Friday
Aug142009
The Latest from Iran (14 August): Just Another Prayer Day?
Friday, August 14, 2009 at 9:30
NEW Text: Latest Karroubi Statement on Detainees, Rafsanjani, and Larijani (13 August)
NEW Is the Challenge to the Regime Alive? Pressure on the Supreme Leader
NEW Is the Challenge to the Regime Alive? Karroubi, Rafsanjani, and Detainees
NEW Video: Debating the Election, Protest, and the Tehran Trials (Marandi, Mossavat, and Tisdall)
The Latest from Iran (13 August): The Challenge Rebuilds
Two Months On: All Our Videos From Iran’s Post-Election Conflict
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2025 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz, which has been very active today in portraying division within the Government, leaves another explosive story tonight. It claims that a member of Parliament from the "majority (conservative) faction" has "revealed that Hossein Fadaii, Tehran’s pro-Ahmadinejad MP and chairman of [the hardline pro-Ahmadinejad organisation] Isargaran was responsible for the crimes committed in Kahrizak prison [where some detainees were killed] and this has been proven for the Parliament".
2005 GMT: Another ominous (and official) signal. The political director of the Revolutionary Guard, General Yudollah Javani, has reissued the threat to arrest opposition leaders. Having sent out the message in the Guard's journal last week, Javani said yesterday that prosecution of Mir Hossein Mousavi would end opposition and the “blow that has been dealt to the prestige of the establishment.”
After criticising Mohammad Khatami, Javani identified his main target: "This flame of sedition cannot be put out unless through clarifying and trying the real elements [of the movement]. Mousavi should stand before the court to be enlightened.”
2000 GMT: All day there has been Twitter chatter about leaflets, circulated at Friday prayers in Tehran, calling for an attack on the main office of Etemade Melli, the party of Mehdi Karroubi, tomorrow at 4 p.m. local time.
Mowj-e-Sabz, the website of the Green movement, has picked up the story, saying that the leaflets were circulated by Ansar-e Hezbollah on the fringes of the prayer meeting. It notes websites and Facebook pages calling for Green activists to show up at the office.
1700 GMT: Another Rift in Parliament. This time it's over the post-election death toll. Press TV is reporting:
1440 GMT: An Important Friday Prayer Correction. Ahmed Khatami did name one of the "enemies" doing the Devil's work in his address. He referred to the now-famous and very significant letter from Mehdi Karroubi, which has alleged abuse of detainees, claiming that it was a "letter of diversion" doing "the work of the USA and Israel". Khatami said Iran's judiciary explicitly ruled that the claims were a lie, a Parliamentar special committee said that the claims were a lie, "so all this article said is a lie".
1355 GMT: An EA correspondent offers the following, based on Mowj-e-Sabz, on the delay of Mohammad Sadegh Larijani's appointment as head of Iran's judiciary (1220 GMT):
1350 GMT: Fereshteh Ghazi reports that "several Majlis lawmakers confirmed...reports", raised in Mehdi Karroubi's letter, of sexual abuse of detainees; "they added, however, that they had been banned from discussing the matter".
1320 GMT: The "reformist" site Norooz News is reporting that President Ahmadinejad and his supporters tabled a proposal for the arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi and "10 other leaders of the reform movement", including some unspecified members of the reformist association Rowhaniooon Mobarez, at the National Security Council. The plan was pushed through, despite opposition within the Council, but then shelved by the "highest authorities of state" (a likely reference to the Supreme Leader) as this could lead to the "collapse of the political system".
1255 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz, the website of the Green movement, claims, from "an informed source in the Ministry of Science", that Tehran University and other universities will be closed this semester to prevent student protests.
1220 GMT: Iranian Labor News Agency reports that the installation of Mohammad Sadegh Larijani as head of Iran's judiciary (see separate entry), scheduled for tomorrow, has been delayed. No rescheduled time has been announced.
1105 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi's website Ghalam News is down. There is concern that this may be that may be in the aftermath of an attack by hackers.
