The Latest from Iran (14 September): Presidential Aide Mortazavi to Stand Trial

2005 GMT: Economy Watch. MP Ahmad Hamidi says wheat growers in Isfahan province, who distributed their harvest 1 1/2 months ago, still have not been paid by the government. 

2000 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Lecturer Ahmad Ghabel has been re-arrested after his recent claims about mass executions in Mashhad Prison.

1955 GMT: To Lose One Diplomat is Unfortunate, To Lose Four.... Hossein Sobhaninia, a pro-Government member of Parliament's National Security Council, has delcared that more caution is needed in the choice of Iran's diplomats as they will most likely be subject to manipulation by foreign intelligence services.

1950 GMT: President v. Parliament (Subsidy Cut Edition). Khabar Online writes that, with only one week left for the government to begin implementations of subsidy cuts, the Majlis has yet to receive a report about their implementation.

1805 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online reports that 500,000 Iranian women lost jobs this spring; 46% of women between 15 and 24 are unemployed.

1630 GMT: The Fight with the Clerics. Ayatollah Dastgheib, who is the centre of an escalating row with the Government as his mosque and offices are put under siege and his followers arrested (see 0715 GMT), refused to attend the Assembly of Experts bi-annual meeting today.

Javan News, the outlet of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, reacted by calling Ayatollah Dastgheib a supporter of the "leaders of sedition".

1555 GMT: Cracking Down on Mousavi --- He Responds. The English translation of an interview with Mir Hossein Mousavi, conducted after the blockade of his office but before the arrest of his head of office (see 1305 GMT), has been posted. After discussing the tightened restrictions and repression of his activities, Mousavi asserts:

The crisis we are experiencing today is not just limited to political and economic issues. The attack on the Marajeh and their seminaries and attacks on universities and dormitories is one of the most shocking realities within this crisis. A regime, whose legitimacy is rooted in the hierarchy within its seminaries and clergymen, is now engaged in destroying the seminaries and universities. On the one hand, one of its ministers [Kamran Daneshjoo] threatens to annihilate one of our universities, and on the other hand the homes of the Maraje who are critical of the oppressive policies of the regime are raided, they are physically attacked and the ruling powers engage in their character assassination.

Those who engage in these types of plots should know that this type of behavior will do nothing to keep them in power. They should continue to engage in this type of behavior if they believe that past oppressors were successful in staying in power using such tactics. If an individual wishes to focus on our country's national interests rather than his own personal interests, then he must return to the principles of law and justice, even if this means losing his power and position.

1545 GMT: All the President's Men. Speaking to Iranian radio, Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has said that his predecessor and current Presidential aide, Saeed Mortazavi, will stand trial for complicity in the post-election abuses and killings in the Kahrizak detention centre. 

Earlier today, it was reported that the Kahrizak file has been sent to Iran's Supreme Court. Mortazavi and two other officials were suspended from tehri posts last month because of the allegations.

1400 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Fatima Nasirpour, student and editor of the campus magazine at Marand University, has been sentenced to six months in prison.

1330 GMT: Diplomatic Defections. Farzad Farhangian, the latest Iranian diplomat to resign in protest over the post-election Government has held a press conference in Oslo. Farhangian, the Press Attache at the Iranian Embassy in Belgium, said, "I'm apologising to the Iranian people. During the last 30 years I was of service to the Iranian people, 23 of them in the diplomatic service, but the deviation that the Iranian republic has reached leaves me no choice. I hope to be a voice of the opposition."

Farhangian said he had chosen to defect to Norway because Mohammad Reza Haidari, who quit his post at the Iranian Embassy in Oslo in February, was an old colleague. Farhangian added, "I'm hoping that in cooperation we will improve the campaign against the present government."

Haydari, who was present at Tuesday's press conference,told reporters: "I expect there will be more defections very soon."

1305 GMT: Cracking Down on Mousavi (cont. --- 0930 GMT). Mir Hossein Mousavi's website Kalemeh has now confirmed that the head of Mousavi's office has been arrested.

1300 GMT: Attacking the Media. Reports indicate that a pro-regime crowd attacked the office of the Tehran newspaper Rah-e Mardom.

0930 GMT: Cracking Down on Mousavi. Journalist Masih Alinejad is reporting from sources in Iran that the head of Mir Hossein Mousavi's office has been arrested.

An EA correspondent comments, "The news awaits confirmation and has not been posted on Mousavi's Kalemeh in hopes that the office head will be freed soon. If he is detained, it would be a confirmation of the escalation against the top reformists."

