominally the country's third-most-important authority--from his positions of power. Third, he would be said to have threatened the very stability of the republic with his ambition and recklessness.

Rafsanjani's purported plan is to replace Khamenei's one-person dictatorship with a Leadership Council composed of three or more high-ranking clerics; this formula was proposed and then abandoned in 1989 by several prominent clerics. Rafsanjani will likely recommend giving a seat to Khamenei on the council to prevent a violent backlash by his fanatic loyalists. It is not clear if Rafsanjani will have the backing of the two-thirds of the chamber members needed for such a change, though the balance of forces within the Khobregan could be tipped by the events unfolding in the streets. As a symbolic gesture, Rafsanjani is said to favor holding the meeting in Qom--the nation's religious center, which Khamenei has diminished--rather than in Tehran, where it has been held before.

The Nation's account jibes with sections of the report from Tehran Bureau, quoted in our earlier update:

There is report that Rafsanjani has succeeded to get the signatures and support of many of the high clerics in Qom denouncing the election. If they openly denounce the election that could be a colossal blow to the supreme leader, and the much diminished legitimacy of the institution of Velayat-e Faqih and his authority.

Updated 12:33 p.m.

The independent Tehran Bureau, founded by Iranian-born journalist Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, is reporting that a compromise runoff vote may be possible in Iran. The site acknowledges that the story is unconfirmed -- and that even if true, the situation could change rapidly-- but says it comes from sources they consider reliable. The Post has not independently verified the report.

Tehran Bureau quotes Mehdi Noorbaksh of the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology:

There is a possibility, and I am saying a possibility, for a compromise on the election result among the involved parties in Iran in the next couple of days. I received a call from Iran late last night indicating that there is a possibility for a runoff between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad.

Noorbaksh notes several factors that could lend support to such a theory, including reports of divisions within the Revolutionary Guard, and the emerging outlines of a political coalition against Ahmadinejad.

As The Post's Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin reported this morning:

The influential head of Iran's parliament, former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, joined other political figures in refusing to attend a dinner organized by Ahmadinejad, the opposition newspaper Etemaad-e Melli reported. Larijani has criticized the government's vilification of Mousavi and is encouraging state television to give him airtime to explain his views.

Another influential politician, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, also spoke out against official denunciations of opposition supporters as "anti-revolutionaries," a loaded term in Iran used for enemies of the state. Iranians who took to the streets June 15 "were part of the people, part of the voters, and they had doubts on the election," the Mehr News Agency quoted Ghalibaf as saying. "All of their slogans were in support of the system and the revolution, even though wrongful accusations were made about this. Everything must be explained to the people; you can't solve anything with force and violence."

Top government officials, however, continued to take a hard line on the protests.

Updated 9:15

More than 180 Iranian members of Parliament (called MPs in British parlance) didn't come to the victory party for disputed presidential election winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to local press reports in Tehran, the BBC says.

All 290 MPs were invited to the victory party on Wednesday night, but only 105 turned up, the reports say. A BBC correspondent says the move is a sign of the deep split at the top of Iran after disputed presidential polls.

Meanwhile, Omid Habibinia, a widely cited Iranian journalist and blogger currently living in Switzerland, is reporting through Twitter that more protests, in Tehran's Enghelab Square and elsewhere, are being met with violent crackdowns today:

Gunshots being heard from Enghelab St..... Reports: A group of youth gathering behing Police Blockage at Jamalzadeh Junc. trowing stones.... Gunshots being Heard from Karegar Jonobi St, Near Enghlab SQ (Central Tehran).... Clashes at Vali Asr Cr. People Shouthing: Death to Khameni.... Somebody Wrote Me I will be in Demo Soon, If I Shoot Dead Please Pay for "Bullets Fee" and Take my Body Out!... Army Helicopters Flying Over Protesters at Enghelab Sq.... Reports:Anti-Riot Policr at Enghelab SQ now facing in two directions fighting two sides.

Due to restrictions on foreign reporters in Iran, The Post cannot verify the authenticity of these reports.

--Liz Heron

According to an un-bylined report on The Guardian's Web site, Iranian authorities have forced the family of Neda Agha Soltan to leave their apartment in east Tehran. Amateur video of Soltan's apparent death at a rally on Saturday has become a YouTube sensation and galvanized the opposition movement, as The Post's Thomas Erdbrink wrote yesterday.

According to The Guardian,

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbors said.

"We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat," a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.

The Post has not confirmed the details of The Guardian report. According to Erdbrink's story, BBC Persian, a Web site run by the BBC in Farsi, quoted a man it described as Agha Soltan's fiance as saying that her body was buried "in a small area in the Zahra Cemetery in the late afternoon" on Sunday.

The video that turned Soltan into an icon of the opposition can be seen here. But be forewarned, the footage is unedited and very graphic.

According to The Post's Jose Antonio Vargas's story on how the Iranian protests have played out online, a Wikipedia page about Soltan created late Saturday night has been edited hundreds of times since it was posted.

--Liz Heron

Witnesses are giving more details about security forces forcibly breaking up a demonstration at the parliament building, according to The Post's Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, who write that regular police, riot police and members of a special force known as the "Robocops" for their full body armor and special equipment converged on Baharestan Square to prevent a demonstration from taking shape.

