The Latest from Iran (1 August): The Regime Gets Tough

NEW Iran: Interpreting Ayatollah Jannati’s Challenge at Friday Prayers
The Latest from Iran (31 July): And Now….?

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1340 GMT: The "reformist" Parliamentary group Imam Khomeini Line has denounced today's events as a "so-called trial".

1330 GMT: Fars News Agency has published the "confession" of former Vice President Abtahi; this differs somewhat from the version reported out of the trial (see 1210 GMT). This may be because Fars had an advance "script" of Abtahi's testimony.

1210 GMT: Blaming Hashemi. And now to the political point of today's proceedings. Take note of how the "confession" of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, as described by Fars News, is set out to tie former President Rafsanjani into the "plot" of the opposition:

After the election [Mohammad] Khatami and Rafsanjani had sworn to have each other's back, and I don't understand the point of it, knowing the diference [in votes between Ahmadienjad and Mousavi] was 11 million....Hashemi wanted to take revange on Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader....

Mousavi probably did not know the country, but Khatami, with all due respect... knew all the issues. He was aware of the capability and power of the leader, but he joined Mousavi and this was a betrayal,...I see myself as a reformist but stated that Khatami did not have the right to force [this] on Mousavi. I did not agree with Ahmadinejad's presidency but believe in people's votes, and congratulated as people's choice as  the president.

It was wrong of me to take part in the rallies, but [Mehdi] Karroubi told me that we cannot call the people onto the streets with such a meagre number of votes, so we had better go to the streets ourselves to demonstrate our protest.

But, if Rafsanjani is the chief villain, Iran can thank its ultimate hero:

If the Supreme Leader would have backed up even a bit, today Iran's distress would have gone as far as that in Afghanistan and Pakistan; therefore people should thank the supreme leader for his moves. I am telling all friends and all that hear our voices to know the election matter was a lie to make an excuse for riots so Iran would have changed to another Iraq and Afghanistan so [the opposition] could hurt the regime and take over.

1140 GMT: How Serious is that "Foreign Plot"? Well, Mark Palmer is far from a covert practitioner of regime change: he is the author of Breaking the Axis of Evil, which "has the gumption to argue what diplomats and political leaders dare not speak: that global peace with not be achieved until democracies replace the world's remaining dictatorships". A former State Department official, he advocated the invasion of Iraq well before March 2003, and he is now with the American Enterprise Institute.

Abbas Milani is also not very secretive: he is one of the most prominent US-based analysts of Iran. He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, another "conservative" think tank (one of its most notable associates is former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice). While critical of the Iranian system, Milani has not advocated "regime change".

And Gene Sharp, singled out in the prosecution's indictment (see 0938 GMT), is an academic who has written for decades "on the strategic uses of nonviolent struggle in face of dictatorship, war, genocide, and oppression". A long-time fellow at Harvard University, the "instructions" cited in the indictment are not direct orders to the defendants (unless the prosecution has some dramatic evidence that Sharp has ever met any of them) but a reference to the general theories and analysis in his books.

Put bluntly, if this is a "foreign plot", as the Iranian prosecutors allege, it's a very poorly-designed one indeed, given that it took me five minutes to assemble the above information.

1105 GMT: Finding the Foreign Agents. This from the prosecution's opening statement:

Some people like "Mark Palmer", President of "Konos Institute" have carried out much research on Iran and formed classed two or three years ago, to which they invited reformists like Emad Baqi to train them in "soft overthrow" of the Government.

There is a institute in US which is called "Hoover", and one of its member is Abbas Milani. His value to CIA is more than Reza Pahlavi [the son of the Shah] because of his good relationship with reformists and some members of the Kargozaran Party especially Mohammad Atrianfar. The institute has a project called "Democracy in Iran", and also Milani covers all of Akbar Ganji's financial costs overseas.

1100 GMT: This trial is clearly an effort to break the "reformist" Islamic Iran Participation Front, with several of its high-ranking officials amongs the defendants. In addition to those listed in earlier entries, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the Vice President of the IIPF, is on trial.

1040 GMT: Sea of Green Radio is dedicating itself to establishing and publicising the death toll in post-election conflict: "Any failure to hold Iranian authorities to account has one key consequence: it extends to repressive forces in Iran a licence to continue to kill without fear that the full scale of these murders will be exposed." Today it interviews the author of Iran Revolution, a blog pursuing an up-to-date confirmation of casualties.

1010 GMT: Other defendants include Mohsen Mirdamadi, General Secretary of  the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Mohsen Aminzadeh, a founding member of the Islamic Participation Front and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Khatami, and journalist Mohammad Atrianfar.

1000 GMT: Summary of prosecutor's introduction of defendants:

"What we have seen is a part of an unsuccessful velvet coup d'etat. Many arrestees have been previously arrested for being with Monafeghin [anti-Iranian terrorists]", including involvements in bombings. Others have travelled to Iraq to meet American troops and have sent American authorities videos of their plans for bombings. "Emad Behavar [leader of the youth wing of the Freedom Party] was an activist in Mousavi's campaigns, which was making film and distributing them to others in Iran....They betrayed their country by sending footage out to foreign media to change the image of Iran." One defendant is accused of destroying banks and other public property.

0938 GMT: From Revolutionary Road, who is live-blogging from the first trials of the detainees, the text of the indictment:

Every fair man can easily see the big achievement of this great epic [election] in the political, cultural, social, and economic fields at national and international levels.

Firstly, this election converted into real democratic pride and performance, with a message to people around the world, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most secure and stable countries in the world for investment and progress in economic projects.

