New Jersey to Iran (and Back Again): The Activism of Mehdi Saharkhiz

I first encountered Mehdi Saharkhiz as "onlymehdi" on Twitter last June. He has been one of the most important sources of information, especially photos and videos, for EA and many others on the post-election crisis.

From Ashley Kindergan at NorthJersey.com:

From coffee shops in Ridgewood, his home in Wayne and anywhere there is cell service, a 28-year-old Iranian is broadcasting the ongoing uprising in his home country — one of a growing number of people intent on helping share with the world what happens on the streets of Tehran.

Iran: Greening YouTube — An Interview with Mehdi Saharkhiz

Mehdi Saharkhiz — known as "onlymehdi" on his blog, YouTube channel and Twitter feed — has been posting photographs and videos of opposition protests in Iran since the disputed Iranian presidential election last June sent thousands of protesters into the streets and triggered a brutal crackdown by the regime.

"For me, it's about getting the word out there," Saharkhiz said.


Videos and images like the ones Saharkhiz posts have become crucial to scholars, journalists and ordinary people who want to know what's going on inside an increasingly closed-off Iran.

"I think it's been critical, and we've seen what may in fact be a real birth of citizen journalism," said Gary Sick, an Iran scholar and adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. "The coverage basically after the initial demonstrations in June has been extremely sparse except for the things that people are sending out."

Indeed, much of the post-election media coverage has centered around Iran's military ambitions and the possibility of imposing more sanctions on the country. Just a few days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautioned that Iran's armed forces were becoming increasingly important in the country's decision-making. And a recent report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency accused Iranian leaders of having worked to produce a nuclear warhead.

But the story of the opposition movement continues, recorded and shared by an online community.

For example, on Feb. 11, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was largely successful at keeping demonstrators out of a main square in Tehran when he gave a major speech celebrating the regime's anniversary.

Satellite images available through Google — not television cameras — showed a square that wasn't filled and buses that brought in supporters from outside Tehran. Saharkhiz showed photos of the buses on his site, too.

Sick noted that the Iranian regime has closed down many newspapers, especially those affiliated with the opposition. There are 47 journalists — including Mehdi's father, noted reform writer Isa Saharkhiz — imprisoned in Iran, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Getting information out of the country has also been made difficult by technological roadblocks and fears of government spying. And the fear reaches beyond Iran's borders, with Saharkhiz being careful about identifying his home and other North Jersey Iranians reluctant to even speak about communication with their home country.

The Iranian government recently blocked Gmail, Google's popular e-mail service. The regime has also frequently disrupted Internet service by slowing it to a crawl or shutting off some servers altogether, experts and Iranians here say. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter are reportedly monitored by the government to track the opposition.

"They've been trying to effect another blackout where nobody knows what's going on," said Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, a Boston-based Iranian-American journalist who started a Web site, Tehran Bureau, as an independent source of in-depth Iran coverage. "[People] have to be really sophisticated and keep on top of everything to continue to surf the Web and occasionally access a Facebook page or whatever."

Niknejad and Saharkhiz were both reluctant to talk about the specific ways in which their sources got around cyber obstacles in order to communicate. They didn't want to put sources in danger or to risk getting the avenues of communication shut down. But both said that people seem to adjust to each new obstacle.

"Seventy percent of Iran's population is under 35 years of age," Niknejad said. "The young population came of age with the Internet. … They have just had to get more sophisticated."

A 'conduit' to Iran

Mana Mostatabi, an online community organizer with the San Francisco-based United4Iran.org, said Saharkhiz's videos have been critical to spreading information, even as she hears from her own friends and relatives about increasing difficulty accessing Web sites.

"Mehdi has been such a key figure in getting that footage in and out," Mostatabi said. "He's acting as a conduit to people who are just snapping it on their cellphones."

Saharkhiz said he was not interested in Iranian politics before the 2009 elections. But then he saw footage of a crackdown on university students.

"These are just normal students going to school," he said. "They went out and voted … and now they're being massively arrested. That's when I feel it's my duty as an Iranian citizen to get their word out."

