The Latest from Iran (30 April): The Heaviness of the Atmosphere

2200 GMT: Political Prisoner (Death) Watch. Back from a media break for the British election to find confirmation that death sentences have been handed down to Mohammad Ali Haj-Aghayi and Jafar Kazemi for mohareb (war against God), ties to the "terrorist" Mujahedin-e-Khalq, and propagating against the regime.

Both men were arrested during the Qods Day demonstrations on 18 September.

NEW Iran Document: Mehdi Karroubi “The Green Movement is Growing in Society”
UPDATED Iran: Tehran, Defender of Rights (Don’t Mention Boobquake), Joins UN Commission on Status of Women
NEW Latest Iran Video: Shirin Ebadi on the Human Rights Situation (23 April)
Iran Video and Summary: The Mousavi Statement for May Day/Teachers Day (29 April)
Iran: The Establishment Frets Over the Supreme Leader
The Latest from Iran (29 April): Preparations

1825 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student Abolfazl Ghassemi has been sentenced to three years in prison.


1815 GMT: Karroubi's High Profile. Mehdi Karroubi continues the push of opposition initiatives with a declaration to student activists, which we have posted in a separate entry, that the Green Movement is on the rise in Iranian society.

Karroubi has also issued a statement, on the eve of May Day and National Teachers Day, congratulating Iran's workers and teachers.

1450 GMT: Cyber-News (or Lack of It). Khabar Online reports that filtering is now affecting the blogs of "hardliners" and popular writers.

1440 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary. Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani wowing the faithful in Tehran today and it's all USA, USA, USA.

Emami Kashani downplayed "the enemy's plots" and said it "will not succeed in its attempt to halt Iran's peaceful nuclear activities through deception and trickery".

The cleric reiterated the remarks of the Supreme Leader that nuclear weapons as "illegal and haram (forbidden)" under Islam. "Despite this," he added, "We are witnessing that the enemy is leveling countless accusations against the country and is threatening us with sanctions....[These] will be rendered useless in the face of the Iranian nation's vigilance."

Despite the firm words against Western immorality, Emami Kashani made no reported reference to women's breasts and earthquakes.


1435 GMT: Labour Watch. After workers of a Bandar Abbas shipbuilder were dismissed, 300 employees protested against assignment to temporary employment agencies.

1400 GMT: Taking Notice. Another sign that the recent Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi initiatives are reviving the interest of "Western" media in the opposition: The New York Times posts an article on yesterday's Mousavi video, "Iran Reformist Tries to Enlist Labor and Teachers".

1355 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Amnesty International publishes its report, "Iran: Journalists Under Siege". The study, which says more than 70 journalists are detained (see our separate entry for 101 who have been held during the post-election crisis), asserts: "Iranian journalists and bloggers are increasingly under siege in one of the biggest crackdowns on independent voices and dissent in Iran's modern history."

1345 GMT: Back from a lengthy academic break to find a flurry of news. Rah-e-Sabz has summarised Mehdi Karroubi's phone conversations with two prominent detainees, student leader Abdollah Momeni and reformist politician Feizollah Arabsorkhi.

0910 GMT: Teachers' Corner. Following our reports of a crackdown on teachers in advance of National Teachers Day, including the arrest of the head of the Teachers Organization, Alireza Hashemi, RAHANA has an overview of the attacks on the headquarters of the teachers' unions and the homes of the members and the hacking and hijacking of websites.

0905 GMT:Economy Watch. Rah-e-Sabz posts a summary of the position of women workers, claiming that they face discrimination, insults, and dismissals and have no social security under the Ahmadinejad Government.

0800 GMT: Get-Tough Alert. I am wondering if we need to launch a "Mesbah Yazdi Watch". The cleric, as Mr Verde noted yesterday, has been quite vocal in recent days, and it seems he is going moving to the front of the "hardliners": "If we had treated post-election protest mildly like earlier governments, no one knows which catastrophe would have come about the country."

0750 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Saeed Soudmelli, arrested 31 December as he filmed traffic on his cellphone in Tehran, has been sentenced to a year in prison for "acting against national security".

