Iran Special: Legal Analysis of Post-Election Violations of Rights (Shadi Sadr)

Shadi Sadr has written this report for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center:

Preface

Nearly one year has passed since the widespread public protests to the announced results of Iran’s 2009 presidential election. In the past year, a harsh crackdown in various forms across various sectors of society has rendered the human rights situation in Iran more precarious than ever before. During this time, many human rights lawyers and activists have voiced their criticisms of Iran’s human rights record under the country’s current, existing laws.

The Latest from Iran (20 June): Remembering the Protests and the Dead

The following article examines the question of which laws may be cited in terms of the rights of the protesters and to what extent violations of these laws occurred in the post-election events. To this end, I’ve based my analysis on basic rights set forth in the Constitution of Iran and officially-recognized common laws. After reviewing the limits and provisions in the law concerning the aforesaid rights, I’ve attempted to highlight of some of the most prominent and specific cases in which widespread violations of these basic rights occurred.

I. Right of peaceful assembly

Article 27 of the Constitution states that “[p]ublic assemblies and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the principles of Islam.” This Article stipulates two conditions for the right to assembly: participants must be unarmed; and assemblies must not infringe upon the “principles of Islam.” The latter provision, in particular, is subject to broad interpretation due to a lack of legal consensus that any text provides an authoritative definition of the term “principles of Islam.” The law for “Political Parties, Societies, Political and Craft Associations, and Islamic or Recognized Minority Religious Associations” in Article 62 adds other provisions to these two conditions to limit the freedom of association. According to clause 2 of Article 6 of this law, the legal framework for groups to freely assemble is thus defined:

A march may be freely held, provided that it is not detrimental to the principles of Islam as determined by the Article 10 Commission and participants are unarmed . . . and prior notice is given to the Interior Ministry. Assemblies in public squares and parks are also free with permission from the Interior Ministry.

Therefore, in the first place, only political parties, societies, and non-governmental organizations officially registered with the Ministry of the Interior possess the right to request a permit [for holding assemblies], while ordinary citizens not affiliated with a registered organization do not possess the right to freely hold assemblies. Secondly, the Article 10 Commission, which is composed of representatives from various governmental institutions, must determine whether or not the assemblies and demonstrations infringe on the principles of Islam; if they do not, the Commission will issue the permit to hold the assembly.

In summary, the right to freedom of assembly in the Islamic Republic of Iran is limited and contingent on the following provisions:

1. Unarmed assembly
2. Lack of infringement on the principles of Islam
3. Submission of request by a registered organization
4. Issuance of permit by the Article 10 Commission

A review of the circumstances of the post-election public assemblies, and the legal provisions in this regard, indicate that it is clear that none of these assemblies were lawful in the eyes of the existing law. Article 4 of “the Law for the Use of Firearms by Officers of the Armed Forces in States of Emergency” states the following:

Police Forces have the right to use firearms on the order of the commander of operations, for the purpose of restoring order and controlling illegal demonstrations, and quelling insurrection and riots, in situations that are not containable without the use of
firearms, provided that:

1. Other means were tried first in accordance with the law and were not effective; and
2. Prior to the use of firearms, the lawbreakers and insurgents have been duly warned about the use of firearms against them.

According to section 5 of the same law, police forces may intervene to restore order and security in illegal demonstrations only if the demonstrators are armed.

To date, no reliable evidence or witnesses have indicated that the post-election protests were anything other than peaceful. Yet the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) announced in an official statement that it would take action to crack down on the street protests. IRGC commanders also stated repeatedly in several interviews that IRGC and paramilitary Basij forces were used to put down the demonstrations. These statements were made even though the IRGC and Basij did not have the right to intervene in the post-election demonstrations due to the fact that the marches were peaceful and participants were unarmed.

The police, moreover, only have the right to use arms when other methods of crowd control and restoration of order have failed. The police are legally obligated to give prior warning to protestors, and weapons may be used only if demonstrations continue after this warning is issued. To date, none of the documentation of repeated shootings at protesters has shown that police and military personnel gave warnings to protesters before using their firearms. During several protests (on June 15, 2009, June 20, 2009, Ashura, etc.), gunshots were fired to put a stop to demonstrations, resulting in the killing and wounding of a considerable number of protestors.

Article 57 of the Islamic Penal Code states:

If an officer commits a crime on the order of an official’s unlawful command, both the person who ordered the act and the person who carried out the act will be punished in accordance with the law. If an officer executes an order while mistakenly believing he is acting lawfully, he will only pay the blood-price compensation or a fine.

