UPDATED Iran: A Counter-coup against the Supreme Leader's Son Mojtaba?

The Latest from Iran (8 July): The Day Before….?

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UPDATE (9 JULY, 1200 GMT): After double-checking and reflecting on details, my opinion is that The Guardian story is an exaggeration of the tensions within the Iranian system. It is wrong in both factual details, such as Ali Larijani's position and that of Revolutionary Guard commander Jafari, but also in the general portrayal of a sweeping move against the Supreme Leader through the anger over Mojtaba Khameini.

But there is an important curiosity about the way this story appeared. Julian Borger is an excellent reporter and now Diplomatic Editor for The Guardian, but to my knowledge he has little experience in the Middle East and Iran. Robert Tait has been the long-time Tehran correspondent for the newspaper, and Ian Black, who has been the Middle Eastern correspondent, has filed recent stories. In contrast, Borger has generally been based in the US and Europe.

So how does a high-ranking Iranian politician come to Borger with the story? I suspect that there is a Western "broker" here, in other words, a Government or private institution (probably American or British) who knew of this Iranian politician's views and put him in contact with Borger or vice-versa.

That does not mean that The Guardian, Julian Borger, and the Iranian politician are just "puppets" of Western intrigue. Instead, it's a case of how very real internal tensions in Iran make their way out as "news".

So who is the source? The answer to that would tell you how serious this tale of a "counter-coup" could be.

On Wednesday afternoon, the website of The Guardian of London posts a story, based on “a politician with strong connections to the security apparatus”, publicising what has been discussed amongst Iranian activists for weeks: the Supreme Leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei (pictured), is now in charge of Iran’s paramilitary Basiji.

That, however, is only the beginning of the story. The Iranian source adds that victory over the protest — both on the streets and behind the scenes — has not been achieved, “This game has not finished. The game has only just started.”

Indeed, according to the politician, we may now be witnessing the counter-move against an election night seizure of power led by the Supreme Leader's son:

Mojtaba is the commander of this coup d'etat. The basiji are operating on Mojtaba's orders, but his name is always hidden in all of this. The government never mentions him. Everyone is angry about this. The maraji [Iran's most senior ayatollahs] and the clerics are angry, the conservatives are very angry and strongly critical of Mojtaba. This situation cannot continue with so many people on the top against it.

The source portrays a situation where, in part because of the anger against Mojtaba, the Supreme Leader can rely on only a minority of senior clerics, politicians like Ali Larijani, Mayor of Tehran Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei have been alienated, and key commanders of the Revolutionary Guard such as General Ali Jafari have been angered.

It must be emphasised that this is a single-source story. There are elements which are shaky: for example, General Jafari has swung behind the regime's crackdown on dissent. The extent of political opposition within the regime also seems exaggerated. Larijani, for one, appears to be sitting on the fence.

Still, there is much here which corresponds with our own sources on divisions in the clerical and political leadership. Definitely a story, if not the story, to watch in forthcoming days.

The Latest from Iran (8 July): The Day Before....?

The Latest from Iran (18 Tir/9 July): Day of Reckoning?
NEW Iran: A Counter-coup against the Supreme Leader's Son Mojtaba?
NEW Iran: Human Rights Watch Statement on Abuse of Detainees
Blackout in Iran
Iran Breaking News: Ahmadinejad v. The Fly
The Latest from Iran (7 July): Sitting Out a Storm

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2120 GMT: And Now for Tomorrow. Plans and rallying calls for the 18 Tir protest are being posted on a Facebook page.

An apology: we reported an hour ago that Mir Hossein Mousavi has issued a short statement welcoming the protest tomorrow. Should have checked the date: the statement is for the protest of 18 June.

2010 GMT: We've now carefully gone through this afternoon's important story in The Guardian to assess not only the significance of the Supreme Leader's son, Moqtaba Khamenei, in recent events but the possibility of a "counter-coup" provoked by anger against Moqtaba's manoeuvres. The analysis is in a separate blog.

1910 GMT: If true, this is a story with political as well as religious significance. There are claims that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani is once again declining to lead Friday prayers in Tehran, a sign that he continues to manoeuvre for position against the current regime.

1630 GMT: Detention Ups and Downs. Reports throughout the day that Iran's chief prosecutor has met with Ministry of Interior officials to discuss the fate of detainees. One report says more than 500 files will be sent to the judiciary next week. Meanwhile, the head of Iran's police says another 100 detainees will soon be released.

