1830 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch (see 1235 GMT). Do you think former President Hashemi Rafsanjani is making an allusion here: "After removal of [former President Abolhassan] Bani Sadr, unity was created among the people"?
1430 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Men. More pressure on 1st Vice President Hamid Baghaei and Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai....
Footage of the blaze at the Abadan oil refinery on Tuesday
2015 GMT: A Fire at the Refinery. Siemens AG, Germany’s largest engineering company, has denied that it supplied compressors for Iran’s Abadan oil refinery, where a blast on Tuesday killed at least four people and wounded at least 25.
An Iranian newspaper had claimed that Siemens supplied the compressor that exploded, causing the blaze.
Ahmadinejad at Abadan, 24 May 2011Ahmadinejad, unsurprisingly but perhaps ironically in light of the fire nearby, declared on national television that Iran would lead the world in the production and distribution of oil, marking its technological and economic advance.
He gave that statement as President. But he also was preaching as the Minister of Oil --- the one who wants to be the personal representative of Iran's leadership at the OPEC meeting in two weeks' time.
And, even if those flames behind him were accidental, they were a vivid marker that some other people in Iran do not want him in that position.
2015 GMT: Human Rights Watch. Seyed Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University explains why Iranian officials are declaring that they will imposed sanctions on named US individuals, including former military commanders and Administration officials: "The United States and its allies, including certain EU members, are violating human rights more than any other country in the world."
2005 GMT: Election Watch. Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar has given an assurance that the Government will not interfere in the 2012 Parliamentary elections.
1530 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mousavi campaign activist Reza Safavi has been arrested in a raid of his home by six agents, with his computer and other items confiscated.
1515 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch (cont.). More on the unusual interview in which the President's son-in-law tears apart the President's advisors....
Mehdi Khorshidi says that the leader of "deviant group" --- presumably Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai --- never studied theology but dares to comment on religious matters. Indeed, Rahim-Mashai is so arrogant that he challenges Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who is esteemed by the Supreme Leader and has 30 years of experience.
Khorshidi continues that Rahim-Mashai has endeavoured to sabotage and eliminate useful people around Ahmadinejad, replacing them with his cronies.
And Khorshidi's reference to the "deviant group" splashing out money on "problematic" people such as actors? Well, in January, Hojatoleslam Mohammad-Taqi Rahbar, the head of the clerical faction in Parliament, noted Rahim-Mashai’s meeting with an Iranian actress, Hedyeh Tehrani, at the Presidential office:
Anyone with a bit of Principlist zeal will not approve of the lowly acts of the Head of the Presidential office. All Principlists especially the President’s true supporters are ashamed that such a character is running the office of the president.....I don’t know what an actress’s [photograph] exhibition has to do with the head of the presidential office that he has to fund it with $80,000 from the Treasury. These loans are handed out by him [Mashai] at a time when many farmers are struggling with repeated droughts and are starving. Yet the government refuses to give them a $1,000 loan.
2030 GMT: At the Movies. Director Mohammad Rasoulof, facing a six-year prison sentence, has won the Cannes Film Festival prize for Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section Saturday for "Be Omid e Didar" (Goodbye).
Rasoulof, who is appealing his sentence, cannot travel abroad so his wife accepted the prize on his behalf.
The film tells the story of a young Tehran lawyer trying to get a visa to leave Iran.
Rasoulof was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi in December and barred from making films for 20 years. Panahi's latest film, smuggled out of Iran, is also being shown at Cannes (see separate video).
1820 GMT: Book Corner. Radio Zamaneh reports that all works of the prominent author Ali Ashraf Darvishian have been removed from the Tehran Book Fair.
1810 GMT: Parliament Watch. Back from a break to summarise latest developments in the tug-of-war between Parliament and the Government.
On Monday, the Majlis finally confirmed the 2011/12 Budget --- after a debate and delays of more than two months --- but the affirmation was far from resounding: only 144 votes of the 290 MPs voted for the package. There were 29 votes against, 12 abstentions, 23 "presents", and 82 absences.
Now a new battle is brewing: MPs, including Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, are claiming that the Government may be breaking the law in its plans for the merger of nine Ministries. On Monday, Parliament had warned that former Ministers could not continue to serve in the new Ministries.
1930 GMT: Curbing Parliament. A 23-member commission in the Parliament is effectively recommending restrictions on their colleagues through a new bill establishing five punishable offences: three cover "activities against national security, and other clandestine [activities committed by MPs] from the law enforcement perspective".
The new bill also provides a "legal" process for the judiciary to arrest Majlis deputies. This would override article 86 of the Constitution, which gives immunity to the deputies from prosecution.
The interesting question is whether the measures are aimed solely at reformists or whether priciplist critics of the Government --- including Ali Motahari, Elyas Naderan, and Ahmad Tavakoli, a relative of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani --- come be caught up by the "punishable offences".
2010 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Two supporters of the Laleh Park Mothers of Mourning, Jila Karamzadeh and Laila Saifollahi, have each been sentenced to four years in prison.
1710 GMT: The President's Former Right-Hand Man. A bit more context on the battle around controversial Ahmadinejad ally and advisor Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, who officially left as Chief of Staff today....
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, considered a spiritual advisor to Ahmadinejad, reportedly launched a furious attack on Rahim-Mashai. The cleric said the "fitna" (sedition) of 2009 around the Presidential election had ended, but now there was a new fitna on higher level.
And what could that challenge be? In a reference to Rahim-Mashai's promotion of an "Iranian model" for other countries to follow, Mesbah Yazdi asked, "Why replace Islam and Revolution with an Iran School?"
1840 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (Repentance Edition). More from the interview published by State news agency IRNA of Ebrahim Yazdi (see 1730 GMT), the former leader of the Freedom Movement of Iran who was detained from early October until 20 March:
In the interview [carried out on the same day he was released, but only printed today], Yazdi maintains that his heart problems and weakened physical condition have prompted him to leave the leadership of the Freedom Movement.Yazdi insists in the interview that he has the utmost respect for the Iranian constitution, but adding: “Whoever states a criticism cannot be regarded as a dissident. The dominant mode of thinking should not be that you are either for me or against me. If someone criticizes you, this does not mean they are your enemy.”
“I have no problem with the system but I am against certain actions that are unconstitutional,” the octogenarian politician says in his interview.
He is also quoted as saying that demonstrations are free so far as they do not disturb public order.
“It is best to coordinate relevant regulations,” Yazdi is quoted as saying, “because without such coordination, it is not just your supporters that come to the streets but also undesirable groups.”
Yazdi is quoted as saying that he had told opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi that when he invites people to join street demonstrations, it is clear that many of those who take to the streets are not in fact his supporters. “They chant their own slogans and demonstrate against the regime… and they damage the reform movement.” IRNA writes that Yazdi recommends a close investigation of Mousavi’s actions to determine why he has reached his current position.
According to IRNA, Yazdi also says that he was against Mousavi’s candidacy because he felt it was not right to have “a president that was not coordinated with the leadership.”
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 13:53