Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Towards the Day of Departure

0540 GMT: Now see Thursday's LiveBlog: "The Battle of Tahrir Square".

0536 GMT: The pro-regime protesters and thugs have not left Cairo yet. Some of them have taken over tall buildings and are throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at democracy protesters below outside of Tahrir Square. 

This has not stopped hundreds of protesters from continuing to join democracy protesters in Tahrir Square, swelling up their numbers.  

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Iran Special: Human Rights and a Political Prisoner Named Ebrahim Yazdi

Ebrahim Yazdi is Iran's oldest political prisoner, detained briefly after the June 2009 Presidential election and then again on 1 October 2010. He is reportedly in serious condition in prison, suffering from heart disease and cancer.

As we mark International Human Rights Day this week, we post an article by Barbara Slavin for AOL News and the appeal of Yazdi's family to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, sent last Sunday:

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The Latest from Iran (21 November): Human Rights and Missing Constitutions

2025 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Tehran Azad University student activist Amir Ahmad Monazemi has been sentenced to one year in prison and 74 lashes. Monazemi was arrested last December at the mourning ceremonies for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and was held for one month before being freed on bail.

1950 GMT: Human Rights and the Hikers. So is this the other half of an Iranian strategy? Yesterday Mohammad Javad Larijani, the high-ranking Iranian judiciary official, was on American television with his assertion that he would like to see a resolution of the cases of detained US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer before a trial.

Today the lawyer for Fattal and Bauer, Masoud Shafiee, was told that they and the third US hiker Sarah Shourd --- released in September on a guarantee that she would return for trial --- would be in court on 6 February.

Possible translation? Tehran just gave the Americans a 2 1/2-month window for a negotiated release of Fattal and Bauer.

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The Flotilla Shootings: Did a UN Commission Find Israel Guilty of 6 "Executions"? (Porter)

Gareth Porter writes for truthout:

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.

The report says Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in his face.

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UN Commission: Israel Broke International Laws in Flotilla Raid (BBC)

The BBC reports:

Israel's military broke international laws during a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a UN Human Rights Council investigation says.

Its report said the action by commandos, which left nine dead, was "disproportionate" and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality".

It said there was clear evidence to support prosecutions against Israel for "wilful killing".

Israel rejected the report as "biased" and "one-sided."

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The Latest from Iran (20 September): A Quieter Monday --- So Far

1915 GMT: Clerical Challenge. Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani, in his latest criticism of the Government, has said that Iran's main problem today is the lack of tolerance for opposition votes and opinions. He added that "unfortunately" religions are abused to confront civilisations and people instead of supporting dialogue and rapprochement.

1900 GMT: Fact-Checking. Earlier we cast some doubt on the President's ability to tell the truth. Looks like his 1st Vice President might also need some help....

Mohammad Reza Rahimi, on the eve of scheduled subsidy cuts, has said that inflation is single-digit (official rate 10,4%) and rice is imported only to cover deficiencies (Iran's heavy imports of rice and sugar have led to widespread bankruptcy of domestic producers).

Meanwhile Iran's banking experts have called published inflation data "an insult to people's intelligence". One said, "You have to add 15% due to subsidy cuts to the official rate of 10%."

1850 GMT: Parliament v. President. Reformist Emad Afrough strikes back at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "I Rule" statement with a call to fellow legislators to get tough.

Afrough said it is a reality that the Majlis is not at the head of affairs, even though it should be and would be had it not retreated from its rights in many cases. He calls on the Parliament to demand "why Ahmadinejad talks like this and why he falsifies Imam Khomeini's words" about the need for an Iranian legislature to prevent government becoming a dictatorship.

It's not just reformists speaking out. Key conservative Hossein Sobhani-Nia has also said that Khomeini's injunction is "not temporary" and announced that a joint Majlis-Government-Guardian Council commission on the legal powers of the three bodies will discuss Ahmadinejad's latest statement. 

On the clerical front, Isfahan Friday Prayers leader Mohammad Taghi Rahbar has warned that no one should "freely interpret" Khomeini's words, for what he said about the government and Majlis was "still valid". Isfahan's head of seminary Ayatollah Mazaheri declared that "insults against the Majlis are not acceptable".

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