However, the latest reports are of new detentions. Mohammad Reza Yazdan Panah of the Islamic Iran Participation Front has been arrested, as has Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a lawyer and member of Defenders of Human Rights Center.

One piece of good news: after conflicting reports of his death earlier today, detained politician Saeed Hajjarian is not only alive but also met with his family in Evin Prison.

345 GMT: Reports that 22 of the 25 detained employees of the pro-Mousavi newspaper Kalameh Sabz, arrested soon after the start of the post-election demonstrations, have been released.

0945 GMT: Press TV website headline: "After election, Iran moves to remove subsidies".

It would be far too cynical to suggest that these subsidies could not have been removed pre-election, right?

0940 GMT: A report in Farsi, summarised by an Iranian activist, claims 11 students have been killed in post-election conflict. Four are missing, and 626 have been injured arrested.

0930 GMT: Josh Shahryar's "Green Brief" summary is reporting widespread blackouts during the Ahmadinejad speech.

Shahryar is claiming "partially confirmed reports" of "a village near Kamyaran in the Kordestan Province...set on fire by security forces because of protests there last week". He also writes of the arrest of Faizollah Arab-Sorkhi, a member of the "reformist" Mujahideen-e-Enghelab party and a close supporter of Mohammad Khatami.

And he adds these key details on the aftermath of "the bug incident" during the President's speech: "Reliable sources have now confirmed that the bug has been arrested, moved to Evin Prison, and has confessed to a plot to annoy Ahmadinejad by the Evil United Kingdom. His confession will be broadcasted through [state media] IRIB soon."

0915 GMT: Amnesty International has identified Issa Saharkhiz, detained early this week, as "a prisoner of conscience, held solely on account of the peaceful expression of his views, including regarding the outcome of the election. [He] is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment."

0900 GMT: The political situation continues in suspension, as Tehran is shut down for a second day because of dust pollution. The significance of the demonstration, coming on 18 Tir (the date of a major protest in 1999), is clear. Whether it takes place and in what size is not. There are reports this morning that Internet and phone service is again disrupted, possibly to break up any organisation for tomorrow.

On the other side, President Ahmadinejad's security is far from assured. Last night's nationally televised address is receiving international as well as State media coverage, but its impact is questionable amidst tales of protest, such as overloading the electrical grid, and the strange sideshow of The Fly Who Won (see our separate entry).

Meanwhile, there is concern over the fate of detainee politician Saeed Hajjarian, with conflicting reports over whether he has died in custody from long-standing health problems.

Iran: Human Rights Watch Statement on Abuse of Detainees

The Latest from Iran (8 July): The Day Before….?

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Reprint of the original report on the Human Rights Watch website:

8 July 2009

(New York) - The Iranian authorities are using prolonged harsh interrogations, beatings, sleep deprivation, and threats of torture to extract false confessions from detainees arrested since the disputed June 12 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today. The confessions appear designed to support unsubstantiated allegations by senior government officials that Iran's post-election protests, in which at least 20 people were killed, were supported by foreign powers and aimed at overthrowing the government.

"The Iranian government is desperate to justify its vicious attacks on peaceful protesters," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "What better excuse does it need than confessions of foreign plots, beaten out of detainees?"

Human Rights Watch has collected accounts from detainees after their release illustrating how the authorities are mistreating and threatening prisoners in a deliberate effort to obtain false confessions.

A 17-year-old boy who was arrested on June 27 and released on July 1 told Human Rights Watch how his prison interrogator forced him and others to sign a blank statement of confession:

"On the first day, while blindfolded, the interrogator took me to a parking garage. They kept everyone standing for 48 hours with no permission to sleep. On the first night, they tied up our hands and repeatedly beat us and other prisoners with a baton. They kept cursing at the prisoners. The atmosphere was very frightening. Everyone had wet themselves from fear and stress. There were children as young as 15 and men as old as 70; they'd be begging and crying for mercy, but the guards didn't care.

"After two days of interrogation while blindfolded, we were asked about everything: where we had studied, what our parents do, who we voted for, who is educated in the family, if anyone in our family is part of the military. We were forced to give the names of everyone. It was a scary situation because they were threatening us and were very harsh. All we could hear were other people crying and screaming.

"They provided us with a big piece of bread once, but no water. On the last day, they took away the blindfold to force us sign a paper that was blank on top but said at the bottom: ‘I agree with all of the above statements.'"

