Iran: Ayatollah Sistani Intervenes

The Latest from Iran (9 August): Once More on Trial
How Not to Help Iran: The Folly of US Sanctions

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After two months, Ayatollah Sistani, the Iranian-born clerical leader in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, has intervened, albeit in an oblique fashion, in the post-election controversy. He did so through answers to "questions from the faithful"

1) What is your eminence's opinion about [Iran's] religious supreme leadership (velayat-e-faqih)?

"Leadership in what Islamic jurists call "everyday affairs" exists for any qualified expert in Islamic jurisprudence. However [leadership] in public affairs that play a crucial role  in the order of the Islamic society, depends both upon personal qualifications of the expert and also upon other issues  including the fact that the expert must be acceptable for the public."

2) If a pronouncement  of another Marjaa [senior clerical leader] opposes that of a Supreme Leader what must be done?

"In general the pronouncement of a person that has religious supreme leadership in public and society affairs etc. supersedes all (including other Marjaa) unless the pronouncements are proven to be wrong or the pronouncements are proven to be against what is in the Koran or in Religious Tradition."

Interpretation? Sistani just told Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that he is not untouchable. Whether or not Sistani meant his reference to "personal qualifications" to flash back on Khameni's rise to Supreme Leader, even though he was not a marjaa, there will be those in Iran who immediately see the context. And "acceptable to the public" and "proven to be wrong" do not need even that level of analysis.

Beyond the intervention, here's a question to ponder: it was widely reported that, before agreeing to lead Friday prayers in Tehran on 17 July, Hashemi Rafsanjani had gone to Najaf to see Sistani. So, given the Iraq-based Ayatollah's continuing influence amongst many Iran faithful, has the former President --- due to lead prayers again this Friday --- received another boost?

The Latest from Iran (8 August): Regrouping

The Latest from Iran (7 August): The Opposition Bounces Back

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0800 GMT: Among the Defendants Today. Clotilde Reiss is a 23-year-old French national who was a politics student and assistant teacher at Isfahan University. She was detained on her return to France after five months in Iran.

0610 GMT: The Iranian Students News Agency is reporting on the resumption of the Tehran trial in the Revolutionary Court, with the prosecution promising "justice and fairness" and declaring that the defendants have been able to meet with their lawyers.

0605 GMT: Confirmation? The website www.hashemrafsanjani.ir says that the former President will lead Tehran prayers on Friday.

0600 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz says that lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah has been moved out of solitary confinement in Evin Prison after more than three weeks in isolation.

0525 GMT: Press TV's website has been almost desperate to contain Mehdi Karroubi. A couple of weeks ago, they mis-reported one of  his call for "far-reaching party reforms" as a termination of protest against the result of the Presidential election. (In fact, Karroubi was pointing to possible long-term alliances with other opposition movements.)

Yesterday Press TV insisted that "Karroubi says he will accept the new circumstances and move on". The only problem for this interpretation is that the quotes offered indicate no such thing. Karroubi told  members of his party Etemade Melli, “We should not allow the new circumstances to dispirit us. Our political activities should continue according to plan and within a legal framework."

The insistence on "legal framework" is standard rhetoric for Karroubi, who wants to avoid any impression that he and the opposition are upholding rather than undermining the Republic. And his views on protest were confirmed in the statement, “We should continue to work hard no matter how difficult the circumstances have become.”

0520 GMT: The wife of Abdollah Momeni, spokesperson for the Iranian Alumni Association, reports that her husband, detained in Evin Prison since his arrest almost seven weeks ago, is now "unable to move or speak".

Fatemeh Adinevand, who visited her husband on Thursday, said:

My children did not even recognize [him]....He would have fallen down if his brother and I hadn't held him up. He couldn't walk even one step....Abdollah's voice was severely shaking, and he couldn't even talk. The children were traumatized to see him like that and only cried, constantly asking, 'What happened to Dad?'....The person who we saw today wasn't [him] at all; he was just skin and bones who had lost his mental and psychological stability.

0500 GMT: A quiet start to the day (indeed, one of the quietest 24 hours in Iran since the start of the post-election crisis), but there are two events of note.

The first is about to begin in Tehran, with the resumption of the trial for almost 100 detainees. The hearings, which started last Saturday, were supposed to reopen on Thursday but were delayed for reasons never explained.