Secondly, in the field of international relations, this great national election contributed to the achievement of the full realization of peoples' rights. Therefore, there in no place for false claimants of freedom, democracy. and human rights [to challenge this]. From now on, Iranian diplomats and statesmen can do their roles better than ever in the world.

Thirdly, the profound effect of this election was that, more than ever, the national public realized that the pattern of religious democracy is efficient.

Fourth, since the support of the people is one of the most important components in national security to the holy Islamic Republic, the 85 percent turnout iof people in this election stabilised the national security and will help Iran in its domestic and foreign problems.

But as the supreme leader Ali Khamenei had warned people about enemies and their malicious intrigues, the losers and hopeless enemies immediately started to turn this victory into bitterness for the Iranian nation. According to available documents and evidence and the reasonable confessions of the accused, this was a pre-designed and scheduled velvet coup. More than 100 of 198 instructions of "Gene Sharp" for velvet coup have been carried out.

0925 GMT: The Battle Amongst the Clerics. Picking up on some news from yesterday: the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom, a "reformist" group, issued a statement asking protesters to continue. The Association asserted, "Grand Ayatollahs are worried and disappointed by the recent developments ,and what the
Friday prayer leader [Ayatollah Jannati] says in the Friday sermon does not reflect thoughts and beliefs of the Grand Ayatollahs and the professors and teachers in the seminaries and the Hawzahs [schools of clerical learning and interpretation]."

0845 GMT: Fars News Agency has posted a series of pictures from the trials. There is no update on the proceedings.

0600 GMT: Iranian state media are reporting that the first trials of demonstrators in the post-election conflicts have begun. It is unclear how many are being tried, but the estimates of 30 to 100 are greater than the original figure of 20 put out this week. The charges of rioting and vandalism seem relatively minor; the catch-all and more ominous allegation are "acting against national security" and "having ties with counter-revolutionary groups".

Fars News says that the trials began in "chaos and turbulence" at 9:10 a.m. local time (0440 GMT). There are "nearly 100" defendants, including former Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Behzad Nabavi, former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, and former Deputy Ministry of Economy Mohsen Safai-Farahani.

Kurdish officials in Iraq said last night that three American tourists have been detained by Iranian security forces after they strayed across the border during a mountain hike.

Iran: Ayatollah Jannati's Challenge at Friday Prayers (Rafsanjani, We're Watching You)

The Latest from Iran (1 August): The Regime Gets Tough

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Less than 24 hours after the "40th Day" memorial demonstrations, the regime offered its response through Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati's address at Friday prayers in Tehran. The message was far from subtle, but for some it may be surprising.

Right now, those supporting the Government do not see the protestors as the main threat. The challenge does not come from the leaders of that movement, such as Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi, or Mohammad Khatami. It is not even in the statements of senior clerics from Qom.

The man they fear is former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

On reflection, this may always have been the case. A week after the election, in his address at Friday prayers, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave nothing to the Green opposition. However, he devoted much attention to Rafsanjani, offering conciliatory words over the verbal fighting before the election (especially over "corruption") but concluding that he preferred the political views of President Ahmadinejad.

The difference yesterday was that Jannati did not extend any hand of compromise to Rafsanjani. Instead, he cast him as the shadow behind the post-election conflict, "an unrest four years in the making". That reference to the 2005 election, in which Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani in the second round, could not have been clearer. (Even Press TV English is openly framing this as a showdown allegation against the former President.) Jannati charged, "After defeat was inflicted on a certain figure four years ago, those who could not stand a young man in power colluded against him. Since then, they have planned to avenge (their loss)."

The "young man" reference deserves special attention. As sharper analysts of Iran have noted, there is a wider battle here between politicians and clerics who emerged in the early years of the Revolution, including Rafsanjani and Mousavi, and a "new guard" including Ahmadinejad. In 2005 the Supreme Leader, despite having gained his position in 1989 in large part because of Rafsanjani's manoeuvring, backed the "young man" in what was widely seen as a political upset.

The shifting alliances --- Rafsanjani now finds himself on the same side as Ayatollah Montazeri, the clerical leader ousted in favour of Khamenei in 1989 --- do not replace the challenge on the streets. Jannati noted this yesterday when he warned opposition leaders, ""You were behind these unrests. You are responsible for the bloodshed… Now you go to their graves and offer prayers? Sooner or later, you will be punished for your unlawful acts."

However, since Rafsanjani chose to make his challenge public when he led prayers on 17 July, it is his specific threat that has galvanised supporters of the current regime. It is no coincidence that Jannati, the Secretary of the Guardian Council, is also one of the key figures behind the letter --- signed by 16 of the 86 members of the Assembly of Experts --- that tried to remove Rafsanjani as chairman of that body. And a contributing factor to his address was the reaction from other members of the Assembly, who sharply rebuked him and others for claiming a widespread mandate for the letter --- Jannati directly responded by claiming that while many members scattered around the country could not sign, they of course were fully supportive of the contents.

So the regime turns its eyes upon and points its fingers at Rafsanjani, waiting for his response. That still leaves intriguing questions, four days before the Presidential inauguration: if Rafsanjani is willing to compromise by promising no long-term challenge to the Supreme Leader and the system, will Jannati and his colleagues, including Khamenei, sacrifice Ahmadinejad? And, as the first trials of detainees begin today, with hundreds (how many hundreds?) languishing in prison, will the regime risk saying, "We were wrong", by giving in to the primary demand --- a demand not only of the Green opposition but of Rafsanjani and other political and clerical figures within the system --- to release and apologise to those who were taken off the streets and from their homes?