The Latest from Iran (26 April): Points of View

2030 GMT: Economy Watch. Mohammad Nabi-Habibi, the Secretary General of the conservative Islamic Coalition Party, has said that the government has not had any major achievement in the privatization process: “Over the recent years, some works have been done to privatize the state-run organizations and strengthen the private sector, but the steps have not yielded any notable result so far."

NEW Iran Document: Mehdi Karroubi “We Will Make The Nation Victorious”
NEW Iran: The Mousavi 4-Point Message "Who Defends the Islamic Republic?"
NEW Iran Exclusive: A Birthday Message to Detained Journalist Baghi from His Daughter
Iran Special: Tehran, Defender of Women’s Rights (P.S. Don’t Mention Boobquake
Iran: The Green Movement and the Labour Movement (Assadi)
Iran: Hyping the Threat from Tehran (Walt)
The Latest from Iran (25 April): Build-Up

2025 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Sama Nourani of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters has reportedly been released on bail.


2015 GMT: Our colleague Josh Shahryar has a new opinion piece at The Huffington Post, "Iranian Diaspora Needs to Act": "What the Green Movement urgently needs from the Iranian Diaspora, especially in the United States, is to come together and form a strong voice of political support for the cause of Iran's democratization - if not outright liberalization."

1525 GMT: Ahmadinejad "Look Over There!" Speaking to Iran's police officers, the President today denounced "satanic tools" of oppression.

This may have initially shocked his audience, but eventually it became clear that Ahmadinejad was not referring to them. Instead, his target was nuclear weapons, military invasions, and the veto power granted to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The President continued, "America belittles nations, and questions human values, whereas valuing humanity requires culture. Belittling nations only reaps inflexibility, distance, and malice."

1515 GMT: The Der Spiegel Profile of Karroubi (With a Bonus Surprise). The German magazine's piece on Mehdi Karroubi is now out --- it's more a portrayal than an interview --- and features the cleric's defiance, "The people are just waiting for a spark....I am prepared to accept all consequences."

The surprise,however, is not in the Karroubi material: to be honest, we've heard it before from the resolute opposition figure. Instead, the twist comes in an insert on another Presidential candidate, the "conservative" Mohsen Rezaei:

Does he see himself as an alternative to Ahmadinejad? The corners of Rezaei's mouth turn up in a slight smile: "I will serve my people where I can."

The retired general prefers to avoid critical questions, and seems intent on stirring his tea, as if the sugar could somehow solve his loyalty problems. Like Karroubi, Rezaei refers to "Dr. Ahmadinejad" and avoids using the word president. And like Karroubi the reformer, Rezaei the conservative says: "It can't go on like this."

1450 GMT: Over to You, Dr Rahnavard. And now it's Zahra Rahnavard putting out a declaration. She calls on the Government to free all imprisoned workers and teachers and to hold free and democratic elections.

1445 GMT: We have now posted a full English-translated version of Mehdi Karroubi's statement to former reformist members of Parliament, "We Will Make The Nation Victorious”.

1345 GMT: Karroubi Fights Back. Mehdi Karroubi's website Saham News carries a summary of his latest discussion with former reformist members of Parliament. The cleric, who had to deal with false rumours of his ill health last week, denounced the "new wave of psychological warfare" of the regime. He has promised that, despite this campaign, the opposition's resistance will only increase.
1245 GMT: Photo of the Day. Reformist leader and former Minister of the Interior Mostafa Tajzadeh is surrounded by supporters and well-wishers before his return to prison. Tajzadeh, who was on temporary release, was formally given a six-year sentence last week.



1000 GMT: The Oil Squeeze. The chief executive of the French oil company Total, Christophe de Margerie, said today that it will cease gasoline sales to Iran if the United States passes legislation to penalise fuel suppliers exporting to Tehran.

0925 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Rah-e-Sabz's latest list of detainees has 2560 names. The website estimates that the total arrested since the June election is probably 18,000.

One of those detainees, journalist Mohammad Reza Yazdan-Panah has been indicted for "acting against national security".

0920 GMT: Stop Blogging. Now. RAHANA reports that Google-owned Blogger has been filtered in Iran.

0915 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online posts some troubling figures for the Government, with a 4:1 imbalance between Iran's imports and its exports.

0855 GMT: Is the Government Rattled? There is a notable sharpness today in the attacks on opposition figures by pro-regime newspapers. Kayhan announces that even if former President Mohammad Khatami repents, people will not forgive him for his "sedition".