Soudmelli’s relatives said he was interrogated through multiple-choice questions such as, “Which of the following people do you hold responsible for the recent events and your own arrest: A – Mousavi, B – Ahmadinejad, C – Yourself, or D – The Government?”

0745 GMT. Beyond Satire. In the week of Boobquake and Tehran's campaign to ban tanning salons, we've got an update in a separate entry: Iran has been voted onto the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

0705 GMT: What's Mahmoud Doing? Well, yesterday President Ahmadinejad opened a cement factory in Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan.


0700 GMT: Economy Watch. Credit to Patrick Barry in Foreign Policy who, picking up on news and signals we've been following for weeks, assesses the fragile state of Iran's economy. He has a stinger of a conclusion:

Based on the regime's track record of incompetence and the consequences of that incompetence for the Iranian economy, the U.S. would be wise to take a step back, allowing Iran to continue on its present course....Congress is searching for the most effective means to weaken the Iranian economy; the best approach may be for it to do nothing at all.

0620 GMT: Influence and Time Magazine. Last December, Time took the controversial decision of striking "the Iranian people",  despite their overwhelming victory in a poll of readers, from their finalists for Person of the Year.

Not sure if this is sufficient consolation, but Mir Hossein Mousavi has been named the most influential person in the world for 2010 in Time's online ballot, with almost twice as many votes as the runner-up, Chinese novelist Han Han.

0615 GMT: The Isolation of Ahmadinejad. Muhammad Sahimi offers his analysis of internal tensions, offering detail on the corruption scandals that challenge the President and looking at Iran's international position and the manoeuvres over its nuclear programme to conclude:

If Ahmadinejad's isolation held no potential for a lasting effect on the nation as a whole, it would not be so important. But the fact is that his isolation -- the consequence of electoral theft, violent crackdowns on peaceful protesters, rampant corruption, and the pursuit of a foreign policy simultaneously aimless and aggressive -- directly threatens Iran's national security and territorial integrity.

0600 GMT: We begin this morning with two features looking at repression and the discussion (or lack of it) inside Iran. With the help of Dave Siavashi of Iran News Now, we have the videos of last week's talk by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on the human rights situation. And we post the reportage of Katherine Butler of The Independent of London, who was allowed into Iran to cover the Tehran conference on nuclear disarmament but seized the opportunity to do a few interviews with Iranians about the state of fear and tension.

The Latest from Iran (3 April): Celebration

2000 GMT: Rahnavard's Message of Celebration "Release the Political Prisoners". As Iranians celebrated nature on 13 Bedar, Zahra Rahnavard wrote a public letter to Iranian authorities:

[As] the spring is the beginning of the new cycle of life in nature and freedom and blossoming are the titles of this new chapter, I ask the authorities to give the nation the freedom it deserves and free all political prisoners in this new chapter of life.

NEW Iran: 4 Ways the US Can Help the Green Movement (Shahryar)
Iran: The Clerical Challenge Continues (Shahryar)
The Great Nuclear Race: Google v. Iran (Arrington)
The Latest from Iran (2 April): Slipping By

....Seeking freedom, demanding democracy, and following law are the three main branches of Iranian society over the past hundred years, which still shine as part of Iranian demands. Even if we only focus on these three-branched demands between the constitutional revolution [of 1905-1911] and the 1978 revolution, we see that both of these revolutions are unfinished projects.

1830 GMT: We've posted a new analysis from Josh Shahryar, "4 Ways the US Can Help the Green Movement".

1825 GMT: Nuclear Self-Sufficiency: Posture or Plan? Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's nuclear energy programme, has maintained the line that the Atomic Energy Organization has already taken steps to commission "one or two" new sites, pending the approval of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Salehi told the Iranian Labor News Agency, "These installations will be spread across the country and will be built in certain points based on Mr. Ahmadinejad's discretion. Potential locations have been selected for the construction of new nuclear installations which will be announced once a feasibility study has been carried out."

In late 2009 Ahmadinejad, putting out declarations amidst the manoeuvres over sanctions and the Iranian nuclear programme, promised from 10 to 20 new sites.

1730 GMT: Poverty, What Poverty? BBC Persian reports: In an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency about the lack of a minimum wage, the Iranian Minister of Labor, Abdol-Reza Sheikholeslami, did not know what the poverty line was in the country.

