Sunday
Jan222012
The Latest from Iran (22 January): The Currency Slide
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 13:45
The new Iranian banknote: President Ahmadinejad's "Many Thousand Rials"
2115 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Al Arabiya reports that prominent Arab singer, Ghalib Manabi, and his brother Hassan have been arrested in Ahwaz in southern Iran.
Ghalib Manabi and several members of his family are known for their activism challenging regime programmes allegedly designed to reduce ethnic Arabs to a minority in the region. Members were previously arrested in 2005 during an uprising by ethnic Arabs against a programme requisitioning land from Arabs in Ahwaz, with a government-directed migration of non-Arabs into the region.
Local sources told Al Arabiya that about 60 Arab-speaking activists have been arrested since November 2011.