1045 GMT: It appears that the Fars report (1030 GMT) downplayed the references to the opposition in Ahmed Khatami's Friday prayer address. Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting summarises the speech as a call to Iranians to maintain their "consciousness of conspiracy". Khatami said that people "now know the enemy of the Islamic system" with its "tales of war and the arrogance of the government".
1040 GMT: Reuters, however, does give an indication of Khatami's specific attention to the post-election crisis and, significantly, the issues of detainees and trials: "Iranians expect the judiciary to act strongly and firmly and not to yield to Western pressure [to release detainees]."
As we predicted in our first update this morning (0630 GMT), "[Khatami's address will be] an important clue that the regime may refuse to give any ground. If so, that could be a significant blunder.....It won’t be a question of how many protestors come out on the streets today. It will be a question of how many are brought out on future days by the regime’s continued intransigence."
1030 GMT: Fars News has posted its summary of Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami's Friday prayer address. Khatami spoke of "the devil's methods" of creating differences between people. Khatami referred to Satan's "working tools and facilities" to justify sin, guilt, and humiliation and to make the devout forget God.
Khatami, at least in Fars' summary, did not specify who exactly were the "working tools and facilities" of the devil, leaving it to listeners to draw their own conclusions.
0845 GMT: The Iraq Dimension? Tabnak reports, from "an informed source close to Hashemi Rafsanjani", that Rafsanjani recently met Seyed Abdolaziz Hakim, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, in Hakim's house in north Tehran.
Ostensibly, Rafsanjani visited to enquire about the health of Hakim, who has been in Iran for a year for treatment of cancer. However, Tabnak's source said that Rafsanjani also stressed that it was essential that, at this time, the Iraqis should maintain their unity in forming a new Shia coalition.
The big question, however, is not what was discussed about Iraq's politics but about Iran's in the meeting, which also included Hakim's son, Seyed Mohsen Hakim. The encounter follows the intervention of Iraq-based Ayatollah Ali Sistani, with its oblique criticism of Iran's Supreme Leader, and reported meetings between Rafsanjani and Sistani earlier in the post-election crisis.
0630 GMT: This Friday opens with a strange sense of uncertainty. Thursday may have been a relatively quiet one in this crisis, but it still introduced three issues that may or may not mark a new phase in the challenge to the Iranian regime. Two of these, each of which could be turn into high political drama, are being considered in separate analyses: 1) "Karroubi, Rafsanjani, and Detainees" and 2) "New Move Against the Supreme Leader?"
The third issue, the developments in and around Friday prayers in Tehran, will be tracked in our updates. Hashemi Rafsanjani may no longer be leading the prayers, but the withdrawal does not reduce today to a non-event. To the contrary, Green movement activists are calling for a show of protest. And then there is the presence of the "replacement" leader of prayers, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami.
Khatami has already make his mark in this post-election crisis when he called from the prayer platform for harsh treatment, including the death penalty, for demonstrators. And yesterday, speaking to the clerics of the Political-Ideological Organization of the Ministry of Defense, he turned his attention to one of the "ringleaders", Mehdi Karroubi, and his letter alleging mistreatment of detainees:
Interpretation? First, Khatami's statement is a tip-off that, as we noted in our separate analysis this morning, the regime is feeling the pressure from Karroubi's letter, especially now that Hashemi Rafsanjani has used it to get a response from the judiciary.
But second, and more important, this is an important clue that the regime may refuse to give any ground. If so, that could be a significant blunder. At several points in this crisis, Iranian leaders could have eased the situation by offering some concession to the demands of protestors. And on each occasion --- the Supreme Leader's prayer address on 19 June; the refusal to sanction any demonstration as legal; the mis-handling of the Guardian Council's "recount" of the vote; the uncertain response to the "40th Day" memorial on 30 July; the insistence on holding the Tehran trails--- those leaders have not only refused to take even a minor step towards compromise, they have shaken a fist at the opposition.
Now, as the regime is faced once more with a possibile avenue to a settlement --- this time over the treatment of detainees --- Ahmed Khatami is indicating that the reply of "No" will be shouted out. If he does so from his Friday prayer platform today, it won't be a question of how many protestors come out on the streets today. It will be a question of how many are brought out on future days by the regime's continued intransigence.
