A University of Puget Sound student is in Brooklyn; one of her classmates is in Tehran, where he has spent the last several days joining protests over Iran's apparently rigged election, taking pictures and writing about what he sees. For the purpose of this story, we are calling him Ali Golsar. Explains the woman here in the US:

We've been corresponding between Brooklyn and Tehran which has been proving more and more difficult. Since the elections, cell phone service either cuts out, or is out for days and the internet is routinely shut down and or choppy. In the beginning we could skype with little problems but currently we end up calling over and over again only to hear, nothing or creepy echoes. If he is caught sending critical info outside of Iran, then bye bye. It's something that as Americans we don't understand and then glamorize. People are dragged out of or beaten in their cars while standing in traffic. Dormitories are raided and students are thrown out of their windows. People are arrested left and right. Ali himself had a concussion and encounters with batons in his crotch and smacking his knees.Since the elections I've served as his decorated receptionist/connection in the US for getting news out about Iran (which at times seems a little strange. "Hello, I am calling on behalf of my boyfriend.") We've managed to create a little code for ourselves, which sometimes in frustration will break. I think our 3 AM dreary sports metaphors are likely so thinly veiled, it could be comical to whoever is hearing them on the other end. Though I really shouldn't laugh about it.

Photos and words by Golsar:

All these demonstrations take place in areas sprawled out across Tehran, making it difficult for the police to patrol all the demonstrations without outstretching itself. In northern Tehran, when a handful of baton barring Basiji charge a crowd of 30 protestors-all the men flee while women, conservative or liberal, stand their ground shouting profanities back at the police, “You are not Muslims! God is witness, you are not even men!” However, in southern Tehran, demonstrators are fearless to fight back with whatever means available to them.

More by Golsar after the jump.

Speculation regarding the its legitimacy and images of protests continue to flood the airwaves and the headlines of major international news agencies, while Iran’s Seda-o Seema, the country’s sole government owned television agency, continues to unsuccessfully loll the masses into believing the election was fair and legal-obviously making no note of the arrests of reformist candidates Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi, their hundreds of political advisees, or the sudden shut down of popular reformist newspapers and political websites.

By evening hours throughout the city, scattered smoke clouds from tear gas and burning rubbage—to defuse the potency of the tear gas—clog the already polluted sky of Tehran. Evening prayer called out from loudspeakers at near by mosques are drowned out by the sounds of Police and Basiji militia motorbike squads shouting “Get back into your homes or you’ll get one in the mouth” (while brandishing batons, clubs, 2 by 4s, water hoses, and even short wooden poles detached from souvenir Iranian flags) countered by the sound of car horns from opposition supporters stuck in traffic.

There are no signs that these demonstrations will be stopping anytime soon, and with so much speculation doubting the legitimacy of the Presidential elections and increasing international pressure to investigate the election’s results, everyone is waiting to see what Iran’s political elite will decide to do from here: either annul the elections or continue the unrest.