The Latest from Iran (25 May): Panahi Freed; Will There Be a 12 June Protest?

1645 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Claimed photographs of Jafar Panahi after his release from Evin Prison today:



1435 GMT: A Government of Fake Doctors? According to Tabnak, Kamran Daneshjoo, the Minister of Science and Higher Education, has said that 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi's claim of a Ph.D. is false.

Ironically, Daneshjoo has also been accused of presenting incorrect information that he has a doctorate from a British university.

NEW Iran Analysis: Towards the Final Battle? (Zahra)
Iran Document: The Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting (23 May)
Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad Heckled During Speech (24 Ma
The Latest from Iran (24 May): Rahnavard’s Statement, Ahmadinejad Heckled

1420 GMT: Panahi is Free. Tahareh Saeedi has told Agence France Presse that her husband, film director Jafar Panahi, is out of Evin Prison (see 1145 GMT): "Yes, he has been freed. He is fine. We are taking him to the doctor...[who will] prescribe a diet [for him]."


1335 GMT: Rahnavard on Resistance. Zahra Rahnavard, activist and wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has posted another statement on her Facebook site: "Women Will Resist Until Their Demands Are Fulfilled".

1145 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. After 24 hours of uncertainty (see 0735 GMT), film director Jafar Panahi has been released from Evin Prison on $200,000 bail.

0945 GMT: Government Not Worried at All. Really. Which is why Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedi has declared that  security forces will put down any protests on 12 June, the anniversary of the 2009 election: "Police will confront any illegal gatherings ... police are vigilant and in charge of public order and security."

0815 GMT: A Promise to March? Peyke Iran claims that youths leaving a football match in Tehran's Azadi Stadium shouted a message for President Ahmadinejad: "Football is a pretence/Khordaad will be an uproar".

0810 GMT: Assault. Rah-e-Sabz claims that reformist politician Ali Shakouri-Rad was attacked and insulted by Basiji students after his lecture at Elm-o-Sanat University in Tehran.

0800 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Daneshjoo News has posted a list of more than 80 imprisoned students.

Journalist and human rights activist Kaveh Ghasemi Kermanshahi, released on Sunday on bail after more than 100 days in detention, has spoken to Rooz Online about prison conditions and his hunger strike.

RAHANA reports that Kurdish artist Mokhtar Houshmand was arrested at his home on Sunday.

0745 GMT: The Revolutionary Guard and Oil. Peyke Iran claims that the sell-off of Iranian resources to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps continues. The IRGC has allegedly acquired several large projects in the South Pars oil and gas fields, pipelines, and the Ilam refinery.

Meanwhile Rahmani Fazli, chief of Iran's audit office, says that daily oil production must rise to 7 million barrels per day for the Government's 5th Plan to be feasible. Current production is 3,9 million barrel per day.

0735 GMT: Waiting For/Protesting About Panahi. Still no confirmation that film director Jafar Panahi has been freed from Evin Prison, despite the assurance of the Tehran Prosecutor General that the Iranian bureaucracy is processing the release on bail.

Meanwhile Juliette Binoche, winning Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Abbas Kiarostami's A Certified Copy, makes a simple statement:



0655 GMT: Culture Wars. In her analysis this morning, Ms Zahra notes sharply, "Even a “cultural” step such as using hijab as a new cause for oppression attests to the weakness of this regime."

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a complementary article, "Iran has launched a new drive to enforce the obligatory Islamic hijab. Hijab and women who are considered as being badly or improperly veiled and their alleged threat to society is again among the main themes of speeches and comments by Friday Prayer leaders and other state officials."

Most striking, however, is not the summary of the state's intimidation but the snapshot of reaction from Iranian women. While most in a recent report on Iranian television supported the hijab, the video also had this vignette:

At the beginning the reporter interviews two women considered "badly veiled" who seem to be opposed to the enforcement of the dress code. Such women are usually never given a platform on state television.

The first woman says she dresses the way she wants. "I think that's more important than what others might think about how I dress," she says.

The second woman, whose face is blurred like the first (apparently because they didn't want to be identified), makes similar comments. "I wear what I want and I don't listen to what others say," she says.

0645 GMT: Power and Resistance. Looking at but going beyond 22 Khordaad (12 June), we have a special analysis from Ms Zahra, assessing the political situation and asking if a "final battle" is looming for the Government.

Meanwhile, a single incident has sparked attention from the global media to internal developments in Iran: the video of workers heckling President Ahmadinejad, during his speech in Khorramshahr yesterday, has been picked up by most international broadcasters and websites.

