Latest from Iran (7 September): Revolutions and Dervishes

More video claiming to show the security crackdown against protesters in Urmia on September 3rd

See also Iran Special: Mousavi's Moment Outside House Arrest "The Future is Bright"

Iran Video: Bringing Out the News, Remembering the Victims --- An Interview with Masih Alinejad
The Latest from Iran (6 September): Water Fights, Soggy Papers

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1800 GMT: Justice Watch. Mohammad Esmail Mollazehi, charged with “spying in an attempt to act against Iranian national security”, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Mollazehi was arrested in Zahedan in southeastern Iran in October 2010, charged with delivering information to a foreign embassy in Dubai." The embassy was not named.

The Zahedan prosecutor also said cryptically, “This individual also followed the files of certain detainees in Iran and was trying to release them.”

Because Mollazehi has no previous record, the 10-year sentence was reduced to four years in prison plus five years’ suspended sentence.

1400 GMT: The Battle with the Dervishes. Vahid Banai, a Gonabadi Dervish, has reportedly died after being shot by security forces during a demonstration last week.

Plainclothesmen and Basij militia reportedly attacked the dervishes, who belong to a sect of Sufi Islam, and at least 11 were then detained.

1355 GMT: Poll of the Day. Press TV sets outs the possibilities for interpreting the events in the US on 11 September 2001.

Why did the 9/11 incident happen? It happened in order to be used as....

a) an opportunity by the US to wage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
b) an excuse to tarnish the image of Islam and the Muslim community
c) an effective strategy to combat terrorism

1350 GMT: On the Border. State news outlet IRNA is reporting that Majid Kavian, the deputy commander of the Kurdish insurgency PJAK, was killed with shrapnel from tank fire on Saturday.

There have been a series of deadly clashes between Iranian forces and PJAK this summer, with Iran shelling PJAK camps inside northern Iraq and the insurgent group claiming positions near Sardasht in northwest Iran.

1340 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. President Ahmadinejad may have many challenges these days, but he is ready to take on a new one: the "intellectual atmosphere of the world".

Telling Iran's Cultural Attaches on Tuesday, “The most important mission of the country is indeed your undertaking", he said that Iran could only win the "cultural war" if it overturned that intellectual atmosphere: “We should repudiate and criticize the status quo.”

No details were given about Ahmadinejad's proposed “alternative system”.

1330 GMT: Something in the Water. Iran Police Chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam has spoken, apparently in a conciliatory tone, about the Lake Urmia protests. He said that, "while we have our approach to security", the "issue of protecting the environment is emphasised in religion". He added that social rights and social protest over the lake, which is rapidly drying up, had been supporting in legislative meetings and sessions.

Ahmadi-Moghaddam also commented over the arrests of youths over water games in Tehran and Mashhad, saying that authorities must be careful about the possibility of abuse of this activity as the games "do not allow the use of counter-revolution".

Tehran Police Ahmad Reza Radan added that his force would deal "decisively" with any further water games.

0848 GMT: The new US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said yesterday that it was only a matter of time before there is fresh revolution in Iran:

"I think we saw in evidence of that in the last election in Iran that there was a movement within Iran that raised those very same concerns that we're seeing elsewhere," Panetta said.

"And I think in many ways, it's a matter of time before that kind of change and reform and revolution occurs in Iran as well.

"We should try to take every step to try to support their effort but at the same time, we've got to analyze each situation to make sure that we do nothing that creates a backlash or that undermines those efforts.

"I think the reform movement in Iran is learning one hell of a lot from what's happened in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya and Syria."

"One of the issues we were looking at when Tunisia and Egypt happened is ... what sparked this? What made this all happen?" Panetta said, listing factors including social media and populations of youth who lacked hope for the future.

"The fact is when people decide that that moment has come, that's a moment when tremendous change is about to happen," Panetta said.

"And I think it's true, not only in the Middle East. It's going to be true in Iran as well."

0832 GMT: Besides the video, posted above, we'll start the liveblog off with news from the outside...

An official report on the Rogue Certificate attack has been issued by the Dutch ggovernment. The findings concluded that the attack was almost certainly aimed at Iranians by forces loyal to Iran's Supreme Leader, and multiple websites and servers belonging to multiple governments also may have been compromised, including those of the CIA, Britihs intel service MI6, and the Israeli intelligence wing, Mossad. The Dutch government now believes that none of its websites are safe:

"Tehran wants to be aware of oppositional activities inside and outside Iran. Using that information they can forcefully act against the opposition," Ellian [an activist who fled Iran in 1980] said in his blog on Dutch magazine Elsevier's website.

In April, there were signs Iran was helping Syria crush anti-government protests with advice on monitoring and blocking internet use, a US official said at the time.

Donner told reporters he had not been able confirm that the certificates were hacked by Iranian state authorities.

"The only thing we have been able to establish is that the people who complained were in Iran," [Dutch Interior Minister] Donner said.