The Latest from Iran (27 June): Situation Normal. Move Along.

The Iran Crisis (Day 16): What to Watch For Today
The Latest from Iran (26 June): It’s (No Longer) A Thriller

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2230 GMT: Reports circulating that "persiankiwi", one of the key Iranian sources on Twitter for information and comment (see separate entry), has been arrested.

2200 GMT: Reports tonight that a group of women's rights activists, assembling in Laleh Park to light candles for Neda Agha Soltan and others killed in post-election protests, were violently dispersed by security forces. News agencies supporting the Government took pictures with telephoto lenses, and extra female officers were on hand to deal with the demonstrators.

1730 GMT: More manoeuvring ahead of the Guardian Council's attempt on Sunday to close off any discussion of the election outcome. Mir Hossein Mousavi has written to the Council (link in Farsi), requesting a legal and religious body of arbitration accepted by all candidates". This is a clear attempt to build on notions that the Council is far from neutral, a concern raised by "establishment" figures like Ali Larijani last week.

Presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi has reiterated his current position in a meeting with the National Security Council, saying he will pursue through "legal means" an annulment of the vote.

1540 GMT: Reuters has confirmed the news, which emerged yesterday, that the head of Mir Hossein Mousavi's media office, Abolfazl Fateh, has been barred from leaving Iran. Fateh is a doctoral student in Britain.

1430 GMT: The Islamic Iran Participation Front, the reformist organisation of former President Mohammad Khatami and high-profile detainees such as Saeed Hajjarian, Mostafa Tajzadeh, and Abdollah Ramezanzadeh has issued a statement declaring that any "staged confession" is "illegal". It is warning of the "intoxication of power" of State authorities and their further plans for the opposition.
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1340 GMT: A hitch in the Iranian regime's plans for confirmation of a Guardian Council "recount" (see 1215 GMT). Gerami Moghadam, the speaker of Mahdi Karroubi's Etemad Melli Party, has said that Karroubi will only send a representative if two members of the special group attending the recount are changed.

1330 GMT: Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has issued a statement on the Mousavi website denying her detention, "I haven't been arrested, I continue my academic duties, I remain opposed yet committed to the law."

1215 GMT: While all remains quiet for today, here's a look at the regime's scenario for Sunday:

Guardian Council declares, after a "recount" of 10% of the ballot boxes, that the Presidential election result is valid. Representatives of all campaigns, attending the session, accept the outcome, ending the immediate battle against President Ahmadinejad.

Why would the representatives of candidates such as Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi agree?

Hundreds of detainees, including the top people from the opposition campaigns, in Iranian jails, few if any of whom are released before the official vote count is endorsed.

0915 GMT: The US-Iran Sideshow. Press TV's website reports on a Washington poke-in-the-eye for Tehran. US authorities denied visas for Iran's First Vice President, Dr. Parviz Davoudi, and the rest of the delegation to attend a United Nations conference on the world economic crisis on Friday.

While this is a far more notable rebuke than the non-story, seized on by the media, that the US Government had withdrawn invitations for Iranian diplomats to eat hot dogs at 4th of July parties at American embassies, it's a token wrist-slap for Iran. Still, it's enough to rankle the Iranian Ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, and Press TV, which also wins today's award for Wide-Eyed Innocence:

It remains unclear...whether [the visa denial] had anything to do with the United States' position on the outcome of Iran's recent presidential elections.

0715 GMT: The lockdown on significant information from Iran is almost complete. Non-Iranian media, browbeaten by Tehran's authorities, have now moved to other stories (to its credit, Al Jazeera has picked up on the escalating problems in Iraq rather than joining the Michael Jackson procession). The opposition leadership's newspapers have been shut down and its websites curbed. The flow of videos from citizen journalists has all but stopped.

And now the Twitter sources are dropping off. Two of the most important observers, whom we profiled earlier this week, are again silent, and others just cannot find or get out the information that is needed. (There are still a few important, vital exceptions, whose work you'll see in our updates. Fingers crossed that they can continue in their efforts.)

The Latest from Iran (26 June): It's (No Longer) A Thriller

The Latest from Iran (27 June): Situation Normal. Move Along.

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1900 GMT: Mohammad Mostafaie, a defence lawyer who was prominent for representing Iranian juveniles facing the death penalty, was arrested this afternoon.

1845 GMT: Lara Setrakian of ABC News (US): "Allahu Akbars begin. Intensity hasn't diminished. I hear warning shots, but after the shot they changed to death to dictator."