0630 GMT: We open this morning with continued discussion of the significance and even the exact wording of the statement from the meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi on Sunday. My initial reading of their declaration, as translated and posted by the Facebook page supporting Mousavi, was that the two men had set down a limit: they were calling on the Green Movement to march if a permit was granted but, if it was denied they would not take to the streets but would seek to extend awareness and present demands in other ways.

An EA correspondent put the emphasis on those "other ways": "[Mousavi and Karroubi] will not stand idle if, as expected, the permission is not granted." Then a reader brought out this information:

A friend in Tehran...tells me that what the original article in Farsi, on Kaleme.com, says is that if the permit is not given, then instructions for the march will be disseminated via Twitter, Facebooks, SMS, etc., not that the rally/march/demo will not be held. On the contrary...both Mousavi and Karroubi state that the demonstration will be held regardless.

So more watching and listening for signals today. What may be significant, while we're looking for resolution, is that there is even a discussion of how far the opposition will go on 12 June.

That is not a discussion that you have if the Green Movement is dead or dying....

The Latest from Iran (20 May): Back to Business

1955 GMT: Former Vice President Abtahi Attacked? Reformist and Green sites are circulating the claim of Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Vice President during the Khatami Government, that he was attacked by plainclothes militia today as he was attending a memorial service in the south of Tehran.

Abtahi wrote on his Facebook page that a vehicle suddenly blocked the route of his car, and he was attacked by motorcyclists with knives, cables, and tear gas. He reported, “I can say that I left the area with the broken glass and tear gas in a miraculous way. It was a very violent attage. No one came to help. They were very confident and dreaded nothing”.

Abtahi, who was detained for months after the June election and reportedly forced to make a public "confession", has published photos of the incident.

Iran Document: Simin Behbahani’s Poem for the Executed
Iran Videos: Former Diplomat Heidari Reveals the Regime
Iran’s Uranium: Why Can’t the US Take Yes for an Answer? (Parsi)
Iran’s Uranium: Washington “Can’t Afford to Look Ridiculous”, Makes Ridiculous Move (Emery)
Iran’s Uranium: US Shows a Middle Finger to Tehran…and Turkey and Brazil and… (Gary Sick)
Iran Document: Iranian Labour Unions “This is Not 1979″
The Latest from Iran (19 May): Fallout

1610 GMT: Film Corner. While two directors (Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Nourizad) are on hunger strike in Evin Prison, the film-meets-reality story of actress Kiana Firouz --- which EA featured on Tuesday --- continues:

A young Iranian actress named Kiana Firouz will attend the London premiere tonight of a film in which she plays a lesbian seeking asylum in Britain because the Iranian authorities are pursuing her. The Home Office rejects her application and sends her back to the Islamic republic, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.


Unfortunately for Kiana Firouz the film is not make-believe. It is based on her life. The Home Office has denied her asylum and she now faces the prospect of deportation to Iran followed by flogging, execution or both.

1400 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Kalemeh claims that journalist and filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad has been severely beaten by guards at Evin Prison. According to the website, Nourizad was taken from his cell by five security personnel and has suffered concussion and vision problems. He has now started a complete hunger strike in protest.

Nourizad was detained for writing letters to the Supreme Leader and the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, criticizing their approach to the post-election confrontation of protesters. He has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison and 50 lashes.

1230 GMT: Larijani Takes a Side. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has declared that the response of the US and "Western" countries to the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement "proved that they are not sincere in the [discussion of] a fuel swap" over Iran's uranium stocks.

The significance of the statement is more internal than external: some Larijani allies, like Ahmad Tavakoli, had criticised the Ahmadinejad Government for agreeing to let Iran's uranium go outside the country. The Western response allows Larijani to focus on the perfidy of foreigners rather than engaging in that internal debate.

1220 GMT: The Executions. We've posted a poem by Simin Behbahani for the five Iranians executed on 9 May.

0915 GMT: Not Kahrizak. Alireza Avaee, the Chief Officer for the Ministry of Justice, has announced that a "new" and "good" prison has opened near the Kahrizak facility, infamous for post-election abuses and killing of detainees.

0855 GMT: The Detained US Trio. Press TV is carrying the "breaking news" that the mothers of three detained US nationals, arrested when they walked across the Iran-Iraq border last summer, have met their children in a hotel in north Tehran.

0845 GMT: Beating the Oil Squeeze? An article in The Wall Street Journal claims that tankers of both Royal Dutch Shell and France's Total, who claim to have restricted activities in Iran, are secretly shipping Iranian oil.

