The Latest from Iran (18 May): Disputing Economic Growth

2055 GMT: Disputing Economic Growth. And so back to where we started this morning....

Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar has directly challenged the President over his economic claims in his Sunday night interview, disputing the promise that 2.5 million jobs could be created each year for the next two years.

And Bahonar went after Ahmadinejad's subsidy cuts plan, saying it was threatening production in the country.

2015 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Another challenge to the President's inner circle is emerging --- Iranian media are circulating claims of undue influence in Iran's automobile industry by the "diversionary current" within the Government.

"Diversionary current" has become the euphemism to refer to Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai and his allies.

1640 GMT: Labour Front. Mazandaran textile workers in northern Iran have protested again over working conditions and several months of unpaid wages, demonstrating in front of the governor's offices.

1525 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Audio has been posted which claims to be of leading Iranian political analyst Hassan Abbasi , denouncing the President in a talk in March 2011.

1220 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Was one of the three people whose arrest was announced today by Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi (see 1205 GMT) close to Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai?

Iranian media are making the claim. While some are simply saying "K" has been detained, the name of Kazem Kia-Pasha, an advisor to Rahim-Mashai in the Tehran municipal office and the Iran Culture and Heritage Organization, is being mentioned.

1205 GMT: Justice Watch. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has said that three more people have been arrested in connection with the controversial documentary claiming the imminent return of the Hidden Imam.

The director of the film was questioned last month about the documentary, which has been distributed on millions of CDs. Critics have claimed that the movie, about Shi'a's 12th Imam, has been supported by members of President Ahmadinejad's inner circle.

Doulatabadi also said that the Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz had been released (see 0600 GMT) after an examination of her passport showed no irregularities.

Parvaz was held in Iran for almost two weeks after she was detained in Damascus and then flown to Tehran.

1155 GMT: Human Rights Watch. Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Human Rights Council of Iran's judiciary, says Tehran has no objection to a United Nations Special Rapporteur visiting Iran to report on human rights.

On 24 March, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva agreed to appoint a rapporteur for Iran for the first time in 10 years, citing the “oppression of dissidents” and a “surge in executions”

0925 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. This morning's attack on controversial Presidential aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai --- and on other members of the Ahmadinejad inner circle --- comes from Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi.

Makarem Shirazi criticised the situation where senior administration officials "have some twenty jobs while some who are young, competent, and educated are unemployed".

Rahim-Mashai holds at least 16 posts while another Ahmadinejad advisor, Hamid Baghaei, also has multiple positions. Baghaei, who headed Iran's cultural organisation, was recently named a Vice President.

0800 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Mahremane News, affiliated with Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has warned that if President Ahmadinejad falls, "many other things will fall along with him".

0755 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Taghi Rahmani, journalist and consultant to Mehdi Karroubi, has been released once more from detention.

Rahmani was freed on bail of $150,000 on Sunday but was summoned again yesterday by the authorities. He was freed hours later.

0730 GMT: Economy Watch. Fars offers a surprisingly downbeat article on the Iranian economy, reporting that --- despite the Government's claim of creating 1.6 million jobs in the last Iranian year --- the unemployment rate remains at 11.9%.

The Fars article follows a challenge by key MP Ahmad Tavakoli that President Ahmadinejad was deceitful when he claimed in a nationally-televised interview on Sunday that the Government had created the 1.6 million jobs, as well as promising 2.5 million more will be added this year.

Tavakoli told the reformist newspaper Shargh that Iran’s Central Bank failed to report figures for the country’s Gross Domestic Product in the past three years (see 0510 GMT) and that Iran has been in a recession over the period.

0725 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. An Iranian official has pledged that, despite the implementation of subsidies, there will be no more increase in the price of bread and energy supplies this Iranian year, ending 20 March 2012.

0600 GMT: Journalist Watch. Dorothy Parvaz, who was detained in Syria on 29 April and then was sent to Tehran, has been released, according to her fiancé.  

Todd Barker said Parvaz had arrived in Qatar, travelling to Canada on Wednesday or Thursday: "The family and me are elated, and we're really grateful to the Iranian authorities who treated her very respectfully. It's over."

Parvaz works for Al Jazeera and has Canadian, Iranian, and American citizenship. She used her Iranian passport to enter Damascus on 29 April.

0510 GMT: We start this morning with an interesting tale from the economic front.

We noted yesterday that the Central Bank, having neglected to publish Iran's rate of growth for the last three years, suddenly announced that the economy had expanded by 3.5% (4.3% without oil revenues) for the Iranian year ending 20 March 2010.

Uskowi on Iran adds, however,  that the bank's Vice Governor Hossein Ghazavi did not offer the figures for the year ending March 2009 or the year ending March 2011, although he said growth in the latter had been "very small". Uskowi notes drily, "CBI’s limited and incomplete release of data on the growth rate raised more questions and did not help restore the confidence in the statistics published by the Central Bank."

How then could the CBI assuage doubts that it had been full and forthcoming? Blame the foreigners.

Ghosravi protested that the World Bank had released its own version of the growth rate, thus "acting in a political manner". He tried to explain:

The interesting thing is that, when a country does not announce its economic growth rate, international reports leave the space [for the relevant figure] in front of its name empty, and this is what happened regarding Iran's foreign exchange reserves; however, the World Bank did not act similarly with regards to [Iran's] economic growth rate and announced the figure

Press TV, which reported Ghosravi's statement, did not speculate whether the Central Bank would have offered any information if the World Bank had not posted a rate of growth. In fact, the website did not even mention what figure the World Bank had posted for the Iranian economy.