Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Political Prisoners and Public Executions (Arseh Sevom)

Two Iranian muggers, just before their public execution on Sunday in Tehran

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Prison furloughs have been given to a number of prisoners of conscience even as Sakharov Prize winner Nasrin Sotoudeh was called back to prison after just three days. Public executions spark debate. Iranian State Television airs an “exposé” of CIA spying. Parliament debates restricting foreign travel for all women under 40 while the continuing house arrest of former presidential candidates is called into question. Finally the Iranian Coalition for Peace reaches out to President Obama.

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Iran Live Coverage: Crisis at the Central Bank?

Central Bank head Bahmani & President Ahmadinejad2055 GMT: Defiance of the Day. After recent admissions that US-led sanctions are having an effect on Iran's economy, President Ahmadinejad has returned to his tough posture. Speaking to a crowd in the western city of Hamedan, he sent the message:

Don't buy our oil? To hell with you.

It's better if you don't buy...Ten times more money will head to people's pockets through the inventions of our scientists.

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Iran Live Coverage: Let's Make a Nuclear Deal?

Attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, released on a 3-day prison furlough on Thursday, with her children Nima and Behraveh

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- A Health Care Crisis, Economic Rumblings, and Election Grumblings
Friday's Iran Live Coverage: Regime --- Detained Opposition Leaders Mousavi & Karroubi Committed "Atrocities"

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2205 GMT: Fighting over the House Arrests. An interesting twist in the politics around the detentions of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi....

The story begins with leading conservative politician Habibollah Asgarouladi, who said earlier this month that Mousavi and Karroubi --- both candidates for President in 2009 and both under strict house arrest since February 2011 --- had been honourable men who served the Islamic Republic and were not "seditionists".

Other politicians and clerics, continuing to condemn Mousavi and Karroubi, have pressed Asgarouladi to retract the remarks. Yesterday, the politician responded by saying he would leave his Motalefeh Party if they did not give him support.

Now Ayatollah Hassan Mamdouhi, of the conservative Scholars of Qom, has warned: if Motalefe does not reject Asgarouladi's comments, the clerics will stop co-operation.

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Iran Live Coverage: Regime --- Detained Opposition Leaders Mousavi & Karroubi Committed "Atrocities"

See also Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader "We Will Not Surrender"

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1714 GMT: Picture of the Day. Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, freed on a three-day furlough from a six-year prison sentence, with one of her children:

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Iran Feature: The Top 10 Stories of 2012 --- A Currency Falls, Sanctions Expand, and Political Prisoners Continue to Resist (Farhi)

Closed Cirrency Exchange, Summer 2012This year forcefully disproved the assumption that imprisoning political and civil society activists and critics silences them and fixes the Islamic Republic’s dissident problem.

Former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi remained incarcerated in their homes (the former along with spouse Zahra Rahnavard) without being charged and remained mostly without any kind of access to the outside world. But letters written by political prisoners about prison conditions and solidarity among prisoners — as well as the woeful state of the country’s politics — made it out of the prisons and were sufficiently covered by external news and activist outlets for many inside Iran to become aware of them.

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Iran Live Coverage: Tehran Picks A Fight Too Far with Turkey

See also Iran Analysis: Rafsanjani Strikes Back (and Why the Supreme Leader is Allowing It)
Wednesday's Iran Live Coverage: "Supreme Leader Ordered House Arrests of Mousavi and Karroubi"

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2255 GMT: Nuclear Watch --- Retraction Edition. Earlier today, Iranian media circulated this quote from Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi indicating a possible deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency, "If external threats were defused, then they --- the IAEA could be enabled to inspect [the military facility at Parchin" (see 0925 GMT).

Somebody in the regime was none too happy with this apparent shift in the Iranian position because Qashqavi has issued a convoluted "clarification" tonight:

In my speech which I delivered in Tehran University, there are two subjects in this speech. In one of them I delivered my speech regarding national security of Iran and the other was about the nuclear issue.

One of the correspondents who was in this speech mixed two subjects from two separate issues and in his personal perception of this speech, he delivered his perception regarding this matter but in the text of my speech there was not any kind of this sentence because [there were] two separate issues which were delivered by me and there is no connection between the two matters."

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The Latest from Iran (22 December): "We Are Not Isolated. You Are Isolated"

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook
The Latest from Iran (21 December): Is the Regime Celebrating Its Longest Night?

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2140 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. An EA correspondent summarises the President's performance on national TV tonight:

Subsidy cuts have been successful...Inflation is a structural matter, has existed for past 40 to 50 years....Bank debts were increased and fixed without the Government's assent....Problems are because of domestic abuse (Revolutionary Guards, Parliament, Supreme Leader's gang, clerics --- everyone except me).

2032 GMT: Ahmadinejad Irony Watch. The President declared in his TV interview tonight, "The will of people should be respected in elections --- it will have international ramifications."

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Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook (Arseh Sevom)

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Some people in Iran are feeling the effects of shortages of medicine and high prices, while an artist challenges passersby at the United Nations to confront the growing problem.

Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi receive the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia, sending messages for justice and freedom, as imprisoned human rights activists call for others to spread the call for dignity. Mohammad Maleki, the former Chancellor Tehran University, is summoned to serve a six-year prison term. Journalists call for an end to the intimidation of political prisoners' family members by interrogators.

The Supreme Leader gets a Facebook page, as Parliament debates election reform and reduced powers for the President and Human Rights Watch issues a report on the more than 40,000 Iranians seeking asylum abroad while a photographer shows us that life in Iran goes on.<

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Iran Letter: Nasrin Sotoudeh from Prison "Why I Went on Hunger Strike"

Nasrin Sotoudeh & Reza Khandan

Previously, I have had the honor of defending the children of my country. Punishing the children is absolutely prohibited, much less for political charges on account of their parents.

But of course, this sort of punishment has not been only limited to my family. To explain the wide scope of this unjust treatment, it is enough to remember that among the 36 female prisoners incarcerated in the political prisoner’s ward, the immediate family of 13 of them are either imprisoned or are under judicial pursuit.

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The Latest from Iran (13 December): Nuclear Talks with the IAEA

The European Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia to detained lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is threatened with imprisonment

See also Iran Snap Analysis: Speculating about the Next President
The Latest from Iran (12 December): A 78-Year-Old Academic is Imprisoned for Writing the Supreme Leader

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1602 GMT: A Death in Detention. Human rights activists claim participants in the 40th day memorial for blogger Sattar Beheshti, who died on 3 November under interrogation in Evin Prison, have been beaten, with several arrested.

Security officers reportedly raided the services at the Imam Mohamad Taghi Shrine in Robat Karim,, near Tehran.

Beheshti's mother was said to have sustained leg and knee injuries. Beheshti’s brother was detained for two hours.

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