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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