Monday
Aug102009
The Latest on Iran (10 August): Threats and Concessions
Monday, August 10, 2009 at 21:00
NEW Iran: The Karroubi Letter to Rafsanjani on Abuse of Detainees
UPDATED More Iran Drama: Will Rafsanjani Lead This Friday’s Prayers?
Iran: President Ahmadinejad’s Battle in Parliament
The Latest from Iran (9 August): Once More on Trial
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1830 GMT. Sinking. Ship. Etc. Further to our news that members of Parliament have criticised President Ahmadinejad's choice for Minister of Defence, Sadegh Masouli, two MPs have gone public with more revelations of trouble. Javad Arianmanesh, an MP from Mashhad, has stated that the probability of a vote of confidence for Mahsouli, who is the current Minister of Interior, is very weak, and Mehrabian, Aliahmadi and Eskandari (Ministers of Industry, Education, and Agriculture) are also unlikely to go through. Mr. Hosseini, the MP from Gharaveh and member of the Parliamentary Energy Commission, has asserted, "In these conditions more that half of the ministers will not get a vote of confidence".
In these circumstances, Ahmadinejad's selection of Masouli was either very brave or very stupid: the Interior Ministry had difficulty getting confirmation last year amidst a running battle in the background between Ahmadinejad and Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani.
1710 GMT: Aftab News is repeating the assertion that Rafsanjani will not lead the Friday prayers. Still no comment from the former President's website.
1705 GMT: In a new directive the Intelligence Ministry has warned the media to "refrain from publishing information that has been classified as top secret material by this ministry....This includes documents, identity of Intelligence Ministry personnel, information about the hierarchical framework of Intelligence Ministry etc....Ignoring the rules and regulations in this matter would lead to legal prosecution."
I am sure this announcement has nothing to do whatsoever with the revelations of the mass firings by the President of Ministry of Intelligence personnel.
1700 GMT: Etemade Melli, the newspaper affiliated with Mehdi Karroubi, has jumped in on the controversy over Hashemi Rafsanjani, considering the statement from the Friday prayers committee: "It seems that such a decision [Rafsanjani's withdrawal from Friday prayers in Tehran] has been made because of concerns that the last blatant display of popular support that greeted Rafsanjani last time will be repeated. The question remains that was this decision made [by the committee] due to governmental pressure or that Rafsanjani himself decided to not lead the prayers".
1635 GMT: The Trouble Begins. Reports are emerging that members of Parliament have rejected President Ahmadinejad's choice for Minister of Defence.
1615 GMT: Larijani and the Investigations Gambit. From the start of the crisis, Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani has positioned himself against the Government by pressing for inquiries into claimed abuses by the security services.
He is doing so again but with a potentially more significant intervention. Speaking to journalists on Monday, he said that Mehdi Karroubi's graphic claims of mistreatment of detainees, including rapes of women and young men, must be investigated. Larijani's statement is even more significant because Karroubi's claims were initially in a private letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani. The letter was published yesterday (see our updates) in the Karroubi-affiliated newspaper Etemade Melli.
1510 GMT: Now the muddle over the Revolutionary Guard's threat to arrest Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi. Our translation of the latest statement from the Guard is "In the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, legal methods have been defined to deal with those who break the law and it is the duty of the judiciary to respond to these issues.”
Does that constitute, as we summarised at 1330 GMT, a call that the opposition leaders should be "brought to justice"?
1500 GMT: Confusion. The top two stories today --- Rafsanjani's status for Friday prayers in Tehran and the Revolutionary Guard's statement about opposition leaders --- are now caught up in political muddle and possibly intrigue.
First, Rafsanjani. As we reported at 1335 GMT, the Iranian Labor News Agency is reporting that Rafsanjani's office has announced the former President will not lead Friday prayers. BBC Persian is reporting, without referring to ILNA, that Rafsanjavi has stepped aside. CNN is even more blatant (and thus far from completely accurate): “A powerful former president of Iran who has become a critic of the regime will not lead Friday prayers this week, despite earlier reports that he would, his office said Monday.”
However, ILNA's article is curiously close to the line set out by the head of the Friday prayers, Seyed Reza Taghavi (1120 GMT), and there is no statement on Rafsanjani's website. It is also worth remembering that, before Rafsanjani led prayers on 17 July, there were false reports on state media that he had withdrawn.
Interpretation for the moment? Until there is confirmation from Rafsanjani's own people, this should be treated as an attempt either to bump the former President into stepping down or to mislead people that he will not be appearing.
1335 GMT: The Iranian Labor News Agency is claiming that Rafsanjani's office has issued a statement saying the former President will not lead Friday prayers this week. for "the prevention of political conflict."
