The Latest from Iran (29 July): 22% Support?

1935 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Activist Hoda Saber, who was mysteriously taken by unknown persons on Saturday, has called his family from Evin Prison. The reason for arrest is unknown.

International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran updates on the transfer of 15 political prisoners, including student activist Abdollah Momeni and journalist Bahman Ahmadi Amoui, to solitary confinement in Evin Prison. (We have previously reported that 10 detainees were transferred.) The 15 are protesting the “unsuitable treatment of prisoners and their families by prison authorities and Ward 350 officers on visitation days; lack of health and welfare facilities; as well as suspension of visitation privileges of several prisoners.”

NEW Iran Analysis: Twisting & Turning to Prove the Leader is Supreme (Verde)
NEW Iran: How “Ahmadinejad v. Paul the Octopus” Became a Global Showdown
Iran Analysis: The Hardliners Take on Ahmadinejad
Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad on Afghanistan, Sanctions, & the US (26 July)
The Latest from Iran (28 July): A Presidential Target?

1730 GMT: Sporting Moment. Kodoom reports on triumph turned into trouble....

Hossein Askari, riding for the Tabriz Petrochemical Cycling Team, won the Tour of Qinghai Lake in China.  However, according to Ali Zangiabadi, the director of the Iranian Cycling Federation, Askari will face disciplinary action in Iran after he popped the cork from a champagne bottle in his victory celebration.



1720 GMT: Academic Corner. The Educational Testing Service has announced that it is resuming registrations in Iran for TOEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language) and GRE (Graduate Record Examination) tests.

The examinations, which are vital for many Iranian students who wish to study abroad, were suspended two weeks ago after tighter U.N. Security Council restrictions on financial transactions involving Iran led to ETS's banking arrangements being discontinued. Students wishing to take the tests may now register through Iran's National Organization of Educational Testing or mayn use credit/debit cards issued by banks that are not prohibited under UN or US sanctions.

1530 GMT: Solving the Oil Squeeze? Three Russian state-controlled oil companies may begin delivering gasoline to Iran in a month, the head of the Iran Commission of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce & Industry has said. Talks are being held on a “working level” and the first delivery may take place in late August or September.

1500 GMT: Karroubi Answers. Mehdi Karroubi has offered a response to Ayatollah Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council (see separate entry): "If I am an intriguer, then you are in league with those who stole the people's votes....What you called sedition was an election which was as usual engineered by you and think tanks led by you or others like you at the Ministry of Interior and Guardian Council."

1420 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Iranian activists have posted an updated letter, addressed to the Supreme Leader, requesting commutation of the death sentences of Jafar Kazemi (see 1110 GMT) and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei, both arrested during post-election protests and accused of "mohareb" (war against God).

Radio Zamaneh has now posted an English text of the news of Kazemi's sentence.

1410 GMT: Oil Squeeze. Reports indicate that Iran shipped around 9 million barrels of crude oil to China in June, a fall of 13.1 million barrels from last year.

1400 GMT: Water Watch. The Los Angeles Times updates on the reports that water in parts of Tehran are contaminated with high levels of toxic nitrate.

The article reports that the Ministry of Power has handed out free bottles of water to an underprivileged suburb south of the city. The Water and Sewage Waste Organization has recently dug new wells to expand the water supply. However, Minister of Health Marziyeh Vahid Dastjerdi announced that the amount of nitrate found in the drinking water in parts of Tehran exceeded the appropriate level, posing a serious threat to city-dwellers’ health.

1310 GMT: Mousavi Watch (1988 Edition). An EA correspondent checks in:

"The big news today is Enqelab Eslami, the Paris newspaper of former President Abulhassan Bani-Sadr, is allegedly re-leaking the full contents of the letter that Mousavi wrote to Ayatollah Khamenei in 1988 explaining his sudden resignation as Prime Minister. (The resignation was refused by Khomeini, who forced Mousavi to stay on.)

The contents, which I am trying to verify, are amusing: Mousavi decries his total lack of control or even information over events surrounding Iranian foreign policy and activities. For example, he states that he received word through the press that Iranian pilgrims have been apprehended in Jeddah carrying firearms or that the Speaker or Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, exchanged letters with the Prime Minister of Japan and Mousavi only got wind of it when both sides finished the exchange.

Essentially this is a strong accusation against the un-constitutional accumulation of powers by Khamenei. Enqelab Eslami first leaked the letter in 1988, prior to Khomeini's death. It now republishes iafter Mousavi's threat to reveal all, (see the letter posted on EA).

Now the ball's firmly in Mousavi's own court: he either needs to deny the veracity of the claims or confirm the letter...."

