The Latest from Iran (22 April): This Isn't Over

1230 GMT: EA On the Move. Hopefully, we'll be relocating from the US to the UK today, so updates will be restricted until tomorrow afternoon. My thanks to all for their patience, and for keeping up going through news and comments while I'm heading home.

1215 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (If You Know Someone in MKO, You're a Criminal). There seems to be a pattern in a number of recent sentences, including death penalties. As we reported yesterday, six people have been handed down orders for execution because they are related to or acquainted with members of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, the political wing of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq "terrorist" movement.

An Iranian activist now reports that Monireh Rabaei has received a five-year sentence, upheld on appeal, on the basis that she has an uncle in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, home to many PMOI members. The following sentences have also been passed on the basis of "connections with MKO": Zia Nabavi 15 years, Ozra Ghazi-Mirsaied three years, and Mahdiyeh Golro 28 months.

NEW Iran Document: Detained Nourizad’s Letter to Khamenei “We Have Lost Our People”
NEW Iran Document: Ayatollah Sane’i “Some Want Islam For Their Own Agendas”
Iran: The Latest Post-Election Death Sentences
NEW How Iran News is Made: Adultery, Earthquakes, and the BBC
The Latest from Iran (21 April): Waiting for News

1115 GMT: Economy Watch. Rooz Online's claims of layoffs are not quite as dramatic as those in the Human Rights Activists report (see 1100 GMT), but they are still striking:

Labor news sources report the laying off of at least 2,500 industrial and leather workers in Ilam and Mashad. Counting other laid-off workers in industrial and large cities such as Abadan, Ahwaz, Khorramshahr and Shiraz, during the last two weeks, more than 4,000 workers have lost their jobs just in the recent past.

...The crisis in Iran’s industrial sector has reached such a level that, in an interview yesterday, the head of Iran’s House of Labor predicted the closure of hundreds of large and medium industrial firms per year and the subsequent laying off of 200,000 workers every year after that.

1100 GMT: Firings and Abuses. Human Rights Activists in Iran has released a report claimed more than 38,000 cases of firings and human rights abuses in Iran in the past month.

Of the cases, more than 90% (37,519) are the layoffs of workers in Iran, as 166 production lines in the country have been shut down every month, according to a labour official. At least 11 protests and gatherings have been staged by workers in the country in the last month alone.

The group cites 537 cases of abuse of students’ rights, 255 cases of abuse against political and civil activists, 34 cases of capital punishment, 259 cases of torture and prisoner abuse, at least seven cases of citizens killed in frontier provinces, 124 arrests and abuse of national minority rights, and 68 cases of arrest and abuses against religious minorities.

Human Rights Activists says that, because of the scale of the abuses and the difficulties in documenting them in a rigid security atmosphere, the cases are only a fraction of the abuses that are occurring.

1055 GMT: Is Google A Regime Enemy? The Iranian Labor News Agency reports that a ban on Google Images has been lifted by Iranian authorities, 24 hours after it was imposed.

1045 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Women’s rights activist Dorsa Sobhani has been released after a detention of more than six weeks. Sobhani spent 25 days in solitary confinement.

The brother of Majid Tavakoli says that the student leader, detained on 7 December after a speech at a National Student Day rally, remains in solitary confinement.

Student activist Nader Ahsani has been re-arrested and taken to Evin Prison.

1040 GMT: "We Had to Save the System". A potentially explosive admission....

Aftab, from the weekly Panjareh, quotes an unnamed high-ranking intelligence official, who admits that post-election arrests, especially those of the first round of senior reformists, were planned ahead of the 12 June vote.

The detentions were a preventive measure because Iranian intelligence agencies anticipated major unrest which could get out of control. The official said, "Our law is not appropriate to fight against 'soft war', so we had to take these measures [to save the system]. The fifth statement of Mosharekat party [Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution] clearly speaks of establishing a secular system."

1030 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. On another front, Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has warned the regime to "stop spreading lies" and to "beware of the time, when I speak out". Hashemi, who is currently in London, has been threatened by the Iranian authorities with prosecution for alleged corruption and misuse of funds during the Presidential election.

0945 GMT: After an extended break, we return today to a series of powerful responses to the regime, all of which make clear that the challenge to legitimacy will not be crushed.

In a separate entry, we have posted the latest statement of Grand Ayatollah Sane'i, criticising the Government for its misuse of Islam in its lies and detentions.

