The Latest from Iran (7 October): "We Have No Political Prisoners"

1935 GMT: Clash in Kurdistan. According to Iranian state media, five people, including four policemen, were killed and nine others wounded when two gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan.

Deputy provincial police commander Ebrahim Kazeminejad said,"At 5:10 pm two assailants from anti-revolutionary groups fired on a patrol and passers-by in Azadi Square of Sanandaj in which four policemen and a passer-by were martyred. In this terrorist act also five policemen and four passers-by were wounded."

1930 GMT: Academic Corner. According to Rah-e-Sabz, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini has told pro-government academics, "Hopefully all universities will be purged."

1920 GMT: Breaking the Reformists (cont.). Another voice challenging the supposed ban on the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front: Ayatollah Mousavi Tabrizi has said the dissolution of the party is illegal and cannot be done without a full court hearing and appeal.

1555 GMT: Rebellion of the Clerics? In an interview with Al Arabiya, former Minister and prominent reformist Ataollah Mohajerani has claimed that only 2 of the 12 marja (senior clerics) of Qom support the Government and all others sympathise with the opposition.

Mohajerani's assertion comes as Iranian state media are filled with stories heralding the Supreme Leader's imminent visit to Qom.

1545 GMT: The Battle Within. Neither former Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar nor prominent MP Ali Motahari have been elected to the central committee of the "hard-line" faction in the Majlis.

Both Bahonar and Motahari have been critical of the Ahmadinejad Government in recent months.

1540 GMT: Non-Political Prisoner Watch. More than 90 political and human rights activists have signed an open letter calling for the release of attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, detained in early September, from Evin Prison.

1350 GMT: Currency Watch. Ayande News reports widespread smuggling of dollars into Iran by businessmen amidst difficulties over currency exchange amidst sanctions.

Khabar Online has more on currency fluctuations, speculations, and attempts by people to cope with the restrictions on dollars.

1340 GMT: We're Not Done Yet. Hmm, not sure that everyone has received the Tehran Prosecutor's message that the sedition is almost vanquished....

Speaking with his wife in Evin Prison, detained reformist leader Mostafa Tajzadeh has said continuous arrests, bans on political parties and the  media, and filtering of the Internet proves the power and influence of the Green Movement continues.

And a pro-Government member of Parliament, Mohammad Dehghan, has asserted that security forces acted excessively against the opposition after the election and that violence against prisoners is wrong.

1335 GMT: Today's All-is-Well Alert. It comes from Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi, as he declares that only a few "seditionists" remain to be sentenced. The Iranian system, he said, is "ready to accept those who repent".

Doulatabadi was not so reassuring about the story that Iranian authorities had rounded up those who introduced the Stuxnet worm onto computers, possibly including those at the Bushehr nuclear plant. His response? "Ask the Ministry of Intelligence."

1134 GMT: Breaking the Reformists. Alireza Avayi, the head of the judiciary in Tehran Province, has denied that a banning order has been issued against the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front.

,p>Government officials claimed last month that both the IIPF and the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution had been outlawed by the courts. The two parties denied that proceedings had been concluded.

1130 GMT: Parliament and Government. Three ministers --- Communication (Reza Taghipour), Oil (Masoud Mirzakemi), and Foreign Affairs (Manouchehr Mottaki) --- have been summoned to answer questions in Parliament next week.

Meanwhile, Mardomsalari newspaper has urged lawmakers not to fear the impeachment of ministers.

1059 GMT: Non-Political Prisoner Watch. Kurdish activist Rahim Rashi has been released on $15,000 bail.

1054 GMT: Reading the Supreme Leader. Arash Aramesh offers a provocative analysis of Iran's politics from 1997 to today, "Khamenei's Balance of Power", which concludes:

His recent overtures to the moderate conservatives imply that Supreme Leader Khamenei is trying to create a balance of power between the two main conservative factions. He knows full well that both factions will need him most when there is a balance of power, and his influence as Supreme Leader is most prominent when no faction can simply eliminate the other and create a monopoly over power. There should be no doubt that Khamenei is an astute politician. He has weathered many storms including the turbulent Khatami years and the messy aftermath of the 12 June election. He is now facing the increasingly unpopular growth of President Ahmadinejad and his allies in the IRGC and, as Iran’s highest religious and political authority, he is actively trying to curb their precarious spread.