1140 GMT: Mousavi Watch. Kalemeh has a short report of Mir Hossein Mousavi's meeting this morning with members of the Assembly of Teachers and Researchers of Qom.

1110 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. An Iranian activist reports that he death sentence of political prisoner Jafar Kazemi has been upheld by an appellate court.

Kazemi, arrested last September during protests, was convicted of "mohareb" (war against God) for connections with Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a charge that he has denied. He was also in prison for nine yers during the 1980s.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the "abuse" of detained journalist Abdolreza Tajik and other political prisoners, “It is time for United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay to press the Iranian authorities to accept a visit from the UN special rapporteur on torture, so that he can investigate the allegations of mistreatment in Iranian prisons.”

This week the Tajik family wrote Iran’s head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, that the journalist said during a prison the privisit that he had been “dishonoured” and that he demanded to see his lawyer, Mohammad Sharif, and Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi.

1005 GMT: Oil Squeeze. The New York Times summarises Iran's announcement that it will increase domestic gasoline production by converting two petrochemical plants so they can produce gasoline by processing benzene.

Minister of Oil Masoud Mirkazemi's all-is-well alert was that Iran would become a net exporter of gasoline by 2015. Other scientists say, however, that gasoline from benzene will burn poorly with more impurities than regular gasoline, damaging engines.

0955 GMT: Security Escalation. Aftab News reports that 7000 bases for Basij militia are to be constructed, including 100 in Zanjan Province.

0930 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Add Australia to the list of countries ramping up restrictions on Tehran. Following the UN, US, and European Union measures, Canberra has tightened restrictions on Iranian oil and gas groups and companies for the first time and has banned trade of weapons and related material, including anything that could be used for development of nuclear, missile, chemical or biological capability.

0755 GMT: We have posted an analysis by Mr Verde, considering the significance of a speech by Ayatollah Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, "Twisting & Turning to Prove the Leader is Supreme".

0600 GMT: While we catch up with "other" news, we open today with a feature, "How 'Ahmadinejad v. Paul the Octopus' Became a Global Showdown".

The President may also want to take note of a recent poll conducted by the Iranian Student Polling Agency in which 56 percent of participants believe his popularity has declined over the past year while only 22 percent believe it has increased.

As readers know, we are cautious about any poll carried out inside Iran, but the ISPA, which surveyed 1172 people is is linked to Jahad Daneshgahi, an academic body which in turn is overseen by the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, headed by President Ahmadinejad.

Two-thirds of the respondents in the poll believe that dissatisfaction with the government remains widespread, if largely covert. Only 18% think that the government was able to control post-election protests.

Perhaps the most striking finding, however, is this: 80% said that economic issues such as inflation, lack of affordable housing, and unemployment are their main priorities. Lack of political and social freedoms was named by only 7%, weakening Islamic values concerned 6%, and international threats such as military attacks or economic sanctions was cited by 4% percent.

The Latest from Iran (28 July): A Presidential Target?

2040 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Author and journalist Yahya Samadi has been arrested in Sanandaj in Kurdistan.

2030 GMT: International Front Update. The US has offered a cautious welcome to Iran's approach for resumed discussions on uranium enrichment (see 1630 GMT). State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley said, "We obviously are fully prepared to follow up with Iran on specifics regarding our initial proposal involving the Tehran research reactor....[We are interested in] trying to fully understand the nature of Iran's nuclear program. We hope to have the same kind of meeting coming up in the coming weeks that we had last October."

NEW Iran Analysis: The Hardliners Take on Ahmadinejad
Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad on Afghanistan, Sanctions, & the US (26 July)
Iran Document: Mousavi on Governing and Mis-Governing, Now and in the 1980s (26 July)
Iran Analysis: Interpreting Khamenei’s “Re-Appearing” Fatwa (Verde)
The Latest from Iran (27 July): Regime Wavering?

2007 GMT: Today's All-is-Well Alert. The President of Islamic Azad University, (IAU) Abdollah Jasbi, has declared, "In its fourth decade [of its existence, i.e., 2020]…the Islamic Azad University will become the greatest and most respected university in the world and competing with renowned universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and MIT has been placed on its agenda."

There is no quote from Jasbi on the recent attempt by pro-Ahmadinejad forces to take control of the University, including moves that could have removed Jasbi from his post.

2004 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. HRANA carries a report from political prisoner Saeed Masouri on conditions in Rajai-Shahr Prison.

2000 GMT: The Oil Squeeze. Deutsche Welle --- following earlier reports that Iran has received only three shipments of gasoline this month, rather than the normal 11-13, claims that the country is facing serious shortages.