We also have a second feature: from inside Evin Prison, the detained journalist and filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad has written a letter to the Supreme Leader requesting that he "declare this year the year of national reconciliation and do not fear the reproach". In itself, that is not a direct challenge to the regime --- it acknowledges Khamenei's authority, after all --- however, the letter has special potency because Nourizad's detention was prompted by a previous appeal to the Supreme Leader to recognise the illegitimacies of the election.

Mohsen Armin, member of Parliament and former Vice Speaker, has also launched a spirited criticism of the Government. A senior member of the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party, which is now under threat of suspension, Armin denounced lies and threats of prosecution and demanded that the regime address the basic issues of rights and equality.

MP Mohammad Reza Khabbaz has asserted that the inability of the Ahmadinejad Government to make appropriate use of $370 billion oil income is a "catastrophe".

Comments

[Scott Lucas]

Eric,

With respect, I have had the privilege to come to know many brave people inside Iran. And I have followed the stories of many others in these last 10 months. Because of my respect for that bravery, I am not going to ask them to jeopardise their safety and that of their families for the sake of a diversion.

I say diversion because, if one is looking for an investigation of what happened on 12 June, there are still avenues. I have suggested one with the Form 22s. There are others, but the control of the information and thus the power to investigate is largely in the hands of the Iranian authorities. Your latest red herring --- that somehow Mousavi knows the truth but would be damaged if it comes out --- does nothing to alter this situation; instead, it chips away at the legitimacy you claim for the GC's report, your evaluation (which I still admire for its effort), and the election itself.

And I say diversion because, during this quest for "one brave observer", there has been no approach to the wider political context which I set out in my initial summary reply. The failure to consider the election in that wider context renders any academic exercise to establish the legitimacy of the vote count even more academically narrow and politically tangential.

S.

[Scott Lucas]

And for goodness sake, if the Guardian Council was concerned with a real examination rather than a rationalisation, it should not be sitting around for someone to request the written evidence. Any reputable enquiry should have put that written evidence up front.

S.

[M.Ali]

Scott, the GC called Mousavi's bluff and Mousavi did not pursue his case. Did he demand the forms to be released? Did he come back with any factual details that the GC asked for?

The government did a lot of things that they have never done before (and a lot of countries generally do not do, when the opposition claims election fraud (which by way, is something that happens in almost every freaking election everywhere)). For example, they did a 10% recount and they did an inquiry into the election. The government could have easily refused to do that (name me one election fraud, such as Saddam's elections, that the government tried to do that). But after GC's report, Mousavi did not come up with any counter-arguments to try to push the GC against the wall.

Remember how after GC's report, Mousavi completely changed tactics. He decided not to make any case anymore. The Greens at that point, having no legitimate argument, instead decided to ask for a re-election (the most anti-democratic desire ever) and decided to try to pressure the government into it by using the mob. When that failed also, they again tried to change tactics, and instead called for a year of "patience".

I want ONE of you to provide any of Mousavi's claim that can be checked.

[M.Ali]

Gunni, you ask Eric to compare 2005 and 2009 and do a study on that. He has. Its in his article...

[Arshama]

Barry,

Re your post 10

Sorry, no idea, what was hit by the new IRI missiles, but certainly it was the PERSIAN Gulf (Iranians are extremely sensitive to this matter).
I suppose they chased around the poor female dolphins or sharks, which refused to wear a proper hijab ;-)

Arshama

[Eric A. Brill]

SCOTT:

"And for goodness sake, if the Guardian Council was concerned with a real examination rather than a rationalisation, it should not be sitting around for someone to request the written evidence. Any reputable enquiry should have put that written evidence up front."

I'm not quite sure what you mean, Scott. The GC said, in essence: "The written evidence is here. If you want to come and take a look, just let us know. We're confident you'll find it says exactly what we've told you it says." Do you mean the GC should have just told the world what ITS view of that evidence was? It had already done that. Mousavi's response was "We don't believe you." What could the GC say in response to that other than what it did say: "Fine. If you don't believe us, come and take a look for yourself."

Are you saying the GC should have FORCED Mousavi to come and take a look, whether he had asked to or not? Other than dragging Mousavi in, kicking and screaming, and forcing him to wade through hundreds of boxes filled with Form 22s, I really don't know what more the GC can do for him.

There is a remote possibility that Mousavi and his aides neglected to read the Guardian Council report, or that they read it but somehow overlooked the part in which the GC offered to make its "written evidence" available for inspection. That seems unlikely to me but, just in case, I suggest you get in touch with his office and let them know.

