The Latest from Iran (25 August): The Trials Resume

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1940 GMT: Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Hashemi Rafsanjani, has asked for time on state television to refute the charges made against him in today's Tehran trial.

1830 GMT: Press TV English's website is now featuring the testimony of Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh (1500 GMT). It is playing up the angle that Tajbakhsh, who had been with the Soros Foundation in Iran, conspired with former President Khatami and Mohammad-Javad Zarif, the former Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations, from 2006 on "velvet revolution" after a meeting with George Soros: “Because of the support of some officials from the reformist camp…a safe place was created for the cooperation of domestic and foreign forces…and American political parties and non-governmental organisations found a way to start activities in Iran."

1745 GMT: #MediaFail. OK, I've gone for a run, had a shower, grabbed a cup of tea, chatted with the wife, checked out the Israel-Palestine latest, and....

CNN still has not noticed there was a trial in Tehran today. (OK, at 1737 GMT, one of their Twitter feeds did figure out "Iran resumed Tuesday its mass trial of political reformists", but they have yet to get anyone on the website to notice.)

On a related note, I have yet to see one "Western" media outlet recognise that Hashemi Rafsanjani, as well as the "reformists", was targeted in the proceedings today.

1730 GMT: Freelance journalist and blogger Fariba Pajooh has been arrested.

1720 GMT: One Non-Confession. Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the Deputy Secretary General of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been unrepentant after today's trials. He explained that, as he was arrested within 2-3 hours of the election results, he could not have been involved in post-election disturbances. He declared, "I have always been a reformist but I am pro-Islamic Republic."



1550 GMT: Mehdi Hashemi, Hashemi Rafsanjani's son, has issued a short but blunt denial of the charges of money laundering and electoral manipulation levelled at him in the Tehran trial today.

1530 GMT: Days after public allegations that security forces forced the staff of Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery to bury 40 bodies of slain protestors, the managing director of the cemetery has been fired.

1525 GMT: And now Press TV English headlines, "Rafsanjani son implicated in fresh Iran trials". It focuses on the testimony of Hamzeh Karimi with the claim "that the Iranian Fuel Conservation Organization's assets were used to finance Rafsanjani presidential campaign" in 2005: “Mehdi Hashemi believed that election in Iran were financed with government funds. He did not believe in spending private savings for the election. So they step up a system for forgery and document falsification."

1515 GMT: No Doubt About It --- Target Rafsanjani. IRNA's lead story is a long overview of the trial today, and its headline goes after Rafsanjani's son, Mehdi Hashemi. Another family member, brother-in-law Abdullah Jafar Ali Jasebi, a former University chancellor, is also criticised.

1500 GMT: Bringing Out the American. The next showpiece testimony, presented in Fars News, is that of Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh, identified as the representative of the Soros Foundation in Iran. (For the regime, "Soros Foundation", with its Open Democracy Project, embodies "velvet revolution".) The objective? Tajbaksh's "evidence" that he had continued meetings with Mohammad Khatami after the latter's departure from office in 2005 apparently links the former President to the foreign efforts at regime change in Tehran.

1440 GMT: The head of the Parliament Research Center, Ahmad Tavakoli, has called for the lifting of the ban on the "reformist" newspaper Etemade Melli and the trying of Tehran's chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi in military judge's court for his failure in "restoring public rights and promoting justice and legitimate freedoms" in this case and others.

1400 GMT: The Fightback Begins? Mark  down this date: 18 September. If I'm right, that is the last Friday of Ramadan (if I'm wrong, feel free to correct). It is also Qods Day, which is traditionally a day when Hashemi Rafsanjani leads ceremonies.

Mowj-e-Sabz has just declared that this will also be true this year, with Rafsanjani leading Friday prayers in Tehran and the Green movement preparing to march.

1345 GMT: A Quick Note on Media Coverage. Reuters has been in the lead on "Western" coverage of the trial, though it has little beyond Saeed Hajjarian, and it is still unaware of the regime's accusations against the Rafsanjani family. Al Jazeera English is still stuck with an early-morning overview, as is the BBC.

