The Latest from Iran (8 May): Back to the Politics

2045 GMT: One to Watch. Khabar Online reports that Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini and a cleric with uneasy relations with the current Government, will speak before Tehran Friday Prayers this week.

2025 GMT: More Rahim-Mashai. President Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, having declared that his boss is "the teacher of all Presidents of the world", is now insisting that he has no additional posts. Unfortunately for him, Khabar Online accompanies the denial with the list of 16 offices that Rahim-Mashai heads.

2020 GMT: Setting Limits? Mohammad Javad Larijani, a high-level official in Iran's judiciary, has responded to talk of a prolongation of the Ahmadinejad presidency: "It is against the nezam , and I strongly object."

NEW Iran: The Green Movement and “Moral Capital” (Jahanbegloo)
Iran: Ahmadinejad’s Chief Aide “Not Too Many People in the Prisons”
The Latest from Iran (7 May): The Original Post-Election Muddle

2010 GMT: Maintaining Hope. Grand Ayatollah Sane'i, meeting with academics, said: “One should not lose hope; because the Almighty’s will is for eliminating oppression. The day will come that those standing against people’s rights and all those hurt people will be fed up with their own actions, and I am hopeful that their moral and spiritual conscience will wake up and they will stop these actions. It is your responsibility to spread awareness among people and expand this awareness so that the deceivers and violators of people’s rights realize that people are aware of their deceptions and also are opposed to their deceptions, but you should spread awareness based on Islamic and religious teachings.”


1650 GMT: Not-Sycophantic-At All Remark of the Day. The President's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai commenting on his boss: "He is a teacher to the Presidents of the world".

1610 GMT: The Oil Ultimatum. Minister of Oil Masoud Mirkazemi has repeated the threat that Iran will expel foreign firms for delaying development of the South Pars gas field, replacing them with domestic companies: "We have recently told some foreign firms which have delayed some phases for several years that we would not negotiate with them and domestic firms will be given these projects to implement."

Mirkazemi did not name any foreign company, but South Pars officials have recently insisted that Royal Dutch Shell and the Spanish company Repsol commit by the end of May to development of sections of the field. Shell, citing the prospect of Western sanctions, has suspended any operations in South Pars.

1555 GMT: Trouble for the Rafsanjani Family? An appeals court has upheld the prison sentence of Hamzeh Karami, accused of propaganda and embezzlement.

The decision prompts speculation that pressure, including the prospect of criminal prosecution, will increase upon Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. In the mass Tehran trial last August, Karami's "confession" accused Hashemi of misusing funds to carry out inappropriate activity during the Presidential campaign.

1545 GMT: Karroubi Watch. In a discussion on another website, an EA reader frets that we are "especially enthralled with [Mehdi] Karroubi, who is treated with saint like reverence".

Heaven forbid that we should appear biased, so here's Karroubi's latest acts of deviousness, duplicity, and devilishness.

The cleric, visiting the family of Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, the detained journalist and senior adviser of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has criticised Iran's authorities for continued arrests of dissidents and urged them to show greater tolerance. He said, “The Revolution and the Islamic Republic is not what these gentlemen are carrying out and it is our duty to return the Islamic Republic to its right path.”

Karroubi also carried out the despicable act of visiting Ahmad Motamedi, the Minister of Communications in the Khatami Government, in hospital. Motamedi was stabbed early this week in his office at Amir Kabir University.

Motamedi's wife, Fatemeh Azhdari, threatened to reveal “the truth” if "wrongful" reports regarding the attack on his husband’s life continue. Se claimed that authorities are trying to reduce the “assassination attempt” against her husband to a crime with “personal motivations”.

1400 GMT: War on Culture (cont.). It's not just the regime favourite Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami getting tough on cultural infiltration (see 0730 GMT). Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi has urged the formation of a Ministry of Virtue: "A ministry to call upon virtue and ban vice must be formed to deal with moral issues in schools, universities and media."