1630 GMT: International Front. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Iran, in a message sent on Sunday, has given an assurance that it will stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity if other countries agree to a fuel swap.

Crucially, however, it is not clear if Iran has accepted that the uranium swap can take place outside its borders.

1615 GMT: MediaWatch --- One Non-Story, One Nearly-New Story. It's always interesting to see which tales break through into the "mainstream" media outside Iran.

One hot story may actually be a jumped-up urban myth. The Bild tabolid in Germany, not always known for scrupulous adherence to facts, put out the claim on Monday that President Ahmadinejad had denounced Paul the Psychic Octopus as a tool of Western imperialism. More than 48 hours later, the story --- almost always without referencing Bild as the source --- is now embedded in outlets from The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian of London to Time magazine to the Los Angeles Times.

Then there are Ahmadinejad's babies. Months ago, the President proposed a payment of about $1000 for every new child, with subsequent support payments until the boy or girl reached 18. That announcement escaped notice outside Iran. However, when Ahmadinejad restated the idea Tuesday, it was transformed into the news that he had "inaugurated a new policy" by the Associated Press, becoming the Number 1 Iran story in places like The New York Times.

1610 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Radio Zamaneh has more on the reported move of 10 political prisoners, including student activist Abdollah Momeni, journalist Bahman Ahmadi Amoui, and Ahmad Karimi, to solitary confinement (see 0840 GMT). The report claims that the 10 are being punished for protesting against the ill treatment of detainees and their families by guards.

1210 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. An appellate court has upheld the 9 1/2-year sentence of student and women’s rights activist Bahareh Hedayat. Hedayat will also serve two years that had been suspended from a 2006 arrest.

Mostafa Kazzazi, the publisher of the banned Seda-ye Edalat (Voice of Justice), has been sentenced to 11 months in jail for propaganda against the establishment, defaming the Islamic republic, and encouraging people to act against security.

Seda-ye Edalat was shut down in July 2009 for "insulting" Ayatollah Khomeini.

1145 GMT: Today's Conspiracy Theory. Back from an academic break to find that Iranian leaders are holding a competition for Biggest, Baddest Threat of the Day.

As good as President Ahmadinejad is in this sport, he only gets the runner-up spot for his declaration in Assalouyeh in southern Iran on Wednesday. His assertion that "Iran's efforts to proceed with giant national oil, gas and petroleum projects by [Iranian] experts have cut the dependence bonds with other economic powers and multinational companies" may be morale-boosting --- if somewhat oblivious to current realities --- but does not really fit in category of Threat.

Your winner? Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, is the runaway champion with this tale:

I have acquired documents showing that the Americans paid one billion dollars to leaders of sedition through Saudi individuals who are currently the US agents in regional countries. These Saudis, who spoke on behalf of the US, told the opposition figures that if you can overthrow the Islamic establishment, we would pay another 50 billion dollars.

The opposition leaders staged riots with the help of the US and they were confident that the Islamic Revolution will fall with the assistance of the US because it is a soft war which causes people to break away from the Islamic system.

We look forward to seeing those documents and perhaps also the made-for-TV movie for IRIB 1.

0840 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Rah-e-Sabz reports that Abdollah Momeni and other political prisoners are being moved out of Evin Prison's Ward 350 into solitary confinement. Earlier, it was reported that phones in the ward had been cut off this week.

0835 GMT: Moving Out. A reader folllows up our item on the Cultural Heritage Organization protest at transfer of offices outside Tehran: according to Jam-e-Jam, 40% of civil servants should be leaving the capital within the next month.

0740 GMT: We begin this morning with an analysis of tensions within the Iranian system, "The Hardliners Take on Ahmadinejad".

Meanwhile....

Tough Guy Larijani

Partly for his campaign to establish his leadership credentials, partly to challenge Mir Hossein Mousavi's latest statement, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has continued to throw rhetoric at the US. Speaking in Kermanshah on Tuesday, he said:

The United States still seeks to break the Iranian nation's will. The more sanctions they issue against us, the stronger the Iranian nation's will becomes....US President Barack Obama cannot stretch his hands to the Iranian nation while the US Congress adopts moves against Iran....This imposed war [with Iraq from 1980-1988] was not Iraq's war with Iran, but it was a war of most big powers which support Iraq.

The Heritage Protest

The employees of the Cultural Heritage Organization have protested at Tehran's Mehrabad airport, objecting to their transfer to offices outside the capital.

The transfer order is part of the Ahmadinejad Government's plan to reduce the population in Tehran. The 700 employees of the CHO are amongst the first government employees to receive notices.

Fars News has recently published the name of 114 public companies who have been ordered to move from Tehran.