The Latest from Iran (3 March): Disconnects

2340 GMT: Khamenei Watch. The Supreme Leader spent six hours at the Ministry of Intelligence today. He praised the work of the staff and called for long-term plans with comprehensive strategic initiatives.

2330 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Back from a break for the Cambridge University debate to catch up with the evening's news....

Ministry of Intelligence forces have again raided the empty home of prominent reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh and his wife Fakhrosaadat Mohtashamipour.

Tajzadeh, a former Deputy Minister of Interior, was seized the day after the June 2009 Presidential election. He has refused to withdraw the allegation that the vote was manipulated, ensuring his continued imprisonment.

Mohtashamipour was detained during Tuesday's demonstrations. She is being held in the Revolutionary Guards' Ward 2A at Evin Prison ---- her family have been told that she will remain incommunicado while under interrogation.

1650 GMT: Diplomatic Front. Ahmad Maleki, who resigned his position at the Iranian Consulate in Milan, Italy, tells Voice of America that he is waiting for the Revolutionary Guards to join the uprising.

Maleki, a nephew of Mehdi Karroubi, admitted that people are still cautious about the goals of the Green Movement, but he insisted that the opposition fulfil its objectives while both mobilising followers and convincing those who are undecided now:

1640 GMT: And Now, Sports. Another Iranian athlete has defected.

Judo specialist Iraj Amirkhani, a gold-medal winner in the Asian Games in his 81-kilogramme weight class, is seeking asylum in the US.

1635 GMT: The Arrests. The daughters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard have written an open letter re-confirming that they have had no contact with their parents for two weeks.

The daughters were responding to the claims of Iranian authorities that Mousavi and Rahnavard are still in their residence under house arrest. They said that security forces had told them that those claims, made by the Tehran and Iran Prosecutors Generals, were wrong.

1620 GMT: Sedition Watch. In a speech to prosecutors, Hossein Taeb, the former head of the Basij and now intelligence chief for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has put out a sweeping description of the US pursuit of a "velvet coup".

Some of this was the expected claim --- if somewhat contradictory, given that there is supposedly no more challenge from opposition protests --- that the Americans "will increase security threats against the disciplinary forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in an effort to exhaust them". And there is the linkage of Iran to the region: "They are pursuing three schemes: to destabilize the states around Iran, to breed instability in Iran, and finally to strike at the foundations of the Islamic Republic's establishment, Velayat-e-Faqih [clerical supremacy]."

But there was a nice touch in Taeb's use of sedition to defend the Ahmadinejad subsidy cuts: "Their plan for the next Iranian calendar year [starting on 21 March] is to link sanctions with the new round of [Iran's] targeted subsidy plan in order to portray Iranians as discontent in the first season and make a social wave."

1615 GMT: Back from a travel break to catch up with developments....

Kalemeh reports that families of six political prisoners have met with judiciary officials to discuss the cases. Beyond a general reference to "basic rights" and conditions, the only detail was a request to restore books, newspapers, and phone calls to the detainees.

1135 GMT: Picture of the Day. Graffiti on the side of a truck in Tehran, "Salute to Mousavi and Karroubi":

[Editor's note: A reader helpfully informs us that, while this image circulated today on social media, it is from December 2009. See Comments below.]

1128 GMT: Allegations of the Day. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a staunch supporter of the President, has compared leading opposition figures with Shemr, the general of Caliph Yazid who beheaded Hussein, the third Shi'a Imam.

Presumably "foreign powers" would be the Yazid in this analogy, directing Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi as their field commanders of sedition.

1125 GMT: The President Speaks. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is courting controversy, at least according to Ali Larijani's Khabar Online. The site reports that, in a speech this morning to managers in Lorestan in western Iran, Ahmadinejad said. "We define our concept of velayat (system of clerical supremacy) on the base of Iranian perception of Islam."

Ahmadinejad's right-hand man, Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has provoked the ire of clerics and politicians, with his assertion that other countries should follow an "Iranian", rather than an "Islamic", model.

1120 GMT: The Assembly of Experts Contest. The Society of Combatant Clergy have officially announced that Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani will run for the leadership of the Assembly of Experts, challenging former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Asr-e Iran adds a bit of colour, saying Mahdavi Kani arrived in a wheelchair from hospital for the announcement.

1105 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Representatives of Iran's private sector, warning that domestic production is in danger, have called for lower interest rates to balance the effects of subsidy cuts on energy prices.

1100 GMT: CyberWatch. The human rights activist site RAHANA has been off-line today.

0945 GMT: Threatening the Journalists. In his press conference yesterday, Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei pointed to the supported menace of Iranians abroad who are supporting "sedition", working with US and British officials and organisations, and said, "They must be followed and, if they return one day to Iran, punished."

