The Latest from Iran (7 March): The Elections Next Door

2225 GMT: Petraeus Pronounces. On a slowish political evening, General David Petraeus dishes out some rhetoric on Iran's "thugocracy". We'll have an analysis tomorrow (hint: it's actually a signal that US is backing off any immediate military pressure), but for now, we've posted the video.

1945 GMT: Larijani Watch. Nice move by the head of Iran's judiciary, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani. He has announced the discovery of a large group inside the Government carrying out fraud and economic corruption: one case alone was embezzlement of 6 bilionl Toman more than $6 million).

NEW Iran: Senior Reformist Amani “We Have Not Decided to Remain Silent”
UPDATED Death, Confusion, and Clerics in Iran: The Case of Mohammad Amin Valian
NEW An Open Letter to the Editors of Iran’s “Principled” Newspapers
The Latest from Iran (7 March): The Elections Next Door

Thus, Larijani takes a swipe at Ahmadinejad and poses as a a defender of justice for the Iranian people.


1930 GMT: Bypassing Sanctions. All the way back to our first update (0730 GMT) on "Western" firms who trade with Tehran: Welt Online has a lengthy article on German companies who use Dubai as a "back door" to get into Iran.

1900 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Madhi Forouzandehpour, who was in charge of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s office, has been released after more than two months in detention.

1750 GMT: The Uranium Enrichment Deal. Don't say EA didn't tell you....
A couple of weeks after the visit by Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani to Tokyo, this nugget from the Foreign Ministry:

Iran is ready to conduct its uranium exchange plan also with fresh countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Sunday, according to the Fars News Agency.

"As we have reached no results yet with France, Russia and the United States over the uranium exchange plan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head has asked other countries to get involved," Mehmanparast said.

"We will wait and see whether other countries would be capable to provide us with the required fuel," the spokesman added in a meeting with students at the Shahid Beheshti university in Tehran.

Japan is reportedly one of the countries interested to get engaged in the deal.

1730 GMT: Political Prisoner/Mohareb Watch. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatababi announced that 250 Ashura detainees have been indicted, but he said reports of a confirmed death sentence for Mohammad Amin Valian were false.

1710 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Leading student activist Abdollah Momeni has reportedly been released on $800,000 bail.

1645 GMT: Karroubi Takes on Mohareb. It looks like Mehdi Karroubi may have another front in his battle against the regime over its conception of "justice". He told an audience today,

I have previously pointed out [the need for] changing the definition of Mohareb [warring against God] in the current situation and have asked judiciary officials for its abolition....Some officials, unpremeditatedly or premeditatedly and even intentionally, called the streets protests and movements Moharebeh, and this is unfortunate.

Karroubi referred to the case of Mohammad Amin Valian, the Ashura protester condemned to death, as a “negative point” since Valian was only “taking part in street protests.” Karroubi claimed that Iranian officials "don’t know that Iran’s reputation in the international community is tarnished with such acts”.

1640 GMT: On the Women's Front. The Iranian Labor News Agency dares to proclaim, on the eve of International Women's Day, that "statistics and recent events in Iran indicate Iranian women did not experience an enjoyable year".

1630 GMT: That Cyber-War Thing. Following the declaration of Iranian officials that the Green Movement will be "crushed" in the battle of the Internet, an Islamic Revolution Guard Corps commander has said that 18,000 IRGC troops will be deployed in the "cyber-war".

1615 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Amirhossein Kazemi, weblog writer and member of the Freedom Movement of Iran, was arrested last night after being summoned to the Intelligence Ministry and taken to an unknown location. Emad Behavar, the head of the youth branch and member of the political bureau of the FMI, has been arrested for the third time in the post-election crisis.

Many of the FMI's leaders have been detained.

1200 GMT: We've posted an interview with a senior reformist, Shahrbanou Amani, considering the state of the Green Movement: "We Have Not Decided to Remain Silent".

1000 GMT: Posture of the Day. The Iranian Government, represented by Minister of Defense Ahmad Vahidi, is boasting of a new domestically-manufactured short-range cruise missile that can "eliminate targets of up to 300 tons".

0800 GMT: Butterfly on a Wheel. Golshifteh Farahani, the first Iranian actress since 1979 to appear in a major Hollywood film, has spoken of the oppression of Iran's artists by the current regime.

After her appearance in Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, Farahani was harassed by Iranian intelligence services for months before she went into exile in Paris.