And CNN International is hopeless. Its Twitter outlet tweeted an hour ago about "the latest on our Iran wire": the story, from 0742 GMT, is on Mehdi Karroubi's allegations of sexual abuse of detainees.

1320 GMT: We were going to post a special analysis tomorrow morning of the significance of today's developments but, frankly, the move against Hashemi Rafsanjani as well as the attempt to break the reformists is so stunning that it cannot be too soon to highlight what may be a defining showdown in this crisis. So we've now published a snap analysis, "The Regime Goes After the Reformists AND Rafsanjani".

1220 GMT: Farhad Tajari, a member of the Parliamentary National Security Committee has told the Islamic Republic News Agency, "After a meeting with [Mehdi] Karoubi yesterday and based on our thorough and complete investigation.....We believe the claims [of sexual abuse of detainees] are baseless."

1215 GMT: Press TV English's website has published its first account of the trial, focusing on the Hajjarian statement, read by fellow Islamic Iran Participation Front member Saeed Shariati. Hajjarian did not admit --- "" have never been involved in cruelty and enmity towards the Iranian nation and the Islamic establishment" --- but expressed "hatred with all the moves that threatened the country's security". He then resigned from the IIPF.

Ominously the prosecutor called for the "maximum punishment", i.e., the death penalty, for Hajjarian.

1145 GMT: An EA correspondent confirms that the lead item on the Islamic Republic News Agency website claims, from today's "confession" of journalist Masoud Bastani, that the now-defunct website www.jomhouriyat.com was a "war room" for attacks against the Ahmadinejad Government and that the idea of claiming fraud in the election was passed to it through Mehdi Hashemi, Rafsanjani's son.

1140 GMT: Meanwhile, more "confessions" in the trial. Fars is now featuring the testimony of Shahab Tabatabai, the head of the youth branch of the Islamic Iran Participation Front. The headline claim is that Mir Hossein Mousavi suffered from the "illusion" that he would win a first-round victory in the Presidential election.

1130 GMT: We're checking the accounts of the trial with the help of correspondents. Here is the latest reading of the allegations linking Mir Hossein Mousavi and Hashemi Rafanjani: "Rafsanjani and Mousavi knew Ahmadinejad was winner when the preliminary count showed Ahmadinejad had a wide lead. They decided to create a 'velvet revolution' and demonstrate 'vote fraud'. Rafsanjani's son, Mehdi Hashemi, was involved with Saham News, which was coordinating the demonstrations with the BBC, and he was geting paid through the Azad University in the form of a cheque."

1100 GMT: It looks like we read this correctly. Rah-e-Sabz summarises that the indictment and "confessions" implicate Hasemi Rafsanjani's nephew, Ali Hashemi, for stimulating demonstrations and his son, Mehdi Hashemi, for spreading disinformation.

1030 GMT: If our translation is correct, the regime has used the "confessions" of journalists Hamzeh Karami and Masoud Bastani not only to draw the picture of a foreign-directed network for velvet revolution and not only to allege the implementation of this through Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, but also to implicate Hashemi Rafsanjani's son, Mehdi Hashemi. IRNA also carries an account of the effort "to create doubt and undermine the Ahmadinejad Government's decisions".

1020 GMT: Away from the trial, members of Parliament are holding meetings with President Ahmadinejad's Ministerial nominees in advance of votes of confidence beginning Sunday.

The Press TV article, quoting "principlist" MPs, indicates that the chances of Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, currently Minister of Defence but proposed to move to Interior, depend on his speech to Parliament: “The controversy surrounding Najjar's military background and how it will affect the interior ministry all depends on how he will defend his programs on the voting day in Parliament.” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is in better shape, though approval is not certain, and Minister of Industry Ali Akbar Mehrabian may remain if he can provide “an acceptable explanation” about his involvement in a fraud case.

