The Latest from Iran (21 February): Catching Up

2220 GMT: Student activist Majid Tavakoli returned to Revolutionary Court today, 2 1/2 months after his detention on 7 December. There are no details of the hearing.

2105 GMT: On the Academic Front. Dr Mohammad Sattarifar has been expelled from his post at Allameh Tabatabei University.

2100 GMT: The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front has stated that it will continue its activities as scheduled.

2055 GMT: What Are Mahmoud (and Ali) Doing Today? Trying to out-do each other in the bashing of the West, it seems.

Ahmadinejad used a meeting with the speaker of Azerbaijan's Parliament to declare, "The so-called powerful countries are merely after their own interests. They are willing go so far as to sacrifice other countries and nations for their interests....The weakening of the so-called powerful countries will completely change the state of affairs on the regional and international scale."

Larijani's audience was the Parliament, as he warned President Obama about following the polices of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and declared that the 22 Bahman rallies had thwarted the US-Iran "plot" against Iran.

NEW Iran Analysis: Re-alignment v. Crackdown — Which “Wins”?
NEW Iran: A Tale of Cricket, Andre the Giant, and Protests
Iran: “It’s All Over” for the Green Movement?
The Latest from Iran (20 February): Questions

2010 GMT: Drawing a line. Peyke Iran claims that Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has convinced lawmaker Mostafa Kavakebian not to press his plan for further examination of detention centres.


1955 GMT: Iran's Nuclear Cooperation? Islamic Republic News Agency is quoting the spokesman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Shirzadian that a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived on Saturday yesterday, to study Iran's nuclear safety system. The delegation is expected to spend two weeks on safety evaluation, procedures, and international requirements.

1820 GMT: Well, well, have a look at Khabar Online, the "conservative" website which is now almost non-stop in its challenge to the President. Khabar reports on Saturday's meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi without a hint of criticism and throws in a good kick on the "magically changing flag" issue:

The report [from Karroubi's Saham News]...reads that the reformist leaders had a conversation about "eliminating a symbol of Iranian national flag". Actually it refers to a ceremony attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran for the head of the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). There, in a graphic design behind Ahmadinejad the green stripe of the country's national flag [green, white and red] had turned to blue.

Green is also symbolizes the opposition Green Movement led by the two former officials.

1635 GMT: Nukes, Nukes, Nukes! Today's hyperbole posing as analysis comes out of The Washington Post, where James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations spend several paragraphs feigning deep thought before setting up for First, Containment But Prepare to Attack:

If Tehran remains determined to go nuclear and preventive attacks prove too risky or unworkable to carry out, the United States will need to formulate a strategy to contain Iran. In doing so, however, it would be a mistake to assume that containment would save the United States from the need to make tough choices about retaliation. If Washington is not prepared to back up a containment strategy with force, the damage created by Iran's going nuclear could become catastrophic.

The piece is notable not for any insight but for a shift from Takeyh, who had been putting forward a rights-first approach to Iran up to 22 Bahman.

1620 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch (cont. --- see 1330 GMT). It hasn't taken long for regime defenders to respond to the alliance between Hashemi Rafsanjani and Moshen Rezaei to get changes in the Iranian system, especially the supervision of elections. Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of Kayhan, has warned that the Expediency Council --- headed by Rafsanjani and served by Rezaei as Secretary --- is trying to get rid of the Guardian Council.

1420 GMT: Alireza Khaliji, the son-in-law of Mohammad Reza Beheshti, martyr Ayatollah Beheshti’s eldest son, has been released from prison. Opposition activists claim the arrest was merely to put pressure on Mir Hossein Mousavi --- his chief advisor Alireza Beheshti is the uncle of Alireza Khaliji.

1400 GMT: Parleman News reports that journalist Hasan Zohouri, a specialist on cultural affairs arrested in the lead-up to the 22 Bahman rallies, was released last night.

1330 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Could this be an encounter with political significance? Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has met Mehdi Karroubi's son Ali, who was taken away and beaten on 22 Bahman. Reports claim that Ali Karroubi's account of the experience brought Rafsanjani and his wife to tears.

0945 GMT: Don't Look Here, Look Over There! Iranian state media are pretending not to notice Hashemi Rafsanjani's comments on the internal political situation. Instead, it's all Nukes, Nukes, Nukes. From Press TV:

“The [International Atomic Energy Agency] report was clearly custom-made for Western powers,” said the former Iranian President. “There is no way an international organization with an independent approach would make such comments.”

“The tidal wave of threats and accusations against Iran's nuclear activity has certainly been unprecedented, but [Western powers] should come to realize that they have no chance of forcing Iranians [into giving up their enrichment program],” said Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani went to add that one expected that "foreign enemies of Iran would not opt for "aggressive behavior" after millions of Iranians took part in rallies — held during the 31st anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution — and threw their weight behind the Islamic establishment.