Also reports of a candlelit vigil tonight on the rooftops.

1830 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi's website has posted his latest statement. We're working on getting an English translation.

1655 GMT: We reported earlier this week that the novelist Paulo Coelho had blogged that his "best friend" was the Iranian doctor who tried to save Neda Agha Soltan. Now that the doctor has left Iran, Coelho has identified him as the Iranian translator of his books, Arash Hejazi

1632 GMT: More from Obama: "A government that treats its own citizens with that kind of ruthlessness and violence has moved outside of universal norms."

1550 GMT: BNO, citing AFP, says that a special commission, including representatives of the defeated candidates, is to be set up to draft a report on the election.

If true, this would fit into our separate piece on the "national unity" call of Grand Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi and reports that Presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi is compromising and calling for protests to be challenged through "legal means".

1545 GMT: CNN's David Clinch say that Iran's National Security Council: has declared that Mir Hossein Moussavi's demands for the annulment of the elections are "illogical and unethical".

1530 GMT: Some are reporting a new demonstration in Tehran today, in which Mousavi supporters released green balloons.

1415 GMT: Iranbaan believes that Saeed Hajarian, whose short bio we provided here, "has been release from the clinic into ward 209 of Evin [prison] but his physical condition is not good."

1155 GMT: From a Lara Setrakian source: ""Tehran is very very quiet. There's anger & passion, but going out to show it doesn't seem very productive and is very dangerous"

1145 GMT: Twitter user iranbaan, a previously reliable source, has posted a number of updates: Detained protester Hajarian is alive but is still in "serious condition & needs to be moved to hospital outside prison." She also reports on the apparent treatment of killed protesters:

Doctors are forces to write "death in the operating room" as the cause of death for recent martyrs. / Families are charged 5-14 thousand dollars to receive the bodies of their loved ones. / They also need to sign a waver that they won't sure [sic: sue] the police or other attackers. / In a written undertaking, they need to say Mousavi is the reason & we have not complaints against police. / No mosque is allowed to hold a funeral for these martyrs.

Finally, she reports that, "Saeed Mortazavi, prosecutors general of Tehran, is put in charge of investigating recent detainees." As we reported on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch describes Mortazavi as "notoriously abusive."


1110 GMT: Lara Setrakian of ABC News (US) reports, "Confirmed firsthand account of another 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) protester killed on the rootfop, this one in Tehran."

1045 GMT: AP reports that Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, speaking during Friday prayers at Tehran University, has called on the government to punish protesters "strongly and with cruelty." (Note: Ahmed Khatami is not related to Mohammad Khatami.)

0850 GMT: According to Reuters Press TV has quoted a spokesman for the Guardian Council saying that the elections were "among the healthiest ... ever held in the country". No "major" fraud has been uncovered.

0820 GMT: Unconfirmed rumour: the Supreme Leader is wearing one white glove when he leads prayers today.

0800 GMT: Stand By Your Man. Russia has again recognized President Ahmadinejad's election victory.

0710 GMT: Worlds Collide. One of the most prominent Iranian activists on Twitter writes, "Michael Jackson is died?"

0705 GMT: Reports that Iran state media have broadcast the funeral of a Basiji killed in the demonstrations. (source: jamaldajani via Twitter)

0700 GMT: The BBC, if it is not reflecting on Michael Jackson, is recycling the tangential news that Washington has condemned President Ahmadinejad's condemnation of US interference in Iranian affairs

0520 GMT: Somewhat bizarrely, this morning's first intervention in Iran comes from the west coast of the United States (and not from the broadcasts of television stations run by Iranian exiles). The international media are screen-to-screen with coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. Even Al Jazeera put away Iran and Iraq to lead with several minutes on the scraps of information about last night's events, Jackson's careers, and (especially) chats with fans.

CNN, which has been increasingly open in its sympathy for the protests, had been trying to highlight Thursday's statement by Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, but the effort has been limited, as its website admits: "CNN has not been able to verify the authenticity of the statement on the Kamaleh site, which has been known to carry Moussavi's official statements, because it appeared to be blocked." On the BBC website, Jackson pushes Iran and Mousavi down to a single, small-font line near the bottom of the page.

Iran's Press TV talks about Michael Jackson at the end of its headlines; before that, it is using the statement of three US Senators (McCain, Graham, Lieberman) calling for tougher sanctions on Tehran to bolster the Government's line of "Western intervention".