1010 GMT: Fars is featuring more "confessions" from defendants, all of which point towards a foreign-instigated "velvet revolution". One defendant has spoken of the involvement of the US Government-funded Radio Farda and training at a site in Czechoslovakia.

It appears, though we cannot be certain, that at least one of the statements may refer to the involvement of sites connected to Hashemi Rafsanjani and, in particular, his son Mehdi Hashemi in this alleged conspiracy. We are double-checking translations to verify.

0925 GMT: Fars News Agency has now published a set of photographs from the 4th Tehran trial.

0740 GMT: Press TV has also published the general indictment of the defendants, based on their alleged statements, in the 4th Tehran trial. "Before the election, statistical evidence was provided that the difference [between candidates] was so great that [President] Ahmadinejad did not need to cheat"; however, the defendants claimed fraud to implement the "velvet revolution". The had "a direct relationship with the colonial and television networks of the BBC and the advertising propaganda machine of the British regime". Even while the voting was in progress, police closed "illegal networks". (Inadvertently, this claim highlights the significance of the testimony of Mousavi advisor Alireza Beheshti, which we carry today in a separate entry.)

0730 GMT: Fars News Agency has published, from Press TV, the statement of Saeed Hajjarian in the 4th Tehran trial. Hajjarian says he is innocent but apologised for "formidable errors" during and after the election. He then goes into a lengthy exposition of the "Western theory of velvet revolution" as "a serious lesson for all political activists".

0700 GMT: Reuters has first summary in English of the 4th Tehran trial. It lists the defendants we name below but, citing Islamic Republic News Agency, says, "Saaed Hajjarian, a former deputy intelligence minister turned architect of Iran's reform movement, was also among the accused".

0545 GMT: The fourth Tehran trial of post-election political detainees has opened, and there are some high-profile reformist politicians, activists, and journalists and the first Iranian-American to stand trial, Kian Tajbakhsh. According to Fars News, other defendants include Behzad Nabavi, Mohsen Safaei Farahani, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Mohsen Mirdamadi, Saeed Shariati, Mohsen Aminzadeh, Mostafa Tajzadeh, Shahab Tabatabai, Masoud Bastani, and Saeed Laylaz.

We're checking to see if Saeed Hajjarian, as rumoured over the last 72 hours, is also being tried today. Hajjarian's lawyer said he was forced to resign from the case was replaced by an attorney appointed by the State.

The 4th Tehran Trial: The Tehran Bureau Summary

The Latest from Iran (25 August): The Trials Resume
Video: The 4th Tehran Trial (25 August)
The Tehran Trial: The Regime Goes After the Reformists AND Rafsanjani

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Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

At the end of a dramatic and surprising day, perhaps one of the most important since 12 June, Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau offers a concise summary of the 4th Tehran trial. This picks up on a lot of the developments we've noted in our live blog, bringing them together in one place. Even more importantly, Sahimi notes the goals of the regime that we've identified: 1) to break the reformists through charges of treason; 2) to humiliate Saeed Hajjarian, one of the key figures in the movement; and 3) the objective missed by all others in the Western media, the curbing of Hashemi Rafsanjani:

Stalinist Show Trials, Part Four

The fourth installment of the Stalinesque show trials of the leaders of the reformist movement was held today in Tehran. In this part of the big show, some of the most important reformist leaders were featured, including Dr. Mohsen Mirdamadi, secretary-general of Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), the most important reformist group in Iran; Mohsen Safaei Farahani, Saeed Shariati, Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, Shahabolddin Tabatabaei, and Dr. Saeed Hajjarian, all leading members of the IIPF; Mostafa Tajzadeh, a member of the IIPF and the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organization (IRMO), another leading reformist group; Behzad Nabavi, a leading member of the IRMO, and Hedayatollah Aghaei, a leading member of the Executives of Reconstruction Party (ERP), a reformist group close to former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Also present in court were Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, who used to work for the George Soros Open Society, and three of the journalists arrested, Jalal Karami, Masoud Bastani, and Mohammad Quchani, a leading reformist journalist and editor of many reformist newspapers that have been closed by the hardliners. [Overall, 42 journalists were arrested, but some were later released]. Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour, who was a leader of the Mir Hossein Mousavi campaign, and a doctoral student at Oxford University in Britain, was also present in court. The court has apparently ordered the release of Quchani and Jalaeipour before the court session took place, but they were still brought to court for an appearance.