After last weekend's "confession" of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, it is hard to see what showpiece the prosecution will feature today. Nor is it yet clear how the regime's persistence in featuring these "ruffians", amidst accusations of abuse and torture, will affect its political fortunes.

Those fortunes are at stake in the second development. 

Salam News reports:

According to tradition, the prayers [in Tehran] of Friday, Mordad 23'rd  [14 August] will be led by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts, in the presence of a large number of people from many backgrounds and many officials....Hopefully in this coming week, the public and the officials will benefit again from Ayatollah Rafsanjani's wise and prudent words and apply his advice for resolving the current problems.... 

Some unofficial reports have indicated that pressures from certain hardline groups upon the committee responsible for Friday has led to the postponement of Ayatollah Rafsanjani's slated speech. However, according to the tradition  of many years, this week the position of the speaker of the Friday prayers belongs [our emphasis] to Ayatollah Rafsanjani. Only if Ayatollah Rafsanjani agrees shall a replacement be found for him.

The Latest from Iran (7 August): The Opposition Bounces Back

NEW Iran: The Battle for the Ministry of Intelligence Continues
The Latest from Iran (6 August): Getting Past Ahmadinejad

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1855 GMT: One More Prayer Twist. Fars News, showing its allegiances, does not even put the Tehran address of Emami-Kashani on its front page. Instead it gives comfort to the President by featuring the Qom prayer statement of Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli, a fervent supporter of the Government and fervent critic of Hashemi Rafsanjani: "If differences continue, the country will suffer irreparable problems."

1830 GMT: #CNNFail. Trying to see if any "mainstream" media outside Iran noticed the warning to Ahmadinejad, only two days after his inauguration, from a "conservative" cleric, Emami-Kashani. Here is CNN International's current Web story on Iran: "Security tight as Iran's Ahmadinejad sworn in".

1800 GMT: How Bad are the Signals for Ahmadinejad? Not much coverage of Ayatollah Emami-Kashani's address at Friday prayers in Tehran, but there doesn't need to be to see the bad news for the President. From Press TV's website:

As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepares to begin his second term in office, a leading cleric says the Iranian people deserve better treatment.

Tehran's Interim Friday Prayers Leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Imami-Kashani, urged the reelected Iranian President to pursue an agenda that would serve national interests.

“The Iranian people are kind-hearted and good, it is not right to cause them pain and distress,” said Ayatollah Imami-Kashani. ”The government should do everything in its power to be honest and truthful with the public.”

There was more standard rhetoric from Emami-Kashani in his admonition that the Islamic and the Republican cannot be separated in Iran's system, but the immediate message was clear:

Mahmoud, you better watch your step.

0700 GMT: Amnesty International has released a list of 24 Iranian Army officers detained in the post-election conflict.

0620 GMT: Thursday's Token Concession. Press TV's website reports:

After speaking to prisoners and sources at the recently shut down Kahrizak prison, the Iranian police force has come to the conclusion that violations of detainee rights along with dereliction of duty have been evident at the notorious detention center.

The police are quick to explain that "the harsh living conditions" arose from the need to establish a temporary facility "for the correction of detained ruffians". However, "the dereliction of duty and breaches by a number of the center's managers, officers and staff has become manifest....The limited capacity of the detention center and the addition of the July 9 detainees made the wings overcrowded and led to unsuitable living and hygiene conditions [for the detainees] and caused them much suffering." 

Morning Update (0515 GMT): After a fairly quiet day on Thursday, marked by the Government's attempts to stifle dissent through arrests and possibly cyber-warfare, the opposition picked up against last night. A series of evening gatherings escalated into protests across Tehran, with some footage emerging of car horns blaring and chants of "Death to the Dictator". The Green movement outlet Mowj-e-Sabz carries an eyewitness account of protests "half the night" in Vali-e Asr Square.

The Facebook pages of the opposition movement are also back to life after they were suspended most of Thursday by technical difficulties or more devious activity. Mir Hossein Mousavi's page features a statement by his chief advisor, Alireza Beheshti:

[It is] the silly have the command today....Whoever talks about something logical, they will accuse him of being disloyal to the Supreme Leader. By using these tactics they are avoiding logic. It has been two months since the election: which one of their actions solved the crisis?

