The Latest from Iran (25 April): Supporting the Workers

May Day Poster of Detained Labour Activists1900 GMT: The Battle Within. Another important snippet from the press conference of Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei (see 1448 GMT)....

Mohseni-Ejei said the managing director of the State news agency, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, had been summoned to court, and he stressed that the Ministry of Intelligence belongs to the "nezam" (system).

That is a sharp slap-down for the Ahmadinejad camp. Javanfekr was a Presidential advisor before taking over IRNA, and the news agency had backed Ahmadinejad's office over the forced resignation of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi.

Iran Video Special: Claimed Footage of Ahwaz Protests
The Latest from Iran (24 April): Noticing Syria

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The Latest from Iran (13 March): Troublesome Children?

2140 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Speaking to Iran's governors, President Ahmadinejad has defended his subsidy reduction plan. He said the plan had not yet been fully implements, and people should be careful not to damage it, given the enemy's attempts to undermine the economic initiative.

President said: The law still oriented subsidies are not fully implementing its objectives and should be carefully fully operational in all sections had been careful not to damage it because the enemy into the implementation of this law slapped Chhbsa is looking Ftnhgry

2120 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Abdolreza Tajik has been sentenced to six years in prison for "membership in illegal groups" and "propaganda".

Student activist Arzhang Alipour has been arrested.

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The Latest from Iran (28 February): The Regime's Escalation

2030 GMT: Not the Same. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has told journalists in Geneva, "There is absolutely no comparison between what is happening in the countries in the region and what has happened in Iran in a few incidents." He declared that Iran had only experienced a few "manipulated protests, while mass movements in the nations in the region are authentic, popular and people's movements".

Salehi said his government was "shocked" by Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi's resort to force against civilians and hoped that "the power is transferred through legal means to the people".

2025 GMT: The Arrests. Zahra Eshraghi, human rights activist and granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, has written on her Facebook page, "If Mousavi and Karroubi and their followers are anti-revolutionary, the Imam Khomeini must be as well."

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The Latest from Iran (6 February): A Notable Absence

2300 GMT: The US Hikers. In the first day of their closed-door trial (see 1115 GMT), Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer pleaded not guilty to espionage and trespassing.

The hearing lasted five hours, but there were no details, as all observers --- including the Swiss Ambassador, who represents US interests in Iran --- were excluded and the hikers' lawyer was barred from giving information. The trial for Fattal and Bauer, who were arrested on the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009, was continued to an unspecified date by Judge Salavati.

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The Latest from Iran (13 January): President's Right-Hand Man in Trouble?

2145 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The US Treasury added 26 firms to its sanctions list, claiming that 24 have ties with state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines --- linked to the Revolutionary Guards --- and two were affiliated with Aerospace Industries Organization, a subsidiary of Iran's Ministry of Defense.

Still, such news is a trifle for Press TV: it gleefully reports that Italy's oil imports from Iran are up 92%.

1730 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. More than 170 activists have signed a letter calling for the release of female detainees Reyhaneh Tabatabai, Nazanin Khosravani, Sajadeh Kianoush-Rad and Farzaneh Roustaei.

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Iran and US Hikers Video: Sarah Shourd's Song for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal

In July 2009, three US hikers were detained along the Iran-Iraq border. Seven weeks ago, Sarah Shourd was released on a financial "guarantee" that she would return for trial, but Shourd's fiance Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are still held, their trial repeatedly postponed (it is now scheduled for 6 February).

This is Shourd's song for her fellow detainees.

LYRICS

We walked across hard land
Into a human trap
They took us for one long ride
You're now in Iran, Iran

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The Latest from Iran (26 November): Connect the Meetings

2055 GMT: Parliament v. President. Ali Motahari, the leader of the movement to summon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Parliamentary questions, said that the demand will be made after the implementation of subsidy cuts. Motahari again said that there were nearly enough signatories --- 1/4 of the 290 MPs --- to call in Ahmadinejad, and that most of those signing were principlists.

Khabar Online, linked to Speaker Ali Larijani, posts a recent history of Parliament-President relations, documenting how Ahmadinejad has faced possible questioning on several previous occasions.

Khabar also claims that the battle for control of the Central Bank continues. Parliament recently voted to take oversight away from the President.

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The Latest from Iran (22 November): Killing "Terrorists", Setting Trials, and Talking Philosophy and Human Rights

1905 GMT: CyberWars. A couple of signs of the regime's campaign across the Internet....

In his press conference today, Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hosein Mohseni Ejei said 60 individuals have been arrested in connection with running "obscene" Persian websites.

In his own press appearance, General Hossein Hamedani, the Tehran commander of the Revolutionary Guard, said a 1500-member "Cyber Commando" unit had been trained.

1900 GMT: Energy Squeeze. Aftab News reports that the exploitation of two projects in the South Pars oil and gas field has been delayed for ten months.

1733 GMT: The Surveillance Lawsuit. Detained journalist Isa Saharkhiz and his son Mehdi have withdrawn their lawsuit alleging that the sale of Nokia Siemens Networks mobile phone surveillance technology led to the arrest and torture of Isa Saharkhiz after the 2009 Presidential election.

The lawyers for the Saharkhizs said the case was dropped to "keep it alive and viable".

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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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Iran Videos: Judiciary's Larijani on Detained Sotoudeh and on US Hikers

In his public-relations tour in New York, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the human rights section of the Iranian judiciary, explains to NBC television that attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh was detained in early September as "a threat to national security". The threat? "She indulged in propaganda against Islam."

In the second video, Larijani sets out a careful position on the three US hikers detained in July 2009.

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