Senior Iranian officials have said that detainees have confessed to their involvement in a foreign-backed plot to overthrow the government with a "velvet" revolution. Mojtaba Zolnour, the representative of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on July 2 that all the prominent detainees except one had now confessed. During his July 3 Friday prayer sermon, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a high-ranking member of the Guardian Council, said that the government would make public some of the confessions obtained from detainees.

State-backed media already have broadcast the confessions of some detainees. Amir Hossein Mahdavi, editor of reformist newspaper Andishe No, confessed on Iranian TV on June 27 that reformist groups had laid plans to create unrest before the June 12 elections. Friends of Mahdavi who saw his confession told Human Rights Watch that it was clear from his demeanor that he confessed under duress.

Among the detainees who were recently forced to appear on Iranian television is Newsweek's correspondent in Iran, Maziar Bahari. He was detained on June 21 and is believed to be held in Tehran's Evin prison, where Human Rights Watch has documented cases of torture and detainee abuse in previous years. He has not been allowed to see a lawyer or his elderly mother, with whom he lives. No charges have been filed against Bahari, who holds dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship.

On June 30, the semi-official Fars news agency reported that Bahari had given a press conference where he denounced efforts of Western media to stage an uprising in Iran similar to the 1989 Czechoslovak "Velvet Revolution," and confessed to a role in covering these "illegal demonstrations." Newsweek has strongly defended Bahari's innocence and called for him to be released immediately.

Vajiheh Marsousi, the wife of dissident intellectual Saeed Hajjarian, whom authorities arrested on June 15, believes that he is under intense pressure to sign a false confession. After visiting him in Evin prison, she believes that his life is in danger due to his poor health and lack of medical care in prison.

Information about the abuse of Iranian detainees in custody continues to filter in. An eyewitness who visited the Revolutionary Court on July 1 told Human Rights Watch:

"Hundreds of the prisoners' families were gathered in front of the entrance of the court. On the court's wall, a piece of paper listed the names of 1,349 prisoners. This was a list of people that the court would be soon releasing. There was also a separate sheet with another 223 names. It said that the authorities were still investigating the people on this list and that their families should come back in a couple of weeks. In the few hours that I spent before outside the court, I witnessed a number of people being released. Almost all of them had bruised faces and hands. Some of the families, after seeing their sons/daughters in such bad condition, started to cry, while other families claimed their sons or daughters were missing and their names were not listed."

The authorities have arrested thousands of people in a nationwide crackdown aimed at ending mass street protests that started in Tehran and other cities on June 13 after the official results of the June 12 elections gave incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. Although authorities subsequently released many of those detained, they have continued to make new arrests. Human Rights Watch has collected the names of 450 persons whom security forces have arrested since June 13, including more than a hundred political figures, journalists, human rights defenders, academics, and lawyers.

Most of the best-known detainees have now been held incommunicado for up to three weeks without access to lawyers or family members, raising serious concerns about the probability of mistreatment and pressure to make false confessions.

In the past, the Iranian government has frequently subjected political prisoners to various forms of pressure, including beatings, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, torture, and threats of torture in an effort to force them to make confessions that they have then publicized in order to criminalize and discredit government critics.

Because of this past record of abuse, relatives, friends, and professional associates of several prominent detainees contacted by Human Rights Watch raised concerns about their probable mistreatment in detention and the likelihood that they would be forced to make false confessions.

International human rights law clearly protects detainees from mistreatment, including forced "confessions." Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, states that every person charged with a criminal offense has the right "to communicate with counsel of his own choosing," and "not to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt." Principle 21 of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment states that, "No detained person while being interrogated shall be subject to violence, threats or methods of interrogation which impair his capacity of decision or judgment." A fundamental rule of international human rights law is that all evidence, including confessions, obtained by torture or other ill-treatment must be excluded.

The Latest from Iran (7 July): Sitting Out a Storm

The Latest from Iran (8 July): The Day Before….?

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2100 GMT: So He Has Spoken. Press TV's website, ensuring it is back on the right side, declares, "Ahmadinejad slams rivals over post-vote stance". The New York Times, drawing from Iranian state media, distills the speech with Ahmadinejad's declaration that the 2009 elections were the "freest" and "healthiest" held in the Islamic Republic.