Makarem-Shirazi said the root cause of society's ills was a lack of supervision on moral issues: "When importance is not attached to moral issues, political and economical problems arise and decadence spreads in the form of lack of hejab and an increase in drug abuse."

1355 GMT: Getting the News. EA colleagues have pointed out the portal for Iran news (in case EA is on a break, of course), Kodoom.

1150 GMT: Nuclear Chatter. Iranian officials continue to put out signals that Turkey and/or Brazil could broker a deal on uranium enrichment. Following Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's visit to Ankara, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, "New formulas have been raised about the exchange of fuel....I think we can arrive at practical agreements on these formulas."

1145 GMT: And the Imprisoned Students. Radio Zamaneh follows up on the published list of 32 detained students, which we noted earlier this week. According to the site, 24 of the detained students have been handed a total of 71 years in prison, one has been sentenced to execution, and the situation of the rest is unknown.

Mahmoud Molabashi, the Deputy Minister of Science, told reporters last week that only a “very limited number of students” are currently in prison.

1130 GMT: The Detained Filmmakers. A Street Journalist features Amnesty International's call for the release of the detained film directors Mohammad Ali Shirzadi and Jafar Panahi.

1000 GMT: Stirring Discontent. Parleman News reports that Hojatoleslam Ravanbakhsh, a supporter of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, "insulted" Grand Ayatollah Yusuf Sane'i during a talk at Kerman University, angering professors and students.

0940 GMT: More Pressure. Seyed Reza Akrami of the Combatant Clergy Association has called for all budgets of the Iranian system (nezam) to be transparent and published.

0803 GMT: Reformist Economics. Reviewing the approach to privatisation of the Iranian economy, member of Parliament Mostafa Kavakebian declared that the Government has "fattened itself" rather than becoming lean. Mohammad Reza Khabbaz said that the regime's slogan of "shares of justice" (equal distribution) should be "shares of injustice".

0800 GMT: Morning Analysis. We've posted a special feature with the views of Professor Ramin Jahanbegloo on the Green Movement and "moral capital".

0730 GMT: A quiet Friday weekend in Iran, after both the Ahmadinejad show in New York and the internal politics earlier in the week....

Ahmad Khatami Fights Culture

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami did liven up the day a bit with his Tehran Friday Prayer. We noted yesterday his religious lesson of "a punch in the mouth" for other countries who troubled Iran. Rah-e-Sabz has a different snapshot, with Khatami claiming that the regime has defeated the opposition but warning of "the effects of [an] invasion in the areas of film, theater, sports, and some media".

The website also summarises other Friday Prayers throughout Iran.

International Front: Opening the Door to the US?

An interesting analysis in Rah-e-Sabz, which suggests that the Ahmadinejad trip to New York was designed to maintain the possibility of discussions with the US Government over the nuclear issue. The website concludes, however, that the final decision on the strategy is up to the Supreme Leader.

Of course, Rah-e-Sabz is an opposition website, but this reading matches up with our interpretation from last autumn, when Ahmadinejad was backing the effort for a deal on "third party enrichment" of uranium. That effort stalled in late October, in part because of internal divisions in Iran, and our analysis was that Ayatollah Khamenei had balked at an agreement.

Getting It Wrong on the Economy

Aftab News reports that the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, made "confused statements" at a national workers' meeting in Mashhad. Sheikholeslami alllegedly claimed that unemployment was due to the vagaries of science and did not bother to consider the workers' problems.

Iran: The Green Movement and "Moral Capital" (Jahanbegloo)

Professor Ramin Jahanbegloo, based in Canada, talks with Radio Farda:

Mr. Jahanbegloo, during the past year, Iran's name has been associated with a new term: the "Green Movement." I know that you have been working on the Iranian movement for the past couple of months. Are there any particular characteristics that you find significant in this movement?

