Iran Election Unrest

The elections in Iran in early June have led to prolonged protests, with many thousands demonstrating in the streets of Teheran. Worldwide attention has been focused, making a potentially notable moment in global consciousness space. This is a long-drawn-out event, and we have selected a particularly powerful time to represent the reaction to the elections. On the 19th of June, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers and used the platform for a strong condemnation of the protesters and a call for acceptance of the democratic election. He also attacked foreign governments for meddling in Iranian affairs, singling out the UK for special mention. Leaders of the opposition called for people to go to the steets again in their "green revolution" to continue the protest and demand a nullification and repeat election. Violence has escalated and it is alleged that "thugs" have been imported by the government to attack the protesters. Several more people have been killed including a woman named Neda, apparently a bystander, whose death was video recorded and instantly transmitted to world, becoming a symbol of the ongoing tragedy.

The GCP prediction was set for 13:00 local time, when Khomenei's speech was set, followed by a 24 hour period that might capture much of the intense reaction. The result is 86944.702 on 86400 df, for p = 0.095 and Z = 1.309. The data history graph shows a strong deviation beginning an hour or so after the speech.

Iran Election
Unrest

It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.


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