Isa Saharkhiz, Mehdi's father, worked as a journalist for many years, bringing his family to the U.S. in 1994 when he headed the New York office of IRNA, the official Iranian news agency. Isa Saharkhiz served as head of domestic publications under former President Mohammad Khatami and later published a monthly reformist newspaper that was shuttered in 2004.

In 2009, Isa Saharkhiz was active in the presidential campaign of opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi. He was arrested eight days after the election.

Mehdi Saharkhiz, who moved to the U.S. permanently in 2001, said his family suspects that his father was tracked down on his Nokia cellphone.

Hiding Internet use

People are working on solutions to make communication safer.

Austin Heap, executive director of the Censorship Research Center, has monitored the blocks placed on the Internet by the Iranian government. The center is now waiting for a license to distribute a technology called Haystack that would allow users inside Iran to hide their Internet use.

"Haystack does two things: First, it encrypts the data and, second, it coats the data to look like normal traffic," Heap said. "It just removes the middleman's ability to filter."

That would be a boon for Iranian-Americans in North Jersey who track the news. Several people interviewed said they read multiple news sources and keep in close touch with friends and family to hunt out credible information about Iran.

Still, getting information has been more and more difficult.

Mehdi Shahpar, a West Milford resident and president of the New Jersey-based Persian Cultural & Humanitarian Association, said he watches CNN and reads American newspapers, and also checks sites written largely by Iranians, such as Iranian.com. But the best sources are the firsthand ones, he said.

"The best sources of information are those videos that are coming out from individual people that are taken by cellphone cameras and smuggled out," Shahpar said. Friends and family "used to be able to talk more, but recently they're afraid of talking on the phone because of the phone tapping and checking everything."

Shahpar said he had no problem using e-mail when he visited Iran before the elections, but his sister had enormous trouble accessing the Internet on a recent visit.

Nahid Ahkami, a Clifton resident and co-founder of the Persian Cultural & Humanitarian Association, said she reads Tehran Bureau and her husband runs his own Web site that gathers Iranian news.

Ahkami said she believes the opposition movement will ultimately succeed.

"It's going to flourish," Ahkami said. "It's not going to go away. Iranian people are very resilient people and patient people."

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".

Iran Analysis: Re-alignment v. Crackdown --- Which "Wins"?

Forget all the talk and newspaper articles, which EA correspondents like Josh Shahryar took apart on Saturday, about this conflict being settled in favour of a heavy-fisted Government. While the opposition is still considering its next moves, there was more than enough to show that 1) this is far more than a simple narrative of Government putting down the Green Movement and 2) that Government is far from secure in its supposed victory.

NEW Iran: A Tale of Cricket, Andre the Giant, and Protests
Iran: “It’s All Over” for the Green Movement?

First, the less dramatic --- frankly, quite mundane --- but significant political move. The "ambiguous" Hashemi Rafsanjani is no longer ambiguous. His statement at the Council reaffirmed his basic position of siding with the Supreme Leader, but equally important were his call for unity and the need to make changes to ensure the security of the Iranian system.



Still a bit vague? Well, you have to join the statement to that of Mohsen Rezaei: Secretary of the Council, Presidential candidate, and Rafsanjani ally. Yep, ally. Rezaei's own declaration to the Council was for alterations to the electoral law that governed last year's unresolved campaign.

That might seems a bit too bureaucratic for much attention, but the significance of "alterations" is that they would take away power from bodies such as the Guardian Council, the group that tightly oversees and restricts Iran's political process. And that in turn means an opening up of space in the system for factions, parties, and individuals --- even critical parties and individuals if they stay within the legal framework of the system.

A Rafsanjani-Rezaei alignment is not new --- think "National Unity Plan" and the possible January initiative to clip the authority of President Ahmadinejad. In this case, however, it is narrower but more focused. Take away some of the political  power wielded by the executive and hand it to an ostensibly "neutral" body.

So how will the Government respond? Well, not directly. Saturday was another day where it was defending against attacks on the economy and trying to show its authority with more threats against the supposedly vanquished opposition and, perhaps, even "conservative" elements who are not on-board.

Iran police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam declared that media are the collaborators of intelligence services, assuring anyone listening that Iran's security services will take care of the foreign media in time to prevent any regime change.