0835 GMT: Today's All is Well Statement. Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi puts out the assurance that security forces have managed to quell post-election disturbances: “Sedition has been brought to an end by suppression.”

Moslehi's accuracy in reporting may be judged by his subsequent statement that he had not been informed of the story that the head of Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s security had been arrested. And his political line may be ascertained by his insistence that an arrest warrant had been issued for Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Hashemi Rafsanjani, who will be detained upon entry into Iran.

0830 GMT: Clerical Warning. The "conservative" Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has put out another unsubtle message for the Government and possibly the clerical regime: "if we have no mercy for the people, God will inflict political, cultural and social evils upon us".

0715 GMT: Corruption Watch. First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, who has been under pressure over alleged fraud and mismanagement, has issued a threat: the use of Government funds by some newspapers and websites must be stopped.

0710 GMT: Uranium Deal --- The Discussion Within. Member of Parliament Elias Naderan, who has led the campaign against the Ahmadinejad Government over "corruption", has given his support to Monday's Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement. Naderan said, "A positive outcome would be paving the way for the cooperation of Iran and IAEA which makes the international situation a win-win scene for the Islamic Republic. It means that the deal both provides the necessary security and guarantees our rights in nuclear fuel swap, and provides the ground for international economic cooperation which has been blocked by the sanctions imposed."

0705 GMT: Sanctions. The New York Times is featuring briefings from American and European officials that a "passing" reference in the sanctions resolution, introduced to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, gives a legal basis in the future for choking off financial transactions between Iran and banking centers in Europe and elsewhere.

However, to get Russia and China to even accept the introduction of the resolution, the US had to give up any specific reference to Iran's central bank. Instead the American and European officials are saying that there will be a call for "extreme vigilance" in dealing with Bank Melli.

0700 GMT: A New Campaign and a Suggestion. Rah-e-Sabz reports that Green supporters have founded the "National Campaign of Mousavi's and Rahnavard's Children".

Ebrahim Nabavi, warning of rising pressure on the Green Movement, calls for the spread of information to the people, from outside and inside Iran and especially via the Internet.

0530 GMT: With just over three weeks before the anniversary of the 2009 Presidential election, a good time to let others fuss over sanctions and Tehran's uranium enrichment and to look inside Iran....

Reviewing the Election

Dissected News carried out a detailed dissection of the "official" Presidential results and of the political context before, around, and beyond them. It concludes:

Within even a few days of the election, the Green Movement had become bigger than the June election; it had become a referendum on the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic itself, and the place in the world occupied by the educated Iranian youth. It had become about human rights, freedom of speech, the rights of women, and establishing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for a 21st century Iran.

And no rigging of an election can stop that.

And For This Year....


United for Iran carries the news that almost 40 cities have already scheduled events to mark 12 June (22 Khordad) and its significance for rights and justice.

Political Prisoner Watch

Alireza Ezzabad, a student at Allameh Tabatabei University, has been sentenced to one year and 74 lashes for participation in demonstrations.

The Latest from Iran (19 May): Fallout

2035 GMT: The Uranium Sideshow. President Obama issued a boiler-plate, stay-the-course statement at a press conference alongside President Felipe Calderon of Mexico (which happens to have a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council):

"[We agree] on the need for Iran to uphold its international obligations or face increased sanctions and pressure, including UN sanctions. And I'm pleased that we've reached an agreement with our P5-plus-1 partners on a strong resolution that we now have shared with our Security Council partners.

Obama did not mention, for he was not asked, why he had encouraged Turkey to pursue talks with Iran leading to the uranium swap agreement in Tehran on Monday.

1845 GMT:Political Prisoner Watch. Housewife Masoumeh Yavari has been given a seven-year jail term at Rajai-Shahr Prison in Karaj. Yavari had been accused of "mohareb" (war against God), and the prosecutor had asked for the death penalty.

Zahra Jabbari, married and the mother of one child, has been sentenced to 4 years in prison. Jabbari was arrested during Qods Day protests on 18 September.

Student Activist Mohammad Yousef Rashidi has been handed a one-year jail term.