Reacting to the arrest of award-winning director Jafar Panahi last week, Farahani said, "We are so angry. Jafar is one, maybe the only one… still in Iran who is talking. Most artists [in Iran] don't talk because they would rather work somehow. I appreciate that, but Jafar is the one who had the courage to talk, and he talked for everyone."

0755 GMT: A Government's Satanic Aims. Former President Mohammad Khatami has delcared in a speech:

It is a catastrophe that satanic aims and inhuman methods are imposed on the people in the name of God and holiness. Peace is the most beautiful word that exists, but unfortunately we see rare examples in the historical reality (today).

0750 GMT: Here's Some Culture for You. Former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi has declared at a conference that Iran's "cyber-army" will reach "greater achievements", crushing the Green Movement.

0730 GMT: Nine months after Iran's Presidential election, media attention --- including that of Iranian outlets --- will be focused on a vote next door, as Iraqis go to the polls. We'll be starting our Iran morning in a reflective mood, with a senior reformist politician, Shahrbanou Amani, considering the state of the movement: "We have not decided to remain silent."

Anticipating US legislating punishing firms who trade both with the American Government and with Iran, The New York Times has published a list of 74 companies who could have been affected. Heading the list is Halliburton, the oil and gas drilling services firm connected with former Vice President Dick Cheney, at $27.1 billion. (Like a number of others on the list, Halliburton has now officially withdrawn from Iran.)

Iran: Senior Reformist Amani "We Have Not Decided to Remain Silent"

Shahrbanou Amani, the speaker of House of Iran's Political Parties (a supervisory body over all Iranian parties) and former lawmaker, interviewed by Khabar Online:

KHABAR: Why have the reformists had no voice? Their leaders do not comment on the latest problems raised in the country and do not take a transparent stance. Is it a strategy?

AMANI: We have not opted for that. You see, whenever the ground is prepared, the reformists show an enthusiasm to express their ideas. In my view as our society has become so tense, those who are prime firebrands of such tensions have even targeted sensible Principlists as well, the figures who have served the country but are under the threat of elimination. [They do this] since those who hold the power, do not bear any voice except the echo of their own voice.


Furthermore ,when the clashes are intensified, the toleration for hearing the voice of truth, logic, and ideas based on knowledge shrinks. Currently the universities are among the rare places where the reformists can articulate their ideas.

KHABAR: What is the key problem of the reformists in conveying their ideas?

AMANI: One of the key problems is that we don't have a mass media. What can the reformists do? They don't have access to visual and aural media. No TV and radio channel is allocated to voice their ideas; even among several TV channels, none will give them just one hour to make their suggestions.

One of the issues discussed among our reformist friends (and once more I underline that it's not an organizational option) is that we prefer to express our opinions by local media. When the spouses of the post-election detainees are interviewed by foreign media, they [the spouses] say we made our utmost effort to voice our concerns through Iranian media, but they didn't allow us to do so.

On the other hand, the media serving the rival group has adopted a selective approach, censoring parts of the interviews and articles. For example on the "2030" news program aired by state TV, the programmers broadcast the parts of the items which may serve their goals. They are not faithful to the entire material.

It's not a new tactic adopted by IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) and other state-funded media. In several consecutive years, they have tried to eliminate one of the main Iranian political currents, which ironically has played an important role in the Islamic Republic's campaigns and suffered many tortures in the course of the revolution.

KHABAR: You said you are not allowed access to the media. Actually the reformists say we are deprived of the public forum, but they convey their ideas through the international media including Farsi-language ones. The influence of such media is undeniable, since some accuse local media, including IRIB, of following a biased strategy against the government critics. For the same reason, some are under the influence of foreign media.

AMANI: Actually right now the Green Movement and reformists are deprived of a public forum. Even at the late presidential election in June, we didn't have access to that. Some say how people joined [us] for the election. I would say because the round-the-clock trips made by many reformists and Principlists who campaigned for the other candidates except Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were greeted by people. Many of them [campaigners] are reputable people who selflessly devoted themselves to the country during the "sacred defense" (the eight-year Iraq-Iran war).

The key problem of the reformists was their limited face-to-face communication with people. Also their campaign was begun rather late. Mr. Mohammad Khatami [former President] walked out of the election and Mr. Mir Hossein Mousavi [former Prime Minister] accepted running for the Presidency rather late.