Justice Minister Morteza Bakhtiari pronounced that you can forget the "official" figure of 300 detained on Ashura (27 December); it was actually 700. So let there be no doubt that the regime would also "get" Karroubi and Mousavi to prevent any significant challenge.

Ahmadinejad's media advisor Mehdi Kalhor chipped in with the news that the first "velvet revolution" in Iran was on 2 Khordaad 1376 (23 May 1997), the day that Mohammad Khatami was elected President. Neat twist, this. It is not the Ahmadinejad 2009 victory that is fraudulent but that of Khatami, who just happens to be one of the leading opposition figures, and the "reformists".

In Qom, Ahmadinejad's clerical backer, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, analysed that "the devil" played a role in the recent "riots" in Iran. Satan's companions includes "jinnis" and devious people, and democracy is another example of his ferocity and tyranny.

Not exactly the statements of a regime secure in its skin. Hmm....

Well, one easy read is that Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi haven't exactly gone away. They met for the second time this week on Saturday, this in Karroubi's home. No details given by Karroubi's website Saham News, but the point is that they met. The Government watches and frets that 22 Bahman did not settle matters.

But it should not only be watch the devil's foreign and domestic minions. The situation is such that any shift, even with "the system", of power and oversight is a slap-down to a President and his advisors who have escalated this crisis to the point of no compromise.

So expect more threats against Hashemi Rafsanjani in the near-future. Look for more counter-attacks from members of Parliament who no longer have any respect for Ahmadinejad. And bring back the recurrent question.

What say you now, Supreme Leader?

Iran: A Tale of Cricket, Andre the Giant, and Protests

Josh Shahryar writes for EA:

Every so often, I read the news about Iran and it reminds me of growing up as a refugee in Pakistan.

The latest reminder came on 11 February, my birthday, which happened to be the Islamic Revolution’s birthday as well. The occasion brought Green protesters and government supporters to the streets. The government, holding its one mass gathering in the western part of Tehran, blocked off all entries with hundreds, perhaps thousands of security forces. It then transported foreign journalists to the rally and back again, instructing them to write. about their rally and nothing else.



Meanwhile, thousands of Iranians gathered on the streets of Tehran, Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan, and other cities to deminstrate against the government. They were beaten, arrested, and denied entry to main squares. Their leaders were attacked, sometimes arrested, sometimes forced to return home at all. The regime had blocked Internet access, jailed as many bloggers as possible, and attempted to prevent the flow of news out of the country.

The government's big move could have backfired if the protesters managed to make it through to the regime's mass gathering and put themselves on live national and international TV broadcasts. But the demonstrators could not.

Suddenly there was uproar by pundits previously sympathetic to the Iranian government: “The Green Movement is dead.” Reporters tired of covering the Iran affair published articles stating, “It’s all over.”

These biased and uninformed assessments reminded me of a series of cricket games I played in Pakistan way back when.

(For anyone who doesn’t understand cricket, here’s a quick lesson: One guy stands in front of three sticks with a bat and another tries to hit those sticks with a ball from 22 yards out. The guy with the bat tries to hit the ball as far as possible, but if he misses and the ball hits the sticks, he is replaced. The scoring is similar to baseball.)

At 17, I was the best thrower of a cricket ball in my neighbourhood in Peshawar. I was energetic, fast, but most of all, I was accurate and consistent. When I threw the ball, if the batsman missed it, it would hit the sticks 90% of the time.

I recall when our neighbourhood had a best-of-three match with the guys from another part of town. The reward was about $10 in prize money, but it was more about boosting our testosterone levels than anything else.

Our rival’s ace in the hole was a guy the size of Andre the Giant who could make the ball disappear every time he swiped it with the bat. In the first game, he started thrashing our bowlers, including me. After a while, I got angry and frustrated, and the thrashing went epic. We lost the game.

Later that evening, I was smoking a cigarette in the general hang-out area in my neighbourhood; it was just a concrete bench where we all gathered and told each other lies about how we’d lost our virginity. I felt horrible.

A friend snuck close to me and said, “You did everything you could. Just keep doing that. He’s terrified of you,”

"But I’m good at getting thrashed," I said.

“No,” he said, “You’re good at being consistent. In the beginning, he was just terribly lucky, then, you got angry and stopped being consistent. You'll hit the sticks if he misses; he just hasn’t missed, yet. He’s just big. He has no game.”