Resalat asserts that staff from the reformist sites Rah-e-Sabz and Balatarin, with former Minister Ataollah Mohajerani as intermediary, received money from British intelligence officials. The newspaper also "reports" that "the dumb Sheikh [Mehdi Karroubi] met with organisers of fitna [sedition], who proposed to restart this on the election anniversary" but that Mir Hossein Mousavi does not want a call for demonstrations.[

0845 GMT: Interpreting Human Rights. Leading reformist Nasrullah Torabi has drawn a lesson from Iran's withdrawal of its candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council, with its negative effects on Tehran's standing: the step confirms the news of Iran's human rights violations.

0843 GMT: Larijani Watch. Just because he is manoeuvring against the President does not mean Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has to go easy on the US --- indeed, because he is criticising Ahmadinejad, there is even more cause to take the tough line on Washington. In his latest speech, Larijani declared that "people will stand against the US with their lives". (sorry, misunderstanding, your IRGC has to do that ;-)

0838 GMT: Removing Mousavi. The new Constitution of the private group of Iranian universities, Islamic Azad University, has removed Mir Hossein Mousavi from the Board.

0835 GMT: Thanks for That, Ayatollah Khamenei. In his speech to Iran's police forces on Sunday, the Supreme Leader said that respect for people is necessary.

0830 GMT: Karroubi Watch. And while we're summarising Mir Hossein Mousavi's latest steps, Rah-e-Sabz offers Mehdi Karroubi's interview with Der Spiegel, in which he declared that he would be pursuing a demonstration "to protect our Constitution" on the anniversary of the election, 12 June, and called the Ahmadinejad Government a "disaster" for Iran. We're still waiting for the German version.

0825 GMT: Whipping the NGOs Into Shape. Mohammad Reza Alipour, the Deputy Tehran Police Commander, said on Saturday that the police intend to organize non-governmental organizations in a “centralized” way. Alipour explained, “The police’s concern is that there is insufficient supervision over citizen organization and in some of them there is administrative chaos….There is no oversight for issuing licenses for these organizations.”

0815 GMT: The Chinese Angle. Amidst the tangle of signals of Beijing on sanctions, oil imports from Iran, and trade, Mehr News Agency is upbeat:

Iranian and Chinese finance ministers met in the U.S. on Sunday and underlined plans to enhance economic ties and increase the mutual trade level to $20 billion. The Mehr News Agency reported that on the sidelines of the World Bank summit in Washington, Shamseddin Hosseni met Xie Xuren.

Hosseini pointed to Iran's immediate privatization policy and said that foreign companies, especially Chinese firms, can cooperate in the country's lucrative investment projects such as oil refineries and petrochemical plants.

Most of the cheerleading for the trade boost comes from the Iranian side, with the Chinese representative "expressing his satisfaction with the Iranian official's suggestions and noted that the two countries were in a reconstructing phase of their economies meant to benefit their nations".

So is Beijing really boosting its economic stake in Iran, just throwing up reassuring noises, or keeping all its economic and political options open?
0800 GMT: Interpreting Mousavi. With Mir Hossein Mousavi making a flurry of speeches this week, we've offered a quick analysis of his four key points, "Who Defends the Islamic Republic?"

0500 GMT: No significant shifts on the news front this morning. The Ahmadinejad Government has been relatively quiet. Speaker of Parliament Larijani continues his sniping at the President and his inner circle, but without making a significant move. Opposition figures such as Mousavi and Karroubi, with their statements, are signalling a build-up in activity, but plans have yet to emerge. And on the international front, the discussions on the nuclear front --- notably yesterday's encounter between Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano --- still offer more the style of engagement rather than the substance of breakthrough.

A moment, therefore, to look at some points of view. There's an interchange on Press TV on the latest US Government steps on nuclear weapons which offers an opportunity to hear the thoughts of Tehran University students. There's a readers' discussion, sparked by a Tehran Bureau article on "Azeris and the Green Movement", on issues amongst Iran's ethnic groups and the dynamic with the national challenge to the Government. And there's our own readers' dialogue on the legitimacy of the 2009 election and the politics and "justice" beyond it.

And, for a personal point of view, there are the thoughts of Maryam, expressed in a letter to her father, journalist  Emad Baghi, as he celebrated his 48th birthday in Evin Prison on Sunday.

Iran Exclusive: A Birthday Message to Detained Journalist Baghi from His Daughter

Today is journalist Emaduddin Baghi's 48th birthday. He will spend it in Evin Prison, having been detained for almost four months. Specific charges have not been announced, but his family have been told that Baghi is considered a criminal because, amongst other misdeeds, of an interview with the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and a book written 21 years ago.