Middle East Inside Line: Mitchell Arrives, East Jerusalem Protests, Hamas's Shrinking Power?

Mitchell in the Region: On Saturday, U.S. Mideast special envoy George Mitchell met Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv. He will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday.

Before any formal shaking of hands, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas escalated the rhetoric. In contrast to his acceptance of four months of "proximity talks",  Abbas said that "the peace process has almost reached a dead end" because Netanyahu has refused to stand by compromise offers made by his predecessor. Abbas continued:

UN’s Top Gaza Official: “Israel Creating Generation of People Nourished on Despair”

Despite a temporary, partial freeze on building in the West Bank, the expansion of Israeli settlements, as well as an Israeli heritage plan announced last month to include West Bank religious sites threaten ... to open the door to a dark future that awaits us all.


The Israeli government continues to procrastinate to gain time and strengthen its control of the occupied territories to prevent any realistic possibility of establishing an independent, viable ... state of Palestine.

In response, Netanyahu not only dismissed calls for Israel to give up control of all of Jerusalem, but he said that an early deal for a Palestinian state is unlikely, given the strength of Abbas' rivals in Hamas.

Demonstrations in East Jerusalem: About 5,000 left-wing activists and Palestinians gathered Saturday to protest the eviction of four Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The demonstration was peaceful. Protesters carried Palestinian flags and chanted "Stop the destruction of homes" and "There is no sanctity in an occupied city."

Hamas Losing Control?: According to the London-based newspaper A-Sharq Al-Awsat, Hamas's senior military commander Ahmed Jabri has admitted losing control in Gaza in a letter to Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal. He said that "recently a series of explosions has raised fears in Gaza" and "Gaza had descended into anarchy".

Jabri allegedly claims Hamas is convinced that extremist "jihadi" Islamist movements are behind the bombings.

Haaretz's Middle East Security Survey adds:

The recent calm on the Israel-Gaza border could be deceiving. Hamas is not firing rockets into Israel and is also preventing more radical groups from launching rockets. At the same time, Hamas is coping with the domestic threat posed by radical groups that identify with Al-Qaida. Recent reports from Gaza indicate that these groups are getting stronger, at the expense of Hamas.

It is possible that Israel, which until now has viewed Hamas as its biggest enemy in Gaza, needs to take into account that within a couple of years Hamas will be the moderate force in Gaza protecting the calm while a monstrous and more dangerous threat is growing in the form of the ultra-radical groups.

UN's Top Gaza Official: "Israel Creating Generation of People Nourished on Despair"

John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, spoke to Haaretz before returning to Britain after 3 1/2 years in office.

Question: In a previous interview with you more than a year ago, you suggested that Israel shake off the delusion that pressure on the Gaza Strip would lead to Hamas' downfall. In your visit to Gaza this week, did you have the impression that the blockade was weakening Hamas?

Israel-Palestine: Clashes on Temple Mount

Holmes: I don't think my voice alone would have changed Israeli policy. It is hard to be sure what exactly the objective of this policy is. Of the blockade, the siege, the collective punishment. It is hard to see that it has been achieved, because Hamas is still there, firmly in control. Meanwhile, the condition of the people there [in Gaza] remains grim.


Q: How grim?

Holmes: It depends on how you look at it. People are not starving in Gaza. There are plenty of goods available, some coming in through legitimate crossing points but mainly through the tunnels. While it relieves the pressure in a sense, it isn't good at all, because all it really does is encourage a smuggler-gangster economy, which incidentally benefits Hamas financially.

The smuggler-gangster economy is undermining some of the best legitimate forces in Gaza's civil society, which do exist, whatever people might think. It is therefore not in anyone's interest, certainly not in Israel's. So I think this policy continues to be ineffective and indeed counterproductive.

What the policy of the blockade is doing is not encouraging the forces you want to encourage. Gaza is not a nest of terrorists. For the most part there are people who just want to live ordinary lives, and they are being undermined by what's happening. So you are in danger of creating a generation of people who are nourished on despair.

Q: Do you agree with Israel's claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza?

Holmes: Even though there are plenty of goods available in Gaza, and that people should be able to get them, the problem is of course that most people have no money. Eighty percent of the people in Gaza are essentially dependent on outside food aid, either from UNWRA or the World Food Program. Not because there isn't food in the shops - there is - but they can't afford it, or they can't afford enough of it because any livelihoods that there were, any jobs that there were outside the government have effectively disappeared. Most private businesses have been destroyed, essentially by the blockade - bulldozed - and the rest finished off by Cast Lead.