NEW Iran’s Uranium: Why Can’t the US Take Yes for an Answer? (Parsi)
NEW Iran’s Uranium: Washington “Can’t Afford to Look Ridiculous”, Makes Ridiculous Move (Emery)
NEW Iran’s Uranium: US Shows a Middle Finger to Tehran…and Turkey and Brazil and… (Gary Sick)
NEW Iran Document: Iranian Labour Unions “This is Not 1979″
Iran Analysis: Washington and the Tehran Nuclear Deal (Parsi)
Iran Alert: Filmmaker Firouz Faces Deportation From UK
Iran Analysis: The Contest at Home Over (and Beyond) the Uranium Agreement (Zahra)
Iran Analysis: Assessing the Tehran Nuclear Deal (Gary Sick)
The Latest from Iran (18 May): Getting Beyond the Uranium Agreement

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced student and women's rights activist Bahareh Hedayat to 9 ½ years in prison: six months for insulting the president, two years for insulting the Leader, five years for anti-state and anti-national security actions, and two years, previously suspended, for organizing a gathering in June 2006.


Milad Asadi, another senior member of the alumni organisation Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat, has been sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Bahareh Hedayat's statement for Iran's National Student Day in December 2009:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtUvxtH00Lc[/youtube]

1200 GMT: The Uranium Battle. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, has issued the highest-level reaction to the US pursuit of a sanctions resolution at the United Nations, "They won't prevail and by pursuing the passing of a new resolution they are discrediting themselves in public opinion."

0940 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Masoud Heidari, the former head of the Iranian Labour News Agency,was released from prison on Tuesday. On Sunday, Heidari had begun serving a three-month prison sentence.

0840 GMT: Alice-in-Wonderland Media Statement of Day. I guess the editors of The New York Times have not paid any attention to the events of the last 72 hours:

Brazil and Turkey should join the other major players and vote for the Security Council resolution. Even before that, they should go back to Tehran and press the mullahs to make a credible compromise and begin serious negotiations.

0830 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Tahereh Saeedi, the wife of detained film director Jafar Panahi, has told Rah-e-Sabz that her husband has been on hunger strike since Sunday.

Panahi has demanded access to his lawyer, visits by his family, and an unconditional release until a court hearing is held.

Six journalists and cultural activists --- Mahnaz Karimi, Hafez Sardarpour, Mehdi Zeynali, Nader Azizi, Mustafa Jamshidi, and Ramin Jabbari --- were arrested on Monday in Iranian Azerbaijan.

0820 GMT: Shutting Down the Inquiry. Parleman News writes that a reformist proposal to investigate Iran's prisons has been rejected by the Parliament. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani insists that the Majlis continues to observe prisons and has forwarded a report to the National Security Council.

0815 GMT: Claim of Day (No, It's Not about Uranium). Rah-e-Sabz claims new accusations of impropriety against Mohammad Javad Larijani, a high-ranking official in the judiciary. The website asserts that a deal has been struck: Ahmadinejad will not press a corruption case against Larijani, while the official and his powerful brothers will drop charges against First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

0810 GMT: And There's Always a "Terrorism" Story. Press TV features a summary of its interview with Abdolmalek Rigi, the captured leader of the Baluch insurgent group Jundullah: "While in Morocco, suspected Israeli or US agents had given him a list of people to assassinate in Tehran."

0755 GMT: Evaluating the Uranium/Sanctions Story. We have three analyses of the US response to the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement: Trita Parsi asks why Washington cannot take Yes for an answer, Chris Emery suggests it is because the US feels it "cannot afford to look  ridiculous", and Gary Sick thinks Washington just showed the middle finger not only to Tehran but to Turkey, Brazil, and a lot of other countries.

The Washington Post has posted a copy of the sanctions resolution introduced by the US into the United Nations Security Council.

0635 GMT: Nuclear Spin of Day. Peyke Iran tries an different angle to attack the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement. The website claims that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip is angry about his reception in Tehran: he and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were offered an Iranian breakfast of sangak bread, Bulgarian white cheese, walnuts, and inferior dried fruit.

0630 GMT: Mousavi's Bodyguard. More manoeuvring over Monday's arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi's head of security, Ahmad Yazdanfar. Khabar Online claims that Yazdanfar "withdrew" from his position, and the story that he was detained is a fiction of the "leaders of sedition" and foreign media.

Opposition outlets have responded that Yazdanfar is not "political" at all but a simple security officer. Through his arrest and the kidnapping, terror, and torture of others, the Government is slowly becoming a terrorist group.

0615 GMT: Iran's Debate on the Tehran Deal. The Government is still facing some opposition to the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement. From the conservative wing, Ahmad Tavakoli (and possibly, through indirect means, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani) made challenges on Tuesday. On the reformist side, Darius Ghanbari asked why Iran had waited seven months and expended so much capital in its foreign policy, only to move towards an agreement it could have had in October.

