The Latest from Iran (6 June): A Call for An Investigation
Monday, June 6, 2011 at 9:34
Funeral of Haleh Sahabi
1650 GMT: Fars News is reporting that Manouchehr Gharavi, the former CEO of the Iranian car maker, Iran-Khodro, and a few others were arrested last Monday.
1640 GMT: On Saturday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei called for a political cease-fire between Ahmadinejad and his most vocal critics inside the conservative party. Those calls, apparently, have gone unheaded.
Mehr News reports that Khamenei's representative to the Republican Guard Corps, Hojatoleslam Mojtaba Zolnour, insinuated today that Ahmadinejad is a threat to the core of the Islamic Republic:
"The current of deviation seeks to weaken the foundations of the Islamic establishment... I believe this movement is the gravest danger in the history of Shiite Islam.
"The head of this new sedition should be removed if the government wants to be clean... We hope this problem will be resolved, but it seems very unlikely such a thing will happen in the near future."
The insinuation is that Ahmadinejad, and his presumed choice for a successor, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, are behind the "current of deviation," a phrase used before to criticise the current president. Zolnour's disregard for political calm, and his association with the IRGC, is a notable event.
1200 GMT: Ali Larijani has warned Ahmadinejad that delegating decisions on oil matters special representatives appointed by the president is illegal.