The Latest from Iran (1 January): And Today's Threat Is....

>1900 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activist Mansour Osanloo has suddenly been transferred to solitary confinement. Osanloo has reportedly been punished for participating in a commemoration of Ali Saremi, the Kurdish detainee executed on Tuesday.

Osanloo has been in prison since 2007 and is serving a five-year sentence in Evin Prison.

1730 GMT: Execution Watch. The son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman condemned to death for adultery and complicity in murder, has been released on $40,000 bail and has given a press conference in Tabriz.

Sajad Ghaderzadeh told reporters, "In my opinion my mother is also guilty but since we have lost our father we do not want to lose our mother too. Consequently, we ask for a commutation of the penalty. The stoning sentence is on the file but it may not be carried out. At least this is what we are hoping."

Ghaderzadeh was detained in early October, along with Ashtiani's lawyer, as they gave an interview to two German reporters. The German journalists and attorney Houton Kian are still in prison.

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The Latest from Iran (22 December): Chaining the Balloon

2155 GMT: Sedition Watch. Kurdish defendants in a trial in Tehran have said that they were paid $30 million by British intelligence to carry out terrorist acts and assassinations. The defendants also implicated elements in Iraqi intelligence "opposed to Iran".

2040 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Ali Chenar, writing for Tehran Bureau, offers some vivid first-hand testimony about the effect of the rise in gasoline prices on taxi drivers and on airlines. One cabbie summarises his reaction when the increases were announced: "Right away, I knew I was bankrupt."

1950 GMT: Picture of the Day. Journalist Abdolreza Tajik after he was released tonight on $500,000 bail (hat tip to Mehdi Saharkhiz):

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The Latest from Iran (20 December): Gasoline, Bread, and Diplomacy

1754 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Detained attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh has ended her hunger strike.

Sotoudeh's refusal of food and water was her third since she was detained in early September.

1750 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Fars reports that the "real" price of bread will be posted tomorrow.

1745 GMT: Policing Cyber-Knowledge. Peyke reports that Iranian authorities have blocked the websites of Google Books, 4Shared, and Dehkhoda Encyclopedia.

1615 GMT: Corruption Watch. Iran Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has said that 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi will have to stand trial on corruption charges.

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The Latest from Iran (12 December): Messages, "Confessions", and Those Behind Bars

2035 GMT: Economy (Oversight) Watch. Kalemeh reports that the Central Bank has not published data on economic growth for 28 months.

Economist Mohsen Renani, in comments published in the conservative Aftab, has alleged that academic studies on effects of subsidy cuts are censored and media are not allowed to publish data. He asserts that subsidy cuts will stop development for several generations and cause social crisis.

MP Hassan Ghafourifard chimes in, warning the Govt does not know how to implement subsidy cuts.

2030 GMT: The Battle Within. Meanwhile, even as Ayatollahs Mahdavi Kani and Mesbah Yazdi declare that unity will emerge amongst principlists, the feuding within the establishment continues. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has lashed out at former Minister of Justice Gholam-Hossein Elham, who criticised the prosecutor for supporting sedition. Doulatabadi responded that "obviously a new fitna movement is taking shape" within the system.

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Iran Document: Mousavi's Call for The Religious Month of Moharram

UPDATE 1650 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi has also made a number of interesting comments in an interview with Gholam Sabz. We have posted the highlights in our Sunday updates.

It is our responsibility to tell the truth and erode the mortar that holds the palace of lies together. It is our everlasting responsibility to keep alive the memory of high-statured martyrs of the Revolution, the war, and the events after the [2009] election with the noble women and men in the prisons, just like all the family of Imam Hossein. And it is our responsibility to help protect the traditional social centers by organising and attending the ceremonies for commemorating the epic of Ashura [on 16 December] in this memorable month.

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Iran Document: For the Dead, For Political Prisoners --- "We Are All Leyla Tavassoli"

We are all Leyla Tavassoli and we all bear witness to the fact that you the oppressors have incarcerated the innocent witnesses of your crimes while allowing the murderers to roam free; but know this too, it is not just us the Leyla Tavassolis that have stood witness to your crimes, but history that will once again prove that the likes of you have never prevailed and it is a divine promise that this injustice will not last and is on its way out.

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Iran Analysis: Protests and Options --- What Now for the Greens and the Government?

Today’s protest showed both the limited capacity of the Greens to muster huge number of protesters because of Government repression, but at the same time it demonstrated how weak the government has become in dealing with its foes.

With options running out on both sides, the real question is: who is going to give in first and cross the point of no return on its nuclear option?

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The Latest from Iran (6 December): From Nuke Talks to Student Demos

1900 GMT: BBC Notes Sedition. The BBC has picked up on comments by Ayatollah Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, that opposition to the system of velayat-e-faqih (clerical supremacy) is a denial of God.

Jannati made the remark in a speech on Sunday in Shiraz: "Denying the guardianship of the Uupreme Leader [is the same as denying God."

The comment effectively equates dissent with mohareb (war against God), a crime which can carry the death penalty.

1740 GMT: 16 Azar. Kalemeh posts an article on today's protest at Tehran University. We have posted six clips of the demonstration in a separate entry.

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WikiLeaks Document & EA Analysis: US Diplomats on Green Movement & Iran's Politics "From Crisis to Stalemate"

Today we post Part 2 of the analysis of the situation in Iran by the US Consulate in Dubai in January 2010. (The first cable was published on EA on Friday.)

It is a must-read document, but it is still an incomplete assessment. The challenge to the regime has never been one of an all-or-nothing contest between Government and Green Movement. The Consulate's attempted analogies with Iran 1978/1979 and Poland in the 1980s are distracting, rather than illuminating.

Instead the current possibilities of change have come through the dynamic between the space for resistance opened up by opposition movements and the space exploited by those manoeuvring within the Iranian system.

That is still true today.

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Wikileaks Iran Special: US Diplomats Assess Green Movement & Politics "From Crisis to Stalemate"

We have now added a special analysis to our posting of Part 2 of the US Consulate in Dubai's analysis in January 2010 of the Green Movement and Iran's political situation. The revised post is at the top of the homepage.