The Latest from Iran (16 October): "Currency Market Disruptors Will Be Executed"

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt
Iran Audio Feature: Nuclear Talks and Scare Stories --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
The Latest from Iran (15 October): European Union Announces More Sanctions

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2257 GMT: Economy Watch. Shoe producers gathered in front of Parliament today to protest against the high prices they pay for material, as "people do not buy expensive shoes".

2250 GMT: Currency Watch. Baztab claims that the Rial, when foreign exchange is offered, is trading at 37000:1 vs. the US dollar, a fall of about 7% from Monday.

The website also claims that the cost of old gold coin has risen to 14.4 million Rials.

2245 GMT: Irony Watch. According to Iranian State media, President Ahmadinejad told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in their 40-minute meeting today, “The only solution to Syria's problems is that influential states in the region, including Iran and Turkey, insist on the holding of free elections in this country."

1945 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has used a speech to the food industry to offer some criticism through history:

Unfortunately, today, after the passing of many years since the Sacred Defense [the 1980s war with Iraq] and [at a time of] calm and security in the country, some of those people who are only remotely involved in the affairs, and did not have any responsibility at that or feared to get involved and remained in the periphery, have begun speaking and are questioning the achievements of the warriors, and claim they are looking for those who forced His Holiness the Imam [Khomeini] to drink from the chalice of poison [by accepting the ceasefire agreement with Iraq].

Then Rafsanjani came to the present, both over domestic affairs --- "It is not too late for changing the path and changing wrong management" --- and foreign policy: "Based upon our ideals and the foundations of our principles we consider the Zionist regime illegitimate, but we do not desire war with any state, and do not need to get involved."

1935 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Following its imposition of new sanctions on Iran's energy and banking sectors on Monday, the European Union has targeted Iranian state companies in the oil and gas industry and tightened restrictions on the Central Bank.

More than 30 firms and institutions were listed in the EU's Official Journal for asset freezes, including the National Iranian Oil Company and the National Iranian Tanker Company.

"We are now comprehensively capturing all possible elements of this sector and sources of funding for the regime," a senior EU official said.

The United States imposed restrictions on NIOC last month and has blacklisted the tanker company.

1805 GMT: A Notable Passing. Ahmad Ghabel, religious scholar and student of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, has been declared brain-dead after suffering cardiac arrest. He had been ill with a brain tumour

Ghabel was repeatedly detained, serving 125 days in solitary confinement in 2001. In December 2009 he was arrested on his way to Qom to attend the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. He was freed on bail after 170 days in prison but re-arrested in summer 2010, reportedly for exposing secret mass executions at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad.

In December 2010, He was convicted of working against the ruling system and insulting the Supreme Leader and sentenced to 20 months in jail.

1603 GMT: Economy Watch. Some snapshots from an overview in the Christian Science Monitor of the economic situation:

Parinaz could see the growing impact of Iran's deepening economic chaos every day while riding the Tehran subway. To make ends meet, more and more Iranians had gone underground to sell cheap Chinese goods to passengers.

But it was one particular sight that illustrated for Parinaz the depths to which US-led sanctions and Iran's economic mismanagement have brought financial hardship: A young woman who once had the money to pay for a nose job --- the plastic surgery was obvious --- was selling trinkets in a subway station, and being told by a policeman it was illegal to do so.

"What should I do? I need to live, right?" she shouted loudly at the policeman, heard by all the daily commuters in the station. "Should I sell myself then? If I can't make money this way, I would have nothing but my body...."

The embarrassed officer let the woman continue selling, but her words shook Parinaz, who requested that only her first name be used.

"The peddler looked like a respectable woman," the pharmaceutical researcher recalls. "I was sure that if she had any other way of earning money, she would not have chosen this. It was obviously an effort for survival."...

"I heard a proverb from my grandfather that 'the high pressure of rising prices is going to break our backbone'," says Heydar, a retired civil servant. "Honestly speaking, I never felt it and never could sense it, but these days I easily witness that the backbone of many people like me in the middle class is breaking. I can hear the horrifying sound of people squeezed by the economy."

1523 GMT: Economy Watch. Mehrdad Lahouti, the spokesman for Parliament’s Development Committee, has warned that Iranian airlines may raise the price of flights by as much as 50% by next month because of the currency crisis.

“Domestic airlines must either be given access by the government to foreign currency at the official exchange rate or increase their prices," Lahouti said.

1515 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). More from Turkish media on the meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Ahmadinejad....

The Anatolia news agency said, "The two leaders agreed that contacts among countries in the region should be intensified in order to end the bloodshed in Syria." There was no apparent, however, to the failure last month of the short-lived Egypt-Turkey-Saudi Arabia-Iran "contact group".

