Iran Live Coverage: A Collapsing Economy?

See also Wednesday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Everyone Else

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1710 GMT: Economy Watch. A new report by the Iranian Chamber of Commerce indicates that 5931 industrial units --- 67% of those surveyed --- have been shut.

1440 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Ebrahim Raissi, the Deputy Iran Prosecutor General, has promised that indictments in the case of Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, will be issued soon.

Hashemi, accused of financial and electoral fraud by his critics, was detained in September on his return from three years in exile in Britain. He was released on bail last month.

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The Latest from Iran (10 March): Oh, the US is So Weak

See also The Latest from Iran (9 March): "Legitimacy" --- Home and Abroad

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Iran Media: "Objective Reality of US Society"2028 GMT: Protest Watch. The Mothers of Laleh Park and their supporters have issued a statement challenging the Iranian judiciary’s harsh sentencing of human rights activists.

The Mothers of Laleh Park, who emerged after the June 2009 Presidential election to protest killings and detentions, declared, “While the possibility of a humane life is evaporating for Iranian people and especially freedom seekers, the criminals are rising in stature, and there are no fair courts answerable to the people.”

The statement condemned the sentences imposed on human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani and the deputy head of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, Nargess Mohammad, contrasting their judicial fate with that of Saeed Mortazavi, the Tehran Prosecutor General when the abuses occurred at the Kahrizak Detention Centre in summer 2009.

The Mothers wrote, “Judge Mortazavi, whose many crimes are common knowledge, was dismissed after his offences regarding Kahrizak were revealed. But not only did he not stand trial, he was instead appointed as head of the task force against drug trafficking. And now he is being appointed to the helm of the Organization for Social Security.”

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