The response of pro-Government politicians is that this is only a "declaration", not a "treaty", so Tehran has not entered any binding commitments. Or, as Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, "If the Vienna Group (US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China) accepts Iran’s terms and conditions...both parties commit themselves to the implementation” of the deal."

(Which means that Washington's response --- throwing out any consideration of the agreement in favour of a sanctions-first approach --- has sheltered the Ahmadinejad Government against its internal opponents.)

0530 GMT: For many observers, the nuclear sideshow will remain the main event today. The Obama Administration pretty much guaranteed that when, despite the Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement on a procedure for a uranium enrichment deal (and despite the small fact that President Obama appears to have encouraged the Turks to pursue the deal --- more on that later), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton loudly and not very politely announced that the US was proceeding with a sanctions resolution in the United Nations.

The resolution was submitted in the late afternoon, so now we will be treated to a lot of posturing on all sides, possibly obscuring this bottom-line assessment, courtesy of the National Iranian American Council: "This is an unbelievably stupid move on the part of the Obama administration. Not only are we rejecting our own terms of the agreement, but we are doing so in as tactless and diplomatically insulting way possible."

Meanwhile, on the centre stage of Iranian politics....

Containing Mousavi

Muhammad Sahimi offers a concise summary of the latest steps by the Government to intimidate Mir Hossein Mousavi ahead of the election anniversary on 12 June, including the arrest of Mousavi's top bodyguard.

The Labour Front

We have posted, in a separate entry, the statement of the Network of Iranian Labor Unions setting out its view of opposition to the Government, "This is Not 1979".

Iran Labor Report posts an overview of recent workers' protests.

The Latest from Iran (18 May): Getting Beyond the Uranium Agreement

2000 GMT: Bring the Kids Home. More than 200 children of Iranian diplomats have returned home to pursue education at local universities, Ministry of Science official Hassan Moslehi announced on Tuesday.

Moslehi said that all Iranian diplomats should transfer their children's education to Iran once they have fulfilled their mission abroad.

Last week member of Parliament Mohammad Shahryari had complained that around 400 children of senior Iranian officials were studying at universities in Britain.

NEW Iran Analysis: Washington and the Tehran Nuclear Deal (Parsi)
NEW Iran Alert: Filmmaker Firouz Faces Deportation From UK
NEW Iran Analysis: The Contest at Home Over (and Beyond) the Uranium Agreement (Zahra)
NEW Iran Analysis: Assessing the Tehran Nuclear Deal (Gary Sick)
Iran Document: Text of Iran-Brazil-Turkey Agreement on Uranium Enrichment
Iran Document: Mehdi Karroubi “The Islamic Republic Depends Upon the People”
Iran Document: The Prosecutor on the Executions, “Leaders of Sedition” (15 May)
Iran Urgent: The Deal on Uranium Enrichment
The Latest from Iran (17 May): Let’s Make a Deal (But Not with You, Mousavi)

1905 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Amir Khosro Dalirsani of the National Religious Front has been sentenced to four years in prison.


1855 GMT: Hmm, You Might Want to Think About This One. Saber Feizi, the head of the Telecommunications Company of Iran, has said, “The reason for the low internet speed in the country is that users mainly consult websites outside the country for obtaining information."

Launching 115 telecommunications projects in the holy city of Qom on Tuesday, Feizi said that issues with infrastructure were not to blame for slow internet access. He admitted that “lack of content” on Iranian pages pushed users to visit foreign websites.

1845 GMT: A Far-from-Academic Protest. Daneshjoo News claims that students at Khaje Nasir University of Technology in Tehran staged a spontaneous protest against the presence of the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

Green Movement supporters distributed leaflets and reportedly spilled paint over the car of the IRGC commander. The protest occurred despite the presence of armed security and military forces and at least four cameramen from university security.

1335 GMT: Defending His Judiciary. The head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, under pressure on several fronts, has issued a "hold the line" (and don't blame me) statement.

To the 175 members of Parliament who submitted a public letter calling for prosecution of opposition figures like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, Larijani said the judiciary “is always in step with the greater policies of the Islamic Republic” and has not delayed in its confrontiation of “seditious elements”: “We are very good at our job and are not prone to procrastination as these gentlemen would like to believe. We have no fear of confronting the heads of sedition.”

As for claims that the judiciary has not pursued corruption allegations against public officials, including First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Larijani claimed, “The Supreme Leader has repeatedly stressed on direct confrontation of corruption cases provided that they do not weaken the system.”

1145 GMT: We've added another analysis on the Iran-Brazil-Turkey uranium deal: Trita Parsi assesses its signficance and Washington's possible reaction.