Last Thursday Baghi's family visited him. They reported that "he is still extremely strong but his physical situation is painful because his backache, his respiratory problems, and his heart attacks are problematic for him".

The following is the birthday letter for Baghi from his eldest daughter, Maryam, passed to EA from a valued source. "Mohammad" is her husband:

The Latest from Iran (25 April): Build-Up

My dearest father, salaam.

Greetings to your sublime spirit, greetings to your dignified and love-filled existence, greetings to your strong morale, and greetings to your ailing body. My heart beats strongly for your health, of which you became deprived in a difficult and unsuitable cell in your last period of incarceration.


The Iranian year 1388 ended while you were not with us and today is the 4^th day of the second month of spring, 118 days after your arrest. Until the turning of the year we were so hopeful the doorbell would ring and you would enter. But we heard later that you were a guest at the hospital....

They had accepted your bail and had said that you would come. The Wednesday night before New Year we stared at the prison door until midnight and we were hoping that at the moment of the year turning we would be praying together….But they didn’t let us. It was the same for Mohammad. You stood with us until the middle of the night in front of Evin Prison, and he was not released that night either.

But we continue to rely on the Creator who is aware of all hidden secrets. On the first night of the New Year, when after three weeks we heard your voice, although briefly, on the phone you recited this Hafez couplet: Don’t lose hope as you are not aware of the invisible/Behind curtains there are hidden games, don’t grieve.

This is the fifth spring that for us there is a feel of prison and you are detained. Dear father, I am sorry that because of unwanted self-censorship, I am forced to leave some of the stories of the days without you for another time. Perhaps it will have to wait until you come and I can recite in your ears what has happened and what they have done to us.

This is the third time that imprisonment --– the approach used in undeveloped and Third World countries in order to limit thinkers and as a punishment for speaking –-- has become your share. It was less than a year after your last release that the 12 June elections occurred and our house was emptied from Mohammad’s presence. Not much had passed from his release that the demise of that great  Faqih (the late Ayatollah Montazeri) left cold sweat on our foreheads and it was the seventh day after the demise of that departed dear and on the occasion of Hussein’s Ashura [27 December] that they took you in black mourning shirt from our home.

In the past years that you were imprisoned, I wrote you repeatedly about my grievances about the world and my heavy-heartedness. In those days our fatigue and pain was less understood, and it was not like these days when prison has become more encompassing. We had learned to keep our loneliness inside.I tried to not let mother, sister and others know the great sadness that had formed a home inside my heart, taking its toll.

I thought Mohammad should not be bothered so his pen could be free. They thought the same as well. Even Mina who was younger than everyone and was in elementary school had learned to cover well. Paper and pen was my friend and companion. But during the days Mohammad was not with us, I abandoned covering up in front of you more than anyone else. And you as always kindly asked me to remain hopeful and calm. But in the days you were not with us I again pour my heart out with pen and pencil more than anything else.

On the fortieth day, sixtieth day, seventieth day, eightieth day….I have kept them all. Although I am tired of writing, tired of penning letters that all can read, whether they are letters that because of thousand reasons are archived in my memory or unanswered letters to the case judge as well as the ultimate judge or poems registered in my heart because of separation. But the blood in my veins, keeping faith in your compassionate thoughts, cries for resistance. I have written to God as well and know he is the only one who hears me and I calm down only when I remember his verses. “I know what you know not.” (The Baghare: 30); “It is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you.” (The Baghare: 216). And following you who read the patience verse – “Seek ((Allah)'s help with patient perseverance and prayer” (The Baghare: 45) –-- we patiently wait and fatigue is not an obstacle to perseverance, since you were always for me and us a beacon of that perseverance.

What strange days Fridays have become. Anticipation is grafted with anticipation: “Moments of Descent”. It is the day of anxiety at sunset. The end of two months of incarceration, the day that we expected the end of this stage of imprisonment for the crime of expression of ideas, was a Friday. The fortieth day that the prison bars had surrounded you was also a Friday; the fortieth of the martyr of freedom in the Karbala of resistance and perseverance and fortieth day of being away from you.

Father, what convergences have these days. When they took away Mohammad in front my eyes at midnight on 30^th of Khordad, it was a Friday. And when God released him it was a Friday morning, the eight day of the eight month of year 1388, on the birthday of the eighth Imam. The last day of 1388 was again a Friday and this time with the promise they had given us about your release we were full of hope. I don’t know when will be our last Friday of anticipation leading to anticipation.

