The Latest from Iran (20 June): A Fight Over the Foreign Ministry

1740 GMT: The Foreign Ministry Dispute. Leading MP Ahmad Tavakoli has increased the pressure on the Ahmadinejad camp over the proposed appointment of Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh as staff and finance manager at the Foreign Ministry (see 0500 GMT).

Tavakoli has claimed that Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi told Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi not to appoint Malekzadeh because he is on the verge of arrest over financial irregularities. Tavakoli declared that Salehi had proposed three candidates before Malekzadeh to the President; Ahmadinejad rejected all of them.

Malekzadeh has responded that Tavakoli is spreading slander and should release documents. He claims the MP is providing a story for the enemy.

1335 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Opposition media are now reporting that journalist Emaduddin Baghi's release from Evin Prison (see 1255 GMT) is unconditional, as an appeals court reduced his sentence to one year.

Baghi was sent to prison in early 2010 to serve a term of at least six years.

1325 GMT: CyberWatch. Sobhe Sadegh, fretting about news of "Internet in a suitcase" to bypass Tehran's restrictions on communications, has called for a "Cyber Base" to attract hackers for the regime.

And Serat News announces that a group called the Scouts, parallelling,the Basij militia, will be started by Red Crescent youth organisation.

1320 GMT: Campus Watch. Iranian officials say that a new gender separation policy will be implemented in some universities at the start of the new academic year in October.

1300 GMT: The Battle Within. Rooz Online offers an English summary of the escalating tension between President Ahmadinejad's advisors and their political and religious critics.

1255 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Emaduddin Baghi, serving a seven-year sentence, has been temporarily released on bail.

An EA source revealed earlier that Baghi was one of 12 political prisoners in Evin Prison who began a hunger strike on Saturday.

1250 GMT: The US Hikers. The next hearing in the espionage trial of Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, detained while hiking along the Iran-Iraq border, will be on 31 July, the second anniversary of their imprisonment.

The hearing was supposed to be on 11 May but was postponed without explanation by Iranian authorities.

1200 GMT: Reformist Watch. An EA correspondent refines our brief summary of the video message (see 1000 GMT) from prominent reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh --- he is currently on furlough from his prison sentence, but the video is apparently from 2010:

The breakdown of the Soviet Union changed the world from bipolar to unipolar but, instead of increasing the pressure on other states (by the USA), it caused the flourishing of the idea of human rights.

When you hear Mesbah Yazdi jabbing at democracy and human rights today, he always does it by adding the adjective "western" to it. Every "western" phenomenon is negative and bad, but in fact the downfall of communism helped to overcome the usual reserves against democracy and human rights as capitalist values.

Today 90% of the states of the world want democracy according to polls. Even Islamic countries want it, which betrays Mesbah Yazdi's claims.

1010 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Lots of video messages of solidarity with 12 political prisoners who reportedly went on hunger strike this weekend --- Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Prize laureate, speaks of post-election abuses and remembers Zahra Bani Yaghoub, who was killed in prison.

1000 GMT: Reformist Watch. A video message from the prominent reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh has been put out a video statement on the opposition's RASA TV. He discusses reasons for dictatorship after the 1979 Revolution and acknowledges that "democracy" is more attractive for Iran's youth.

Tajzadeh has been granted a short furlough from his long prison sentence, but this video appears to be from 2010.

0645 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Farid Salavati has been temporarily released from detention.

Salavati has written about a brutal gang rape in Isfahan, a case which has galvised criticism of the treatment of women in Iran.

While the Iranian judiciary says it intends to take severe action against the perpetrators, the local Friday Prayers Imam, Ghassem Yaghoubi, said that the rape victim was arrested.

0625 GMT: Human Rights Watch. We reported over the weekend that the regime was moving towards rejection of a visit by the UN Special Rapporter on Human Rights, appointed in March, with the statement of Zohreh Elahian, the head of Parliament's Human Rights Committee, that the UN initiative was the work of the US and Israel.

Confirmation came on Sunday that the Rapporteur will be barred from entry, with Mohammad Karim Abedi, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, declaring, “The United States, Israel, and the UK are the biggest violators of human rights in the world and the United Nations Human Rights Committee should send their reporters to those countries instead of Iran.”

0620 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. All weekend reports have been circulating that 12 prominent political prisoners are now on hunger strike, following the death of hunger striker Hoda Saber earlier this month, over their conditions and denial of rights.

EA now has reliable confirmation that journalist Emad Baghi, serving a seven-year sentence, began a hunger strike on Saturday. Previously, Baghi --- imprisoned for his writing and interviews --- had not joined any of the fasting protests.

0500 GMT: We are now used to the political conflict within the Iranian establishment, but still the story of Parliament's confrontation with the Ahmadinejad camp over the appointment of a "staff and finance manager" for the Foreign Ministry become a headline issue within 24 hours?

The background to the controversy over the naming of Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh lies in two narratives: 1) President Ahmadinejad's sudden removal of the Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, last December after he had named four "special envoys" --- including his Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai --- to carry out Iranian diplomacy; 2) the escalating campaign of political and religious critics against the "deviant current", including Rahim-Mashai, around Ahmadinejad.

Those two narratives intertwine in a high-stakes contest for expanded power, which in turn is fuelled by the 2012 Parliamentary and 2013 Presidential elections, with Rahim-Mashai rumoured to be a candidate in the latter.

That is why Malekzadeh has become a lightning rod. He a close ally of Rahim-Mashai, having worked at the Iran Culture and Heritage Organization that gave Rahim-Mashai his political foundation and served as Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Iranian Expatriates, founded by Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff. The role of "staff and finance manager" is an anodyne label for potentially significant influence. While supervising five divisions in the Foreign Ministry, Malekzadeh will be overseeing the selection of Foreign Ministry staff, all the way to Ambassadorial level. 

The critics of Ahmadinejad's men quickly swooped. Leading MPs such as Ahmad Tavakoli, an ally of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, spoke of financial irregularities. Legislators such as Mohammad Dehghan warned of the impeachment of Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi if he gave "the control of foreign ministry to the perverted group". 

By last night, Ahmadinejad ally Zohreh Elahian, a member of Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, was edging back, saying that Salehi has promised to fire Malekzadeh if he is convicted by the judiciary. Claiming that that the Foreign Minister was not aware that Malekzadeh is being investigated by the judiciary. Elahian said Salehi had been told to consider the record of Malekzadeh, and "make the appropriate decision".