0920 GMT: President v. Foreign Ministry. And now the tension over Ahmadinejad against his diplomats flares up again....

Tabnak, linked to prominent conservative and 2009 Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, is claiming that Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki "will most likely be removed from his post" over his objections to the President's appointment of four special envoys for international affairs.

Tabnak suggests that the governor general of Isfahan province and former head of the President's Center for Strategic Studies, Ali-Reza Zaker Esfahani, will be proposed as Mottaki's replacement. Zaker Esfahani is favoured by 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and key Presidential aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

Tabnak adds, however, that Zaker Esfahani may not receive Parliament's vote of confidence, in which case Ahmadinejad will turn to his senior advisor Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi. 

0910 GMT: Economy Watch. MP Elyas Naderan, a persistent critic of the President, is on the attack again, declaring that Ahmadinejad's subsidy cut plan --- which is supposed to be implemented next week --- will trigger inflation.

0905 GMT: The Abuses. Peyke Iran writes that the case of the abuses and killings at Kahrizak Prison is going to be taken up by the Supreme Court.

The regime admitted in summer 2009 that three detainees had died at Kahrizak, and the Supreme Leader ordered the closing of the facility. Two personnel were sentenced to death and 11 others were imprisoned for the killings. Last month, three officials --- including Presidential aide Saeed Mortazavi --- were suspended from their posts for alleged complicity in the abuses.

0900 GMT: Economy Watch. HomyLafayette reports that hundreds of unpaid workers have protested at the corner of Nejatollahi and Warsaw Streets in Tehran.

0850 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. An interesting move from former President Hashemi Rafsanjani this morning....

Speaking as head of the Assembly of Experts at its bi-annual meeting, Rafsanjani warned Iranian officials, "Throughout the revolution, we never had so many sanctions (imposed on Iran) and I am calling on you and all officials to take the sanctions seriously and not as jokes....Over the past 30 years we had a war and military threats, but never have we seen such arrogance to plan a calculated assault against us."

At one level, that's a continuation of Rafsanjani's tough-guy stance --- which is essential for any Iranian politician to retain support --- against the challenge from the "West".

However, by emphasising the threat of sanctions, Rafsanjani has taken a different line from the assurance of the Supreme Leader, "The nation and officials will undoubtedly circumvent the sanctions and render them ineffective just as (they have) in the past three decades."

So who is Rafsanjani targeting with his declaration? Step up, President Ahmadinejad, who has said Iran will emerge stronger from the sanctions, which are a "used hanky that should be thrown in the dustbin."

And, in another jab at persons unnamed, Rafsanjani has warned about "rogue elements" poisoning the country.

0800 GMT: Execution Watch. Anything you can do, we can do better....

Amidst the international attention to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the 43-year-old Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery, the Human Rights Committee of Iran's Parliament has hit back by demanding action over an American woman on death row.

"We ask the international community and the countries claiming to be the defender of human rights to prevent the execution of Teresa Lewis in the State of Virginia as she is mentally retarded and is incapable of distinguishing good from bad," said the head of the committee, Zohreh Elahian.

0715 GMT: Attacking the Clerics. Iranian authorities have reportedly arrested 13 members of Abou-Saleh Seminary, supervised by the Government critic Ayatollah Dastgheib, in Shiraz.

The detentions come 10 days after a pro-regime crowd attacked, entered, and closed Qoba Mosque, where Dastgheib presides, injuring a number of worshippers in the process.

The names of the detainees and the charges have not been announced.

0655 GMT: A quieter start to Tuesday, with the continuing infighting within the Iranian establishment simmering but not exploding, and with the release of detained US hiker Sarah Shourd stalling over Tehran's demands for $500,000 bail.

However, another ripple came out of Belgium yesterday. Only days after Iran's Counselor in its embassy in Finland vocally quit as a "political dissident", the Press Attache in the Iranian Embassy in Brussels, Farzad Farhangian, also resigned. He is now reportedly seeking asylum in Oslo, which is where Iranian diplomat Mohammad Reza Heidari quit early this year.

That's four members of Tehran's foreign service who have now publicly resigned in sympathy with the opposition and denuncation of the post-election Government. And all of this occurs amidst the festering dispute between the President and the Foreign Ministry over Ahmadinejad's appointment of special envoys.

Meanwhile....

News and the Internet

Austin Heap has announced that Haystack, the project seeking to provide unrestricted access to the Internet, has "halted ongoing testing...pending a security review". The pilot group with copies of the test programme has been asked to stop using it for now.

Haystack, the best-known initiative to circumvent Tehran's surveillance and filtering of the Internet, received public support from the US Government earlier this year.