This is the fate of our many years: anxiety, inspection, court, interrogation, and imprisonment. Before, you had experienced 1500 days of prison. This means you were absent during Mina’s childhood, adolescence of Monireh and my youth and even at my marriage. Then years ago Mohammad, who was sent to prison after you, was released after a short while. We had not yet exchanged vows, and you were sentenced to several years of prison. With the promise that you could attend our wedding, we were set to exchange vows. The ceremony began while we were still waiting for you. They had said you had to come with prison clothes with tied hands and guards.

You sent a telephone message through a cellmate: "Tell my wife Fatemeh that I will celebrate the wedding of my daughter Maryam here. I know they don’t want me to be present in their happiness this way.” I cried inside throughout the ceremony and when in the last moments, through the efforts of the then Majlis Speaker and others, they brought you the cries inside of me turned into wailing.

During the ninth government [of 2005-2009] you again tasted prison which was more difficult than before and this year –-- this cursed year –-- it was first Mohammad who was sent to prison and then again you. The tall wall of the narrow cells of Ward 240 again became your host and now they are the only image in front of your eyes for days. I wish I could become a guest in your small cell, cover your sturdy shoulders with kisses, and tell you Happy New Year, Father, and that as always I am proud of you and know that your great spirit is not limited by this small cell, a spirit full of honesty, sincerity, and candour.

Although they had not allowed you even a Quran for 50 days, I know that you recited the verses and God’s light shines over you in the cell in which you are closer to Him. There is nothing in that cell but spirituality. Your sin is that you demand tolerance and patience, peace and friendship, respect for human generosity, the right to life and not imprisoning even opponents. You insist that the standard and criteria for good and bad is conduct; the same God considers a measure and tests and distinguishes humans on that basis. “Save those who believe and do righteous good deeds (Tin: 6 – Inshighagh: 25)

These days perhaps away from our eyes watching, it is perhaps easier for you to mourn your teacher’s departure [referring to Grand Ayatollah Montazeri]. You are not here to witness things that always pained you. I can guess if you were here the angst you would feel for each execution order. Whenever a noose was someone’s fate, even if he was guilty, you would make every effort to replace it with another punishment. If the decision was based on retribution, you would try until the last minute before execution to gain the acceptance of the victim’s family, and if execution was awaiting a guilty person, you would do everything from writing letters to authorities to writing articles.

Your book The Right to Life was written in two volumes but ended like many of your other books, which never received a publication permit or were banned, never reaching readers in Iran although they reached readers in Lebanon and Egypt. How wonderful it would be if they could be read in Iran. How much you wanted the culture of peace and toleration to be institutionalized in Iran.

But what happened? Why is the path to freedom, serenity and peace so rocky, dark and narrow? Don’t be saddened, father. This shall pass too….

Now in this cell perhaps you witness the sorrow of others less. I know that other people’s sorrow made you even more hurt. These days you were not here to comfort us for the banning of newspapers. The number of banned newspapers is so high that we have lost count and this lack of employment apparently is supposed to longer than other times.

Father, if in the past the sound of only few seekers of freedom and rights was heard, now the voices have increased. With the imprisonment of one voice, thousands of voices of freedom rise from everywhere. One of your ward mates was recently freed. He was separated from you by a couple of cells and said that he could hear your voice occasionally. A guard told you not to raise your voice and you said: “We are imprisoned; our voices are not.” Your voice from inside the high cement walls of Evin Prison traverses all of Tehran’s streets and now many other voices accompany yours. Your voice is the beacon of freedom and Justice. Then why do they consider you an enemy?

Now the number of people considered enemy is increasing day by day. Many members of families of martyrs (shahid), people who still have sorrow in their hearts, are unbelievably accused of opposing the ideals of the revolution when in fact they are trying to preserve them. The families of Shahid Behehsti, Shahid Rajai, even Shahid Motahhari, Shahid Qadusi, Shahid Bakeri, Shahid Hemmat, the family of Imam, and many revolutionaries are judged this way.

I do not know what they imagine that at times they accuse you and them of cooperating with outsiders in order to harm a revolution that you yourselves created or they call you a hypocrite. What do they mean? I haven’t seen any discord between pen and heart, inside and outside, between thoughts and expression, words and your behaviour. I do not know why expressions are becoming fearless, accusations sharp and baseless and for threatening and limiting critics. Is it not that the reformists only want reform and are loyal to the revolutionary ideals that are the result of hundred years of struggle to get rid of monarchy and dictatorship? Wasn’t freedom along with republicanism and Islam the main slogans of the Iranian Revolution? Didn’t you shout the slogans of independence, freedom, and Islamic Republic in the despot-ridden streets?