In one confrontation between protesters and Basij members, a middle-aged woman wearing a light-blue headscarf and a black coat angrily refused orders to leave. "I'm going to stay here and see how many people you kill today," she told the Basij. A plainclothes agent emerged from the crowd, swore at the woman and took out a pair of handcuffs to arrest her. Other people tried to stop the agent, but Basij members rushed them and beat them with clubs, the witness said.

In addition to protesters, bystanders were caught up in the violence:

At a corner of Republic Street, a main center for printing shops, a young engaged couple fled into an alley to escape a charge by club-wielding security forces. "Why are they attacking me?" the frightened woman cried. "I only came here to print my wedding cards!"

A new video purporting to be footage from a rally today in Tehran is making the rounds on YouTube. The footage shows a chaotic and violent scene: black smoke billows from a fire burning in the street as a large crowd gathers. In a subsequent clip, an injured, possibly deceased, man is carried by his hands and feet through the streets. Words in Farsi scrolling across the screen (roughly translated by The Post's Tara Bahrampour) refer to "martyrs" killed by the pro-government Basij militia. As with other amateur videos emerging on YouTube from Iran, the footage is unedited and graphic, and The Post cannot vouch for its authenticity.

If you or someone you know is inside Iran and can give us more details on the scene at the protests, contact us in the comments section below or on Twitter using the hashtag #insideTehran.

Check out our earlier coverage for more on violence being reported today.

--Liz Heron

Updated 2:30 p.m.

BNO News Wire is reporting that Iran's election committee found no irregularities in the vote and confirmed that Ahmadinejad won the June 12 presidential election.

According to the wire service, the committee says it finished a recount conducted in the presence of representatives of defeated conservative candidate Mohsen Rezaei.

Iranian state television reported that Rezaei is dropping his complaints about the voting for the sake of the country, according to the latest update from The Post's Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin:

"The [current] political, social and security situation has entered a sensitive and decisive phase, which is more important than the election," Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, said in a letter to the Guardian Council, which oversees Iranian elections. Rezai finished third in the voting with 1.7 percent, according to the official tally released by the Interior Ministry.

--Liz Heron

Updated 1:51 p.m.

A video making the rounds on YouTube purporting to be footage from a rally today in Tehran shows a chaotic and violent scene: black smoke billows from a fire burning in the street as a large crowd gathers. In a subsequent scene, an injured, possibly deceased, man is carried by his hands and feet through the streets. Words in Farsi scrolling across the screen (roughly translated by The Post's Tara Bahrampour) refer to "martyrs" killed by the pro-government Basij militia. As with other amateur videos emerging on YouTube from Iran, the footage is unedited and graphic, and The Post cannot vouch for its authenticity.

Updated 1:13 p.m.

A female student speaking to CNN's Ivan Watson from inside Iran described a brutal crackdown in which protesters were "beaten like animals."

Hours after Iran's supreme leader decried "bullying" by those protesting the disputed reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, security forces used clubs and tear gas to disperse demonstrators gathered outside of Iran's Parliament, report The Post's Thomas Erdbrink, William Branigin and Debbi Wilgoren.

One witness told CNN that at a Tehran square where demonstrators had planned to protest, police beat people like "animals." Another CNN source said security forces were waiting for the protesters. "They all have guns and riot uniforms. It was like a mouse trap," the source said. "I see many people with broken arms, legs, heads -- blood everywhere -- pepper gas like war."

A reliable source on Twitter is linking to this video, headlined as footage of today's protests in Tehran.

A report (in Farsi) published on the Web site of the organization Human Rights Activists of Iran said the scene was one of "naked violence," with riot police using tear gas and shooting in the air to break up the protests staged by supporters of Ahmadinejad's rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Several reliable sources on Twitter are pointing to this video uploaded to YouTube that appears to show Iranian security forces beating protesters. It is not clear whether the video was shot today, but it's consistent with witness reports of clashes happening this week in Tehran.

If you or someone you know is inside Iran and can give us more details on the scene at the protests, contact us in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #insideTehran.

-Liz Heron

The independent Tehran Bureau, founded by Iranian-born journalist Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, is leading the site with this editorial cartoon.

A day after 25 Iranian journalists and two foreign reporters were detained in Iran, as The Post's Tara Bahrampour reports, news from Iran is continuing to leak out via the Internet through Iranians turned professional observers.

Tuesday in Iran appeared quiet in contrast to the massive protests on Saturday by those who oppose disputed presidential election winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The BBC, which has been relying on e-mails and other material sent in by viewers to keep track of the situation in Iran, has a selection of comments from Iranians across the country reporting "streets full of security forces to prevent protests against the disputed presidential election results."

Susan, a 24-year-old student in Tehran, says, "Security forces are placed strategically around Tehran to prevent people gathering. There have been no organized demonstrations since Saturday."

Hossein, in Esfahan, wrote via e-mail, "I think young people are more fearless now because they hadn't seen any street fights or resistance against the government before. Now they know what it's like, they are getting used to it."

In a blog post making the Twitter rounds today called "Why We Protest", blogger "NiteOwl" compiled information from those he considers reliable Tweeters inside Iran who said that Tehran was "literally crawling with Basijis and police" yesterday.

The BBC also posted two amateur videos that appear to show police crackdowns on Tuesday, one in which a man is being herded and beaten by police, and another in which police seem to kick protesters on the street.

Despite yesterday's relative quiet, The New York Times' The Lede Blog is reporting that according to Iranian blogger and journalist Omid Habibinia, an opposition rally is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Tehran time (8 a.m. in Washington) in front of the Parliament building and five other locations.

--Liz Heron