NEW Is the Challenge to the Regime Alive? Pressure on the Supreme Leader
NEW Is the Challenge to the Regime Alive? Karroubi, Rafsanjani, and Detainees
NEW Video: Debating the Election, Protest, and the Tehran Trials (Marandi, Mossavat, and Tisdall)
The Latest from Iran (13 August): The Challenge Rebuilds
Two Months On: All Our Videos From Iran’s Post-Election Conflict
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
2025 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz, which has been very active today in portraying division within the Government, leaves another explosive story tonight. It claims that a member of Parliament from the "majority (conservative) faction" has "revealed that Hossein Fadaii, Tehran’s pro-Ahmadinejad MP and chairman of [the hardline pro-Ahmadinejad organisation] Isargaran was responsible for the crimes committed in Kahrizak prison [where some detainees were killed] and this has been proven for the Parliament".
2005 GMT: Another ominous (and official) signal. The political director of the Revolutionary Guard, General Yudollah Javani, has reissued the threat to arrest opposition leaders. Having sent out the message in the Guard's journal last week, Javani said yesterday that prosecution of Mir Hossein Mousavi would end opposition and the “blow that has been dealt to the prestige of the establishment.”
After criticising Mohammad Khatami, Javani identified his main target: "This flame of sedition cannot be put out unless through clarifying and trying the real elements [of the movement]. Mousavi should stand before the court to be enlightened.”
2000 GMT: All day there has been Twitter chatter about leaflets, circulated at Friday prayers in Tehran, calling for an attack on the main office of Etemade Melli, the party of Mehdi Karroubi, tomorrow at 4 p.m. local time.
Mowj-e-Sabz, the website of the Green movement, has picked up the story, saying that the leaflets were circulated by Ansar-e Hezbollah on the fringes of the prayer meeting. It notes websites and Facebook pages calling for Green activists to show up at the office.
1700 GMT: Another Rift in Parliament. This time it's over the post-election death toll. Press TV is reporting:
A senior lawmaker says he will put forth a detailed list of those who were killed in the street violence. Morteza Alviri, a...member of the special committee investigating the death and detention of election protestors, said he would list all individuals killed in the demonstrations that spiraled out of control....
His remarks come only days after Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Head of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said the committee's list of the death toll had been proven “inconclusive”.
1440 GMT: An Important Friday Prayer Correction. Ahmed Khatami did name one of the "enemies" doing the Devil's work in his address. He referred to the now-famous and very significant letter from Mehdi Karroubi, which has alleged abuse of detainees, claiming that it was a "letter of diversion" doing "the work of the USA and Israel". Khatami said Iran's judiciary explicitly ruled that the claims were a lie, a Parliamentar special committee said that the claims were a lie, "so all this article said is a lie".
1355 GMT: An EA correspondent offers the following, based on Mowj-e-Sabz, on the delay of Mohammad Sadegh Larijani's appointment as head of Iran's judiciary (1220 GMT):
Larijani's inauguration has been delayed because he has requested the complete termination of judicial inquiries and investigations of political prisoners arrested after June 12 before he assumes office. According to the prosecutor general, Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, Larijani wants to start with a clean slate, and this request was taken to the Supreme leader.
To an extent, this can be seen as a joint effort by the Larijanis, Ali and Mohammad Sadegh, to distance themselves from Ahmadinejad and avoid being lumped together with him. Given the ostensible closeness between Ali and Sadegh, I expect Ahmadinejad to be in for a bumpy ride in Parliament should he bethe reason for Sadegh's delayed start as head of judiciary.
The article adds, however, that Mohammad Sadegh has a lot of opponents within the Qom seminary system, who have raised doubts on his theological prowess and on whether he can actually run the judiciary in an impartial way given his young age and thin academic profile.
1350 GMT: Fereshteh Ghazi reports that "several Majlis lawmakers confirmed...reports", raised in Mehdi Karroubi's letter, of sexual abuse of detainees; "they added, however, that they had been banned from discussing the matter".