Article 570 of the same law states:

Any government official, officer, or any person connected to the government and its institutions who unlawfully deprives citizens of their personal rights, or deprives them of their constitutional rights, in addition to discharge from service and prohibition from government employment for three to five years, will be sentenced to a prison term of six months to three years.

Therefore, police and military commanders and officers who used firearms in the crackdown on public demonstrations on various dates, given that a number of people were killed or wounded as a result of this unlawful use of firearms, must be criminally prosecuted. But as we will see in the “Violation of the Right to Justice” section of this article, these laws were almost wholly ignored.

The armed crackdown on the post-election protests, however, was just one instance of violation of the right to peaceful assembly. Thousands of protesters were arrested in the streets and prosecuted on charges of attending illegal demonstrations. In some cases in which the court’s ruling has been declared and finalized, demonstrators have been charged with “acts against national security.”

One such case is that of Atefeh Nabavi, a female university student who attended the June 15 march in Tehran (the largest post-election public assembly, estimated by government officials at more than two million people). She was found guilty on charges of “disrupting public order” and “assembling and conspiring against the establishment by participation in illegal demonstrations” and sentenced to four years in prison.

Book Five, Chapter One of the Criminal Code defines Crimes Against National Security to include the following:

• forming or directing an association with the aim of disrupting homeland security, or membership in such associations (Sections 498 and 499);
• propaganda activity against the Islamic Republic establishment (Section 500);
• espionage (Sections 501, 502, 503, 505, 506 and 510);
• provocation of armed forces to disobey orders (Section 504);
• collaboration with hostile foreign states (Section 508);
• bomb threats (Section 511); and
• provocation of the public to civil war (Section 512).

It is plainly evident that attending a demonstration to protest election results cannot constitute grounds for any national security crimes. Nevertheless, several protesters at such demonstrations were arrested, tried, and punished on charges of acts against national security.

Following the protests on Ashura [Dec. 27, 2009], citing a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi, a hardliner marja in Qom, that designated the Ashura protesters as mohareb or “enemies of God” (an offense punishable by execution), the Revolutionary Courts meted out the death penalty to several allegedly moharab protesters arrested that day. Mohammad-Amin Valian, a 20-year-old student who had thrown stones at Basij forces during the Ashura protests, was convicted of mohareb by the Revolutionary Court and sentenced to death. This is while according to section 183 of the Islamic Penal Code, a mohareb is defined as “one who takes up arms for creating fear and terror among the public and taking away freedom and security from individuals.” Valian was not permitted to choose an attorney, and the court did not accept the defense made by the lawyer appointed to him (who argued that “according to religious edicts, stones are not considered weapons”), and sentenced Valian to death–a sentence that was upheld on appeal.

II. Prohibition against arbitrary arrest

Despite the lack of reliable data on the number of persons arrested arrested, according to Iranian authorities, some 4,000 individuals were arrested in the first month alone following the [June 12, 2009] elections. Some human rights organizations estimate the number of post-election detainees from June 2009-March 2010 to be up to 18,000 people.

These detainees were arrested during street protests or by security agents showing up at their homes and offices. In both cases, based on documents and existing evidence, there was widespread violation of the rights of the detainees.

A. Arrest without court order:

Article 32 of the Constitution states that

No person may be arrested except according to and in the manner laid down in the law. If someone is detained, the subject matter of the charge, with reasons (for bringing it), must immediately be communicated and explained in writing to the accused. Within at most 24 hours the file on the case and preliminary documentation must be referred to the competent legal authority. Legal procedures must be initiated as early as possible. Anyone infringing this principle will be punished in accordance with the law.

The law of the Judicial Procedure for General and Revolutionary Courts in Criminal Affairs (Criminal Affairs law), the Reform law for trials at General and Revolutionary, and the law of Respect for Legitimate Freedoms and Protection of Civil Liberties (Civil Liberties law) determine the way in which Article 32 must be implemented. Based on these laws, no person may be arrested without a warrant (issued by the prosecutor or on his authority) except in cases of witnessed crimes. In cases of witnessed crimes, law enforcement (police officers and security agents) must obtain a judicial official’s ruling for release or continued detainment of the detainee within 24 hours of the arrest.