I took that sage advice with a grain of salt. Come on, it was Andre the Giant....

Yet the next game, I hit the sticks the third ball and we won.

The Iranian government, like that Andre, has no game. It’s strong, but it is scared of the Green Movement. It is having internal problems, most of its people are against it, and the international community is slowly tightening the noose around it day after day.

The key to the Iranian opposition’s success is consistency. Every time it has called for a protest, now over more than eight months, it has put people on the ground.

The government, on the other hand, has failed to keep the streets clear. It may have managed to keep foreign news correspondents from covering the protests on 11 February, but just because no one noticed the tree fall in the forest, does not mean it didn’t. Whether or not The Washington Post, The New York Times, or CNN cover the protests is irrelevant to their occurrence.

The Iranian opposition will continue to be successful. The Iranian government can only attempt to stop people from coming out to streets, but that’s just one, highly visible option. The people have other ways to challenge the regime.

This time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad managed to hold his rally in peace. He used the occasion to continue his rant against the West, with the broadcast ending just as he was about to announce the coming of the 12th Imam.

But what if the Greens manage to storm the government’s rally next time? Ahmadinejad won’t get to announce the date for the 12th Imam’s appearance; worse, the government will be humiliated.

To put it in cricket terms: Watch out, Andre; consistency pays off.

(Oh, you ask, what about the final game of the series? It ended up in a massive brawl. That was even more fun than if we’d won the $10.)

The Latest from Iran (20 February): Questions

1730 GMT: Political Prisoner Update. Lawyer Massoud Aghaee was freed last night on bail. (http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109018)

1710 GMT: The Iranian Parliament has launched its 4th enquiry into the Kahrizak Prison abuses. (http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/feb/20/1244)

1655 GMT: Economic Projections. Key member of Parliament Ahmad Tavakoli has warned of possible zero growth or contraction in the economy in 2010-11. (http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=13758)

1645 GMT: Grand Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi has declared that officials should serve the people and that if the people do not appear in public anymore, there will be great difficulties. (http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109009)

1640 GMT: Conservative Watch. Mohsen Rezaei, Presidential candidate and Secretary of the Expediency Coucil, has called on the Council to "apply corrections" to electoral laws. (http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109015)

1630 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council, has declared at a Council meetint that "exclusion, elimination, and insulting" of figures in the Iranian system is a poison to domestic affairs and should be stopped.

Rafsanjani, reaffirming his position, declared that 22 Bahman invited Iranians to unity, following the Supreme Leader.
(http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109080)

1620 GMT: Afternoon Economy Watch. Bus drivers have gathered in front of the Social Security building in Tehran to protest against working conditions. (http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=13750)

Iranian Labor News Agency warns that factories in many industrial sectors face closure. (http://www.ilna.ir/fullStory.aspx?ID=109010)

At least 1500 jobs have been lost in recent shutdowns. (http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/feb/19/1237)

Alireza Mahjoub, the head of a workers' syndicate, has said the promise of 50 percent increase in oil prices in next year's budget is "bizarre and inaccurate". (http://www.ilna.ir/fullStory.aspx?ID=109089)

1120 GMT: This Month's Twitter-Bash. This is almost as predictable as British weather: every few weeks, someone in the "thinking" press patches together faulty assumptions, a mis-understanding of social media, an Iran anecdote, and an "analyst" to claim that he/she has discovered: Twitter Had Nothing to Do With Post-Elections Events in Iran Whatsoever.

This month's 15-second fame of Twitter-bashing is enjoyed by Mary Fitzgerald of The Irish Times. She is not as obnoxious or arrogant as Will Heaven, but the piece plumbs the same shallow waters of "analysis" that does no justice to social media or, more importantly, to those in Iran. (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0220/1224264860222.html)

1045 GMT: The Flag Flap (cont.). Well, I guess the issue of the magically changing colour of the Iranian flag --- from red/white/green to red/white/blue --- isn't just a joke any longer.