Other than the people that work for Hamas, or are paid by the PA, there is no income, so people are forced to live on handouts.

Q: What do you think will happen after Egypt completes its wall and closes the tunnels? How do you see Gaza's future?

Holmes: If Egypt did complete the wall and effectively block all the tunnels, the amount of goods going in across the crossing points - if it remained at the current level - would be completely unsustainable.

The trouble is that most of the avenues that could lead to change are blocked.

If Gilad Shalit was released, although the link between his fate and the fate of 1.5 million people is not a reasonable one, that might at least lead to some improvement. It is unclear how great that improvement would be, but let's hope so. But that negotiation seems to have run into a dead end, and negotiations between Hamas and Fatah seem to be stuck, so it is hard to see how it can get any better.

Q: I assume you've warned the Israeli authorities of the political implications. What response do you get from them?

Holmes: The answer is A., Gilad Shalit, and B., we don't want to do anything that would benefit Hamas, or from which they would get credit, and C., we're not aiming to hurt ordinary Gazans. But they are being hurt.

Israel has certain responsibilities as to the siege in Gaza. Israel, as we see it, continues to be the occupying power. And it is not fulfilling those responsibilities as we believe it should.

The basic medical position [in Gaza] is not unreasonable, but there is a wider point which is not just about Gaza, but about the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where barriers, checkpoints and restricted movement means that access for many people to basic medical services is getting more and more difficult. The staff of hospitals in East Jerusalem can't get to work, and the patients can't get there either.

This is only one illustration of a much bigger problem of how restrictions of movement and difficulties of access to basic services is being cut off, and people can't do the things they used to be able to do.

Q: Your division is responsible for many distressed areas worldwide. Why do you devote so much energy to this small place?

Holmes: It is a small geographical area but also a very focused problem with very significant humanitarian problems - people facing eviction after living in one place for 60 years, because of settler pressure; the Bedouins in Area C increasingly being squeezed from all directions and finding it very difficult to survive.

But there are many more long-running problems, and every time I come back I don't find that things have improved. By and large the facts on the ground continue to go against the kind of settlement that everyone wants to see, which is the two-state solution.

Q: What's your advice?

Holmes: I feel depressed when I listen to and see what is going on, because I don't think it's going in the right direction. There is a need on the part of everybody to fully recognize that, but also to look to the long term. Where is this really going to finish off in the longer term, rather than thinking how I can manage the situation for the next six months.

The Latest from Iran (6 March): Justice

2130 GMT: Jailing the Workers. Radio Farda reports the arrests of a number of labour activists in northwestern Iran in recent days.

2120 GMT: Mystery of Day. Iranian Labor News Agency reports that Ayatollahs Safi Golpaygani and Javadi-Amoli have met recently.

Given that these meetings between senior clerics are rare, what were the issues that brought the two ayatollahs together? And was there any connection to the clerical disquiet over the Mohammad Amin Valian death sentence?

UPDATED Death, Confusion, and Clerics in Iran: The Case of Mohammad Amin Valian
NEW An Open Letter to the Editors of Iran’s “Principled” Newspapers
University Special: Iran & Conservapedia Ally Against Dangerous Professors
The Latest from Iran (5 March): Re-aligning

2045 GMT: Mohareb Trial for Dr Maleki? Iranian Labor News Agency reports that Dr Mohammad Maleki, the first post-1979 Chancellor of Tehran University is being charged with "mohareb" (war against God). Maleki's lawyer, Mohammad Sharifi said that his client, who is 76 and suffers from prostate cancer, is also charged with links to an outlawed organisation.



2040 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Banafsheh Darolshafaei, the sister of blogger Agh Bahman, has been released from detention.

1955 GMT: The Khomeini Challenge. Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, has again criticised Iranian authorities. He claimed some people refuse to see the truth, and even when they are told about it, try to “accuse you of an offence”
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1945 GMT: A Little Change? The Expediency Council voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to consider changes in Iran's electoral law, starting deliberations on qualification of voters, candidates, and the quality of election campaigns, according to Council member Mohammad Hashemi, the brother of Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Hashemi said a large number of council members insisted on the need to reform the election law, prevailing over others who believed that the issue should be delayed due to the country’s "special condition".