The arrest warrant must also be documented and supported with reasons. The accused has the right to protest the arrest warrant at specific intervals. Even absent such protest, in crimes relating to national security, subsequent to a two-month temporary arrest, the judicial official [overseeing the case] must renew the arrest warrant, unless there is clear reason for continued detention.

In practice, in the course of the post-election events, nearly all of these laws were violated on a large scale. In the first few days following the elections, a large number of well-known political activists and journalists were arrested at their homes or workplaces. The attorneys of some of these individuals later stated that their clients’ files contained a general arrest warrant signed by the Tehran Prosecutor (Saeed Mortazavi) that was issued four days before June 12 [Election Day] –that is, prior to the start of the street protests. These attorneys added that these general warrants did not cite any evidence or reasons whatsoever for the arrests.10 Based on these general warrants, security agents made sweeping arrests and searched detainees’ homes and offices.

Chapter 3 of the Law of Criminal Procedure has comprehensive regulations for searches and investigation of private properties. Many of these regulations were violated in the course of the post-election arrests. For example, Article 100 of this law states:

Searches and investigation of homes must be carried out during daytime hours, and during the night only by urgent reasons as stipulated by a Judge on the arrest warrant.

Yet the homes of many detainees were searched after midnight by security agents who failed to present warrants stipulating the reason for nighttime searches.

Based on the testimonies of some detainees arrested in street protests, they were forced to sign and stamp their fingerprint on pre-written forms, without having an individual file with exclusive documents assembled for them. One detainee testified:

The page listing the crimes was the same for everyone. Acts against national security, disobeying police orders, propaganda against the Islamic Republic regime, serving BBC and VOA foreign media … All we had to do was stamp our fingerprint [onto the form]. They had arrested one [person] at the supermarket, another one in street clashes, and another on Hemmat Expressway before the Tehran Pars exit. We all had the same crime and had to stamp the form. We were supervised by a ranked officer. We kept telling him that we didn’t accept the charges, but he kept ordering us to stamp the forms. I tried not to stamp the form, and I was beaten. They hit me with punches and kicks and a hose. Heidarifar even came down from his bench to personally land a few slaps and kicks on me. I finally stamped it. We all did.

According to section 109 of the Criminal Affairs law, a Judge must inform defendants of the charges against them and make clear to them the reason for arrest, after which an investigation may be opened.

Many of the post-election detainees spent months in temporary detention without benefitting from legal regulations that safeguard their rights. Kobra Zaqehdoust, who was arrested at Behesht Zahra cemetery while attending the 40th day memorial service for those killed in post-election violence, has been in temporary arrest for nine months now, without judicial officials determining the case against her. According to Zaqehdoust’s attorney, her arrest warrant was re-extended after nine months without explanation to her family and lawyer about the reason for this extension.

III. Prohibition against torture

Read rest of report....

Turkey-Israel-US: Intelligence, Politics, and the Raid into Iraq

The recent clash between the Kurdish separatist PKK and the Turkish military have prompted a series of questions.

How could 250 separatists gather and attack a military post while the Turkish forces were continuing operations up to three kilometres inside Iraq? Military experts have given different view:

Turkey: Kurdish Insurgents Kill 11 Soldiers

- The 250 may not have crossed the border on the same day. They might have crossed in clusters of two or three people.

- Turkey's unmanned aerial vehicles, Herons, cannot always detect small groups.

- Due to rain and fog, thermal cameras might have not detected the movement. Insurgents might have wet their clothes to avoid detection by thermal cameras and Herons.

- The Northern Iraqi administration does not share intelligence with Turkey.

Then Turkish media asked,  "Why did U.S.A not share intelligence with Turkey?" Military experts said that information gathered by Washington's own unmanned aerial vehicles goes directly to a US centre. Then it comes to the trilateral coordination centre  in Erbil, northern Iraq, and the final destination is the General Staff in Turkey. The process takes some time.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz said, "Spat or not, Turkey is still using Israeli technology in attacks on Kurdish PKK rebels." Turkish experts have said that they can still use the Heron aircraft despite Israelis recalling their operators. However, the same experts add, "It is not clear whether the six Herons of Turkey have permission to control the Northern Iraqi airspace."

According to Haaretz, the Herons were used in Iraqi airspace. The newspaper continues:

Turkey reported late last week that during operations in May, its forces killed some 130 Kurdish militants in Iraqi territory; it described this as an impressive achievement against terrorism.