At least not for the President's office: it has issued a statement that "light reflection twisted the colour" of the flag at Ahmadinejad's press conference this week. (http://bit.ly/crcDMW)

0905 GMT: Moscow's Two-Faced Missiles. Russia, meanwhile, plays its own game with Iran. Having given Israel one message by holding up immediate delivery of S-300 missiles to Tehran, Moscow balanced with reassurance to Iran on Friday. Press TV quotes Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, “There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran, and we will fulfill it … Delays (with deliveries) are linked to technical problems with adjusting these systems."

NEW Iran: “It’s All Over” for the Green Movement?

Iran & the “Non-Bomb”: The Real Story on Tehran’s Nuclear Programme

Iran Book Update: No More Good Reads in Tehran

Iran: Are The Banks Failing?

The Latest from Iran (19 February): Finding the Real Stories

0900 GMT: McClatchy News Service gets inside information on nuclear developments:

Iran has just sent a letter to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, repeating its request for fuel to run a research reactor in Tehran that produces nuclear isotopes for medical purposes, according to U.S. and European officials.

They are readi
ng the letter as Iran's latest, and perhaps final, rejection of an offer the United States and five other countries made last October to provide the fuel by taking low-enriched uranium out of Iran and enriching it for use in the research reactor.....

"We understand that Iran has recently sent a letter to the IAEA that simply repeats its request from last year for assistance to acquire fuel - a request the IAEA has responded appropriately to with its offer last October," National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer said.

"We see nothing new, and it would appear to reiterate Iran's rejection of the IAEA's proposal. Coupled with the IAEA's latest report on Iran's nuclear program, this reinforces why our concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions are deepening."

In other words, diplomatic stalemate. Tehran will continue to put forth its request for uranium through purchase or a swap inside Iran, while "the West" will insist on a swap in a third country. This could drag on for some time: both sides are getting public-relations value out of their positions.

0758 GMT: Cheeky Challenge of the Day. At the risk of reviving our own whimsical story of the changing colours of the Iranian flag, we read this morning:

A reformist member of Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Mahdi Shahriari said that if the replacement of color green with blue in Iranian national flag at the recent state ceremonies attended by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was deliberate, the president should answer for the change.

Speaking to Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) Shahriari, a member of national security and foreign policy commission of the Parliament (Majlis) added: "Such alteration is subject to questioning and giving notice to its perpetrators because it's against the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran."

And where did we encounter this story? In some pernicious outlet of the Green Movement, spreading disinformation and trouble?

No. The recycling of the ILNA story comes from the pro-Larijani Khabar Online.

0755 GMT: The biggest question, however, is not over Tehran's nuclear intentions but over the state of the Green Movement. In The Washington Post, Thomas Erdbrink posts a devastating article which claims, from interviews inside Iran, that the opposition is crippled, if not over. We've offered a response.

0730 GMT: A Saturday morning which starts with questions and diversions. The "Western" news agenda is still dominated by the nuclear issue, but there are breaks in the narrative of an inevitable Iran march to the bomb. The Washington Post, a long-time bell-ringer of the Iranian threat, has this paragraph in its editorial, "Clamping Down on Iran's Nuclear Ambitions":

The number of working centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment plant is declining, though the overall output is still increasing. A recent study by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) showed that more than half of the Natanz plant's 8,700 centrifuges were not working in November; the new IAEA report records a further decline. Iran's enrichment of its stockpile is also proceeding at a snail's pace.

On the other side, the Supreme Leader's rhetoric, as he celebrated the commissioning of Iran's first domestically-made destroyer, deserves a bit of attention: "Our religious beliefs and principles prohibit such weapons as they are the symbol of destruction of generations. And for this reason we do not believe in weapons and atomic bombs and do not seek them."

While this could be read as a boiler-plate denial --- why give the game away if Tehran was pushing for a military programme? --- it may also be a signal to the "West", especially the US Government, that Iran still wants "engagement" through nuclear talks. (It should not be forgotten that President Obama made at least two direct appeals in letters to Ayatollah Khamenei.)

Inside Iran, it was a quieter Friday, but ripples of confrontation continue. The Kahrizak Prison scandal resurfaced as member of Parliament Parviz Sorouri said that the cause of the death of Ramin Aqazadeh Qahremani is not yet known. Three protesters are already confirmed to have died from abuse in Kahrizak. detention center.