The Latest from Iran (14 June): Presenting the Morality Police

New recruits to the morality police listen to instructions from a commander (more photos at bottom of LiveBlog)

2015 GMT: Press Watch. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi said today that he has summoned the manager of Iran newspaper for insults against the head of judiciary and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

2000 GMT: The US Hikers. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has said a final decision in the case of three US hikers, charged with espionage, is expected Americans charged with espionage by late August.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are still in custody after almost 23 months in detention. The latest hearing in their trial was cancelled without explanation on 11 May.

Sarah Shourd was released in September 2010 on $500,000 bail and has refused to return to Iran for trial.

1925 GMT: Parliament v. President (Sports Report). Press TV offers more on the escalating battle between the Parliament and President Ahmadinejad over the nomination of a Minister of Sport (see 1215 GMT)....

MPs have denounced Ahmadinejad's letter, which not only introduced Hamid Sajjadi but complained about the current situation and operations of the Ministry of Sport. Parliament voted in January to merge the Ministry with the Ministry of Youth, but the President has not endorsed the action.

One MP called the letter a “goblet of poison” and others demanded it be returned to Ahmadinejad. Speaker Ali Larijani, playing peacemaker, said that he did not like the letter and its rationalisations but urged lawmakers not to consider it as a “goblet of poison”, avoiding the issue. He said that while the letter was wrong, there was no need to return it.

1920 GMT: Justice Watch. The Supreme Leader, on the occasion of the birthday of Shi'a's first Imam, has pardoned or reduced the sentences of 996 prisoners.

An EA correspondent has a two-word enquiry, "Which ones?"

1910 GMT: Where Now for the Greens? Khodnevis features a detailed critique of a "stagnant" opposition. An EA correspondent summarises:

Excellent analysis and critique of hesitant Green Movement with stagnant slogans, led by reformists who shy away from confrontation and fail to address real needs and problems of people: unpaid wages, gender (family law), and religious discrimination (Baha'i students).

Slogans are unchanged even after Mousavi and Karroubi house arrests, Green Movement leaders torn between approval of system and regime change.

In summary, spokesmen of Green Movement offer no practical alternatives to system to attract and mobilise more supporters.

1535 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. A video summary of President Ahmadinejad's opening activities in Kazakhstan, where the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is being held.

For those going beyond formalities to concentrate on Iranian politics, there is another task: can the President's right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, be found in the clip?

1420 GMT: Currency Watch. Yesterday Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani assured that the bank would stabilise the Iranian toman "in the next 24 hours". Now he has announced, "From today, more foreign currency will be injected into the market to fight fake rates. Each week, $1.5 billion will be injected into the market and it is also possible even to suddenly inject two weeks' worth ($3 billion) into the market to curb (dollar) prices."

The Central Bank, reacting to a slide in the toman's value, officially devalued the currency 11% last week, from 1060 to the US dollar to 1172:1.

The toman had fallen as low as 1250 to the dollar on Monday, but it recovered to around 1200 today.

1405 GMT: Parliament v. President. MP Elyas Naderan has asked the Minister of Science and Higher Education, Kamran Daneshjoo, to investigate the claim of 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi that he holds a Ph.D.

Naderan claims that the degree has been bought from "Belford University".

1225 GMT: The Anniversary Protests. A silent flashmob in a Paris metro station last Thursday in support of rights for Iranians, two years after the disputed 2009 Presidential election:

1220 GMT: Campus Watch. Azerbaijani graduate student Mohammad Azizi has been banned from graduate school.

1215 GMT: Parliament v. President (Sports Report). And now the latest front in the battle between legislators and President Ahmadinejad....

Ahmadinejad has not only put forward Hamid Sajjadi as the new Minister of Sport; he has done in a letter to Parliament setting out complaints about the current situation with the Ministry.

The President has been stalling on Parliament's bill merging the Ministries of Sport and Youth.

Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has declared that Ahmadinejad's letter has been written "as a pretext for government illegal action". Larijani ally Ahmad Tavakoli says the proposed Minister will not get a vote in the Majlis.

1155 GMT: The Battle Within. Leading MP and Government critic Ahmad Tavakoli has told Khabar Online that the judiciary is completing Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi's file, preparing for a corruption trial over a massive insurance fraud.

1150 GMT: Foreign Affairs (Syria Front). Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has offered this portrayal of protest and opposition: "Some regimes, especially America and the Zionist regime, with particular aims, are provoking terrorist groups in Syria and in the region to carry out terrorist and sabotage operations."

Mehmanparast continued, "The Zionist regime and its advocates are seriously threatened, that is why they are doing all they can to crush this resistance line standing against the aggression of the Zionist regime."

1140 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Mehdi Tajik has been summoned to serve a two-year sentence handed down in 2010.

Tajik has also been barred for 15 years from writing and public activity.

1130 GMT: Press Watch. 9 Dey, a consevative weekly close to President Ahmadinejad, has been banned by authorities because of a cartoon that it published of former President Mohammad Khatami.

Other reports indicate that the ban on the Etemad newspaper, close to the reformists, will be lifted.

1105 GMT: The Battle Within. The hard-line Raja News claims that Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi has been dismissed from the Government's Money and Credit Council.