0905 GMT: There are Sanctions...And There Are No Sanctions. While the French Government talks tough about economic punishment for Iran's nuclear stance, this bit of Auto News:

Iran's state-owned car manufacturer Iran Khodro unveiled for the home market on Saturday the Peugeot 207i, a locally built version of the French automobile firm's 207 model. The Peugeot 207i will hit the market at the beginning of the next Iranian year which starts on March 21....

Pierre Foret, representative of Peugeot in Iran, said the launch of the 207i was the French car maker's attempt to "develop its market in Iran"

0855 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Persian2English reports that the Revolutionary Court has sentenced human rights lawyer Mohammad Oliyaifard to a year in prison for “propaganda against the system”. Oliyaifard is prominent for his pro bono (no fees) work defending juveniles in death penalty cases.

0845 GMT: Police News and Rumour. Iranian media have reported that Tehran's police chief, Brigadier-General Azizollah Rajabzadeh, is retiring after only six months in charge.

The rather tasty rumour is that Rajabzadeh was beaten up by a woman who is a martial arts specialist. The more prosaic reason for his sudden departure is the perception that his forces failed to keep order during the Ashura demonstrations on 27 December.

0840 GMT: Speaking of that debate over the state of the Green Movement, we've got a special analysis by Josh Shahryar on "Cricket, Andre the Giant, and Protests".

0835 GMT: The Green Movement Debate. Another voice to add to this weekend's discussion of whether the opposition in Iran has been crippled: expatriate intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush declares that the movement is "unstoppable".

0815 GMT: We're catching up with a lot of news from Saturday. Much of it is in our morning analysis, "Re-alignment v. Crackdown: Which 'Wins'?", as politicians like Hashemi Rafsanjani manoeuvre for some changes within the system to prevent implosion but the Government persists in its strategy of threats.

Elsewhere, reformists have called on Minister of Higher Education Kamran Daneshjoo to demand release of students from detention, an end to punitive jail terms, and exclusion of armed forces from universities.

The nightly ritual of gatherings and protests by families of detainees continues outside Evin Prison. Once again, some prisoners are being released to those waiting.

On the economic front, claims are being made in the pro-Larijani Khabar Online that $9 trillion (yes, trillion) is wasted because of the lack of modern technology in Iran's oil fields means 24% productivity, instead of rates, as in Norway, of 48 to 65%.

In Tehran Bureau, "Hamid Faroknia" of the Iran Labor Report has a lengthy, detailed analysis of the effects of President Ahmadinejad's economic policy bringing in cheap imports: "farmers [driven] to bankruptcy; industrial workers arbitrarily denied wages".

Comments

[Catherine]

In an interview with Euronews, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights has said that in Iran “nobody is hanged for demonstration for opposition.” “Being in prison is only because of inciting violence,” he added. He also accused the UK of supporting Neda Agha Soltan's killer and said, “I cannot claim perfection like any other country in the world. But torture is against our constitution, is against Islam and against the policy of the government.”

More distortion and lies here: http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/feb/20/1249

[Catherine]

Truly Petty Repression Watch:
Iran has banned travel agencies from organising tours to countries where concerts are held during Shiite mourning holidays. The move came after Iran's tourism organisation banned package holidays to neighbouring Dubai where concerts by expat Iranian singers were to be held this month during a long holiday including the death anniversary of Prophet Mohammed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100220/wl_mideast_afp/lifestyleirantravelislam_20100220204244

[The Latest from Iran (21 Febru]

[...] post:  The Latest from Iran (21 February): Catching Up | Enduring America Share and [...]

[Catherine]

RE 0845 GMT: Police News and Rumour. ... The rather tasty rumour is that Rajabzadeh was beaten up by a woman who is a martial arts specialist.

The rumour is true: http://www.ayandenews.com/news/13714/

[Ali Khamenei]

0905 GMT: There are Sanctions…And There Are No Sanctions....
    Sanctions? What sanctions indeed? Our economy is booming with this § coup d' éPeugeot 207i §
Booming I tell you! Boom, boom, boom, why don't we do it on the road and make room for the caliphate...

It's my party car
and I'll lie if I want to
be dire if I want to
have ire if I want to

You would lie too
in a coup for you

velayat-e faqih and
fiat money for all

but I bought Ahmadinejad a brand new Mustang
'round about 1979
and now all he wants to do is ride around Lari.
Mustang Mahmoud my President
all you want to do is
ride around parliament...
you'd better slow that Mustang down

There is no top-dog but Khamenei and Ahmadinejad is His messenger

[Catherine]

RE 0815 GMT: In Tehran Bureau, “Hamid Faroknia” of the Iran Labor Report has a lengthy, detailed analysis of the effects of President Ahmadinejad’s economic policy bringing in cheap imports: “farmers [driven] to bankruptcy; industrial workers arbitrarily denied wages”.