1330 GMT: Correction --- The Revolutionary Guard Stands Firm? This is being quite a complex, even confusing, but important story. A reader updates that the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, while denying that IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari asked for the detention of opposition leaders, has NOT withdrawn the article written for its journal by the head of the political office, Yudollah Javani. Indeed, the article is still prominently displayed on the journal's website.
In other words, the general position is still that the "ringleaders" of the post-election disturbances should be brought to justice, although the head of the IRGC is not asking --- at this point --- for specific arrests.
1120 GMT: Seyed Reza Taghavi, the head of the commitee for Friday prayers committee, has said Hashemi Rafsanjani will not lead this Friday's service in Tehran "to prevent political manipulation".
0930 GMT: Is Kahrizak Still Open? We had heard a disturbing rumour over the last few days about the Kahrizak prison, where detainees were abused and some killed and whose closure was announced by the Supreme Leader.
Now, less than a day after the head of the prison was arrested for his role in the treatment of detainees (0540 GMT), Mowj-e-sabz, the outlet of the Green movement, carries the story: "Kahrizak Detention Facility Is Still Functioning".
Unconfirmed reports from inside Iran, passed to Enduring America, claim the prison still has 1200 detainees.
0815 GMT: We've just posted a separate EA exclusive on the developing battle between President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Parliament.
0800 GMT: I won't dare say it yet, but another Enduring America correspondent will, "The denial [of the threats to arrest opposition leaders] may be a signal that parts of the Revolutionary Guard are not supporting Ahmadinejad and Khamenei 100%. Just as there is a rift between the conservative fractions, there are also fractures in the Guard."
0740 GMT: The Revolutionary Guard Retreat. The Public Relations Office of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards has issued a statement denouncing "the efforts of some foreign media to attribute statements to General Mohammad Ali Jafari with regards to trying and sentencing some of the presidential candidates and other individuals". The statement continues, "What these media have said is media deviousness and is completely untrue.....In the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, legal methods have been defined to deal with those who break the law and it is the duty of the judiciary to respond to these issues."
Although the statement does not refer specifically to the Javani article that we analysed below (0540 GMT), that presumably is also now thrown in the bin. So....
Why did the Revolutionary Guard back down on their weekend threats?
0540 GMT: A relatively quiet start to the day, so news coverage is dominated by yesterday's threat to arrest Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami. The warning was issued by the head of the political office of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, General Yadollah Javani in an article in the IRGC's weekly journal: “If Mousavi, Khatami, [Ayatollah Mohammad] Mousavi Khoeiniha [Iran's prosecutor general after the Islamic Revolution], and Karroubi are the main suspects believed to have been behind the velvet coup in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary ... to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them according to the law."
Discussion of the Javani statement spread quickly, buttressed by a report in a Dutch newspaper that an arrest warrant had already been issued for Mousavi. According to Afshan Ellian, an Iranian professor now living in the Netherlands, his "reliable sources" said, "It is a carte blanche: [the authorities] are free to decide when and how they want to execute the arrest."
Such stories, while dramatic, should be seen more as political pressure rather than as the signal for the detention of the opposition leaders. Indeed, Javani's article can be read as an admission that the Revolutionary Guard, after two months of protests, is feeling the pressure. Unable to crack the opposition by responding to "illegal" demonstrations with violence and detentions, facing growing resentment of President Ahmadinejad amongst "conservatives", and caught up in a bureaucratic war in areas like the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC is lashing out. In the evolving grand scheme of manoeuvres, the threat is a secondary support for the main public challenge of the Tehran trials.
It is notable that, apart from the IRGC, only a small if vocal Parliamentary group is pressing for the arrests. And it is also notable that one name which is never mentioned as a possible detainee is Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Meanwhile, the other story carrying over to this morning is the Government's concession with its firing and arrest of the head of the Kahrizak detention centre. The sudden move, announced yesterday afternoon, was and still is easy to read. It is both a tactical step to limit pressure --- if the head of Kahrizak is given up, then others like Iran's police chief may not have to go --- and a strategic step to show that the Government is listening to public concerns over detentions.
The carrot-and-stick approach is likely to continue, but its success may rest on the answers to two question. Can the regime hold up, for the Iranian public, both its limited but symbolic admissions that some "good" Iranians suffered from rogue cases in rogue prisons and its line that a minority of its citizens must be punished for the "foreign plot" against Tehran? If so, then Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami don't have to be arrested; they just have to take on the image of internal leaders of the overseas plan.
And can the regime split off Rafsanjani, meeting some of his public concerns and looking for a private compromise on his role (and that of President Ahmadinejad) within the system, from those other opposition leaders?