1320 GMT: The "reformist" site Norooz News is reporting that President Ahmadinejad and his supporters tabled a proposal for the arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi and "10 other leaders of the reform movement", including some unspecified members of the reformist association Rowhaniooon Mobarez, at the National Security Council. The plan was pushed through, despite opposition within the Council, but then shelved by the "highest authorities of state" (a likely reference to the Supreme Leader) as this could lead to the "collapse of the political system".
1255 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz, the website of the Green movement, claims, from "an informed source in the Ministry of Science", that Tehran University and other universities will be closed this semester to prevent student protests.
1220 GMT: Iranian Labor News Agency reports that the installation of Mohammad Sadegh Larijani as head of Iran's judiciary (see separate entry), scheduled for tomorrow, has been delayed. No rescheduled time has been announced.
1105 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi's website Ghalam News is down. There is concern that this may be that may be in the aftermath of an attack by hackers.
1045 GMT: It appears that the Fars report (1030 GMT) downplayed the references to the opposition in Ahmed Khatami's Friday prayer address. Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting summarises the speech as a call to Iranians to maintain their "consciousness of conspiracy". Khatami said that people "now know the enemy of the Islamic system" with its "tales of war and the arrogance of the government".
1040 GMT: Reuters, however, does give an indication of Khatami's specific attention to the post-election crisis and, significantly, the issues of detainees and trials: "Iranians expect the judiciary to act strongly and firmly and not to yield to Western pressure [to release detainees]."
As we predicted in our first update this morning (0630 GMT), "[Khatami's address will be] an important clue that the regime may refuse to give any ground. If so, that could be a significant blunder.....It won’t be a question of how many protestors come out on the streets today. It will be a question of how many are brought out on future days by the regime’s continued intransigence."
1030 GMT: Fars News has posted its summary of Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami's Friday prayer address. Khatami spoke of "the devil's methods" of creating differences between people. Khatami referred to Satan's "working tools and facilities" to justify sin, guilt, and humiliation and to make the devout forget God.
Khatami, at least in Fars' summary, did not specify who exactly were the "working tools and facilities" of the devil, leaving it to listeners to draw their own conclusions.
0845 GMT: The Iraq Dimension? Tabnak reports, from "an informed source close to Hashemi Rafsanjani", that Rafsanjani recently met Seyed Abdolaziz Hakim, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, in Hakim's house in north Tehran.
Ostensibly, Rafsanjani visited to enquire about the health of Hakim, who has been in Iran for a year for treatment of cancer. However, Tabnak's source said that Rafsanjani also stressed that it was essential that, at this time, the Iraqis should maintain their unity in forming a new Shia coalition.
The big question, however, is not what was discussed about Iraq's politics but about Iran's in the meeting, which also included Hakim's son, Seyed Mohsen Hakim. The encounter follows the intervention of Iraq-based Ayatollah Ali Sistani, with its oblique criticism of Iran's Supreme Leader, and reported meetings between Rafsanjani and Sistani earlier in the post-election crisis.
0630 GMT: This Friday opens with a strange sense of uncertainty. Thursday may have been a relatively quiet one in this crisis, but it still introduced three issues that may or may not mark a new phase in the challenge to the Iranian regime. Two of these, each of which could be turn into high political drama, are being considered in separate analyses: 1) "Karroubi, Rafsanjani, and Detainees" and 2) "New Move Against the Supreme Leader?"
The third issue, the developments in and around Friday prayers in Tehran, will be tracked in our updates. Hashemi Rafsanjani may no longer be leading the prayers, but the withdrawal does not reduce today to a non-event. To the contrary, Green movement activists are calling for a show of protest. And then there is the presence of the "replacement" leader of prayers, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami.
Khatami has already make his mark in this post-election crisis when he called from the prayer platform for harsh treatment, including the death penalty, for demonstrators. And yesterday, speaking to the clerics of the Political-Ideological Organization of the Ministry of Defense, he turned his attention to one of the "ringleaders", Mehdi Karroubi, and his letter alleging mistreatment of detainees:
If a person libels someone with allegations of sexual abuse, then he deserves to be punished for libel. If someone libels the system by saying that rape takes place in prisons, then he must either prove it or, if he cannot, then the system must press charges and the public prosecutor must act.