And the Neo-Resistance blog did an excellent piece on this same subject last month
'Oil for Orange!', Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - the comments are also worth reading: http://iranfacts.blogspot.com/2010/01/oil-for-orange.html

[Catherine]

Curious benchfellows
The hardline newspaper, Kayhan, was in court today to face defamation charges on Sunday from a number of plaintiffs, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi ... AND ... President Ahmadinejad's best buddy and pal, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100221/wl_mideast_afp/iranpoliticsmediaebadi_20100221125849

[Ali Karroubi trifft Hashemi Ra]

[...] 2010 von Julia Veröffentlicht auf Green Voice of Freedom am 21. Februar 2010 Zitiert bei Enduring America Übersetzung aus dem Englischen, bei Weiterveröffentlichung bitte Link [...]

[Observer]

By now, always I check Khabar Online (eng) first on the list just to see what the day's 'weasel' report has to offer. Today's benign report Karroubi/Mousavi meeting was both incredible and hilarious.

And the weasel just had to get in the 'flag thing' dig, didn't he? Additionally, since seeing it all earlier today, Khabar has put on the english version of the "Iran loses $9 trillion for low oil recovery ratio" piece:

http://www.khabaronline.ir/news-45061.aspx

J Larijani keeps lying about Iran's open democracy to the whole world using very good English; S Larijani continues to speak out on the Judiciary's 'duty' to follow the law while atrocities continue; and the Speaker just jabs away at Ahmadinejad every time he can. What a family, very confusing. Does anyone know if they have an actual 'group plan?' Somehow I doubt they're simply the three stooges. Anyone?

[Samuel]

Heh Heh even socialists realize that the Greenies are phony.

http://www3.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/iran-f12.shtml

"All that being said, the opposition’s failure to break through the government’s security clampdown speaks to its narrow social base.

The Green Wave or Revolution has been promoted by the western media, the Obama administration, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s Gordon Brown, to name only the most prominent, as a “democratizing movement.” In fact, it speaks for a faction of the Iranian bourgeois and clerical establishment that hopes to secure and expand its privileges by speeding up the neoliberal reform of Iran’s economy and by pressing for a rapprochement with the US.

The bulk of its popular support has come from the middle class, especially the upper middle class of north Teheran and a handful of other urban centers. This layer bristles at many of the reactionary religious restrictions imposed by the Islamic regime. But it is indifferent, and for the most part downright hostile, to the social needs and aspirations of the working class and rural poor, which, as a result of two decades of economic “reforms,” must endure increased poverty and economic insecurity."

[rezvan]

Catherine - your comments found familiar to the many working and middle class professionals, small and medium sized businesses of the UK where the Eurocentric policies of the current regime, in defiance of the deeply Eurosceptic British citizens (who have never been and it seems unlikely to be given a chance to vote on the EU constitution which marginalises nation states and gives greater powers to unelected Eurocrats based in Brussels over national parliaments) are suffering reduced living standards, having to work longer and for less, with increased taxation burdens on the way to pay for the huge debts that the greedy bankers and corporates have foisted onto national governments and indirectly on ordinary taxpayers. To add to all this we now have to face competition from cheap labour from Eastern Europe and elsewhere as the increasing transfer of wealth from public limited companies to private equities continues unabated. In the process lowering the value of British labourers and professionals and forcing them to work longer and harder for less. The British workforce is so atomised and divided that it has not go strength any longer to defend the workers and workers dare not question their employers lest they lose their jobs at a time of increasing economic uncertainty.

I would say at least the Iranian population is highly politicised (85% participation in the last presidential election must have been a world record) and has shown capability in history to remove unpopular regimes but there is absolutely no chance of that happening in Britain or for that matter in the US if Obama fails to deliver on his promises by the end of his term. It will still be the same old Tory v/s Labour race in the UK and Republican v/s Democrat in the US. No chance of any other genuinely independent and popular force being ever allowed to come into power by those who actually pull the strings.

Whatever the shortcomings of the current system and of course abuses must be condemned, Iran is going to emerge far more stronger and victorious if it sticks to the three main slogans of the Revolution - Independence, Freedom and the Islamic Republic combined with national unity which the majority of Iranians demonstrated in large numbers on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. God be with the good people of Iran and indeed the world.

[Samuel]

"What a family, very confusing."