1050 GMT: Oil Squeeze. Aftab reports that Iran's oil exports have fallen 13.3% this year.

1045 GMT: Strike, Iranian Style. Tabnak confirms what we learned yesterday --- while gold vendors in Tehran Bazaar have "opened", given the threat of prosecution if they did not, they have done so without turning on the lights and serving customers.

1035 GMT: Sanctions Watch. South Korea is suspending the operations of Iran's Bank Mellat for two months amid international sanctions.

Seoul said the bank has violated laws on foreign exchange transactions.

1019 GMT: MediaWatch (Diversion Alert). Meanwhile, under the heading of Sideshow, it looks like President Ahmadinejad is about to score another victory in the Western media.

The President is hoping to turn his visit next week to Lebanon into a display of his tough-guy, defend-all-good-people-against-the-West-and-Israel credentials. And so the word has gone out: "Ahmadinejad will take part in various events to be held near the Lebanese border with occupied Palestine. In one of those events, an inauguration of a garden, the president is slated to make a symbolic gesture and throw a stone towards the Zionist entity."

To be fair, that stone-throwing line --- Iran's David slaying the Zionist/US Goliath --- first circulated in a London-based Arabic newspaper, but it's now reached the elevated pages of The New York Times. Expect a lot more posing over the next week.

In a far more sensible and important story, the Times and the Associated Press have picked up the story --- covered in EA yesterday --- on the hunger strike of detained attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh.

The Associated Press has also noted Wednesday's threat by Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi against bazaar merchants who continue to strike over the Government's proposed value-added tax.

Iranian state media continue to summarise Doulatabadi's warning: "The Judiciary will deal with those who are indifferent to the country’s economic situation and are seeking to disturb the public order by hoarding goods and closing markets."

0955 GMT: MediaWatch. Haleh Esfiandiari, the prominent academic based at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, parallels EA's analysis of the case of the detained US hikers --- Sarah Shourd, who was released last month, and Josh Bauer and Shane Fattal, who are still detained after more than 16 months --- and the battle within the Iranian establishment: "US Hikers and Iran's Maze".

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Esfandiari reflects on her own detention, including 105 days in solitary confinement, in Iran in 2007 and concludes:

An international outcry played a crucial role in drawing attention to my case, but in the end, it required the intervention of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to secure my release. He instructed his lieutenants to bring the investigation and my affair to conclusion. His intervention is needed in this case as well. It is time for Iran to free the remaining two hikers and end an incarceration that has earned it only international opprobrium and condemnation.

0615 GMT: Non-Political Prisoner Watch. The status of Hassan Balaei, Azeri activist and the manager of the Galeh-Jak Hiking Group, is still uncertain more than a month after his detention.

Balaei has not spoken with his family in the last three weeks, and a judge has said he is under interrogation in the Intelligence Ministry. There is no information on the charges against him.

0540 GMT: We start with a juxtaposition today. As we post an English translation of a letter from detained activist Majid Tavakoli to students, we note Wednesday's comment by the head of Iran's prisons, Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili: "We have no political prisoners." (RAHANA's running total of those detained on political charges --- or no charges at all --- now stands at 633.)

Questioned about the detention of more than 40 journalists, Esmaeili replied, "The sacred mission of journalism is important to solve community problems."

Meanwhile, the deputy head of Iran's judiciary, Ebrahim Raissi, focused on high-minded matters in a Wednesday speech, explaining, "If a society is based on faqih [clerical supremacy], all its behaviours are influenced by Islamic principles, and the Supreme Leader is at top of all this."

What intrigues me is the target of this sentence: "I know a lot of people who have religious knowledge, but their view on society is secular, they have no faith." Students? Professors? The opposition? Or elements within the establishment with an "Iran first" rather than "Islam first" view?