When one makes unsubstantiated allegations, and data exists that could substantiate the allegations if they're true, and the other side publicly offers to make that data available for inspection, and the party making the allegations declines to take up that offer, the world is entitled to wonder why. If I were Mousavi and believed my own story, I would have taken up that offer a long time ago. If I didn't believe my own story, and I wasn't concerned about maintaining an appearance of personal integrity, I'd keep doing exactly what he has been doing: Continue to make the same allegations, and duck every opportunity to prove or disprove them.

[Scott Lucas]

Present the evidence. The raw evidence. All of it. Not just a summary report which claims to represent the evidence.

And it is untrue that the opposition has not challenged the GC on this. Indeed, Karroubi and Mousavi's call for a fair legal framework --- free from intimidation and detention --- and a transparent process before, during, and after election is a continuing challenge which exposes the weakness of the GC's "Well, we have the evidence, really, but someone is going to have to come and get it."

When Beheshti challenged the GC to produce evidence, he was detained. When Karroubi and Mousavi formed a commission seeking the evidence as part of an enquiry, the members were detained, the offices of Etemade Melli were raided, and Etemade Melli newspaper was closed. Some of those aides are still in detention.

That is the reality, as opposed to the one sentence that you try and use as absolution.

We can debate whether, in spite of the intimidation, detentions, and skewing of the process through state media and pronouncements such as those of the Supreme Leader, Mousavi and Karroubi should have participated in the GC review of late June/early July. But to accuse the opposition of "duck[ing] every opportunity", given the challenges that have made and the price that they have paid through state repression is at best disingenuous.

The Iranian regime should thank you that you are an eloquent defender. They should do especially because they dare not try to make that defense themselves beyond a suspect report --- in process and content --- put out nine months ago.

S.

[Scott Lucas]

M. Ali,

The 10% recount was a dubious evasion. The selection of the boxes was not transparent, the process was complicated by fighting between the GC and not only the Karroubi and Mousavi but also the Rezaei camps, and the outcome was prejudged by the Supreme Leader. Only a full, transparent recount would have sufficed.

It is a falsehood that Mousavi and Karroubi did "not...make any case anymore" after the GC's report. They continued to ask for a full, transparent compilation of the results. In the autumn, they formed a commission to pursue that. Beyond that, Mousavi and Karroubi (and, to an extent, Rezaei) have asked for a reform aimed at limiting the GC's power.

Your portrayal of the Greens bears no resemblance to the reality of that complex movement, which can be tracked through a day-to-day review of EA coverage.

Mousavi's claims (as provided by Beheshti and other Mousavi aides) "can be checked". I await an Iranian Government checking of those claims.

S.

[Eric A. Brill]

SCOTT:

"Present the evidence. The raw evidence. All of it. Not just a summary report which claims to represent the evidence."

Should the GC simply scan each Form 22 and put 45,692 PDFs out on the Internet? Is that what you're now suggesting? No more examination of the original Form 22s?

Would Mousavi rely on the GC not to doctor those Form 22s? You're usually the skeptic when it comes to the GC's reliability, but I have to say we'd switch roles in this case. I wouldn't rely on that at all. My very strong hunch is that the 45,692 PDFs posted on the Internet by the GC would support its reported vote counts. I find it all but impossible to believe - even to imagine, frankly - that the GC would lie in its summary report and yet be truthful when it posts the evidence underlying that report. I can't help but thinking that the GC would either lie both times or tell the truth both times. That's how liars are. And that's how truth-tellers are.

If my hunch about that is correct, then, if I were Mousavi, I'd insist on checking out the original Form 22s myself. That was the very suggestion you made earlier but now seem to have abandoned.

[WitteKr]

Scott, oh irony... Why did you call this entry "This isn't over"? By the looks of it this discussion will never be over :-)

I had hoped that be being courteous, expressing my respect for all the work Eric did, he would end there. Good academic exercise, but since there is no way to add any new, trustworthy information let's stop here. For the moment. Let's history have it's turn.

But Brill (which is German or Dutch for 'glasses, gunni :-) has now proved he's a, what we call in Dutch, 'querulant': people who are addicted to writing letters to the editor. There's no English word for it, but the closest would be "querulous". According to Merriam-Webster (from Latin querulus, from queri to complain. Date: 15th century): habitually complaining. With emphasis on 'habitually'.