What is so confusing? Speaker Larijani despises AN and wants to be President and his family, naturally enough, supports his cause. At the same time the Larijanis enjoy and exploit their long standing position as "Khamenei's boys". The SL used the Larijanis to keep Rafsanjani in check back in the 1990's when the latter was president.

[Breaking: Majid Tavakoli wiede]

[...] auf RAHANA am 21. Februar 2010 Quelle (Englisch): http://www.rhairan.org/en/?p=972 Referenziert von Enduring America Übersetzung aus dem Englischen; bei Weiterveröffentlichung bitte Link [...]

[Rev. Magdalen]

Samuel, you're slipping out of character! You're supposed to be offended that we call Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "AN" [the Persian equivalent of the Western euphemism "B.M."] Real Regime loyalists always call him MA instead!

[Samuel]

Rev,

I don't bother with such silliness. And as I've said before I'm not an "AN" supporter. I am a strong supporter of the Revolution, of the Supreme Leader and of the legacy of Imam Khomeini. "AN" is too much of a demagogue in my opinion, his view and pronouncements on the Nazi crimes called the Holocaust are ignorant and ahistorical and he is too often involved in petty personal feuds which benefit no one. For example the great General Naghdi, current head of the Basij, was fired by AN some years ago for investigating one of AN's allies. I am sure that it is only because of the Supreme Leader that Naghdi is where he is today despite AN's views.

Now I do have relatives who are big AN supporters and we've had arguments about that. It seems I'm the moderate one in the family.

[Adam]

Suuure... just like Marandi, who "didn't vote for AN" yet goes on tv every day to justify the mass murder of Iran's youth in the name of protecting this lunatic Ahmadinejad's lie of an election

[Behrooz]

Samuel,

I hope you die immediately and somehow are transported back in time to 1980 Iran. I also hope that you'll be born to a family that has no connections to the revolutionary guard or clerics that live well only by quashing the hopes and ambitions and future of millions upon millions of Iran's youth. I can think of no worse punishment for any person that thinks as you do. But while I'm hoping for all this, I might as well also hope that someday your frame of mind, moral code and internal logic will allow you to truly understand (to truly "daark") my people's suffering and feel shame. We want to democracy. Not Islamic democracy. Democracy. Democracy. Democracy. That is all.

[Catherine]

@ Samuel RE your post 12 "At the same time the Larijanis enjoy and exploit their long standing position as “Khamenei’s boys”. The SL used the Larijanis to keep Rafsanjani in check back in the 1990’s when the latter was president."

How would you say the SL is using the Larijanis at present vis-avis AN, (if at all)?

[ange paris]

Samuel
Almost all the people in Iran and here on EA were and are for the revolution; but what I don't understand is how you could be a supporter of SL; people wanted the revolution in 1979 to change the situation in Iran, because one person, Mohammad Reza Shah, decided for all the people; they wanted a republic to be free to choose their president, for his thoughts and his strategy to lead and rule the country; after that, has arrived the period of velayate faghih, meaning monarchy again but instead of a crown, the man supposed being the advisor, has a turban; it's the way to belittle the people of the country and their intelligence(including yours) , it's also belitteling and humiliating the president choosen by this people and" his intelligence"; this new revolution is only to annul Velayate faghih and obviously the rigged elections !

[Rev. Magdalen]

Samuel, you're right of course that it's silly to call people insulting names, but it is also quite cathartic when they've done something really terrible and you want to vent your frustration! Also, I have to put up with some of my fellow Americans calling my beloved president "B.O." which is pretty much just as offensive, so I figure Regime loyalists can put up with me calling their president "AN." ;-) Tolerance is the name of the game in a democracy!

[Dave]

Quoting -- ....but I bought Ahmadinejad a brand new Mustang
’round about 1979
and now all he wants to do is ride around Lari.
Mustang Mahmoud my President
all you want to do is
ride around parliament…
you’d better slow that Mustang down

"There is no top-dog but Khamenei and Ahmadinejad is His messenger."

*******

He would have been satisfied with a Chrysler. We all need a hero, you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PpbIepFRD4

[pessimist]

Samuel

are you not a rather mixed up kid, you now use socialists who criticize the greens, for not supporting the rural and workers population yet you say you are a Komeini supporter, yet he killed the communists who took over the Shah. This is not to say that these socialists aren't right to a certain extent, all that is debated too.

Were you not saying that AM had helped the rural communities and that's why they voted for him ?

On another page, you said that you hoped all the greenies would leave the country and that just those faithful to the regime would remain even if they had a reduced lifestyle. Doesn't this show the abject islamic policies of 'sacrifice' that shows no respect for the intrinsic value of human life ? Doesn't that show that you're are a mixed up kid, whoever you are ?