The Latest from Iran (10 December): Human Rights Day

2235 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. There is still no news of three people detained during a memorial ceremony at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery last Sunday.

Other mourners, including Parvin Fahimi, the mother of the slain protestor Sohrab Arabi, were seized but later released.

Journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin has been sentenced to 16 months in prison on charges of insulting the President.

In an interview with Al Arabiya television, Shamsolvaezin said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "repressive" and "a lunatic".

Shamsolvaezin is spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom of the Press, and also as vice president of the Association of Iranian Journalists.

1900 GMT: The Most Important Moment in Tehran Friday Prayers...

...came in the introduction of prayers by Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf.

In what amounted to a coded challenge to President Ahmadinejad, Qalibaf said people are historically not confident in the three powers of the executive, judiciary, and Parliament. (Translation: In whom can you have confidence? Answer: a mayor who is not part of the current national establishment.)

Then Qalibaf really sharpened his arrow. He announced that the Tehran City budget is announced weekly.

That might seem mundane until you do the translation: "Look at me, my budget has no flaws and is always up-to-date (not like Ahamdinejad, who has neither the 2010-2015 5th Budget Plan or even a budget for next year).

1744 GMT: Book Corner. Who is to blame for a 17% drop in book production in Iran? Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini says it is the writers who produce "unsuitable" books.

1740 GMT: Today's Absolutely-True Sedition Story. The ever-reliable Fars News offers more on "Benjamin", the super-agent who organised post-election sedition and was introduced to the "terrorist" group MKO by a senior member of Mir Hossein Mousavi's staff.

1630 GMT: Mousavi Jumps In. Mir Hossein Mousavi has issued a message for the forthcoming religious ceremony of Ashura, asking people to recognise the violence and injustice, falsely claimed in the name of Islam, and to remember those who died on the same occasion last year.

1615 GMT: Honouring the Press. Abdolreza Tajik, currently in prison, has been named Journalist of the Year by Reporters Without Border.

Lawyer Shirin Ebadi accepted the award for Tajik, who was arrested in June.

1610 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Javad Vafaei, head of the Youth branch of the Iranian Civil Society, was detained on Wednesday by Ministry of Intelligence forces.

The husband of detained attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh has announced that she is on hunger strike for the third time.

Sotoudeh has been detained for 95 days and has been on hunger strike for 50 of them.

1430 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online, linked to Ali Larijani, claims oil money has not been invested for nine months because the President's plans for development still lack a statute.

3% fall in oil exports between March and June 2010, with total deliveries dropping below 2 million barrels per day.

1420 GMT: Unity Alert. Ayatollahs Mahdavi Kani and Mohammad Yazdi, following a meeting of the Society of Teachers of Qom, have promised a joint statement "soon" about the unity of principlists.

rising food prices over the past month.

1155 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayers Update. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, is headlining today....

Pretty basic pitch, for the most part: 1) Iran's brave negotiators at this week's talks in Geneva on Tehran's nuclear programme "formally presented the dignity of Islam and the Iranian system"; 2) sanctions have failed; 3) terrorists killed our nuclear scientists, but we will not surrender; 4) the seditionists failed last December on the religious day of Ashura.

But, away from state media's headlines, Jannati sneaks in this passage:

Any position given in this country should be based on merit-oriented policy unless there would be chaos. For example, a young man who doesn't have the least managerial experience has been appointed as the governor of a big and in terms of economic issues in an important province....Is this right?

Another example: in a free zone area another person who does not have merit has been appointed. More than 400 billion tomans ($400 million) in a deal has been overlooked...meaning they have sold a (piece) of land cheaply.... Who should I tell this to? What should we do with them?

Now, about whom is Jannati talking? And who are his targets with these allegations?

1140 GMT: Commemorating Human Rights. To mark International Human Rights Day, the Iran Human Rights Documentations Center has three features: 1) an interview with Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, the founder of the Center for the Defenders of Human Rights; 2) a witness statement from lawyer Shadi Sadr about her July 2009 arrest and interrogation; and 3) a commentary on the criminal justice system by defence attorney Behnam Daraeizadeh.

