The Latest from Iran (14 April): Honouring a Detained Lawyer

A "Free Sotoudeh" Poster With Her Children2050 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The European Union has published the names of 32 Iranian officials who were subjected to sanctions this week. Included are Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi, Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi, and Iran police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam.

2045 GMT: Media Watch. Another curious suspension of a conservative publication --- the English-language site of Tabnak, the outlet of Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of the Expediency Council and 2009 Presidential candidate, has not updated since 1 February.

Ayande has not published in Persian since 9 March.

2040 GMT: Family Matters. Parliament has amended the Family Protection Bill to give a woman the right to divorce if her husband marries again without her permission.

2035 GMT: Plot of the Day (2). An Iranian website claims that the reason for Wednesday's closure of the British Embassy in Tehran was a clash between Embassy employees and Iranian citizens who were applying to obtain visas.

The Embassy website said suspended due to "security matters".

2030 GMT: Plot of the Day. Back from an extended break to find that, according to the Revolutionary Guards website Javan Online, Iranian intelligence agents have arrested a dissident blogger for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Ahmadinejad.

The report did not state when the blogger was arrested or when the alleged plot was launched, but it was certain that the blogger confessed to plotting a terrorist attack against Ahmadinejad and asked Iran's authorities to pardon him.

The website is close to Iran's Revolutionary Guards or Pasdaran.

1025 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad has devoted today to a speech to the "elite" in Sistan and Baluchistan in southeastern Iran: “Western countries have sent their military forces to the region to counter Iran because they regard the Iranian culture and civilization as a threat....However, Iran enjoys the ability to defend itself.”

Ahmadinejad continued, “Iran's resistance will pave the way for other nations to counter the arrogance.”

0725 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch.Civil right activist Mohammad Ghaznavian has been sent to Qazvin Prison for six months.

0610 GMT: The Detained Lawyer. Back to our top story (see 0430 GMT)....

Reza Khandan, the husband of imprisoned attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, has said that she will not appeal her 11-year prison sentence, given that any attempt in the current legal climate in Iran would be "useless".

0550 GMT: Propaganda Front. There is a publicity offensive by some US officials this morning, using The Wall Street Journal, to put Iranian intervention at the centre of the uprisings in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. 

We've posted the details in our Syria, Libya, and Beyond LiveBlog, and we also have an analysis from Robert Tait challenging Washington's presentation.

0545 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Grand Ayatollah Safi Golpayegani has posted a sharp criticism of the Government on his website, denouncing its attempt to hold lavish New Year ceremonies --- estimated to cost $3 million --- at a time of "economic hardships".

0430 GMT: We begin Thursday with the news that the PEN American Center has named Nasrin Sotoudeh --- writer, lawyer, and key figure in the women’s and children’s rights movement --- as the recipient of its 2011 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.

Sotoudeh, the attorney for activists such as Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, was arrested on 4 September 2010 and sentenced in December to 11 years in prison with a 20-year ban on the practice of law. She was charged with actions against national security and failure to wear proper hijab after she gave interviews to human rights organizations and media about the cases and situation of her clients.

The award, which honors international literary figures who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising or defending the right to freedom of expression, will be presented at PEN’s Annual Gala on 26 April in New York City. Ebadi will receive the award on Sotoudeh's behalf. 

Kwame Anthony Appiah, the President of PEN American Center, said, “As a writer, as an activist, and as a lawyer [Sotoudeh] has dedicated herself to a simple and powerful idea: the principle that the rights guaranteed by law are absolute and shared equally by all. At a moment when women and men around the world are standing together peacefully to reclaim this most basic truth, she is in one of the world’s most infamous prisons, to the great shame of the Iranian government. In honoring her with this award, we stand with the millions of Iranians she has stood up for and inspired, and we urge individuals and governments around the world to join us in pressing for her immediate release.”