1020 GMT: Economy Watch. Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf has declared that in one section of the capital, people do not have the money to buy bread. A bakery has put up the poster, "We don't sell [with payments] in installments."

1005 GMT: The Anniversary Protests (and Beyond). Yasaman Baji posts an interesting summary at Asia Times Online on Sunday's marches and the wider context. Baji matches our estimate, "Thousands of protesters had gathered. More accurate numbers are difficult to estimate due to the dispersed nature of the protests", and continues:

The larger dilemma at this point for the Green movement, according to an Iranian political analyst who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal, is that intra-conservative conflicts are beneficial to the Greens, but lack of action could weaken the movement.

Even limited street protests and the government's overreaction through a heavy security presence make them important players that the government cannot ignore, he told Inter Press Service (IPS).

"It is the government's constant fear of a popular eruption [in the absence of] a heavy security presence that keeps the Green movement in the game," he said.

Still, there was disagreement on Sunday among the marchers regarding the strategic usefulness of staging public protests at this time. Some believe that the movement is better off avoiding any activity that could dampen tensions among the conservatives who control all branches of government in Iran....

The message from the street, meanwhile, was echoed in Washington where a self-exiled spokesman for the Green movement told a briefing of Iran specialists that there was general agreement among its adherents that it wanted to avoid situations that could play into the regime's hands.

"Radicalizing the movement won't benefit it at all," said Ardechir Amirarjomand, spokesman for The Coordinating Council of the Green Path of Hope of Iran, a broad coalition established by Mousavi and Karrubi before they were put under house arrest. "That is exactly what the other side wants, because it would help the government survive longer."

"We are a peaceful movement, and measures we take will not be short term or quick," said Amirarjomand, who was a top adviser to Mousavi during the 2009 campaign and was himself detained after the election. He added that the movement's main goal for now was to "force the government to accept free elections".

0905 GMT: The Anniversary Protests. Rah-e Sabz has posted another first-hand account from Sunday's silent protests: "The energy of the people was fantastic."

0855 GMT: The Battle Within. Shafaf News, supportive of the Supreme Leader, predicts failure for the Ahmadinejad camp in the next Parliamentary elections.

0840 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Amir Khosrow Dalirsani, an activist of the National-Religious Coaliation, has ended his hunger strike.

Dalirsani was one of six political prisoners on strike over the death of activist Haleh Sahabi. One of the six, Hoda Saber, died of a heart attack last weekend.

0830 GMT: The Battle Within. A columnist for Alef, the website linked to MP Ahmad Tavakoli, has called President Ahmadinejad a "qoldor" (thug) and "bot-gar" (idol-maker), who is preventing the judiciary from prosecuting Mohammad Reza Rahimi on corruption charges.

Serat News has criticised "hard-liners": "If you hadn't sealed Ahmadinejad's critics' mouths with mud, he wouldn't think he is a hero. He is not powerful at all, only powerful through thru enormous sums taken from national income."

0720 GMT: The Anniversary Protests. Rah-e Sabz claims that, in addition to the events in Tehran on Sunday, silent protesters were detained in Tabriz, Shiraz, and Ahwaz while there was a heightened security presence in Babol.

The British Foreign Office has issued a statement noting the "large gatherings of Iranians" who came out in "silent and peaceful protest" on Sunday's second anniversary of the 2009 Presidential elections, as well as the "repression by the Iranian authorities".

The Foreign Office called for the immediate release of those detained on Sunday and over the last two years. It also asked for "an urgent and transparent investigation into the deaths of [activist] Hoda Saber and human rights activist Haleh Sahabi".

0715 GMT: Economy and Justice. Contrasting results for Iran on the international front today --- while the International Monetary Fund praises the "success" of Tehran's economic plans (see separate entry), Iran has ranked 66th out of 66 countries surveyed on "Fundamental Rights" in the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index.

0700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Reza Rafi Forushani of Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign has been released after two years in jail.

0545 GMT: A Journalist's View. Maziar Bahari was detained just after the 2009 election and held for four months in a Tehran prison. In a wide-ranging audio interview, he talks about the "worldview of the interrogator", the future of the opposition, and "his desire for a peaceful and gradual transition away from authoritarian rule in Iran".

0540 GMT: Currency Watch. Iran's newspapers are not as concerned about the morality police, however, as they are about the latest exchange rates. The headlines in Ebtekar, Jam e Jam, and Eghtesad Pooya feature the assurance of the Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani that the bank will raise the value of the Iranian toman to its "new" official value --- 1175 to the US dollars --- within 24 hours. 

Last week the Central Bank effectively acknowledged the market fall in the value of the toman, devaluing it 11%, but that has failed to check the slide: the toman is now trading at 1245 to the US dollar.

0525 GMT: A different start to our Tuesday. Rather than begin with the state of the opposition after Sunday's anniversary protests or the political in-fighting, we note the photo special in Fars of the latest additions to Iran's "morality police".

Iran's police commanders have launched a public-relations offensive to explain that there will be greater enforcement of laws against inappropriate fashion and behaviour. An example is that "bad hijab" will be punished by imprisonment from 10 days to two months.