1930 GMT: Nothing to See Here, Move Along. "Conservatives" in the Parliament have decided not to press the Ahmadinejad Government on the issue of last June's attack on Tehran University dormitories.

The spokesman for the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, MP Kazem Jalali, said the committee found nothing new in an 18-minute graphic film --- an abridged version of which was broadcast by Persian and found nothing new --- of the attack.

Jalali claimed that the emergence of the film, which was shot by a member of the attacking force, was because Iran's "enemies" were "disappointed" by massive pro-regime rallies on 11 February, Iran's nuclear, aerospace, and scientific achievements, and the capture of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi.

1620 GMT: The Rigi-US-Capitalism-Zionism-"9-11 Was a Lie" Conspiracy. Western news media have picked up on President Ahmadinejad's statement, in a meeting with Ministry of Intelligence personnel, that the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 was a "complicated intelligence scenario and act": "The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan."

That, however, is only the top of Mahmoud's West-Did-It-All Iceberg. The full speech, reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency, announces that the arrest of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi exposes the core of the campaign by US and Israeli intelligence services against Iran. This in turn is part of a struggle of "good" human nature against the devils of capitalism, liberal democracy, and US global leadership.

1515 GMT: Women's Solidarity. Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has posted a message for International Women's Day on Monday.

Rahnavard noted that discrimination and oppression of Iranian women has increased and invited the Iranian people and ruling powers to return to compassionate and humane values honouring the dignity of Iranian women.

Rahnavard added that today the leading women of the Green Movement are unjustly in prison only because they demand justice in the political, social and cultural affairs of the country. She stressed that the Green Movement is the manifestation of the ideals of any noble and justice-seeking human and that it honours women because of these humane and moral principles.

1415 GMT: Mohareb Watch. We've published two updates on the case of Mohammad Amin Valian, reportedly sentenced to death this week.

1045 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Human Rights Watch has issued a statement calling on the Iranian judiciary to release six women, connected with Mothers of Mourning, arrested in January and early February 2010.

0945 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Reporters Sans Frontieres offers this summary of recent developments:

Journalist Abolfazl Abedini Nasr was arrested at his home in the city of Ahvaz on 2 March by several men in plain clothes. The men, who all wore hoods, broke down the door of his house and brutally beat him. He had been earlier arrested on 30 June 2009 and freed on 26 October after putting up bail of 300 million tomans (270,000 euros).

Several human rights activists were arrested on the same day, among them the blogger and activist Naghipour Nasour. The director of the website http://www.nasour.net/ was arrested at home in Qazvin by agents in plain-clothes. The reasons for his arrest and the place in which he is being detained are still unknown.

Reporters Without Borders learned on 3 March of the release of three journalists:

Noushin Jafari, journalist for Etemad, arrested on 3 February. Reza Norbakhsh, editor of the daily Farhikhteghan, arrested at his workplace in Tehran on 4 August, and who had been sentenced to six years in prison for “taking part in illegal demonstrations” and for articles posted on the news website Jomhoryat. Mortaza Kazemian, journalist for several reformist newspapers, arrested on 28 December 2009, was released after spending 34 days in solitary confinement in section 209 of Evin prison.

Journalist Said Laylaz had his sentence of nine years in jail reduced to three years by the Tehran appeal court. Kambiz Norrozi, head of the Association of Iranian Journalists, sentenced on 17 November to two years in jail and 76 strokes of the whip for making “publicity against the regime and disturbing public order”, had his sentence reduced on appeal to one year in prison.

0850 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. HRA News Agency publishes reports, which we have heard for days, of "the widespread arrests of human rights activists, particularly members and affiliates of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA)". Among those detained in "at least 27 incidents of arrests" is Milad Abrahamian.

0845 GMT: Iran Down Under. Our partner, Arshama3's Blog, offers an interesting account of a meeting of activists in New Zealand supporting democratic change in Iran.

0835 GMT: We begin this morning with two specials, one putting a wry smile on a regime threat, the other offering a response to a story which has no smile.

Our "black comedy" moment comes out of a speech by Iran's Minister of Science and Higher Education, Kamran Daneshjoo, in which he threatens to dismiss deviant professors. And our more serious reflections are in an open letter responding to the editors of Iran's "principlist" newspapers, who have criticised "Western" media for unfair coverage of Iranian events.