Haaretz quotes Turkish officials saying "no decision has been made to formally freeze deals with Israel".

The newspaper pays attention to the dispute between Turkish Foreign Ministry and the bureaucracy of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) bureaucracy. "Turkey does not want to lose what it gained on the international front from the flotilla incident," a source at the Turkish Foreign Ministry told Haaretz. "But it is important to remember that the Prime Minister is operating on the basis of internal political considerations, not only a cool analysis of Turkish interests on the international level."

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recap Tayyip Erdogan again targeted Israeli officials again. He said, "Turkey's problem is with Israel's government, not its people" and added:

We have not remained silent against this piracy and injustice, and we will not do so, and we will seek solutions within the framework of international law.

Israel's Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov responded, "The Turkish people aren't the enemy, but Erdogan is Israel's enemy."

Turkey: Kurdish Insurgents Kill 11 Soldiers

On Saturday, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) killed 11 and wounded 14 Turkish soldiers in an attack on a military post and a mine explosion near the border with Iraq. The first reaction of the Turkish daily Hurriyet was noteworthy: "250 PKK Members Attacked! Not a Clash but a Real War! It Lasted 5 Hours!"

The Turkish military responded by killing Kurdish separatists. Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) stated that F-16s have been bombarding northern Iraq alongside operations by commandos and the elite force, the "Maroon Berets".

Turkey Inside Line: Ankara’s Attack in Iraq; Relations with Israel

Turkish President Abdullah Gul condemned the PKK's attack and said that operations are going to continue without pause. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that PKK, once again, proved that it is a "pawn". He continued:

The terrorist organisation --- today once again --- is going towards bloody actions ...to sabotage the economic, social, and democratic development process recently initiated by Turkey which gained international importance .

The Chairman of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), Mehmet Ali Sahin, responded to media in an unusual manner: "I am still waiting a satisfactory statement from the General Staff regarding our martyrs."

Opposition parties all targeted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said that the Erdogan government is weaking the anti-terrorism struggle and called on the government to show the "required" resolution.

The leader of the National Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, said:

The architect of this dark picture is Erdogan. The government is responsible! The National Security Council (comprised of the Chief of Staff, select members of the Council of Ministers, and the President of the Republic) must convene and the government must take an early election decision. State of emergency must be declared in the region! They must give up the Kurdish initiative!

The Deputy Chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Bengi Yildiz, criticized the government harshly but, unsurprisingly, from a very different position:

Even if you kill more 10-20-100 thousand people, even if you put 10,000 people in prisons, even if you kill not just one but 20 MPs of BDP, even if you kill all mayors and put them in prisons, you cannot solve this problem with violence, oppression and tyranny!

We Kurds have a famous statement for this: "We hit the full pot with an empty one", so  we have nothing to lose. Let those who have full pots think!

Yildiz's public statement was interpreted as a "threat" by most Turkish newspapers.

China This Week: The Economic Front

Shan Shan updates EA with the latest economic news from China:

Warning to Google "Multinationals 'should respect laws in China": Chinese trade experts said on Tuesday that Google's description of China's Internet restrictions as an unfair barrier to free trade is groundless, as the country's Internet regulations apply to everyone and are in accordance with the rules of the World Trade Organization.

"It is understandable that different countries have various laws and regulations with regard to the Internet,", said Wang Lequan, director of the research center on transnational corporations at the Ministry of Commerce.  "As long as these regulations fulfill China's commitment to the World Trade Organization, multinationals should respect that.”

China This Week: Kyrgyzstan, Beijing’s Help for US; Latest on Economy

Google said last week that it would ask the US and governments in Europe to press China to lift Internet restrictions.

Warning of Real Estate Risks: The credit risks associated with home mortgages are growing and a "chain effect" may reappear in real-estate development loans, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in its annual report.

The regulator has told banks to report on risk exposure by the end of June to help prevent a credit boom from leading to more bad loans. Property prices rose by 12.4 percent year-on-year in May, the second-fastest increase on record.

The State Council issued a directive warning that some  quasi-independent financing vehicles, often used by local governments to fund infrastructure projects, were dangerously loaded with debt.

This is China's latest effort to tackle the mounting debt worries of local governments, which analysts have warned could become financial time bombs.

Chinese business confidence falls: Chinese confidence in the economy has fallen in the second quarter of the year because of concerns over rising production costs and shrinking demand, according to a survey by the People's Bank of China. Confidence has risen since the first quarter of 2009.