Erdoğan defended Turkey's retaliatory measures against Syrian force in the wake of cross-border shelling and, according to Turkish media, Ahmadinejad concurred that “Turkey is justified in its reaction".

1400 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Fars, citing the Turkish newspaper Yurt, claims the Free Syrian Army is involved in trafficking of body organs of civilians and army soldiers after kidnapping and murdering them.

1330 GMT: The Battle Within. Iran Prosecutor Gholam Hosssein Mohseni Ejei, in his Monday press conference, appears to have quashed one immediate source of tension within the regime --- he declared that Inspector General and former Minister of Interior Mostafa Pourmohammadi has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Special Court for Clerics.

Pourmohammadi, increasingly critical of the Government, has been in a bitter row with First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, with mutual accusations of corruption and fraud.

1300 GMT: Currency News. Mashregh reports that, despite the threat of arrest and harsh punishment (see 0525 GMT), "unofficial" currency dealers have not stopped their trading of US dollars, operating in Tehran's Ferdowsi Square after 9 p.m.

1230 GMT: Justice Watch. Authorities are going through the motions today of a show trial in absentia for Canadian-Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari, who was arrested shortly after the disputed 2009 Presidential election and held for more than three months.

Bahari's "crime" was to report on the protests over the election, including filming of clashes between security forces and demonstrators in Azadi Square on 15 June. He further aroused regime anger when he spoke about his detention to Western media soon after his release and departure from Iran in October, and then when he filed a lawsuit with the British media regulator Ofcom against Press TV's broadcast of an "interview" during his detention.

Ofcom, finding that Press TV had exploited a forced confession, fined the channel £100,000 and banned its broadcasts in Britain.

A "verdict" in the trial is expected next week.

1210 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodgan has met President Ahmadinejad met for 40 minutes on the sidelines of the Economic Cooperation Organization summit in Azerbaijan today, according to Turkish media.

Reports claimed the two men discussed the Syrian crisis but no details were offered by Turkish and Iranian representatives.

(Cross-posted from Syria and Beyond Live Coverage)

1059 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Canadian Edition). As we noted yesterday, the Islamic Republic is continuing its campaign against last month's suspension of diplomatic relations by Canada --- including the closure of the Canadian Embassy in Tehran and the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa --- with Iran's defence of "human rights" in Canada. The latest example from Khabar Online:

The Secretary General of High Council for Human Rights has met with Canadian aboriginal leader Terry Nelson, stressing that the Islamic Republic of Iran would defend the rights of aboriginal people in Canada, as part of its plan to support innocent people across the world.Mohammad Javad Larijani declared that the indigenous people in Canada have been marginalized in the past years rather than being regarded as the country's cultural capital.

"As we defend the rights of people of Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine in the international community, we will also raise the issue of the plight of Canada’s aboriginal population and support them," he said.

"Unfortunately, west has been employing media to emphasize on the universality of human rights and its ongoing campaign against human rights abuses across the world, but in fact it is ruining the cultures of other countries. This is while that the universality of human rights is related to providing a proper and equal situation for all countries and cultures to play a role in promoting the fundamentals of human rights and human civilization," said Larijani, who is also a top adviser to the head of Iran's Judiciary.

Stressing that the Canadian minority group should be considered as a cultural wealth for the North American country, Larijani also said, "Ottawa has exploited and exterminated the aboriginal communities rather than trying to improve its cultural wealth."

0609 GMT: Food Watch. Mansour Haghighatpour of Parliament's National Security Committee has criticised the Government's failure to support agricultural producers --- "Wheat is sold at the price of straw," the MP said, alleging that the Government had bought only 2 million of 14 tonnes, leaving the rest to the private sector as "fodder" and importing "rotten wheat from India".

0606 GMT: Economy Watch. Alef, the newspaper linked to prominent MP Ahmad Tavakoli, has jabbed at officials for concealing the effects of sanctions: "People should be informed to prepare themselves".

0601 GMT: Facebook Petition of the Day. Press TV has launched a Facebook petition to save its services across Europe after the satellite provider Eutelsat SA suspended the broadcast of 19 Iranian State TV channels on Monday.

0555 GMT: All-is-Well Alert. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, in the Azerbaijan capital Baku for the Economic Cooperation Organization summit, "Iran is a great country...and the West’s sanctions cannot have significant effects on our country’s economy."

0525 GMT: Iran Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei covered a wide range of topics in his Monday press conference. He said President Ahmadinejad, who has reportedly asked to visit Evin Prison to see his detained senior advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr, could do so after the necessary arrangement. He said death sentences for drug dealers would not be commuted. The date of release of the editor of the Maghreb newspaper, imprisoned in a raid earlier this month, was not clear. 

The most striking comment by far, however, was Mohseni Ejei's follow-up to the news that more than 40 currency traders have been arrested this month: "Currency market disruptors will be executed."