1715 GMT: 13 Bedar from Inside Iran. An EA reader passes on a direct report from a correspondent in rural Iran: "I've never seen a Sisdeh (Bedar) like it in my life, it's always big but this year it was the biggest it could be, because of the situation."

1700 GMT: International Intrigues. Back from a journey to the wilds of northwest Britain to find EA readers chasing up stories. For example, there is the Wall Street Journal's report that the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western intelligence agencies are investigating how an Iranian firm obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges to enrich uranium, allegedly through an intermediary representing a Chinese company based near Shanghai.

Beyond the necessary caution for this story, given the Journal's anti-Iran inclinations and the obvious spinning by IAEA officials and Western intelligence (part of a pattern reflected in the "coverage" of The New York Times), here's the political question: is this tale a component in political pressure against China to break links with Tehran and accept the push for tougher sanctions?

And if that's not enough for you, try out the ongoing drama of Italian court documents pointing to "a ring of Italian arms dealers and Iranian spies who were illegally selling ammunition, helicopters and other military hardware to Iran".

1045 GMT: Reformist Show. On the first day after the two-week Nowruz celebrations, hundreds of reformists have appeared at the office of former President Mohammad Khatami.

1015 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? Well, the President's giving it a bit of this-and-that tough guy talk as he opened an iron ore pellet factory today.

Ahmadinejad insisted new international sanctions over Iran's nuclear program would only strengthen the country by helping it become self-sufficient. Meanwhile, US pressure on Iran had backfired and isolated Washington in the world.

Ahmadinejad also warned Israel not to start another war with Gaza.

0945 GMT: The Women's Movement and the Green Movement. Green Voice of Freedom reports on Wednesday's meeting of Zanane Noandish (Forward Thinking Women) and women journalists, students and lawyers with Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Rahnavard welcomed the increasing role of women’s groups and organisations in political activities, saying, “Without the presence of women, there would be no great points in the history of our country and the Green Movement could never reach such heights without women.”

Addressing the emerging question of the relationship between the women's movement and the Greens, Rahnavard asserted, “A number of great movements such as women’s movements, worker’s movements, student movements, teachers’ movements are within the enormous Green Movement and their demands are common slogans such as freedom, removing discrimination, respect for law, seeking democracy. The resistance of these movements will help in the victory of the Green Movement."

Rahnavard added that the current interpretation of Islam of women’s rights was not at all "Islamic", “Throughout these years, certain people have attempted to misrepresent their own backward theories as Islam. Islam is a progressive religion and has the capacity to interact with the modern world.”

Rahnavard called for all discriminatory laws against women to be repealed. She said, “All segments of [women's society] in our country, especially women from deprived sectors suffer from a great deal of discriminatory laws and I am certain that even the free spirited men of our country suffer from these discriminations and are ashamed of them.”

0925 GMT: A Twist in the Friday Prayer? Parleman News has an interesting reading of Ayatollah Emami Kashani's speech yesterday in Tehran. The website takes his reference to the Supreme Leader's Nowruz invocation to "wake up and look around" as a call to the Government and even Khamenei to consider their actions.

0915 GMT: More Subsidy Fun. Politicians Mohammad Reza Farhangi and Akbar Oulia have weighed in on the dispute with the President over subsidies and spending. Farhangi said that Amadinejad's call for a referendum
after Parliament confirmed the subsidy law is "illogical".

Oulia insisted that the Majlis will not offer a "blank cheque" for subsidies.

0845 GMT: I'm in northwest Britain for much of the day so updates will be limited. As usual, input from readers will be much appreciated....

0755 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Robert Mackey of The New York Times offers a summary of the background and developments in the case of detained film director Jafar Panahi.

0730 GMT: When Nuclear "Spin" Goes Wrong. So here's the headline from Press TV: "FM: Iran strongly supports nukes annihilation".

And I think, "Oh my goodness, Iran's Foreign Minister is calling for the nuclear annihilation of whom?".

Fortunately --- both for world peace and for Iran's public image --- Manouchehr Mottaki, meeting the Gabonese President was not proposing nuclear bombs on Tel Aviv, Washington, or London: "Iran and Gabon strongly support the destruction and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as the legal rights of NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] members to use peaceful nuclear technology."