Well, I think what happened in Iran during the past months has introduced two principal characteristic in terms of the movement's image, both for the Iranians and worldwide. One is the aspect of "truth seeking" or, in other words, the notion of reevaluating the truth, which is very important. The other aspect is avoiding violence.

The reason that I brought up the notion of truth seeking is that, in my opinion, the main players of Iran's civil society—which would be students' movement, women's movement, labor activists, rights activists and so on—have set their objectives in combating the immoral policies of falsehood. And this is being done in an approach which deploys a nonviolent method. The aspect of combating falsehood and lie is very interesting, and in my opinion it marks the birth of a new civil maturity in Iran. This is what I call "moral capital." Up to this moment we have been talking about the social and political capitals. But now what I see in Iran is a moral value which eventually, with the current nonviolent approach, would be able to build the future democracy of the country.

So do you think that the Green Movement has the elements of a stable and long-lasting movement?



I do believe this is a long-lasting movement. Why? Because the demands it is seeking are long-lasting demands. During the past 100 years, since [Iran's] constitutional revolution at the beginning of the century, political figures and parties have always looked at violence as a vertical phenomenon, meaning that it is applied from the upper layers of power hierarchy to the base of the society—which is people. Therefore they have always tried to challenge the violence, through toppling the regime or the core of power through what we might call "retribution in kind." Whereas the current civil movement in Iran, which of course is still being developed, casts doubt over violent methods of power transition and sticks to the civil rights movement. This approach has called into question the legitimacy of the very essence of violence. From this perspective I think that the recent movement of Iran has created a sort of moral and civil code which is unprecedented for the country.

Mr. Jahanbegloo, you said you believe that the Iranian people have achieved a "civil maturity." This was actually one of the issues that I wanted to discuss as well. Can we consider the recent movement as a new stage of social evolution, or is it just a short-term reaction to the actions of the government?

See, reactions have always been there. Through Iran's history of both pre-revolution [1979] and post-revolution eras, we have observed a wide range of reactions to the repressive policies of governments. But this time there is another story; it is not just the matter of reacting. This time, you can see a sense of sympathy for moralities, a sense of general solidarity, and new demands which are aroused not only about the current policies, but the very ethics of the politics as well. The range of protests includes denouncing the issue of falsehood and the whole "technology of power." You can trace them in the nature of the slogans which are being chanted. Apart from the moral capital that I mentioned previously, the other serious matter which is being pursued is a sense of responsibility about the future of Iran. And the important point is that the civil society is not expressing these demands in an ideological fashion; they are pursuing the goals in the shape of a civil movement, and through civil protest methods. I believe that it is a very serious movement, and a promising one, too.

Now let's focus a little more on the mechanism of this movement. Many people, including yourself, have considered the Green Movement as a nonviolent movement. According to your studies and researches, what similarities are there between Iran's events and what happened in Eastern Europe, or India for instance?

In my opinion there are a lot of similarities. The thing is that all the nonviolent protests across the world benefit from an old tradition which is rooted similarly in different cultures and religions throughout history. We can even see a lot of similarities between the civil rights movement in the U.S. during the 60s or the Gandhist movement of India with the current movement of the Iranian people. There are similarities in the mechanism of protesting, the involvement of national cultural aspects, and the restraint they show in the face of violence. You can even find a lot of similarities between Iran's movement and the movement of Philippines, which apparently are from very diverse cultural backgrounds. The point is that it's a global essence. When in a society the political power utilizes pressure and force in order to curb people's rights, the citizens who do not possess an equal power, choose to react in a totally different manner, which is protesting in masses and denouncing the violence.

That leads me to the next question; there have been different governmental reactions to different nonviolent movements around the world. The response of the Islamic Republic to Iran's protests might be among the harshest that we have seen so far. Now, why has this violence not led to radicalization of the Green Movement?

Because in my opinion Iran is going through a "post ideological" period, a period in which many of the past ideological leaders and parties have now been denounced by the people for the violence that they have applied. