Iran Feature: The Battle Within and The Protests Are Still The Stories (Miller)

Western audiences, and especially Americans, don't like complicated, sad stories.  We like good guys and bad guys, cowboys and Indians, terrorists and allies.  We don't like to hear that 40-60% of the population of a country that we view as an enemy might very well be a friend.  We don't like to hear that the government we are negotiating with is illegitimate, or weak.  We also don't like to follow the slow development of an opposition movement that we can do little to help.  We like sexy stories like weapons of mass destruction or revolution, and we certainly like clarity.

Unfortunately, as long as we're not paying attention, we're also not helping, and until the media starts to cover these stories, many more people may die before things improve in Iran.

(Photograph by Munzz)

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WikiLeaks and Iran 2007: "The President is a Puppet of the Leader"

In April 2007, an MP and senior member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front offers some provocative comments on Iranian politics to the US Consulate in Dubai.

Supreme Leader Khamenei aspires to become the "emperor" of the Islamic world and is willing to sacrifice Iranian national interests for this goal. He sees President Ahmadi-Nejad as merely a puppet of the Supreme Leader, under the leader's complete control. Ahmadi-Nejad, in turn, sees more pragmatic conservatives such as [Speaker of Parliament Ali] Larijani and [Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer] Qalibaf as his main rivals.

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The Latest from Iran (11 December): Using Sakineh to Denounce Activists and Lawyers

1835 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Shargh reports that the electronics firm LG, after US pressure, has left Iran for Dubai and that Samsung may follow soon.

1830 GMT: Budget Chat. Video has been posted of the meeting of the Expediency Council meeting, in the presence of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, on the 5th Budget Plan.

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The family of Reza Shahabi, the treasurer of the Tehran Bus Workers' Union, says he is still in prison two months after bail was posted.

The Union calims Shahabi was to be released on 11 October 11 after his family posted bail of 60 million tomans ($57,103). The family said it agreed to pay an additional surety of 100 million tomans (about $100,000).

Shahabi's brother Hassan told Radio Farda, "They say he is not going to be released for certain reasons," but no one has disclosed what those reasons are.

Shahabi has reportedly started a hunger strike.

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Iran Feature: Renewed Claims That Presidential Election Was Manipulated

*From Thursday, 11 June, the Ministry of Communications cut off all links between cell phones of the polling station monitors for Mousavi and another candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, and of the headquarters of the Committee for Protecting People's Votes.

*At 4 p.m. on 12 June, five hours before voting ended, Raja News, linked to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that Ahmadinejad had been reelected with 63% of the vote, the same percentage that the Ministry of Interior and the Guardian Council late on the night of 12 June and over following days.

*Mousavi's and Karroubi's monitors were barred for many hours from the Ministry of Interior building during the evening of 12 June as the counting of votes took place. By the time they were allowed to enter, state television was broadcasting "results", even though the locations where votes were supposedly cast were not showing any numbers.

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The Latest from Iran (10 December): Human Rights Day

2235 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. There is still no news of three people detained during a memorial ceremony at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery last Sunday.

Other mourners, including Parvin Fahimi, the mother of the slain protestor Sohrab Arabi, were seized but later released.

Journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin has been sentenced to 16 months in prison on charges of insulting the President.

In an interview with Al Arabiya television, Shamsolvaezin said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "repressive" and "a lunatic".

Shamsolvaezin is spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom of the Press, and also as vice president of the Association of Iranian Journalists.

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The Latest from Iran (9 December): A Return to "Normal"

1710 GMT: We are going to take an early break this evening to join Ms EA at the theatre. As usual, I'm leaving the updates in the capable hands of our readers for late-breaking news and analysis.

1620 GMT: No Contradiction Here. The headline in Etelaat newspaper, 7 December: "Low Fuel Quality Main Reason for Smog". Headline in Etelaat, 8 December: "High Quality Fuel a Huge Domestic Success".

1605 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch (Censorship Edition). An EA source alerts us....

On Sunday night, pages and copies of the newspaper Iran were confiscated because of an article by executive director Kaveh Eshtehardi defending Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The seizures were ordered by Tehran Public Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi. Doulatabadi also warned other newspaper not to print any material identifying Hashemi by name.

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Groups within the regime are seeking the trial of Hashemi on charges of fraud and electoral manipulation, and an arrest warrant has been issued for him. He has been in London since summer 2009.

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The Latest from Iran (8 December): Back to the Smog

2205 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Actually, I don't want to finish with smog. Instead, I note Fereshteh Ghazi's interview with journalist Emaduddin Baghi just before he returned to Evin Prison to serve a seven-year sentence. Baghi explains, "It is impossible to work through legal channels in the Islamic Republic."

2200 GMT: Back to the Smog. To almost end the day where we began....

Like the Washington Post, the Financial Times prefers to discuss pollution rather than protests: "Tehran residents are blaming the Iranian government’s production of poor-quality petrol for the serious air pollution affecting Iran’s capital city."

Do not fear, however. The solution is at hand. Reviving a proposal offered by Tehran Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Emami Kashani, the Basij-e Mostazafin organisation has issued a statement to the people: Pray for Rain.

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The Latest from Iran (7 December): 16 Azar

2115 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Masoud Lavasani has been summoned to Evin Prison to serve his 4 1/2-year prison sentence.

Lavasani was arrested on 26 July 2009 at his home.

Ahmad Reza Khadem of the National Front has been sentenced to 40 months in prison.

Muhammad Nawaz, a follower of the detained Ayatollah Boroujerdi, has been detained.

2043 GMT: Parliament v. President. I know 16 Azar has been dramatic, but don't forget the ongoing story of the challenge to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

MP Darioush Ghanbari says that several reformists have signed the letter, organised by principlists opposing the President, to summon Ahmadinejad to the Majlis for questioning.

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WikiLeaks Document & EA Analysis: US Diplomats on Green Movement & Iran's Politics "From Crisis to Stalemate"

Today we post Part 2 of the analysis of the situation in Iran by the US Consulate in Dubai in January 2010. (The first cable was published on EA on Friday.)

It is a must-read document, but it is still an incomplete assessment. The challenge to the regime has never been one of an all-or-nothing contest between Government and Green Movement. The Consulate's attempted analogies with Iran 1978/1979 and Poland in the 1980s are distracting, rather than illuminating.

Instead the current possibilities of change have come through the dynamic between the space for resistance opened up by opposition movements and the space exploited by those manoeuvring within the Iranian system.

That is still true today.

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Wikileaks Iran Special: US Diplomats Assess Green Movement & Politics "From Crisis to Stalemate"

We have now added a special analysis to our posting of Part 2 of the US Consulate in Dubai's analysis in January 2010 of the Green Movement and Iran's political situation. The revised post is at the top of the homepage.