That, however, may have missed the key point. Ahmadinejad, finally resurfacing after near-exclusion from the airwaves and public politics over the last three weeks, will try to save his position by battling "foreign enemies" or, rather, by lashing his opponents to foreign enemies: "“Unfortunately, some people inside Iran collaborated with them. They repeated the comments made by certain Western countries."

1700 GMT. Hmmmm......If the reports are correct, President Ahmadinejad is about to address the nation on television (and activists will try to undermine him by overloading the electrical grid). So what is the lead Iran story on the Press TV website (which is again reporting Iran news)?

"Iran opposition urges release of detainees" on the meeting of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami.

Could someone at the state-run television station be getting up to political mischief?

1610 GMT: The Debate Amongst the Clerics. Continuing the major story we've been following for weeks, BBC Persian is reporting that the debate over the election and its aftermath has now reached the highest levels of Shi'a clergy, including the Qom Theological Seminaries (Howzeh-yi Elmieh-yi Qom).

1600 GMT: Media Note: Josh Shahryar, after a forced interruption because of Internet problems, is back with his valuable "Green Brief" , summarising yesterday's developments.

1425 GMT: The Fight Goes On. Presidential challengers Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and former President Mohammad Khatami met on Monday. Confirming the intention for further demonstrators, they agreed that "the wave of arrests should end immediately and detainees should be released".

1420 GMT: Reports that SMS messaging, briefly back after a three-week blackout in Iran, has once again been suspended.

1410 GMT: An interesting contrast between the responses of Iranian and Chinese Government to international media coverage of unrest. Beijing "has set up a news center for foreign journalists reporting in Urumqi, lodging them in a designated hotel, arranging press tours around the city and organizing news conferences by government officials. While the internet connection in most parts of the city has been cut off, the news center is equipped with 50+ computers with internet access."

Of course, the Chinese Government is trying to ensure that the "right" line gets out to those journalists, as with the situation in Tibet: "The riot was masterminded by overseas forces (in this case, the Dalai Lama’s counterpart is Rebiya Kadeer and the World Uighur Congress) and was perpetrated by splittist forces (in this case, the “East Turkestan separatists”) who killed and injured innocent Han Chinese and smashed their shops and other properties."

1400 GMT: "A bitter day and yet majestic." A Farsi-language website has published a moving account of yesterday's Father's Day protest in front of Evin Prison.

1045 GMT: Reports that President Ahmadinejad is appearing on national television at 9 p.m. local time. One activist is calling for Iranians to power on all their appliances to overload the electrical grid.

0900 GMT: Today's Press TV Update: there is no news from Iran. The last update on its English-language website is from 1530 GMT on Monday, and that was a story of a British warning of European Union action over the arrests of British Embassy staffers.

0800 GMT: As Tehran waits out a dust storm with a self-imposed 24-hour shutdown and waits for Thursday demonstrations, the focus this morning is on reading signals over the last few days. In the Los Angeles Times, Borzou Daragahi offers not one but two stories on potentially important developments.

First, Daragahi offers the statement of the Kargozaran political party, linked to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani:"We declare that the result is unacceptable due to the unhealthy voting process, massive electoral fraud and the siding of the majority of the Guardian Council with a specific candidate."

Daragahi goes no further in interpretation, however, so let's offer a possibility. Rafsanjani has played a careful game since the election, only coming out publicly last week and then balancing between support of the Supreme Leader and affirmation that there was a cause for protests. The Kargozaran statement does not topple that balance, but it does edge Rafsanjani closer to an open challenge to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
 
Daragahi then offers a challenging overview of the role of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (Revolutionary Guard). Interpreting the Sunday conference we noted in yesterday's update, Daragahi turns the straightforward --- "The top leaders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security" --- into the dramatic: "[It is] what government supporters describe as a heroic intervention by the Revolutionary Guard and critics decry as a palace 'coup d'etat'." He offers the words of IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari:

These events put us in a new stage of the revolution and political struggles, and all of us must fully comprehend its dimensions. Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest. This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles and we have to understand all its dimensions.

A calmer interpretation would be that the Revolutionary Guard's action was neither heroic nor a coup but the logical step against the unexpected size of protest and demonstrations. Once the security response went beyond police control, the Revolutionary Guard --- which formally took control of the paramilitary Basiji earlier year --- was the force to call.

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6 July: The Father's Day Protest in Front of Evin Prison, Tehran

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ieKzx0XHE&feature=channel[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0AxAZgyplc&feature=channel[/youtube]