0600 GMT: Cutting Off the News. France 24, the international French service, has complained over the blocking of its website by Iranian authorities.

0555 GMT: There's Always One to Spoil the Party. Iranian security official Saeed Esmaili wasn't in a celebrating mood for 13 Bedar. He declared that "driving with sabzeh (grass) on top of a car will be punished". We have no confirmation if the warning was enforced.

0550 GMT: Subsidy Battle. The former deputy head of the National Security Council in the Ahmadinejad Government, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, has added his voice to the chorus that the Government must implement the subsidy reduction and spending plan as approved by Parliament. Fazli added that the plan should be monitored by an audit board.

However, an even more important intervention came from Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, who has repeated that the Majlis will not reconsider the plan it approved, granting Ahmadinejad control over an extra $20 billion.

0545 GMT: Another Clerical Appeal. Hojatoleslam Ali Younessi has asked for the release of political prisoners, saying that Islamic mercy would solve society's problems. Like Ayatollah Safi Golpaygani earlier this week, Younessi, criticised the intervention of security forces in the affairs of the judiciary.

0540 GMT: Economy Watch. Another success for the strategy of persuading companies to disinvest from Iran.  KPMG, one of the Big Four accountancy firms, has severed its links with its Iranian member, citing “serious and escalating concerns” about the conduct of the Iranian Government.

On the surface, the move is being attributed to pressure from the activist group United Against Nuclear Iran, which had targeted KPMG three weeks ago for "supporting this brutal regime and its illegal actions". It is unclear if there was any discussion between KPMG and US Government officials before the decision.

A significant number of large international companies have withdrawn from Iran since the start of 2010.

0530 GMT: The big news in Iran on Friday was away from the political arena, distant from the nuclear controversy, the posturing on sanctions, the Friday Prayer address in Iran, the ongoing manoeuvres between Parliament and President over the Ahmadinejad budget proposals.

The big news was simply that Iranians celebrated the day.

There was beautiful weather in much of the country for 13 Bedar, the day for seeing out --- as in going outside with family and friends and enjoying nature --- the New Year festivities.

The Los Angeles Times has a summary, with some videos and photographs.

The Latest from Iran (2 April): Slipping By

1420 GMT: Obama Talks the Tough Talk. Continuing the public approach of a push for international sanctions, President Obama has told a US television network, "I have said before that we don't take any options off the table, and we're going to continue to ratchet up the pressure and examine how they respond. But we're going to do so with a unified international community -- that puts us in a much stronger position."

NEW Iran: The Clerical Challenge Continues (Shahryar)
NEW The Great Nuclear Race: Google v. Iran (Arrington)
The Latest from Iran (1 April): Out Like a Lamb?

At the same time, note how Obama carefully distinguishes himself from the line of other Washington talking heads demanding action because Iran is on the verge of military nuclear capability:

All the evidence indicates that the Iranians are trying to develop the capacity to develop nuclear weapons (emphasis added). They might decide that, once they have that capacity that they'd hold off right at the edge -- in order not to incur -- more sanctions.

But, if they've got nuclear weapons-building capacity -- and they are flouting international resolutions, that creates huge destabilizing effects in the region and will trigger an arms race in the Middle East that is bad for US national security but is also bad for the entire world.

1400 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary. Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani giving it his best, even though a lot of folks on 13 Bedar are more concerned with a day out with the family. He's going with "Iran has a special place in the Islamic family of nations" and "we are not seeking nuclear weapons but the malicious propaganda of Iran's enemies will occur all the way through this process".

1115 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Rah-e-Sabz claims that families of human rights activists in detention are being constantly harassed by security forces.

The website also reports that film director Jafar Panahi is enduring "dire conditions" in Evin Prison and his lawyer is being denied access to his file.

1105 GMT: Now Let's See What China Says (and Does). Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, has struck his pose after discussions with the Chinese, saying that Iran and China "agreed that tools such as sanctions have lost their effectiveness".

Jalili wasn't so certain, however, that Beijing would put out that same line --- "It's up to China to answer that" --- and the Chinese response so far is limited to a call for "flexibility" in dealing with Iran.

