The Latest from Iran (17 September): Re-Visiting the 2009 Election

See also Iran Feature: Is Civil Disobedience Taking Off?
WikiLeaks & Iran Special (June 2009): Brother of Supreme Leader's Military Advisor "The Election Was a Political Coup"

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2045 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Iranian authorities have freed Vahik Abramian, a Dutch-Iranian national detained for a year for "spreading the Christian faith". He is now back in the Netherlands.

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Kurdish student activists Mehdi Dohago, Milad Karimi and Soran Daneshvar --- have been arrested in Sanandaj in northwestern Iran.

1620 GMT: Campus Watch. HRANA reports that Khaje Nasir University of Technology in Tehran is the latest university to segregate men and women in the classroom.

1610 GMT: US Hikers Watch. Amidst the confusion over the possible release of US nationals Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer (see 1250 GMT), Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has issued a cautious statement on their fate, "The judiciary makes decision on the issue and its view is the final one. Reports say Iran's judiciary is trying to commute their punishment under the framework of Islamic compassion."

Iranian media are headling the declaration as "FM: Judiciary Tries to Commute US Nationals' Punishment". That is incorrect, at least in the ISNA report. Salehi, who earlier this summer expressed his hope that Bauer and Fattal might be freed on bail, has never said that the judiciary is moving toward their release and this statement merely notes that "reports say" this might be the case.

The Associated Press report on the news conference has a more direct Salehi --- note the absence of the clauses "reports say" and "trying to" --- declaring, "The judiciary's decision is to commute (the Americans') punishment.We expect the judiciary to make its decision in the near future."

Salehi then issued his template statement, "We hope this issue will be finalized so that both families of Iranians who are waiting (for inmates in U.S. prisons) as well as the families of these U.S. nationals will, God willing, hear good news." Note, as well as the hope, the reference to Iranians in American jails, leaving open the possibility of an effective exchange of Bauer and Fattal for those Iranian detainees.

1250 GMT: US Hikers Watch. American NBC News is reporting further confusion over the possible release on bail of the detained US nationals Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, after a judge failed to appear in court to consider the request that he sign the bail order.

Earlier Bauer and Fattal's lawyer said that one judge had signed the order (see 0940 GMT) --- set at $500,000 each --- but two signatures were required for it to take effect.

1330 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The reformist Ayatollah Mousavi Khoeiniha has said that opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi --- entering their 8th month of strict house arrest --- and political prisoners must be released.

1200 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mohammad Davari, the detained editor of Mehdi Karroubi's Saham News, has written an open letter, "Never ask for forgiveness. Offending officials are unjust to ask for repentance."

Last month the Supreme Leader declared an amnesty for almost 100 political prisoners.

Davari, who helped Karroubi expose the abuse of post-election prisoners at the Kahrizak detention centre, was arrested in September 2009 when security forces raided Karroubi's offices. He was sentenced to five years in prison for plotting against the regime.

1030 GMT: Unity Watch. Ali Fallahian, a member of the Assembly of Experts, has fired a shot at the Islamic Constancy Front, led by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, as the row over "unity" of conservatives and principlists continues.

Fallahian said that members of the Front were among the "deviant current" threatening Iran.

The Islamic Constancy Front has walked away from talks of the "7+8" Committee to bring together conservatives and principlists before next March's Parliamentary elections. The Front wants supporters of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani and Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf removed from the committee.

1000 GMT: Deviant Current Watch. There is lots of criticism around of the "deviant current" --- the group around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad --- these days, but the source in this case is distinctive: it's the brother of the President.

Amidst an alleged $2.6 banking fraud, with the money purchasing privatised companies, Davood Ahmadinejad has warned of the diversion of funds by the deviant current. Only days after his brother promised an enquiry into the fraud, Davood Ahmadinejad said the group would try and use the diverted money for advantage in March's Parliamentary elections.

0940 GMT: US Hikers Watch. Masoud Shafiee, the lawyer for detained US citizens Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, has told CNN that he is waiting for a second judge to sign bail papers. Two signatures are needed to process the release of Americans, who were detained in July 2009 on the Iran-Iraq border and sentenced this summer to eight years in prison for espionage.

0645 GMT: Awakening Watch. The Supreme Leader has finished his speech at the "1st International Conference on the Islamic Awakening" in Tehran. Press TV has summarised Ayatollah Khameini's words that the Islamic Awakening is "not an ambiguous concept" and is "a tangible and clear reality".

For flair, however, I prefer the Twitter message from the Supreme Leader's office: "These Islamic Awakenings could never have been contemplated in the calculations of the dominant regional and international Satanic power."

The tone of that tweet captured the balance of Ayatollah Khamenei's invocation to the delegates. In his summary of the Arab Spring, he tipped Iran's ambitions, for example, in labelling Egypt the first country to follow the path of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

However, most of the speech focused on warnings rather than hopes, with the Supreme Leader explaining the "possibility of assassination of righteous elites of the society, defamation of others, and even enticing some wit money". He said "to the people of Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Tunisia" --- you will notice the omission of Syria --- "Do not allow your enemies to formulate the principles of your future system....Deviation in revolutions starts with deviation in slogans and objectives....Revolutionaries must create their own system of governance,refusing Western Liberal, extreme nationalist, and leftist Marxist models."

0635 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. The hardline Keyhan is not impressed with President Ahmadinejad's attempt, on a tour of Ardebil in northwestern Iran, to take control of the issue of the $2.6 billion fraud engulfing Iranian banks, companies, and possibly the Government.

The newspaper says the President's speech, promising an "honest enquiry" but warning against any attempt to blame his advisors, was a "hasty and nervous" response to the corruption.

0630 GMT: Awakening Watch. Expect Iran's State media to be dominated today by reports of the two-day "Islamic Awakening" conference, opened by the Supreme Leader, in Tehran. A week before President Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations, it is the showcase for the regime to show unity and renew its claim that the Islamic Revolution was the inspiration for the demands for political change through North Africa and the Middle East: in the words of Ali Akbar Velayati, former Foreign Minister and advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran will protect and guide the revolutions" across the region.

0510 GMT: We open this morning with a look back in a special entry --- a quiet Friday from Iran was suddenly shaken when a colleague pointed us to an unedited version of a document from 16 June 2009, four days after the disputed Presidential election.

In the cable, released by WikiLeaks, the brother of the Supreme Leader's military advisor gave a vivid description of a vote manipulated under the direction of a person "close to the Leader" and assisted by Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari. The operation to ensure Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, prompted by the surge of candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, had split the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian establishment.

And that's not the latest cable we have discovered about the 2009 election. Another special entry is on the way....