The Latest from Iran (26 August): The Show on Quds Day

Past Quds Day rally, undated

We're closing the blog for the night. Stay tuned tomorrow, though updates will be more sporadic with Scott on the road. Thanks for reading.

2032 GMT: During his Quds day speech, Sadroddin Shariati, head of Allameh Tabatabaei University, said that, "today we have to [follow] the [Supreme Leader] because the scale of our lives and our beliefs has to be matched with the scale which is determined by the leader."

As several readers have pointed out, we're still waiting for some pictures from Tehran that would really show the "scale" of this leadership.

1900 GMT: Khatoon Special - According to Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, current deputy speaker of the Majilis, Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini stated that Bahonar has no power to confront the Khatoon contraversy. Hosseini fired back, denying those claims and cautioning that Bahonar should not talk in Hoseini's place.

1849 GMT: Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, the head of the Audit Office, has confirmed that the Tehran government is guilty of $11 million dollars in fraud, according to the now-blocked-in-Iran Ayande News. Pour-Mohammadi said that much of the misappropriation of funds was committed under previous governments, but insinuated that the fraud is ongoing.

1656 GMT: Ayande News is being filtered in Iran. They are also denying that this news is related to a story about Hossein Ansarian and Mousa Sadr. Preacher Hossein Ansarian had recently apologized to the people for the failed promises of the revolution.

1650 GMT: The Iranian state-run news agency, Press TV, provides this coverage of today's rallies, complete with chants of "death of Israel, death to America," and the claims (disputed by the Associated Press) that millions marched today:

1638 GMT: More quotes from Ahmadinejad at today's Al Quds celebration:

"A government that denies freedom and justice to its people will not survive".

"The Holocaust was the greatest lie."

"All must be alert and careful that the major goals of freedom, justice and self-determination" are not threatened by "the gun of NATO and the Americans."

Iran "stands against the enemies of freedom and justice," which, he said while addressing the "zionist" Israeli regime, "the entire world knows is you."

1603 GMT: These photos from Isfahan's Quds Day celebrations. It's hard to see how large the crowd is, but the streets around the square .

The first pictures (see more) from Friday prayers today. It is very hard from the pictures to get a read on how large the crowd is, as so far they only show the clerics, politicians, and close-ups of the crowd. Enjoy Ahmadinejad's version of peace:

How many showed up to the Al Quds rally? Stil lwaiting for pictures and videos, but the AP has this assessment:

Tens of thousands attended the Quds Day rally in Tehran. State TV said millions of Iranians participated in the rallies in cities and towns across Iran.

James Miller takes the blog.

Ahmadinejad said today that the potential UN recognition of a Palestinian State would be a huge step towards the "full liberation" of Palestine:

"The recognition of an independent Palestinian government is not the ultimate goal ... [but] only a step forward for the full liberation of the Palestinian land.

"The Zionist regime is the hotbed for germs and cancerous cells. If they persist even in a very small parcel of the Palestinian land, they will move again ... and harm everyone" in the region.

"The goal of all believers and justice seekers should be focused on the disappearance of the Zionist regime."

"Your era is over. It is in your interest to return to your homes ... You have no place in our region and among our nations."

Enemies to the Left of Me, Enemies to the Right. Prominent MP Asadollah Badamchian sees threats everywhere ahead of March's Parliamentary elections: 1) international imperialism, led indirectly by former US Vice President Dick Cheney; 2) the "fitna (sedition) current"; 3) the "deviant current" around President Ahmadinejad; 4) the liberal and nationalist current, 5) the "power-mad current"; 6) hardliners who run and split the  votes of the unity bloc which is being sought for the campaign.

1030 GMT: Foreign Affairs. The opposition Coordinating Council of Green Hope has pronounced that domineering tyrants in Syria and Iran should learn from the fate of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

1015 GMT: Oil Watch. Minister of Oil Rustam Qassemi, continuing his assurances of progress in Iranian oil production, has said Tehran will form consortias to exploit oilfields shared with neighbouring countries.

1000 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Grand Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili has declared that "force and prison have never been effective in the progress of religion".

Prison Watch. Has another victim of the Kahrizak detention centre, notorious for the abuse and killing of post-election prisoners, been identified more than two years after the centre was closed?

The son of Abdolreza Soudbakhsh, a physician and professor at Tehran University, has claimed that his father was killed after examining rape victims of Kahrizkak.

Soudbakhsh was shot dead by men on a motorcycle as he left his office in September 2010. Iranian officials denied his murder had anything to do with the alleged rapes. However, Behran Soudbakhsh has said in an interview that his father was under pressure to remain silent about those who died under torture: "[My father] was told to say that the victims of Kahrizak had meningitis. He asked to see the dead bodies and when he examined them, he concluded that they had died under torture and not meningitis. Once he said, 'How could they rape an 18-year-old kid so severely that he died after that? How could they rape the children?'".

Behrang Soudbakhsh said the doctor was planning to leave Iran on the night of his assassination. The elder Soudbakhsh had given an interview to Deutsche Welle's Persian network a few weeks before his death, in which he had mentioned the rapes.

Behran Soudbakhsh claimed, "They were thinking that my father was going to the US to reveal his information in details in an open society. My father was one of the few experts in Iran who had precise information [on the issue]. They killed my father because he didn't want to lie and he didn't lie."

The younger Soudbakhsh said the police refused to co-operate with an inquiry into his father's death.

Justice Watch. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty summarises this week's letter by detained lawyer and human rights activist Mohammad Seifzadeh to former President Mohammad Khatami calling for an overhaul of the judicial system becuase it does not protect legal rights.

Seifzadeh called for abolition of the Revolutionary and clerical courts, asserting that not one of the defendants in 6,000 political and media-related cases examined by 21 lawyers since Khatami was elected president in 1997 have received a fair trial in accordance with Iran's Constitution.

Turning to the present day, Seifzadeh claimed that none of his 180-200 fellow prisoners in Ward 350 of Tehran's Evin Prison had received a fair hearing.

He concluded, "A regime with a fair judiciary and free press and [political] parties will not undergo revolution and collapse."

Seifzadeh, imprisoned since May, was sentenced last autumn to nine years in prison and barred from practicing law for 10 years for "acting against national security". His "crimes" including co-founding the Center for Defenders of Human Rights with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and three other lawyers.

Getting Around the Security Forces. Dr Mehdi Khazali, recently released on bail from prison, faced another problem this week: security forces would not let him into his home.

So Khazali adjusted --- he and his friends had their iftar, the nightly dinner breaking the Ramadan fast, on the street.

It is Quds Day, the annual show of support for the Palestinian people. Iranian officials will be hoping for enthusiastic rallies, the largest since early June, not just for the fight of Palestinians but for a display of the regime's legitimacy.

The preparatory statements are already flowing. President Ahmadinejad told Al-Manar television, the outlet of Hezbollah in Lebanon, that the Iran is determined to eliminate the Zionist regime in Israel. The head of the Basij militia, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, found a more creative line: "We will be in the Olympic Games in 2020 in freed Palestine."

But it was the Supreme Leader who used his eve-of-Quds-Day declaration to sound a note linking the celebration to the ongoing issues inside Iran: "All officials must accept harsh criticism of the elite. They should not interpret it as objection to nezam (the system)."