1030 GMT: Cracking Down on Mousavi. More on the arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi's lead bodyguard, Ahmad Yazdanfar (see final updates yesterday)....

There is still no official reason for the detention of Yazdanfar, who has accompanied Mousavi for the past seven years. Following the arrest, Mousavi has asked his office staff not to appear at work until further notice.

0739 GMT: Rights and Repression. Rooz Online features a lengthy interview with Kurdish activist Mahmud Saeedzadeh, "The Judiciary is a Repressive Tool".

0735 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. RAHANA has published a list --- still incomplete --- of 472 political prisoners, their prisons, and their professions in both Persian and English.

0725 GMT: Subsidy Front. Subsidies: Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam, a vocal Parliamentary critic of the Government on economic issues, has charged that the delay in implementation of subsidy cuts to September means the Government is obtaining $20 million of revenue illegally.

0720 GMT: Sacrificing Iran. An interesting statement from Dr Alireza Marandi, former Minister of Health and prominent medical professor: he says that the "development of the country has been sacrificed for politics".

Marandi is the father of the academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a high-profile post-election defender of Iran's Government.

0650 GMT: Domestic Politics and the Uranium Agreement. EA's newest correspondent, Ms Zahra, offers a sharp analysis of the internal manoeuvres over yesterday's nuclear news, noting the possibilities and pitfalls for both President Ahmadinejad and the opposition.

What is clear this morning is that Ahmadinejad's "opposition" is not limited to the Green Movement and reformists. The most striking comment in Rah-e-Sabz's overview of the deal and reactions is that of "conservative" member of Parliament Ahmad Tavakoli, who complains that "Iran has lost its most important ace" in high-stakes international card games. Tavakoli added to Fars News that the Tehran agreement is not an "treaty" but an "obligation" upon Iran.

There's more: Tavakoli is a firm ally of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani. And Khabar Online, also linked to Larijani, features Tavakoli's remarks that "Ahmadinejad must come to the Majlis [Parliament] and explain this strange statement".

Jomhouri Eslami piles on, asserting that the treaty is "a complete drawback".

0600 GMT: Monday's Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement on procedure over uranium enrichment resonates through politics and the media this morning. Our key question remains unanswered: did the US quietly support the Brazilian-Turkish initiative or was it taken by surprise?

So far Washington has limited itself to a "hold the line" statement, which sets out a further lines for Tehran to cross: let's see the agreement when it has been presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency and let's see Tehran pull back from its unilateral attempt at 20-percent enriched uranium. (The latter, I think, is a red herring; more important will be the response to the former.)

We've posted an analysis by top US-based analyst Gary Sick, and the newest EA correspondent will be offering thoughts later this morning.

As always, however, we will be ensuring that the nuclear news does not wipe Iran's internal situation from sight. An agreement on uranium enrichment does not stop the advance towards 12 June, the anniversary of the election, or the Government's arrests and intimidations. In what may be a most pointed signal, the head of Mir Hossein Mousavi's security detail was arrested yesterday.

And we have a special post this morning on Iranian filmmaker  and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights activist Kiana Firouz, who faces deportation from Britain.

The Latest from Iran (3 May): Mahmoud's Road Show

1915 GMT: Start with a Sideshow, End with a Sideshow. Not our top priority at EA, but as most of the media will be  focused on Tuesday on the Ahmadinejad presentation, you can check coverage against the published text. And here's the video of the speech [now posted as a separate entry, together with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presentation].

Iran Analysis: The Scattering of Protest is Still Protest
Iran Eyewitness: “The Movement Is Still Strong and Vibrant”
UPDATED Iran Video and Translation: The Mousavi Statement for May Day/Teachers Day (29 April)
The Latest from Iran (2 May): Persistence

1830 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Navid Khanjani, a founder of the Population of Combat Against Educational Discrimination (PCED) and a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), has been released on bail after two months in detention.


1740 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Poorya Ghorbani, detained on Ashura (27 December), has been sentenced to six years in prison: four years for acting against national security, one year for propagating against the regime, and one year for insulting the Supreme Leader.

1700 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Gambit. The President's strategy at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation conference at the United Nations was simply, "Go Big".

The speech was dressed up as a declaration of 11 measures to lead to a nuclear-free world, but it effectively tried to block Western pressure on Iran's nuclear programme by proposing an entirely new system for international supervision. There would be a review of the Non-Profileration Treaty, a new independent agency to interpret the NPT, and states using or threatening to use nuclear weapons (effectively, the US) being expelled from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear states would promise not to pursue research and development of new weapons, while non-nuclear states would be given security guarantees.