Meanwhile, dedicated watchers of the Establishment will have a lot to decode later today when Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani leads Friday prayers in Tehran. Emami-Kashani is considered a "conservative" cleric but, as we noted on Wednesday, he spoke critically last week not only of the Government but of the Supreme Leader. His address could offer the first post-significant clues of how deep the divisions are within the regime.

And today's prayer speech will only heighten the mystery over next week's drama. We closed last night with the revelation that the head of the Friday prayers committee is now casting doubt on the earlier report that Hashemi Rafsanjani will be addressing worshipers in Tehran on 14 August. Is this a case of the regime trying to curb one of its leading challengers or was the initial news exaggerated? No further indications have come out this morning.

Having stirred up trouble within his own "conservative" ranks two weeks ago, President Ahmadinejad is still making his own plays for power. Remember the affair of the First Vice Esfandair Rahim Mashai, who supposedly resigned amidst the anger caused in the Cabinet, the Parliament, and the offices of the Supreme Leader? Well, he hasn't gone away. Instead, he has simply re-claimed the administrative territory and powers of the 1st VP as Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff.

Iran and the Facebook-Twitter Cyber-Attacks

A source close to Enduring America offers the compelling hypothesis that the recent attacks on Facebook and Twitter may have been aimed at the Green Movement.

“Judging by my past IT experience and the way things developed yesterday, it appears that Facebook administrators put the pages of Karroubi, Mousavi, Zahra R, etc offline in order to stabilise the flow of the entire system, as the DDOS would ostensibly cease once the sites were seemingly knocked off air. This is why FB did not entirely go off air – the pressure on it abated once the reformists page were suspended. Twitter on the other hand was a free for all target, and had to withstand more damage. Another thing that lends credence to this theory is that fact that none of the the suspended pages have lost content or have been defaced. However, all this is speculation until FB and Twitter officially announce what went on yesterday.”

Edit: Facebook have subsequently confirmed to the BBC that the strike was actually aimed at a pro-Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu. In an interview with The Guardian, Cyxymu blamed the Russian Government for instigating the cyber attack.

Iran: The Battle for the Ministry of Intelligence Continues

The Latest from Iran (7 August): The Opposition Bounces Back

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Last week we posted an exclusive analysis on the battle to control the Ministry of Intelligence and its wider political significance: "The irony is that any notion of an outside 'velvet revolution” has been overtaken by an inside bureaucratic war. How far this war spreads could define the next phase of the post-election challenge to the Iranian system.

 Iason Athanasiadis has an intriguing follow-up in Thursday's Washington Times, "Power struggle hits Iran intelligence agency". Inevitably, a lot of the piece is rumour and speculation but the hard facts are worthy of consideration.

The theories behind President Ahamdinejad's sacking of the Minister of Intelligence, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, such as "failure to press for convictions on espionage charges of former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian and two Iranian-Americans, scholar Haleh Esfandiari and journalist Roxana Saberi" are peripheral (the immediate reason for Ejeie's firing could just as easily have been thew Cabinet bust-up over the appointment of the First Vice President, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai). Instead, the significant signal of the power struggle is here:
[blockquote]
Mr. Ejei was present on Monday when Ayatollah Khamenei presided at a ceremony confirming Mr. Ahmadinejad's second term: "Ejei came for the supreme leader, not for Ahmadinejad, because he derives his credibility from [the leader]."
[/blockquote]Just as important are the sources of the rumours for Ejeie's dismissal, as well as the firing of two Vice Ministers and more than 20 other officials: pro-Ahmadinejad activists quoted in the "conservative" Baztab and the "reformist" Mizan News. And there is the President's own reference to the "failings" justifying his changes at the Ministry:

Two weeks before the riots started, the Foreign Ministry reported that it was very suspicious that a significant number of people were traveling to Iran from Britain. But the intelligence ministry did not pursue this matter. The ministry also did not act as it was expected in the recent unrests, and there were blatant cases of negligence. 

Is the President now running the Ministry via its interim head, Majid Alavi, taking supervision away from the Supreme Leader?  Is he, as the 20+ dismissed officials have warned in a letter to the Ministry, erasing security files relating to his allies, including the former
First Vice President Rahim-Mashai? And are there manoeuvres behind these manoeuvres in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is ensuring that it is the power behind this regime?

None of this is any clearer now than when the crisis broke more than two weeks ago. What has been established is that this is a system which is battling forces within as much as it is the opposition outside.