The Latest from Iran (3 February): Glancing at Cairo

2330 GMT: The Dutch government today announced that they will do everything in their power to get the body of executed Dutch-Iranian Zahra Bahrami back from Iran. The government aims to have her body examined to see if she was tortured and return her body to her family in the Netherlands. 

2120 GMT: The "Right" Egyptian Revolution. How much is Tehran playing up Egypt? To the point where almost all the story on Press TV's "Iran" section after actually about Cairo....

The military advisor to the Supreme Leader, Brigadier General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, suggests that some of the opposition figures are not "right" for Iran: “By introducing several people as [protest] leaders, the US is seeking to pave the way for creating rifts amidst the Egyptian nation and to use the outcome to its own advantage.”

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani is also setting out Good and Bad for the demonstrators, warning anti-regime protesters in Egypt over the dangers of a “secular revolution".

So what is the right path? MP Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam helps out, “Thanks to the Islamic Revolution, Islam and Shiism is cultivating in the world and this revolutionary culture is Islamic.”

The Foreign Ministry says it is monitoring the "wave of Islamic awakening".

2100 GMT: A Call to Cairo? Back from an extended academic break to find that the opposition press called for chants tonight in support of Egypt: Allahu akbar (God is Great), Death to Dictator, Referendum....

Navid Khanjani1100 GMT: Navid Khanjani, a human rights activist, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment on the 30th of January by Judge Pirabbasi of branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court. Khanjani, a student banned from further studies and a follower of the Bahai faith, was also given a hefty fine. Charges against him included: 

 “Acting against national security”, “Propaganda against the regime”, “Disturbing public order”, “Libel”, “Founding the Baha’i Education Rights Committee”, and “Membership in [two human rights organizations], the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR) and Human Rights Activists (HRA)”.

1000 GMT: Step back everyone, Green Wave News is here. The online website with news from Iran in Farsi, seems to be firmly in the ranks of the opposition. You can visit their website here. 

1000 GMT: Like his fellow dictator in Egypt, Khamenei is hitting old age. But unlike, him, he's not aged well. A new picture of him shows the Supreme Leader looking increasingly frail as he visited the grave of Imam Khomeini: 

0940 GMT: With the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution approaching, a look back at an interview, published by Kalame, in which Mir Hossein Mousavi explains the reasons for the downfall of the Shah's regime: 

Mousavi stated that the main reason for the collapse of the dictatorial and unpopular regime of the Shah was its illegitimacy [in the eyes of citizens]. He emphasized that the resistance of Iranians is a cherished legacy of the Islamic revolution. As is their intolerance for dishonesty, fraud and corruption. The complete interview is provided below.

Then goes on to add: 

And now, in the courageous, defiant and green rows of people who demand their rights, we see a continuum of the very resistance we saw during the war and the 1979 revolution. However, we can conclude that we were too optimistic at the beginning of the [Islamic] revolution. We can see today that the government, its newspapers and its national broadcasting network easily lie. Our people can see that in reality, the security and military forces control cases in the judiciary; that the judiciary itself has become an instrument of the security forces.

0910 GMT: Iran may be in the middle of the 10 Days of Fajr (Dawn), leading up to the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution on 22 Bahman (11 February), but even this is being put to the side as Iranians observe developments in Egypt.

Inevitably, comparisons and "lessons" are being put about. A darkly amusing example comes from Kaveh Afrasiabi, a US-based academic who generally writes in support of the regime:

Quite possibly, Iran’s rulers will respond to the democratic yearnings in the region by expanding the scope of political freedoms in the near future. In other words – and optimistically speaking – current developments in the Arab world are good news for Iran’s prospects of relaxing existing limitations and increasing the tolerance of dissent.

A more challenging argument comes from Setareh Sabety, as she contends, "The main difference between the Egyptian and Iranian uprisings is the role of women's demands" in the protest in Iran after the 2009 Presidential election.

Juan Cole, from a non-Iranian perspective, makes this observation about events in Cairo:

When [the] pledge of transition to a new military dictator did not --- predictably enough --- placate the public either, [President Hosni] Mubarak on Wednesday sent several thousand secret police and paid enforcers in civilian clothing into Tahrir Square to attack the protesters with stones, knouts, and molotov cocktails, in hopes of transforming a sympathetic peaceful crowd into a menacing violent mob.

This strategy is similar to the one used in summer of 2009 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to raise the cost of protesting in the streets of Tehran, when they sent in basij (volunteer pro-regime militias). Used consistently and brutally, this show of force can raise the cost of urban protesting and gradually thin out the crowds.

But the person we'll be watching for comparisons and lessons is the Supreme Leader. Iranian state media are now confirming what we knew yesterday: Ayatollah Khamenei will be leading Friday Prayers in Tehran. Given the language from Iranian officials and the state media in recent weeks, it is almost certain that Khamenei will claim the uprising in Egypt as part of Islam's emerging triumph --- led by Tehran, of course --- in the Middle East and beyond.

But will he dare compare an Egyptian public challenging the legitimacy of a regime, which then responds with force to quell dissent, to the situation with which he might be much more familiar?