Once again, the prosecutor read a long “indictment” that had been prepared by Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s notorious Prosecutor General and the Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court. Once again, the “indictment” was not a legal document, but a political manifesto of the hardliners, almost all of which had been published over the past few years by the daily newspaper Kayhan, the mouthpiece of the security-intelligence apparatus, and Fars News Agency, which operates more like a propaganda machine.

Once again, the reformist leaders were accused of having links with foreign powers, and in particular Britain and the United States, through a variety of channels, from the Open Society to people who are, or were at some point, supposedly members of western intelligence agencies.

Read rest of article....

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2110 GMT: In addition to providing the first set of his evidence of detainee abuse to Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi has responded to criticism from a conservative MP, Ahmad Tavakoli, that the revelations were against Karroubi's revolutionary background and would have bad consequences. Karroubi said that it was not right to sacrifice "our religion, dignity and bravery for the benefit of ourselves" and that the regime's is to no one's benefits.

2100 GMT: Returning to the comments of former 1st Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai (see 1315 GMT), more to raise a smile than to offer any analysis. Rahim-Mashai said that the election had demonstrated President Ahmadinejad's historic and extraordinary popularity in the world, a popularity unique before and after the Islamic Revolution. He added that, had it not been for the “challenges” that the Ahmadinejad Administration created in the world, Iran would not be as successful as it is today. (Press TV has a summary in English.)

1945 GMT: The Los Angeles Times blog "Babylon & Beyond" has summarised the first testimony of detainee abuse produced by Mehdi Karroui (see 1535 and 1930 GMT):

Iranian officials interviewed an alleged victim of jailhouse rape at the hands of security personnel. But instead of consoling him, they asked him embarrassing questions and blamed him for the violence.

They said it was the young man's own fault for protesting the results of Iran's June 12 presidential elections, according to a fresh account of the alleged rape published on the website of a prominent reformist politician.

"I asked them why I and others were raped in prison," the young man says he asked two interrogators and a judge who had agreed to hear his story....

One of the three replied, "'When the supreme leader confirmed the election result, everyone should have recognized it."

1940 GMT: For What It's Worth. Press TV, citing Ayandeh newspaper, reports that the managing director of the Behehst-e-Zahra cemetery has denied the secret burial of post-election casualties. Norooz claimed earlier this week, from information provided by a cemetery employee, that security forces had forced staff to inter 40 bodies.

1930 GMT: Tabnak reports that Kazam Jalali of the Parliament National Security Committee has met with Mehdi Karroubi to discuss Karroubi's initial presentation of evidence on the sexual abuse of detainees (see 1535 GMT). The Los Angeles Times offers an English summary quoting Jalali, “Karoubi agreed to introduce four persons, who have met him personally and claimed that they were tortured and raped in prison, to Parliament. Karoubi told us these four persons are ready to provide their testimonies that they were sexually abused, but they do not feel secure.”

1600 GMT: Cyber-Wars. We will probably run a feature tomorrow, but it appears that the Iranian authorities are doing serious damage to the communications and presence of the Green opposition and reformists.

One key site of Mir Housein Mousavi's campaign, Ghalam News, was hacked out of existence last month ("Service Unavailable"). It is reported that another, Kalameh Sabz, has been down for more than 10 days. The closure of Etemade Melli newspaper has been followed by the disappearance of its website ("Under Construction"); Seda-ye Edalat fell at the end of July. (The website of the Etemade Melli political party is still up and a key source for information.)

1535 GMT: The Evidence Emerges. Mehdi Karroubi has released the first testimony from an abused detainee from Saham News via his party's website, Etemade Melli, and promised that this is only "a corner of the documentation".

