The Latest from Iran (28 April): Ahmadinejad Watch

2000 GMT: A Matter of Intelligence. The reformist Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution have issued a statement that the reinstatement of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi by the Supreme Leader is unconstitutional and paves the way for absolute dictatorship.

1955 GMT: Campus Watch. Claimed footage of a demonstration at Soreh University in Tehran on Wednesday --- students were protesting the presence of security forces which made the campus a "garrison":

1605 GMT: Parliament Watch. The Guardian Council has approved a proposal, with elections for the Parliament scheduled next year, that candidates for the Majlis must have a Master's degree.

1410 GMT: Currency Watch. According to one MP, the head of the Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, has declared that Iran's foreign exchange reserves are empty.

1350 GMT: Larijani Issues the Bani Sadr Warning to Ahmadinejad. So significant that we had to put it in a separate entry....

1340 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Radio Farda reports, from Iranian media, that "hard-line" MPs had two extraordinary meetings, one on Wednesday night and one on Thursday morning, over political matters.

Ali Larijani's Khabar Online is also pushing the line that Government representatives have been absent from meetings to confirm approval of the 2011/12 Budget.

1330 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activist Gholam Reza Gholamhosseini has been released on bail.

1310 GMT: Spiking the Rumour. Seyed Hassan Khomeini, has denied that he is considering a candidacy in the 2013 President election.

Jahan News had claimed this week that Khomenei was saying he could win 30 million votes but had been advised by former President Mohammad Khatami to stand for Parliament first in 2012.

An EA correspondent at the time assessed the story as propaganda, pointing to hard-line worries of an alliance between "moderate" conservatives and reformists in forthcoming elections.

1255 GMT: Book Corner. The 2011 International Human Rights Award of the Austrian book and media industry has been awarded to Houshang Asadi for his memoir, Letters to My Torturer, detailing his life as a prisoner after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

1240 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Rooz Online has published an English text of its interview, carried out earlier this month, with the man who verbally assaulted former President Hashemi Rafsanjani's Faezeh Hashemi in a Tehran street at the end of February.

The incident, caught on video, caused tensions within the Iranian establishment, with the judiciary issuing warnings against harassment of the families of public figures and the Iran Prosecutor General saying that Saeed Tajik had been arrested.

Tajik denied that he had been arrested, even though he spent eight days in Evin Prison, and explained the incident:

I told the Prosecutor General that we have had unrest for 20 months now. You know that every time you arrested this slut she said she was eating a sandwich. What kind of a sandwich is this? They have crossed all the red lines. They have insulted God, the Prophet, the Imam (Ayatollah Khomeini), and the current Leader. None of you were moved or did anything. Most officials, particularly those in the religious seminaries, have become silent. Who is more senior, Rafsanjani or the Hidden Imam? Rafsanjani or the Supreme Leader? They have insulted all our sacred values. But when I called this bitch an ass, everybody felt insulted.

1030 GMT: Larijani Watch. Still no sign of President Ahmadinejad on State outlet IRNA, but Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani drops in to say that the approval of the 2011/12 budget will be completed next year.

And, speaking to reporters, Larijani had a pointed addition: the $2 billion for the Tehran Metro, blocked by the Ahmadinejad Government last year, has been included in this year's funding.

0755 GMT: Interpreting Iran. C-SPAN has posted an hour-long discussion, featuring analysts Farideh Farhi and Gary Sick, of debates over foreign policy within Iran.

0615 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. The new website Hafte Sobh (“7 AM”), reportedly linked to Presidential aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai,  claims that Ahmadinejad will participate in an already-scheduled TV interview next week only if the program is broadcast live.

The report asserts that Ahmadinejad wants to talk directly to the Iranian citizens without being censored by authorities.

0515 GMT: No sign of President Ahmadinejad again on Wednesday, as he failed to attend a second Cabinet meeting in a row and also reportedly did not show up at the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

Iranian news media focused on the Supreme Leader's presentation of "economic jihad" to an audience of workers. State news agency IRNA, the backer of the President, was Ahmadinejad-free, while Fars pulled up a report, later circulated by Press TV, that the President had called his Turkmenistan counterpart to discuss energy supplies.

Meanwhile, the clerical establishment piled on the pressure. The Supreme Leader's representative to the Revolutionary Guards, Ali Saeedi, declared that disobeying the Supreme Leader was tantamount to disobeying God and Imam Mahdi, Shi'a's "Hidden Imam". He said, "When it comes to obeying Khamenei, there is no difference between any of the people. Whenever an official has hesitated obeying the Supreme Leader, it has caused problems for the country."

Ayatollah Alam al-Hoda, the Friday Prayers Leader in Mashhad, added, "All the officials, ministers, Majles deputies, judiciary chief, and the president who want to serve the nation must obey the orders of the Supreme Leader. If they do not do so, their position has no legitimacy, even if people have elected them." He continued, "When people elect the President, their votes are just a bunch of zeroes. What gives meaning to the zeroes is the Supreme Leader's certification of the vote."

And Assembly of Experts member Seyyed Ali Akbar Gharebaghi, echoing remarks made earlier this week by prominent cleric Hojatoleslam Shojouni (see separate entry),  compared Ahmadinejad's position to that of Abolhassan Bani Sadr, the Islamic Republic's first President, who fled into exile just before he was impeached in June 1981.

"The most efficient model of governance is one with the Supreme Leader," said Gharebaghi. "Bani Sadr thought that because he had 12 million votes, he could oppose the Imam [Khomeini]. His problem was that he did not understand what it meant to oppose the Imam. He thought that the people voted for him, but did not know that, without the Supreme Leader, he had no legitimacy."