If allegations are proven with witnesses, then, without any considerations, the perpetrators must be severely punished. But, what if they are not proven? How long should the system remain silent, in the face of such attacks?
Interpretation? First, Khatami's statement is a tip-off that, as we noted in our separate analysis this morning, the regime is feeling the pressure from Karroubi's letter, especially now that Hashemi Rafsanjani has used it to get a response from the judiciary.
But second, and more important, this is an important clue that the regime may refuse to give any ground. If so, that could be a significant blunder. At several points in this crisis, Iranian leaders could have eased the situation by offering some concession to the demands of protestors. And on each occasion --- the Supreme Leader's prayer address on 19 June; the refusal to sanction any demonstration as legal; the mis-handling of the Guardian Council's "recount" of the vote; the uncertain response to the "40th Day" memorial on 30 July; the insistence on holding the Tehran trails--- those leaders have not only refused to take even a minor step towards compromise, they have shaken a fist at the opposition.
Now, as the regime is faced once more with a possibile avenue to a settlement --- this time over the treatment of detainees --- Ahmed Khatami is indicating that the reply of "No" will be shouted out. If he does so from his Friday prayer platform today, it won't be a question of how many protestors come out on the streets today. It will be a question of how many are brought out on future days by the regime's continued intransigence.
tagged Abdolaziz Hakim, Ansar e Hezbollah, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, Etemade Melli, Fereshteh Ghazi, Hossein Fadaii, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Iranian Labor News Agency, Isargaran, Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Kahrizak Prison, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani, Mohsen Hakim, Morteza Alviri, Norooz News, Revolutionary Guard, Rowhaniooon Mobarez, Yudollah Javani in Middle East & Iran
Abdolaziz Hakim, Ansar e Hezbollah, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, Etemade Melli, Fereshteh Ghazi, Hossein Fadaii, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Iranian Labor News Agency, Isargaran, Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Kahrizak Prison, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani, Mohsen Hakim, Morteza Alviri, Norooz News, Revolutionary Guard, Rowhaniooon Mobarez, Yudollah Javani in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (7)
In sixties America, as in Iran today, hated policies caused domestic chaos
Open popular unrest in Iran today recalls America after l968. Four years earlier Lyndon Baines Johnson won the presidency by the biggest landslide ever. Now he was driven from office amidst a terribly polarized country . Foreign agitators didn‘t cause the chaos.. It stemmed from an increasingly unpopular Vietnam War and Johnson’s determination to pursue it against growing public objections. Similarly Khamenei’s long pursuit of much hated anti-reform policies--not foreign agitation and media--polarized Iran’s people and finally blew the cork this year. The longer a leader of any country, pursues hated policies continue, the more unpopular a regime becomes.
Iran’s leaders sought a strong economy and military which required them to create a well-educated, sophisticated class for maintenance. The catch is that a new technocrat class cannot function effectively without substantial contact with the outside world. As educated Iranians become aware of the rights, freedoms and opportunities enjoyed by counterparts abroad, they naturally demand the same rights at home. They hardly need foreigners to tell them what they should want.
President Khatami, wiser than the Supreme Leader, grasped that expanding such rights would increase the regime’s stability. Iranians saw Khamenei sabotage those gains and spend the next four years in an obvious quest for absolute power supported by totalitarian means. As a consequence, rights “guaranteed” in Iran’s constitution have as much value as those in Stalin’s Soviet constitution. Such leadership naturally produces an popular government.
Discontent in Iran and America started with students at a few universities and remained there until something major altered public opinion drastically. In American that event was the Tet Offensive. In two months Iran’s leaders gave people three shockers, each equivalent of three “Tets”--a grossly rigged election, mass brutality in the streets and embarassing kangeroo courts aimed clearly at reform politicians and human rights spokesmen. As details of physical, psychological and sexual torture are just emerge from abducted victims, hardliners vow further punishment to those who would reveal details of such torture. If the regime’s ultras have their way again, Iranians may even witness the arrest of Musawi, Kourrabi and Khatemi on charges of being “foreign agents.”