1525 GMT: Press TV features the story that head of judiciary Sadegh Larijani has appointed the former Minister of Intelligence, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, as Iran's Prosecutor General, as well as naming Ayatollah Ahmad Mohseni-Gorgani as the head of the Supreme Court.

Nothing surprising there --- we reported Mohseni-Ejeie's appointment many days ago. What is significant is that Press TV is obviously repeating the news to give the President a poke in the eye. On no less than four occasions in a short article (three times in the text; once in the caption), the website stresses, "The appointment comes as earlier last month President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacked his intelligence minister Mohseni-Ejei after he objected to the president's first deputy pick."

1450 GMT: Rumours have been flying for the last 36 hours that one of the defendants in tomorrow's fourth Tehran trial of post-election detainees will be prominent politician Saeed Hajjarian. That has now expanded to the claim that Hajarian and reformist political heavyweights , Mohsen Aminzadeh, Mostafa Tajzadeh, and Mohsen Mirdamadi will be making "confessions" on television on Tuesday night.

1400 GMT: Journalist Mahsa Amirabadi has been released after more than two months in detention. Her husband Masoud Bastani is still in Evin Prison.

1315 GMT: Slow politics day so far, but one story has been developing. The former First Vice President and current (but suspended for legal reasons) Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has given an extended interview to Islamic Republic News Agency, declaring that the Presidential election was a "referendum" on the Government.

Rahim-Mashai's lengthy version of how the election developed, however, is important for another reason. He asserts that Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to use events to curb the authority of the Supreme Leader. In the context of current events, this may be seen as a clear signal that the Ahmadinejad camp is trying to prevent any rapprochement between Ayatollah Khamenei and the former President, or as we frame it, an anti-Ahmadinejad compromise.

0915 GMT: A Green Media and Organisation. Seyed Mohammad Maraashi, writing on the website of the Mir Hossein Mousavi campaign, declares:

The continuation of this movement is tied to the creation of a cohesive organization with its own definite means of communication. The establishment of a closely knit organization depends primarily on setting up a newspaper or a television and radio network. That will allow the movement’s supporters to receive the news from trustworthy sources. This initiative will also prevent the irresponsible distribution of rumors....

But the creation of an official newspaper, radio or television network is only one of the considerable tasks of the movement. Another momentous task is the establishment of an organization. Every organization must focus on a particular objective, and this objective can be realized if we devise and preserve this organization’s structure through constant education and activity....

We should not forget that the current condition is the condition of a coup d’état, and we should be prepared to go to jail, or even to die, for our political activities.

0700 GMT: Watching Hashemi. Maryam at Keeping the Change offers a challenging evaluation of Rafsanjani's role and strategy, set in the context of his 30 years at the forefront of Iranian politics and his 17 July address at Friday prayers in Tehran:

In the first half of his speech, Rafsanjani emphasized the importance of unity to resolving the post-election crisis, a theme he discussed primarily through citations to the Quran....Rafsanjani's [Saturday] comments to the Expediency Council reinforce this view.... [It was] another...example of Rafsanjani's desire to strike a middle ground, though one which superficially favored the Establishment in the short term.

It's a persuasive argument as far as it goes, but it leaves an important question. Is it possible to find unity in the current crisis?

0545 GMT: Late last night, after a day trying to interpret where exactly Hashemi Rafsanjani stood in the post-election conflict between and amidst the President, the Supreme Leader, conservative and principlist groups, and the Green opposition, one reader wrote, "This really is the most incredible four-dimensional chess game."

In a new day in that game, the players are on a break. However, there is one move, from a high-ranking reformist member of Parliament: "The First Vice-Speaker of Iran's Parliament, Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard, told reporters on Sunday that it was 'likely' that the Parliament (Majlis) would reject about five of the introduced nominees."

Aboutourabi-Fard made the same statement last week, as did Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, the second Vice-Speaker. The question, of course, is whether other MPs share their scepticism.