The Latest from Iran (21 July): Stand By Your (Supreme) Man

2010 GMT: Literature Watch (cont.). More about the poetic debut of the head of the Basij militia, Mohammad Reza Naqdi (see 0710 GMT)....

Naqdi's effort, which has failed to impress our Literary Correspondent, is titled “The Youth and Soft War", rhythmically (or not-so-rhythmically) takes on Twitter, Facebook, rap music, and jazz. The opening lines, which may lose a bit in translation:

He [ failed in hunting me with his gun. He came back with lowly hired musicians, the Internet, and musical instruments/

His navy hasn’t been able to rein me in. He came with an eye-catching doll/
Bombs and missiles failed to scare me. He came back with the rumor-spreading Twitter and Facebook/
He used chemical weapons and I still didn’t back off. He came with crack and heroin.

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Iran Film Poster of Day: Khamenei & Ahmadinejad Star in "A Separation"

A sequel to Asghar Farhadi's "Nader and Simin: A Separation", winner of national and international awards, stars the Supreme Leader and the Iranian President:

The Latest from Iran (20 July): "Harmless" Opposition?

1710 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. A friend of physician and blogger Mehdi Khazali has given an account of the arrest after Khazali was summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence on Monday:

When Dr. Khazali arrived at the Intelligence Ministry they presented him with an arrest warrant. Dr. Khazali told them this warrant is 10 days old and he already posted bond for it four days ago.

The agent replied that he has to arrest him and the Court’s instructions don’t mean anything to him. Dr. Khazali told him this warrant is illegal and I won't go with you.

All of a sudden three people jumped on him and throw him to the ground and handcuffed him. They placed him in a car, positioned him laying down with one agent sitting on his neck and one sitting on his stomach as his teenaged son was watching in shock.

The friend was also in court when Khazali was arraigned on Tuesday:

After they brought the doctor in, I was shocked, he was in prison attire, handcuffed and shackled, with his bruised swollen neck bent to one side and accompanied by two agents on each side.

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Iran Document and Analysis: A "Shockingly Bad" IMF Report --- "Subsidy Cuts Are A Unique Opportunity for Iran"

Last month we reported that a team from the International Monetary Fund had visited Iran and issued a statement declaring the "success" of Iran's economy, specifically praising the Government's subsidy cuts programme.

We noted doubts about the statement with the simple observation of a "sharp contrast to much of the economic news we have posted on the Iran LiveBlog", but left it at that. After all, this was only a statement and not a full report.

Well, an IMF "working paper" has emerged, albeit with little fanfare. In the expectation, however, that Iranian officials will be hoping that it gets headline attention, we will be blunt....

This supposed analysis is shockingly bad.

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The Latest from Iran (16 July): "They Will Opt for Turmoil"

1830 GMT: Energy Watch. Deutsche Welle summarises a series of recent statements by Deputy Minister of Energy Mohammad Behzad, including that the Government owes $5 billion to the Ministry and that the country is that less than 2,000 megawatts from a general blackout.

Minister of Energy Majid Namjoo has been summoned to Parliament next Tuesday to answer questions.

1655 GMT: Genie Watch. Hojatoleslam Hassan Ramezani, a scholar in the religious city of Qom, has said that contact with djinns can only be with the permission of "God's vali" (the Supreme Election). He adds, however, that if you can get this permission, these djinns will be of political use: they can predict elections.

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The Latest from Iran (14 July): Divisions within the Regime, Divisions within the Reformists

1610 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. More information about actress and filmmaker Pegah Ahangarani, who was reportedly detained earlier this week.

Ahangarani was supposed to cover this month's Women's Football World Cup in Germany for a blog on Deutsche Welle but was stopped from travelling a day before her depature. She then spent a few days with relatives, but there has been no contact with her since she returned home.

Ahangarani's latest documentary, shown on BBC Persian, is "Dehnamkiha". It narrates the life of Massoud Dehnamaki, one of the founders of the conservative activist group Ansar-e Hezbollah and now a prominent filmmaker. Ahangarani said the film had irritated officials and may have been the reason she was recently summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence for questioning.

1600 GMT: CyberWatch. An official of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has said that the new social networking site Google Plus is the latest US spyware. It is supposedly replacing Facebook, which has suffered a large drop in users.

Iran authorities have announced the filtering of Google Plus, even though it is still in pilot stage.

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Iran Overview: 4 Questions and Answers About the Political Situation (Eshraghi)

Ejecting Ahmadinejad from office before the end of his term would come at a high cost, and it’s only likely to happen if he makes himself absolutely intolerable for the Supreme Leader and the regime as a whole. In other words, it depends on a cost-benefit equation where the price of removing him is set against the price of continuing to put up with him.

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Iran Document: Former President Khatami Pulls Back from 2012 Elections

We should not have participated in any elections since [the presidential election of] 2005. Unfortunately, this was our mistake. If this time the conditions are not right, we will definitely not participate. This is my own personal view, and we should make a collective decision after consultation.

How can we ignore the people's rights? Even if the families of all those who have been killed in these events [since the 2009 presidential election] come forward and say that they forgive those who spilled the blood of their children, how can we ignore the legitimate rights of the people?

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Iran Document: A New Green Manifesto?

And now a mystery: yesterday a collection of activists, reportedly inside Iran, put out a document which claims to be a new path for the opposition. The "manifesto" emerged outside the country through two outlets: Martin Fletcher in The Times of London and insideIRAN, a project of The Century Foundation in the US.

The document is forthright in its language and general in its ambition: "the complete subordination of all government and state posts to direct popular sovereignty", while putting forth the Green Movement as an umbrella for different groups who were pursuing rights long before the 2009 Presidential election.

But there is an important starting question, especially amidst the current debate amongst reformists and activists over the way forward inside and outside the Iranian system: who are these "intellectuals who are leaders in the Green Movement in Tehran"?

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The Latest from Iran (12 July): Arresting the "Deviant Current"

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Detained journalist Isa Saharkhiz has written to Ahmad Shaheed, the UN Human Rights Rapporteur on Iran, "What is happening now in the Islamic Republic prisons is a crime against humanity and has nothing less than Stalin’s inhumane treatment of prisoners in the forced labour camps of Siberia."

Referring to the death of two political prisoners, Hoda Saber and Mohsen Dokmehchi, Saharkhiz wrote, "They are deliberately trying to destroy us and have prepared a silent death for us because they fear our survival even behind bars."

Hoda Saber, a political activist and journalist died 10 days into his hunger strike, while Mohsen Dokmehchi, a businessman arrested in the post-election protests of 2009 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, died last March from pancreatic cancer.

Saharkhiz, arrested in July 2009 and sentenced to three years in prison for "insulting the Supreme Leader and the regime", urged Shaheed to act immediately to inform the public of the prisoners’ plight, stressing that any delay will only result in more deaths.

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