1100 GMT: We've posted a new analysis from Josh Shahryar, "The Clerical Challenge Continues".

1015 GMT: Economy Watch. RAHANA claims, "Workers at the Ahvaz Pipe Factory have not received their wages for over a year. Additionally, upon returning to work after the Nowrooz holidays, close to 300 of them were handed their pink slips."

1000 GMT: India, Iran, and Economy Watch. Conflicting news on India's approach to Tehran: Green Voice of Freedom is claiming confirmation of earlier reports that India's Reliance Industries will not renew a contract to import crude oil from Iran.

Juan Cole, however, writes:

New Delhi just yesterday broached reviving a plan to bring natural gas from Iran through Pakistan and thence to India. The $8 billion plan has been in limbo for two or three years. First, the US pressured the Asian Development Bank not to underwrite the project, raising the question of where the $8 bn. will come from. Then, there were ethnic disturbances by Baluch tribesmen in the area through which the pipeline would run, raising questions about how secure it would be (a question you would want answered before sinking $8 bn. into it) Finally, Iran asked for an unrealistically high price for the natural gas.

But [now] Pakistan is pledging to ensure security for the pipeline.

0830 GMT: Controlling the Students. The Committee of Human Rights Reporters passes on the news that five members of the Council to Defend the Right to Education, formed by "starred" (monitored) and banned university students in 2007, remain in prison, some of them facing long sentences.

The Council's latest statement asserts, “We testify before the Iranian people that our friends have done nothing but demand for their rights; all the allegations against them are baseless. The accusations are revenge the enemies of freedom are taking against starred students."

The five are Zia Nabavi, detained on 15 June and sentenced to 15 years and 74 lashes; Majid Dorri, arrested on 9 July and sentenced to 11 years; Mahdieh Golroo and Shiva Nazar Ahari, imprisoned in December; and Payman Aref, detained in June and sent back to prison in March, serving one year and taking 74 lashes.

0745 GMT: The Iran-China Talks. More indications that Beijing is maintaining a cautious position on Iran's nuclear programme (see 0520 GMT). Khabar Online notes the discussions with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili but also considers Chinese moves towards the US-led "5+1" position on sanctions.

0540 GMT: Slipping By? An EA reader has noted that the Facebook page supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi has linked the anniversary of the Republic to a call for a public voice today, via a video and Ayatollah Khomeini's statement on 1 February 1979:

Everyone is entitled to choose his or her destiny. How can our ancestors be the deciders for us? How can those who were around 80 to 100 years ago determine the destiny of a nation that would be born in future? This is a nation that its destiny should be determined by itself and at this time is saying that we do not want this king.

0520 GMT: Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic, confirmed by a public vote in which 98.2 percent supported the Republic and a new Constitution. The day slipped by, however, with little fanfare: no prominent Government statements, no opposition demonstrations, indeed little of note on the domestic front.

Indeed, much of the chatter looked forward to today, Sizdah Bedar, the 13th day of the New Year and the last day of Nowruz celebrations. It literally translates as "get out [outside] of the 13th", referring to the invocation to be outside with family enjoying nature. Pedestrian has a humourous look, with mixed memories, at the occasion.

The only tribute we picked up to the Republic's formation was an indirect one: 31 years after the public issued its verdict on its system of rule, Ayatollah Mousavi Tabrizi asserted that Ayatollah Khomeini, were he still alive, would support another referendum on the Islamic leadership, including velayat-e-faqih (ultimate clerical authority).

Away from the lack of ceremony yesterday, Baha'i and women's rights activist Dorsa Sobhani has been released from solitary confinement. Sobhani was arrested on 7 March after the family home was raided five days earlier.

On the international front, Barack Obama has tried to counter the trip of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, to Beijing with a call to Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Obama said, according to the White House, that Hu's attendance at a summit on nuclear security Washington later this month would be an "important opportunity for them to address their shared interest in stopping nuclear proliferation and protecting against nuclear terrorism".

We're still looking for any sign of an outcome from the Jalili trip. It is the lead story for the Islamic Republic News Agency, but the lengthy article has little more than the superficial public statements: Jalili with "Iran's approach is that people benefit from peaceful nuclear energy" and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs declaring that the relationship between the two countries is very important.