This large proposal can be reduced to a dual gambit. On the international front, it is meant to check the pressure on Iran's nuclear programme from the US and other states. And on the domestic front, well, it's meant to take attention away from the domestic front.

1620 GMT: Meanwhile in Iran. Mir Hossein Mousavi met today with Iranian Azeri activists to discuss how to cope with the regime's restrictions on media, finding new ways to remain connected and to promote further interaction between reformist parties and the people.

Mousavi said, “We are moving within a moral framework, and for this reason during any event, the Green Movement has recognised the good and the bad for what they were. For this reason, the Green Movement will acknowledge any positive move on the part of certain segmants of the state which have until now stood against the vote and opinion of the people.”

Mousavi added that, while Iranian authorities have become captives of their own claims about the alleged links between the post-election protesters and foreign powers, the opposition will win out:

This approach [by the regime] may unite them for the time being, but it cannot prevent the truth from showing itself ... One cannot stop spring from arriving. Spring will come and greenness will prevail everywhere. This movement should not only be seen in the context of the street protests. The roots of this movement are undeniable. This movement eliminates ignorance. When people come together on different occasions, this is the greatest accomplishment [for the movement] and what is important is that this idea has been born.

In the specific context of Iranian Azeris and ethnic minorities, Mousavi maintained that the authorities' attitude and policies towards cultural diversity had not been appropriate. He made clear that he was against any form of separatism and stated that, on a national level, there was no place for those with separatist agendas.

1615 GMT: Al Jazeera is now reporting that the French delegation also left the conference hall.

1610 GMT: Walking Out on Ahmadinejad. Nothing surprising in the President's speech at the UN conference on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: it's a harsh denunciation of the US and Israel as nuclear powers with double standards discriminating against non-nuclear states and threatening the world.

The twist in the show's script, however, is that the British and US delegations (and possibly others unseen by Al Jazeera's cameras) have just walked out.

1420 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Maziar Khosravi, the editor of the Hammihan website, has been arrested and taken to Evin Prison. Khazravi had recently written an article about the attacks on Tehran University's dormitories days after the Presidential election.

1415 GMT: Helping Hands. From Press TV's website:

The National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) has offered to assist the US in efforts to prevent an ecological disaster from the spreading oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico....NIDC managing director Heidar Bahmani announced the firm's readiness to use its decades-long expertise to fight the oil slick, the company's public relations office told Press TV. "Our oil industry experts in the field of drilling can contain the rig leakage in the Gulf of Mexico and prevent an ecological disaster in that part of the world," Bahmani said.

1410 GMT: The Stabbing of the Minister. Amir Kabir University students are staging a sit-in protest over this morning's knife attack on professor and former Minister Ahmad Motamedi (see 1100 GMT).

1400 GMT: Top May Day Quote. Leaving the memorial service for the father of the Minister of Culture, Mohammad Hosseini, Mehdi Karroubi was heckled by a group of men he believed were plainclothes security officers. Karroubi approached the group and pondered why they might be present at a May Day demonstration: "It looks like your unemployment problem has been solved!"

1100 GMT: Rah-e-Sabz reports that Ahmad Motamedi, a minister in the Khatami Government, was stabbed in his office at Amir Kabir University this morning and is now hospitalized.

1055 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Ehsan Mehrabi has been released on bail.

Students at Allameh Tabatabei University have remembered their imprisoned professor Arab Mazar by sticking flowers to the door of his office and leaving messages of support.

1050 GMT: Detaining Teachers. Human Rights Activists News Agency has confirmed the names of 11 teachers arrested yesterday on National Teachers Day.

1035 GMT: Unity Does Not Mean Repression. Massoud Pezeshkian, Minister of Health from 2001 to 2005, has declared that "unity" is not possible by arresting, beating and issuing files, but requires cooperation and a desire not to create division in society.

1025 GMT: Clerical Challenge. Ayatollah Mousavi Tabrizi has renewed his criticism of the Government, saying that the judiciary does not follow justice in acting against law-breakers: those are poor or who do not have links to power or influence have no guarantees that they will be treated justly. Mousavi Tabrizi added that the Parliament does have not power to make laws, and those that they do pass are not implemented due to ineptitude.

1000 GMT: The Naderan Allegations. Yesterday we reported on the sweeping allegations of member of Parliament Elyas Naderan, linking charges of corruption to mismanagement and manipulation of power by the Ahmadinejad Government.