An extract from Ebadi's interview:

Nasrin Sotoudeh followed up with my defense against the claim that the Iranian government brought against me for not paying tax on my Nobel Peace Prize money and with my counter claim against the government when they confiscated my property on this basis. The Ministry of Intelligence told Ms. Sotoudeh several times that she needed to drop the defense in my case and that she could no longer represent me. She responded by saying that her work was in accordance with the law and that the government had no reason to order her to stop her work. On these grounds, she continued to assist on the case until unfortunately she was arrested and she has spent her entire time in solitary confinement.

1120 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Maryam Abbasi Nejad, a former member of Islamic Association of Tehran University and Tehran University of Medical Sciences, has been given a five-year suspended sentence.

0905 GMT: Khatami Watch. Former President Mohammad Khatami, in a meeting with the family of detained student activist Bahareh Hedayat, has said, "This situation is unsuitable for national interests."

0903 GMT: The Clerics and Khamenei's Power Move? Ayatollah Masoudi Khomeini has been removed, after 17 years, as head of Hazrat Masoumeh (Fatemeh) mosque in Qom. He has been replaced by Mohammad Saeedi, the Supreme Leader's representative.

Saeedi has also taken over the direction of Qom Province's Cultural Council and Morality Committee.

0900 GMT: Shutdown of Media (Confusion Edition). The manager of the Farsi1 television channel has denied reports this week that its office were raided, with at least four employees arrested. He said, "We have no office in Tehran."

Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi had made the claim about a raid and arrests in a press conference on Tuesday.

0850 GMT: Remembering Montazeri. Services have been held for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who died a year ago, but security forces prevented his family from visiting his grave.

0845 GMT: A Special for International Human Rights Day. Artists4Freedom for Iran posts an interview with Gregg Chadwick, painter of works such as "The Call --- Neda":

I have eight works in various stages related to the Green Wave; images of both the living and the dead. What I discovered is that I paint these to mark those who have been killed in order to remember, and to honor those who are protesting in the streets in Iran. Their paintings are not elegies, but calls to action and calls to honor. It is easy to turn away from the struggles and the horrors that the people in Tehran are going through but I did not want to avert my gaze or my brush.

0840 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Nine student activists of Shiraz University of Technology have been summoned after Tuesday's demonstrations. One of them, Afshin Keshtkari, has been arrested and is being held incommunicado.

0830 GMT: Currency Watch. Iran's Committee Against Smuggling says there has been increased smuggling of foreign exchange, especially to Kuwait, in the past month. The suggestion is that this is a reaction to the artificially high rate set for the Iranian toman against the US dollar and other currencies.

0745 GMT: The Challenge Escalates? After a week filled with his criticism of the Ahmadinejad Government, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has announced he will hold a press conference on Saturday afternoon.

The conference will be carried live on Press TV with an estimated 220 journalists present.

0735 GMT: CyberNews. Iranian authorities have decided that Nazis are as bad as human rights activists and journalists.

On Thursday, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini said that the website Irannazi had been blocked because it gave the impression that Iranians were Nazis.

0705 GMT: On International Human Rights Day, we begin with the confusion over the "non-release" of Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, condemned to death for adultery. It appears now that she was taken to her home to make a "confession" for a TV special this evening. We have the latest news in a separate entry.

Later today, we will have other human rights features.

Meanwhile....

Political Prisoner News

Kalemeh reports that Amir Hadi Anvari, a journalist at the reformist newspaper Shargh, has been arrested.

Anvari is the fifth Shargh staffer to be detained this week. On Tuesday, the offices of the newspaper were raided after it published a special edition, "The Student Movement is Alive", for National Students Day. 

Amir Khorram, a member of the Freedom Movement of Iran, has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 74 lashes for acting against national security, writing articles, interviewing foreign media, and participating in illegal gatherings.