When many of your friends were in prison and Mohammad was there too, you could not sit still. It was as though, if you could not find a solution,you had to be in fetters too. Of course even when you were free, it was as though you were in prison. Neither was there the possibility of work nor the possibility of any activities. More than 20 times they had stopped your work and prevented publications of books and newspapers as well as your teaching and research. In the past year locks were placed on the doors of the Association for Defending the Rights of Prisoners, even though you had stepped aside from its leadership, so that your presence would not lead to the prevention of the work of that association. You were left in the corner of the house with an old computer and a pen from which blood was dripping.

They could not even tolerate this. You were a critic and not an enemy, but they harassed you out of enmity every once in a while. Still you taught us, who are stunned and in awe, the slogan of long live my opponent and gave us hope for peace and serenity. Is it not that God swears to olive, that expression of peace and friendship, and to the hometown of the honest one Mecca?

But Father, your ideal city has become a dream in this country. And that friend of yours Qeysar, who is not longer with us, is no longer with us to write long poems in these bitter times. He said it rightly that “poets created an ideal city that they did not even dream in their dreams”. I have only read about the ideal city in poems and stories but this does not mean that your words should be in sheath because we have been created to seek the truth, express reality, try to rid the world of oppression and cruelty, and push society towards happiness. If this is not the case, then what is the difference between us and four-legged animals?

In the past 118 days I have seen you three times for a short period. Minutes became important and I wish those twenty minutes could be tied to your freedom. Father I have not become used to hearing your dignified voice on the phone. I have not become used to meeting in rooms that in previous years I had also walked in, each time praying to be the last time. I have not become used to your embrace that had to be divided in a short period of time among my sisters, my mother, and I; to Mina’s hands that at the time of saying goodbye would resist loosening their embrace around your neck; to Monireh’s eyes which would follow you until the last second  before the door closed. I have not gotten used to any of this.

Everyone says that our experience with your imprisonments has made everything normal for us but it has never become normal; only our previous injury has become deeper and our wound has become older and now we are more afflicted than ever.

How can I become used to my mother’s face, full of tolerance and patience, giving us an artificial smile? No, Father, I have not become used to the anxiety and heartsickness of my sisters hidden behind the mask of being carefree. I have not even become used to seeing the people who everyday run in the streets like machines in search of a livelihood to fill the empty stomach of their children; children who are being raised with slogans of justice and getting rid of poverty and discrimination and whose parents say nothing because they are afraid of the consequences for themselves and the same children..

Perhaps this is your legacy that has remained everlasting in me since your big sin is that you do not become used to seeing the sorrow of others and abnormal behaviour. I also do not become used to the imprisonment of you and others like you. Every second I do not forget that, behind the tall walls of a prison in the most northwest part of the city and in other prisons, there are people whose only sin is criticism for the sake of reform, the same approach taught to us by prophets and Imams. I say to you, dear Father, who with tied wings but a heart full of faith and steadfast thoughts is sitting in the cage of those who cannot accept criticism, that you are the one truly free of fetters.

Although I wish freedom for you and others, I know that wherever you are Emad’s God is with you. Whenever that great faqih [Montazeri], for whose interview you are now in prison, would see you he would recite from the Joshan Kabir prayer “Emad, who does not have support”. Yes, it is only He who is support for someone who has nothing to rely upon, and I leave that to you whose name is a combination of divine names to the support for existence.

Still every bell that rings, our heart drops, thinking that it might be you. I hope that the curse in the past year stays there and this spring becomes the spring of your freedom from prison. We await you.

In the past when you were in prison one of your friends, Mojtaba Kashani, wrote a poem for you. These days I recite it to myself:

Whoever has Messiah on his essence,
His place is in the midst of a cage.

Wherever there is good-natured chick,
It is afflicted, enslaved and imprisoned.

The fish’s charming dance
Makes the tank its own.

Whoever has goodness in his destiny,
There are days he will hurt
With black voice and crow’s face,
Will fly free to the garden’s middle.

Every canary that crows
Will take himself out of the cage.

As soon as black cloth is worn,
Safe haven is given in the garden

Either crow and freedom
Or canary and being cage-ridden:
Still being in the constriction of the cage
Is better than being bad and ugly in essence.

Being in prison with angel’s luster
Is better than being a raven in a feast.