The Latest from Iran (30 December): A Year After the Regime's Display

2255 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Fares for taxis have risen up to 15% today. No one seems to have addressed the economic question, though: how does this cover a tripling or quadrupling of fuel prices?

2250 GMT: Economy Watch. The price of gold and gold coins are rising, and the toman has fallen to 1080 per US dollar.

1840 GMT: Taxing the Nobel Prize Winner. Shirin Ebadi's property has been seized for alleged non-payment of taxes, and the Nobel Prize laureate has been banned from leaving the country.

Ebadi is currently outside Iran, and her lawyer Nasrine Sotoudeh has been detained since early September.

1835 GMT: Diplomatic Criticism. Former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Sadegh Kharrazi has asserted that the Foreign Ministry has no strategic perspective on global developments.

1810 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Ayande reports a 30% drop in diesel fuel consumption and 11% fall in electricity usage.

1800 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The family of imprisoned journalist Nazanin Khosravani have had their first meeting with her in two months.

1755 GMT: The Music Debate. Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai has put out another statement in his contest with some senior clergy over "immoral" music. Rahim-Mashai said, in a meeting with artists in Alborz Province yesterday, that immoral music is only a small part of that put out. He added that religion and being an artist are not contradictory: "our religion is like art and real art is like religion".

1745 GMT: Sedition Watch. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi is not in a happy mood, despite the celebrations of victory over dissenters. He has warned that there is no guarantee that the 2009 "sedition" has been the last and it could reappear in a more dangerous manner.

Yazdi told Revolutionary Guard personnel yesterday, "Hopefully people who are supervised by foreigners will not infiltrate the government."

1615 GMT: Execution Watch. The father of Kurdish detainees Zanyar and Luqhman Moradi has appealed for clemency for his sons, sentenced to death this week.

The elder Moradi said his political activities were nothing to with his sons.

Zanyar and Luqhman Moradi, members of the Kurdish Communist party Komeleh, were condemned by Judge Salavati for mohareb (war against God).

1525 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mehrdad Varshoei has been released after almost 20 months in prison.

1355 GMT: Tuesday's Execution. The lawyer for Ali Sameri, who was hung on Tuesday, has said, “The execution orders were served neither to myself nor to Mr. Saremi’s family. Suffice it to say that after the last session of his trial in the lower court, we were never informed about how the case proceeded.”

Hossein Aghili added, “I don’t know whether the case ever went to the Supreme Court or not. There are only some rumors. Some of the rumors say it went [to the Supreme Court], while some others say it didn’t. I don’t have any more information than you do. Whatever I know is through the press and your colleagues."

It is also claimed that security forces refused to return Saremi's corpse to his family, claiming he had already been buried near Boroujerd in western Iran.

1335 GMT: Sedition Watch. Looks like Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi has pride of place so far in the condemnation of the opposition, a year after the pro-regime marches....

Moslehi said that documents had been found in the home of Alireza Beheshti, Mir Hossein Mousavi's Chief of Staff, outlining a plan for removal of religion from the Islamic Republic. The Minister said his experts had confirmed the language in the documents was the same as that in those of the Communist party Tudeh.

Moslehi said Communists, the Tudeh Party, and the Hojatiyeh Society (a Shi'a organisation forced to disband in 1983) were all involved in "sedition" after the 2009 Presidential election.

0905 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mohammad Ayoub Kazemi, a follower of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, has been released from detention.

0855 GMT: Comparing Punishment. RAHANA puts a different perspective on the news, which we reported yesterday, that one of the leaders of the September assault on the Qoba Mosque in Shiraz had been sentenced.

RAHANA notes that supporters Ayatollah Dastgheib, the leading cleric at the mosque, received heavier punishments. Hojatoleslam Karimi, Hojatoleslam Khoubyari, who works in Ayatollah Dastgheib’s office, and Hojatoleslam Zakeri have each been sentenced to two years in prison, four years in exile from the province, and a 10-year ban from cultural activities.

One of the leaders of the assault on the mosque --- Hojatoleslam Voldan, the head of the Policy-Making Office for Friday Preachers in Fars Province --- was sentenced to five months in prison, three years in exile, and 74 lashes.

0720 GMT: Clerical Challenge. Najmeh Bozorghmehr, writing for the Financial Times, sees significance in the statement of Grand Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani, "Confessions of prisoners have no validity and if a judge uses confessions for issuing verdicts that judge is no longer qualified."

Bozorgmehr assesses:

His statement is not only a religious decree that his followers must obey but a warning from the country’s most senior cleric to politicians that Qom’s religious establishment should not be ignored.

The decree also challenges the position of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who accepts the confessions of prisoners about their own acts – not those of others – as evidence during trial proceedings.

0712 GMT: Economy Watch. The opposition site Green Voice of Freedom, refuting Government claims, sets out how imports have risen. The site asserts that the annual figure could reach $80 billion by the end of March.

0710 GMT: Proper "History". Keeping with today's theme of the historic defeat of sedition, the Ministry of Culture has announced that it has granted 100 licenses for books on post-election events and that 12 have been put on bookshelves in recent days.

0700 GMT: A Warning to the Green Press. An unnamed Deputy Minister of Intelligence has claimed that the leading opposition outlet Rah-e-Sabz Jaras is a subversive site, cooperating with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, royalists, Baha'i, and other dangerous groups.

0635 GMT: One year ago, the regime mobilised a mass march in Tehran to demonstrate its authority and legitimacy. Ostensibly, the gathering was to protest the alleged burning and defacing of Ayatollah Khomeini's image by opposition protestors, but the real motive was to beat back the image of dissent in the Ashura demonstrations.

Regime and Government supporters now point to this event as a watershed in success against the demands of the Green Movement. That could be challenged as a revision of history: the nerves of those in the Iranian establishment jangled, to the point of discussing President Ahmadinejad's removal, until the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on 11 February (22 Bahman). But the march of 30 December at least set up a psychological levee against the Green Wave.

Throughout this week, Iranian religious and political leaders have pounded out a drumbeat of their nation defeating sedition a year ago. Reports have circulated of Basij and Revolutionary Guard elements declared this to be "God's Day" as a testament to victory.

Meanwhile....

Execution Watch

Two days after the hanging of detainees Ali Saremi and Ali Akbar Syadat, hundreds of Iranian and foreign writers, scholars, and activists have demanded an end to political executions. They noted in particular the case of Habibollah Latifi, whose hanging on Sunday was delayed amidst widespread protest.

This Time, The Budget Will Work

Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman of the Guardian Council, has said that a review of the 5th Budget Plan (2010-2015) has been finished by the Council and sent back to Parliament for final corrections.

Last month, the head of the Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, and Kadkhodaei declared that they had resolved the long-running dispute between the Government and the Majlis over the budget, only to be slapped down by key members of Parliament for expressing their "personal opinions".

Political Prisoner Watch

Reza Zeinali, a management student at Tehran University and the political secretary of the Tehran University School of Management, has been sentenced to 5 years of suspended imprisonment.

Zeinali was charged with anti-regime propaganda and assembly and conspiracy with intent to act against national security.