Here is the significance of the threat: Iranian journalists who are overseas are receiving death threats. One of them is our colleague Masih Alinejad, who revealed last week that she had had been advised by police to move house and change her movements after two death threats.

Alinejad, a single mother who now lives in Britain, described one of the calls, “The caller said: ‘We are going to kill you and we don’t care where you live; don’t think you live in a safe place. We are going to kill you in a way no one will find out’.”

0845 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Siamak Sohrabi, a Sharif University student activist, was arrested during Monday's protests and taken to Evin Prison.

Former MP Shahrbahnou Amani, arrested during the protests on 14 February, has been freed on $150,000 bail.

0740 GMT: Parliamentary Qualifications. Legislators have passed a bill mandating that candidates for Parliament must have at least a Master’s degree and "five years of experience in the field of management of education and training".

0730 GMT: The 10 Esfand Protests. Writing for Tehran Bureau, Ali Chenar offers a concise summary of Tuesday's demonstrations and puts the questions that are also holding our attention:

It seems a routine has been established. Internet-based media outlets and other websites announce a day and a place of gathering. Most people choose to head to one of the squares close to the center of the city. There are always some spectators who go to see what will happen. The security forces arrive in the afternoon. The motorcycles are parked in alleys and vans are stationed by street corners and around the squares. The uniformed forces are usually accompanied by plainclothes officers -- their organizational affiliations have yet to be revealed, though everybody believes that they belong to either the Basij or Sepah, the Revolutionary Guards. People start gathering on the sidewalks. The crowd grows bigger, denser and the tension mounts. And then someone somewhere shouts "Down with the dictator!" and it begins.

Plainclothes agents and police officers mount their motorcycles to disperse the crowd. As they do, more voices join in. Many of the regular police do not appear enthusiastic about beating the people and do little more than provide cover for the plainclothes forces who stage the attack. Their lukewarm attitude does not endear them to the plainclothes agents. Some arrests are made -- based on many reports, people often resist being detained. An eyewitness account on Gooya News described how the crowd on Kargar Shomali fought back to release a young man arrested by Basij militia.

The reports flow in: more arrests, more security forces deployed. There is no doubt that there exists a opposition movement in Iranian society, that it is alive and progressing. The question is, What will happen next? What can happen next?

0715 GMT: CyberWatch. The conservative site Tabnak, linked to Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, reports that it came under sustained denial-of-service attack overnight. The website now appears to be functioning normally.

0708 GMT: The Arrests. The reformist Assembly of Teachers and Researchers of Qom have issued a statement strongly condemning the detentions of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi and Fatemeh as well as the regime's police-state crackdown on peaceful protests and political and social activism.

0705 GMT: The 10 Esfand Protests. New claimed video of Tuesday's demonstrations, with protesters in Tehran's Enghelab Street chanting, "Death to Ahmadinejad":

0520 GMT: After the opposition demonstrations on Tuesday, yesterday was marked by uncertainty rather than drama. Iranian authorities are still refusing to admit that Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi and Fatemeh Karroubi have been moved --- either to prison or to a house of detention controlled by security forces.

The opposition appears to be pondering next steps: there was some talk, and even posters pointing to a protest next Tuesday, but nothing substantial emerged. Instead, the day was punctuated by further condemnations by clerics and political groups of the detentions of the opposition figures.

There is still a curious detachment, at least on the part of the regime, from the political atmosphere of the last week. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi took his turn to highlight this,, insisting that there had been no arrests during Tuesday's opposition marches --- for, of course, no significant marches had occurred --- and maintaining that Mousavi and Karroubi were still under house arrest. The Parliament received a report by a committee denouncing Mousavi and Karroubi as "leaders of sedition" directed by the US and Israel --- even though no significant marches had occurred --- and called for their trial

President Ahmadinejad continued his strategy, not only regarding the protests and arrests but also the position of Hashemi Rafsanjani and next week's election for the leadership of the Assembly of Experts, by making general declarations that were far removed from this political scene. On Tuesday, it was an appearance in western Iran and the proclamation of Iran's scientific progress. However, there were passing signs, literally, of disconnect; members of the audience held up at least two posters complaining of hunger and injustice.

And Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who has been in Geneva at United Nations meetings, was making his own contribution to the awkward fit of posture and reality. He told a French TV channel, "The events shocked everybody; we believe this is an authentic event, people have risen for their rights but we never thought the dimension of the events would be as large as it is now in this regard; we are surprised."

He, of course, was not speaking about his own country but others.