UPDATED More Iran Drama: Will Rafsanjani Lead This Friday’s Prayers?
Iran: President Ahmadinejad’s Battle in Parliament
The Latest from Iran (9 August): Once More on Trial
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
1830 GMT. Sinking. Ship. Etc. Further to our news that members of Parliament have criticised President Ahmadinejad's choice for Minister of Defence, Sadegh Masouli, two MPs have gone public with more revelations of trouble. Javad Arianmanesh, an MP from Mashhad, has stated that the probability of a vote of confidence for Mahsouli, who is the current Minister of Interior, is very weak, and Mehrabian, Aliahmadi and Eskandari (Ministers of Industry, Education, and Agriculture) are also unlikely to go through. Mr. Hosseini, the MP from Gharaveh and member of the Parliamentary Energy Commission, has asserted, "In these conditions more that half of the ministers will not get a vote of confidence".In these circumstances, Ahmadinejad's selection of Masouli was either very brave or very stupid: the Interior Ministry had difficulty getting confirmation last year amidst a running battle in the background between Ahmadinejad and Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani.
1710 GMT: Aftab News is repeating the assertion that Rafsanjani will not lead the Friday prayers. Still no comment from the former President's website.
1705 GMT: In a new directive the Intelligence Ministry has warned the media to "refrain from publishing information that has been classified as top secret material by this ministry....This includes documents, identity of Intelligence Ministry personnel, information about the hierarchical framework of Intelligence Ministry etc....Ignoring the rules and regulations in this matter would lead to legal prosecution."
I am sure this announcement has nothing to do whatsoever with the revelations of the mass firings by the President of Ministry of Intelligence personnel.
1700 GMT: Etemade Melli, the newspaper affiliated with Mehdi Karroubi, has jumped in on the controversy over Hashemi Rafsanjani, considering the statement from the Friday prayers committee: "It seems that such a decision [Rafsanjani's withdrawal from Friday prayers in Tehran] has been made because of concerns that the last blatant display of popular support that greeted Rafsanjani last time will be repeated. The question remains that was this decision made [by the committee] due to governmental pressure or that Rafsanjani himself decided to not lead the prayers".
1635 GMT: The Trouble Begins. Reports are emerging that members of Parliament have rejected President Ahmadinejad's choice for Minister of Defence.
1615 GMT: Larijani and the Investigations Gambit. From the start of the crisis, Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani has positioned himself against the Government by pressing for inquiries into claimed abuses by the security services.
He is doing so again but with a potentially more significant intervention. Speaking to journalists on Monday, he said that Mehdi Karroubi's graphic claims of mistreatment of detainees, including rapes of women and young men, must be investigated. Larijani's statement is even more significant because Karroubi's claims were initially in a private letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani. The letter was published yesterday (see our updates) in the Karroubi-affiliated newspaper Etemade Melli.
1510 GMT: Now the muddle over the Revolutionary Guard's threat to arrest Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi. Our translation of the latest statement from the Guard is "In the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, legal methods have been defined to deal with those who break the law and it is the duty of the judiciary to respond to these issues.”
Does that constitute, as we summarised at 1330 GMT, a call that the opposition leaders should be "brought to justice"?
1500 GMT: Confusion. The top two stories today --- Rafsanjani's status for Friday prayers in Tehran and the Revolutionary Guard's statement about opposition leaders --- are now caught up in political muddle and possibly intrigue.
First, Rafsanjani. As we reported at 1335 GMT, the Iranian Labor News Agency is reporting that Rafsanjani's office has announced the former President will not lead Friday prayers. BBC Persian is reporting, without referring to ILNA, that Rafsanjavi has stepped aside. CNN is even more blatant (and thus far from completely accurate): “A powerful former president of Iran who has become a critic of the regime will not lead Friday prayers this week, despite earlier reports that he would, his office said Monday.”
However, ILNA's article is curiously close to the line set out by the head of the Friday prayers, Seyed Reza Taghavi (1120 GMT), and there is no statement on Rafsanjani's website. It is also worth remembering that, before Rafsanjani led prayers on 17 July, there were false reports on state media that he had withdrawn.
Interpretation for the moment? Until there is confirmation from Rafsanjani's own people, this should be treated as an attempt either to bump the former President into stepping down or to mislead people that he will not be appearing.
1335 GMT: The Iranian Labor News Agency is claiming that Rafsanjani's office has issued a statement saying the former President will not lead Friday prayers this week. for "the prevention of political conflict."