Consequently the regimes lies have no more chance of being believed than LBJ’s repeated claims that “victory in only a matter of time” after Tet. Iran’s people draw the only logical conclusion from all-pervasive censorship--that government thugs must have something especially awful to hide and plenty of it. The public doesn’t find it hard to believe this regime would sexually torture male and female demonstrators because too many Iranians, their families and their friends have seen what behavior Khamenei’s “free hand” has allowed in the streets and in trashed houses and dormitories. Like LBJ and Nixon, the polarizing Khamenei went too far and thereby lost the trust of many Iranians forever.
The American system survived the Vietnam War and bad leadership because it flexible and open. Citizens are free to vote out unpopular leaders and thereby change policy. By contrast, Khamenei--paronoid at the prospect of a reformist victory--turned the last remaining public input over policy into a pathetic joke on June 12th. If Iranian policy today visibly reflects the views and brutality of an extremeist minority, the public knows it could only happen with Khamenei’s approval.
There are three other good reasons why the Islamic Republic win back popularity. Unlike the America of LBJ and Nixon, Khamenei’s brutality has been directed totally upon his own subjects (the word “citizen cannot apply in a now totalitarian state). Secondly, regime violence of this sort has been exponentially greater--equal to thousands of Kent State incidences. Thirdly, the harm done by forms of personal rebellion will be much greater.
As in LBJ‘s, disenchanted Iranians find private ways of show their scorn. Most preferred will be immigration abroad. Iran already led the world in brain drain statistics before the recent outrages. That should double or triple as the totalitarianism worsens. Disenchanted youths who can’t emigrate can the Woodstock-style counterculture of drugs, parties, music and sexual and social rebellion already developing before the stolen election. If Iranian youths follow the natural pattern, watch for a large increase in dropouts of pre-college age including offspring of top regime figures repelled by parental excesses. Mosques and mullahs--already objects of scorn--will become targets for graffiti and egg throwing respectively. In the end this regime--pledged to increase belief and practice of Islam has done the very opposite.
Interesting BBC piece:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8200719.stm" rel="nofollow">Will Iran's Basij stay loyal?
The author doesn't suggest major splits within the organization. Instead, he believes that as the protests continue, the already present internal doubts of individual Basijis will grow. Despite years of indoctrination and training, Basijis have to face their families and neighbors at the end of the day...
Cool... I figured we were doing something along these lines. There's a lot more to do, but hey, it's a start... :)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57C5OQ20090813" rel="nofollow">U.S. tests system to break foreign Web censorship
[...] via enduring america Veröffentlicht in Hintergrund, News. Schlagworte: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Karrubi, Khamenei, MEMRI. Kommentar schreiben » [...]
One comment on the PressTV website article carrying Javani's threat to arrest opposition leaders -especially Mousavi- goes as follows:
YESS YESSS ARREST AND EXECUTE
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:29:36 GMT
YESS YESS ARREST TRIAL AND EXECUTE MOUSE-AVI!!!!!!!!!!! THIS WILL BE A GREAT STIMULUS TO THE PEOPLE TO FINALLY COMPLETE THE REVOLUTION TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION. SO MAKE ALL HASTE OH GREAT IRGC TO ARREST, TRIAL, AND EXECUTE HIM THE SOONER THE BETTER. THE SOONER YOU AND THE GANG OF DICTATORS WILL HANG IN THE SQUARE BY YOUR NECKS FROM THE MAPLE TREES!
The sentiments are a tad edgy, but the political analysis acute. The show trial is clearly designed to make the subsequent threats seem credible. Either Javani is living in an alternate universe where actions have no consequences or the threats are despairing bluster.
Interestingly the same PressTV website today, Saturday 15th, has the story AGAIN:
"In Iran, Mousavi trial believed to end opposition". Published at 12:04:17 GMT the story tells us: "Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, head of the IRGC's political bureau, said Thursday that the opposition is responsible for the “blow that has been dealt to the prestige of the establishment.” Note: THURSDAY. (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=103498§ionid=351020101)
Funny way of reporting the 'news'... Or is there more to it?
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