Khabar Online (gentle reminder: linked to Ali Larijani) has driven home the point with a lengthy English translation of Naderan's assertions:

Based on the experiences of the ninth government and his chanted slogans [2005-2009] on fighting with corrupt economy figures, Mr. Ahmadinejad was expected to revise the appointment of some government managers. He was supposed to make up for the shortcomings of the ninth administration and remove the concerns of his defenders including members of Hezbollah (Party of God) but actually the opposite happened....

On the one hand Mr. Ahmadinejad removed a number of ministers who were mostly dedicated to serve the Islamic Republic including Lankarani, Mohseni Ejei, Saffar Harandi, Fattah, and Jahromi [former Health, Interior, Culture and Islamic Guidance, Energy, and Labor and Social Affairs Ministers] and made new appointments of some whose unpleasant and negative characters are known to the majority of people and elites.

Naderan then focused on changes Iran's oil industry:

A few days ago, the Minister of Oil Mas'oud Mir Kazemi assigned Mr. Qal'eh Bani as the new managing director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC). Earlier when Mr. Qal'eh Bani was to be appointed as the head of Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO), his suspicious financial activities was revealed through some documents published by Alef website [which belongs to the Principlist MP and Government critic Ahmad Tavakoli].

Later Qal'eh Bani filed a lawsuit against the website but to no avail, since the managing editor of Alef was acquitted of charges. At the time I think that the Minister of industry, Ali Akbar Mehrabian had made such a decision himself [to bring the lawsuit] to perpetuate his position, but now it's clear that the decisions are made at a higher rank. We must bear in mind that the financial authority of the NIORDC managing director is much more than any other in both governmental and nongovernmental organizations of the country.

Naderan concluded, "Such removals and assignments enhance the suspicion that these are intended to put an impact on the forthcoming elections," arguing that Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai (who was blocked by Parliament from serving as 1st Vice President) has intervened in the next elections for city and village councils.

0755 GMT: As for Rafsanjani.... More on Hashemi Rafsanjani's statement yesterday to academics who are members of Parliament. The former President again played his balancing act, saying "illegal actions from each group cause serious public misbelief".

0750 GMT: Larijani Watch. Looks like Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani is bolstering his political position through another call of allegiance to the Supreme Leader. In an article in Khabar Online, he has said that "hardliners must unite", be pious, and accept velayat-e-faqih (ultimate clerical authority). ht

0615 GMT: Remembering the Teachers. Sunday's National Teachers Day passed with little fanfare, despite some talk about protest and hunger strikes amidst detentions and firings that have taken teachers out of the classroom. Photos from Shiraz are among the few markers we have noted of the day:



0605 GMT: Corruption Watch. The sky over alleged mismanagement and fraud involving members of the Ahmadinejad Government is getting darker.

Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, complained to his officials:

In our fight against economic corruption, there are rumours of opposition from certain individuals which unfortunately have also gotten into the media with amateur coverage....The judiciary will never allow people to take possession of public property and the treasury for themselves and their children through cheating and falsifying documents.

It remains to be seen whehter Larijani's defensive remarks --- yes, we really are going to pursue the corruption allegations, even if high-ranking officials are involved --- are more than public protest.

Meanwhile, Elyas Naderan, the member of Parliament who has accused 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi of running a corruption ring, told a group of university students, “In government meetings it has been announced that whoever speaks out against Mr. Rahimi will be dealt with.” He repeated that, as Rahimi is a liar and his credentials are fabricated, the Vice President is unfit for his position in the government.

0555 GMT: For most media, inside and outside Iran, today will almost certainly be taken up by the sideshow of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trip to New York. The Iranian President, at relatively short notice, asked to attend the United Nations conference reviewing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the US Government, after some speculation that it might balk at the request, granted a visa. So Ahmadinejad took off from Tehran yesterday, with the conference and Mahmoud's moment in the cameras taking place today.

There is a chance that, behind the scenes, there may be some meaningful manoeuvring over the "third-party enrichment" proposal for Iran's uranium stock, given the presence at an international gathering of brokers (Turkey, Brazil), the "5+1" powers taking up the issue (Britain, France, China, Russia, Germany, and, most significantly, the US), and Iranian officials.

Publicly, however, the headline is Diversion. Just as Ahmadinejad used a trip to New York last autumn, with the guaranteed pantomime coverage of "Western" vilification and Iranian state media's glorification, so we are likely to get an outcome bigging up the President's international presence and belittling (if noting at all) the internal dynamics in Iran.