1330 GMT: Correction --- The Revolutionary Guard Stands Firm? This is being quite a complex, even confusing, but important story. A reader updates that the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, while denying that IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari asked for the detention of opposition leaders, has NOT withdrawn the article written for its journal by the head of the political office, Yudollah Javani. Indeed, the article is still prominently displayed on the journal's website.
In other words, the general position is still that the "ringleaders" of the post-election disturbances should be brought to justice, although the head of the IRGC is not asking --- at this point --- for specific arrests.
1120 GMT: Seyed Reza Taghavi, the head of the commitee for Friday prayers committee, has said Hashemi Rafsanjani will not lead this Friday's service in Tehran "to prevent political manipulation".
0930 GMT: Is Kahrizak Still Open? We had heard a disturbing rumour over the last few days about the Kahrizak prison, where detainees were abused and some killed and whose closure was announced by the Supreme Leader.
Now, less than a day after the head of the prison was arrested for his role in the treatment of detainees (0540 GMT), Mowj-e-sabz, the outlet of the Green movement, carries the story: "Kahrizak Detention Facility Is Still Functioning".
Unconfirmed reports from inside Iran, passed to Enduring America, claim the prison still has 1200 detainees.
0815 GMT: We've just posted a separate EA exclusive on the developing battle between President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Parliament.
0800 GMT: I won't dare say it yet, but another Enduring America correspondent will, "The denial [of the threats to arrest opposition leaders] may be a signal that parts of the Revolutionary Guard are not supporting Ahmadinejad and Khamenei 100%. Just as there is a rift between the conservative fractions, there are also fractures in the Guard."
0740 GMT: The Revolutionary Guard Retreat. The Public Relations Office of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards has issued a statement denouncing "the efforts of some foreign media to attribute statements to General Mohammad Ali Jafari with regards to trying and sentencing some of the presidential candidates and other individuals". The statement continues, "What these media have said is media deviousness and is completely untrue.....In the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, legal methods have been defined to deal with those who break the law and it is the duty of the judiciary to respond to these issues."
Although the statement does not refer specifically to the Javani article that we analysed below (0540 GMT), that presumably is also now thrown in the bin. So....
Why did the Revolutionary Guard back down on their weekend threats?
0540 GMT: A relatively quiet start to the day, so news coverage is dominated by yesterday's threat to arrest Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami. The warning was issued by the head of the political office of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, General Yadollah Javani in an article in the IRGC's weekly journal: “If Mousavi, Khatami, [Ayatollah Mohammad] Mousavi Khoeiniha [Iran's prosecutor general after the Islamic Revolution], and Karroubi are the main suspects believed to have been behind the velvet coup in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary ... to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them according to the law."
Discussion of the Javani statement spread quickly, buttressed by a report in a Dutch newspaper that an arrest warrant had already been issued for Mousavi. According to Afshan Ellian, an Iranian professor now living in the Netherlands, his "reliable sources" said, "It is a carte blanche: [the authorities] are free to decide when and how they want to execute the arrest."
Such stories, while dramatic, should be seen more as political pressure rather than as the signal for the detention of the opposition leaders. Indeed, Javani's article can be read as an admission that the Revolutionary Guard, after two months of protests, is feeling the pressure. Unable to crack the opposition by responding to "illegal" demonstrations with violence and detentions, facing growing resentment of President Ahmadinejad amongst "conservatives", and caught up in a bureaucratic war in areas like the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC is lashing out. In the evolving grand scheme of manoeuvres, the threat is a secondary support for the main public challenge of the Tehran trials.
It is notable that, apart from the IRGC, only a small if vocal Parliamentary group is pressing for the arrests. And it is also notable that one name which is never mentioned as a possible detainee is Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Meanwhile, the other story carrying over to this morning is the Government's concession with its firing and arrest of the head of the Kahrizak detention centre. The sudden move, announced yesterday afternoon, was and still is easy to read. It is both a tactical step to limit pressure --- if the head of Kahrizak is given up, then others like Iran's police chief may not have to go --- and a strategic step to show that the Government is listening to public concerns over detentions.
The carrot-and-stick approach is likely to continue, but its success may rest on the answers to two question. Can the regime hold up, for the Iranian public, both its limited but symbolic admissions that some "good" Iranians suffered from rogue cases in rogue prisons and its line that a minority of its citizens must be punished for the "foreign plot" against Tehran? If so, then Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami don't have to be arrested; they just have to take on the image of internal leaders of the overseas plan.
And can the regime split off Rafsanjani, meeting some of his public concerns and looking for a private compromise on his role (and that of President Ahmadinejad) within the system, from those other opposition leaders?
Yesterday we reported the story from Press TV's website that President Ahmadinejad was going to the Majlis to "consult" over his choices for the Cabinet. Well,