The report had a silver lining, with entrepreneurs  "prudently optimistic" about demand for exports.

WTO blocks US poultry ban on China: China appears to have notched up a victory in a dispute over a US ban on poultry imports, criticised in an interim report of the World Trade Organization.

"We think the US will not try to impose a similar ban in the next fiscal year, since it would be regarded as open defiance of the latest WTO ruling," a Ministry of Commerce official said Wednesday.

China's $47 billion for Qinghai quake reconstruction: China plans to spend 32 billion yuan ($46.8 billion) on the reconstruction of parts of northwest China's Qinghai Province battered by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in April, the government said.

The money would mainly came from the central budget, supplemented by funds from the Qinghai government, donations and corporate funding, according to a circular published on the government's website, www.gov.cn.

The main reconstruction tasks should be finished in three years, according to the circular.

The Latest from Iran (19 June): How Does Mahmoud Respond?

2115 GMT: Cyber-Shutdown. After the filtering of a number of Wordpress-based news sites, including EA, Iran has reportedly blocked Rapidshare and Hotfile.

2055 GMT: The Oil Squeeze. Iran acknowledged on Saturday that oil swap deals with Caspian Sea producers had stopped this month, but said it was seeking talks with some oil companies on new terms.

The swaps, in which Iran imports crude into Caspian ports and supplies the equivalent barrels of oil from the Persian Gulf, were reportedly supsended after Tehran steeply raised fees on operations to avoid an oil glut following lower sales of its own oil.

The four companies affected are Select Energy Trading, Dragon Oil (Emirates), Swiss Vitol, and Irish Caspian Oil Development.

NEW Iran: Working Together? The Women’s Movement & The Greens (Kakaee)
NEW Iran Analysis: Why the 2009 Election is Not Legitimate (Ansari)
Iran Request: Nonsense about “Twitter Revolution”. Please Stop.
Iran Analysis: How Europe Can Help (Mamedov)
Iran Document: The Tajzadeh Criticism and The Reformist Way Forward (Sahimi)
The Latest from Iran (18 June): Hardliners Criticise Ahmadinejad

2040 GMT: The Battle Within. Rah-e-Sabz sees more rifts within the establishment. Member of Parliament Jalal Yahyazadeh has complained that the radical positions of hardliners have isolated moderates, so the "hard-line" camp is not as united as it should be. Reza Akarami asserts that the economic situation is not good, and Ahmadinejad has not fulfilled vows made during his first series of provincial tours.

2030 GMT: The Day in Hijab. Hojatoleslam Ebrahim Raeesi has given assurances that Iran's judiciary supports the security forces in the enforcement of proper hijab.

According to Peyke Iran, Ebrahim Kalantari, the Supreme Leader's deputy in Tehran University, has said that there will be classes for relationships between girls and boys and that a think tank for hijab will be established soon

1910 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Ali Badragheh, dean of the Eslam Shahr campus of Azad University, has reportedly been arrested.

1905 GMT: Freedom of the Press Update. The economic daily Pool has suspended publication after being warned by the supervisory press authority for publishing "false material and accusing Iranian officials".

1900 GMT: Economy Watch. More than 400 workers of the Godeleh Sazi steel plant are on the sixth day of a strike. The walkout began when only 40 of 500 employees passed hiring examinations.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened the plant to great fanfare in April.

1855 GMT: Reformists Banned. The Iranian judiciary has upheld the ban on political activity of the two leading reformist Iranian parties, the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution.

The IIPF had filed a complaint against the decision of the Political Parties Commission in March to withdraw its permit. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said that the Commission's request to dissolve the two parties has been sent to the Revolutionary Court.

1845 GMT: The Flight of the Journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that at least 29 Iranian editors, reporters, and photographers have fled the country in the past year, “the highest annual tally from a single country in a decade”.

At least half of those who fled Iran are currently in Turkey living in “precarious situations". They are reportedly threatened by individuals, believed to be working for the Iranian regime, saying that family in Iran will suffer if the journalists speak publicly about political issues.

As dire as this report is, the situation may be even worse. EA sources have reported that
the number of journalists who have left Iran is far greater than 29.

1700 GMT: Remembering. Daneshjoo News reports "thousands", watched by security forces and plainclothes agents, attended the memorial in Mashhad for protester Mostafa Ghanian. The service was held at Imam Reza's shrine.