Strangely enough he doesn't live up to his own conclusion: The election appears to have been fair. According to all his contributions here he actually wanted to write "the elections were fair." But he didn't.

The only way querulous people can be stopped is by ignoring them. Please let's do that? And let this be over?

[Eric A. Brill]

SCOTT:

"Only a full, transparent recount would have sufficed."

I believe some Mousavi aide actually did say, at some point, that there should be a full recount. But Mousavi immediately distanced himself from that suggestion. He very quickly settled on the position that there should be no recount, partial or full. He wanted a new election, not a recount.

Certainly you must know this.

[Eric A. Brill]

WitteKr:

"Strangely enough he doesn’t live up to his own conclusion: The election appears to have been fair. According to all his contributions here he actually wanted to write “the elections were fair.” But he didn’t."

Those who look dispassionately at evidence often recognize that it simply is not possible to say unequivocally whether something is true or not. Most often, all one can really say is "I've looked at an awful lot of evidence, and all of that evidence makes it appear to be true. I have no reason to doubt that it's true."

For me, the most important evidence is the ballot-box-level report issued by the GC. Every single ballot box it reported may have been incorrectly reported. But if that were true, I would have expected some allegation to that effect from Mousavi. Whether he had 40,000+ observers, as the GC claims, or only 25,000, as Scott claims, either number amounts to a very large number of observers.

I would have expected at least one of those 25,000 observers (or 40,000 observers) to have raised his hand by now and said: "The vote count reported for my polling station is not the vote count I observed."

The single reason that every one of Mousavi's observers signed up to be an observer was to be in a position to watch for fraud and to announce it if they saw it. At least 25,000 signed up. Zero announced fraud. I find that significant. Not absolute proof by any means. But quite significant.

I'm very surprised that others don't. Or at least claim they don't. Frankly, I am quite confident that most of you, in your quiet moments, really don't believe these "stolen election" claims any more than I do. It is simply not acceptable within your group to challenge them, and so you don't.

[gunni]

@Ali

Thanks for your advice. I found 9 passages where Eric made comparisons with 2005.

@ Eric and Scott

My question: Would it be target aimed putting a matrix like this?
Example:
Ardabil 2005 AN here 7 % of the votes, 2009 more than 50 % of the votes.
Ost-Aserbaidschan: Mousavis Heimatprovinz
2005 AN here 10 % of the votes, 2009 more than 56 %. of the votes.
Lorestan 2005 AN here 9 % of the votes, 2009 71 % of the votes.
Karroubi here 55% 2009 5%

Source: Mohammed Sahimi TB

The benefit : You can see a much more clearer picture what happened
Big amount of vote migration. Is that realistic?
What are the reasons? Is it possible ?
Is is possible to show a voter obligation?

[Scott Lucas]

Gunni,

There is a superb Iranian academic, on secondment at Durham University, who has gone through election patterns from 1979 to 2005 (for obvious reasons, he does not pursue 2009). His tracking of the "reformist" vote establishes that there would have to have been a sharp drop in 2009 for Ahmadinejad to win 50%, let alone 63%, in a first-round contest.

S.

[Scott Lucas]

Eric,

Yes. 45,692 PDFs. And release all the post-election political prisoners so that a person can feel free to give an account of his/her experience without fear of detention.

(While Mousavi and Karroubi have called for a new election, the aides of each never set aside the call for a full recount before the GC 10% presentation. Once that show was completed, given the obvious curtain call for any full and fair recount, the demand for a new election was the only recourse. Certainly you and I both know this :).)

S.

[Scott Lucas]

WitteKr,

I sympathise with your call. But there may be a value that, with each turn in the exchange, the ground of supposed legitimacy for this election gets smaller and the neglect by some of any issue beyond the GC's claimed number of votes becomes more apparent.

S.

[Eric A. Brill]

SCOTT:

"There is a superb Iranian academic, on secondment at Durham University, who has gone through election patterns from 1979 to 2005 (for obvious reasons, he does not pursue 2009). His tracking of the “reformist” vote establishes that there would have to have been a sharp drop in 2009 for Ahmadinejad to win 50%, let alone 63%, in a first-round contest."

Can you point us to his work? By the way, rumor has it that Ali Ansari will soon publish a full-length version of his "Preliminary Analysis" published last year, in which he discussed the same subject matter as it appears this Durham University professor addressed. Ansari will, of course, cover the 2009 election.

[Eric A. Brill]

GUNNI,

"Ardabil 2005 AN here 7 % of the votes, 2009 more than 50 % of the votes."