Ghanian, 26, was killed by snipers on 17 June 2009 while he was calling Allahu Akbar (God is Great) from the roof of an eight-story building in the Saadat-Abad section of Tehran.

1630 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Reports come in that journalist and human rights activist Emaduddin Baghi will stand trial on Tuesday.

The father of student activist Salman Sima has confirmed that his son has gone on hunger strike in Evin Prison.

Sima was arrested on the anniversary of the election, 12 June, his third post-election detention. His father said that Sima was asked to pick up items at the Ministry of Information Followup Office and was stopped and taken away by a plainclothes agent on his motorcycle on the way.

1625 GMT: Threatening Khomeini. Back from a break to find that some hardliners have not given up on the assault on Seyed Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Member of Parliament Hossein Fadaee has accused the younger Khomeini of plotting to become the next Supreme Leader, supported by former Presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.

1150 GMT: Counter-Attack. Minister of Defense Ahmad Vahidi has accused the United States of "deception" and insisted Tehran's missiles are only for self-defence after US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates charged that the Islamic republic could rain missiles down on Europe.

"The Islamic Republic's missile capability has been designed and implemented to defend against any military aggression and it does not threaten any nation," Vahidi said in a statement carried by state media.

1145 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. University professor Rahmatullah Bastani has been acquitted.

0816 GMT: Admissions? We noted yesterday that Iran's police chief, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, may have been a bit too open as he tried to minimise the opposition and justify the actions of his forces.

Keep in mind that Rooz Online is an opposition outlet, but its summary of Ahmadi-Moghaddam's remarks, if close to accurate, is telling:

Speaking to the monthly Soroush, Iran’s police chief confirmed the validity of a video clip showing Basij forces and special guards attacking the Tehran university student dormitory in early morning hours of June 15, 2009. At the same time, he asked reporters not to focus excessively on the crimes committed at Kahrizak and the Tehran University dormitory. In his descriptions and presentation, he implied that it was the volunteer paramilitary Basij forces and not the police who were responsible for the attack on Tehran University’s dormitory. The request to enter Tehran University according to him was made by its president, Farhad Rahbar.

And despite the large number of casualties and arrests that have taken place in Iran since June 12, 2010, Ahmadi-Moghaddam gave his forces a mere “unsatisfactory” grade in handling the protests.

But, in perhaps his most significant remarks, the head of the Islamic republic’s law enforcement forces said that none of the ballot boxes were opened and counted until 11 pm on Friday, June 12.

However, the first reports of Ahmadinejad’s victory with claims of 24 million votes were released between 10:30 and 11pm on Friday, June 12 by website and news agencies such as Fars, IRNA (the Islamic Republic’s official news agency), and Raja News.

Similarly, the Islamic republic television announced its first results based on 11 million counted votes at 11:30pm the same night. In light of Ahmadi-Moghaddam’s remarks, it is not clear how the interior ministry officials were able to count 11 million votes in less than half an hour.

In another segment of his remarks, Ahmadi-Moghaddam said, “One week before the election, I gathered the provincial governors here and told them that you will face crises until at least the first week of summer. I said the election would end in either Mr. Mousavi’s favor, in which case we would have one kind of crisis under the name of a victory celebration and there would be attempts to capture the next targets; or Mr. Ahmadinejad would win, in which case his opponents would claim fraud. Of course, we couldn’t accurately predict the extent of the problem, but we thought that we would certainly have problems and you must definitely be prepared.”

0815 GMT: We've posted an analysis by Parisa Kakaee of the relationship between the women's movement and the Green Movement.

0655 GMT: We start this morning with a stroll down Memory Lane, as Ali Ansari reminds us why the 2009 Presidential election is still not legitimate.

0645 GMT: No doubt about it. On Friday, the big story from Iran came courtesy not of the opposition but of the "establishment", with the escalating fight between hardliners and the President.

Always buffeted by those in Parliament who don't like his economic plans, his advisors, or him, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now faced the wrath of clerics and officials unhappy with his criticism last week of the "morality police". You know it's serious when Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, used Tehran Friday Prayers to give the President a loud spanking.

We'll be watching for the fallout today. So far no response from Ahmadinejad. And Iranian state media? Well, it's trying to pretend the dispute does not exist: Press TV's summary of the Jannati speech closes its eyes under the headline, "New Sanctions Gave West Away", and the Tehran Friday Prayer does not show up on the front page of the Islamic Republic News Agency.