Sometimes I wonder, frankly, whether you and others are aware that there was a run-off election in 2005. The first-round election had seven candidates. In the run-off, Ahmadinejad got 63% of the votes in Ardabil, which dropped to 51% in 2009.

Sounds a lot less suspicious in that light, don't you think?

You all might benefit from Reza Esfandiari's superb analysis in his Rejoinder to Ali Ansari's Chatham House study. On this point, look especially at the table on page 7.

http://www.iranaffairs.com/files/iranian-election.pdf

[Barry]

"the US Congress has set aside $400 million a year to fund covert operations aimed at overthrowing the Iranian government;"

I have heard reports of this - and if it is true, think it is disgraceful

It is not enough !!! :) - they (the Congress) should get more serious.

Barry

[Megan]

I cannot post comments, why?

[Megan]

WitteKr,

Thank you for your comments posted at 18:18, April 27, 2010.
I heeded your call; I have stopped feeding the beast.

You wrote:

[ But Brill (which is German or Dutch for ‘glasses, gunni :-) has now proved he’s a, what we call in Dutch, ‘querulant’: people who are addicted to writing letters to the editor. There’s no English word for it, but the closest would be “querulous”. ]

Well, here in the U.S., we call them SOBs. In this case a “paid to play SOB”.

If you read his comments of April 25 posted at 5:59 you can see right through him; the motive behind his screech and his puppet masters are in clear view in that post. He is engaged in a diversion tactic; a play right out of Islamic Republic play book, a play bought and paid for by Islamic Republic and its highly demented U.S brand Marxist Commie supporters. Do you think his cheer leader, M. (mullah) Ali, is on this thread by accident? I do not think so. M. Ali is making sure Brilly earn his pay check.

Scott is very thoughtful and diplomatic but I hope he comes to the conclusion some of us did that this fellow does not add anything to the conversation. I for one do not want to see EA becoming a Basiji lounge.

[Bill]

What happened to all our posters from Iran? Has anyone else noticed we get zero green supporters from Iran and only a couple of regime posters from Iran posting here? Maybe I am missing something?

[Eric A. Brill]

Megan,

Regarding your post of April 28 at 10:22:

I have no more desire to write on this board, though I have found that the back and forth helped to sharpen my thinking about this important issue.

I do think it's worth noting, however, the irony of your remark to WitteKr, in which you commented on WitteKr's earlier remark about Scott's ironic choice of title (This Isn't Over). This subject heated up again for one simple reason. After it had appeared to be closed - with a conciliatory tone, I believed, and as WitteKr had noted - a number of posters nevertheless felt the need to get in a last few additional condescending or sarcastic remarks.

I felt those remarks were uncalled for, and I responded. Simple as that. That caused the discussion to heat up again.

Before you or anyone else reaches conclusions about who was responsible for the "reheating" of the discussion, I suggest each of you consider his or her own conduct. For example, Megan, I ask that you look back at your very last post, on April 28 at 10:22.

Consider your first sentence:

"I heeded your call [, WitteKr]. I have stopped feeding the beast."

Then read carefully the entire remainder of your post, and ask yourself frankly whether you in fact had done what you had just claimed.

Your next paragraph was a quotation of WitteKr's earlier post, in which she'd made fun of my last name. You felt that was worth repeating - even quoting.

In your next paragraph gave your own interpretation of what my last name means: "SOB."

Your next paragraph is so full of baseless and disgusting criticism that I won't repeat it here, but I suggest you and others take a moment to reread it.

I think you'll agree that a fair reading of your post to this point is that it was disrespectful and provocative - flatly the opposite of what you had claimed for yourself in your first paragraph. I have said enough on this board, however, and so I will not take the bait but will merely point this out for your consideration.

Your final paragraph praises Scott for having been "very thoughtful and diplomatic." With that, I agree wholeheartedly. Clearly I disagree with Scott, as I have on the Race for Iran website. But, just as I publicly wrote there and will repeat here, I am very impressed that Scott maintains an air of civility. Much better than others who contribute posts on this board, and I certainly would put myself on this list. He deserves a great deal of credit for that. It doesn't make me agree with Scott any more on the merits, but it certainly does make me admire him. (If he'd only see the error of his ways on the merits, he'd be darn close to perfect.)

[Scott Lucas]

Eric,

A belated reply to your earlier post --- I will see if I can put you in contact with the Iranian academic doing work on election data from 1979 to 2005.

S.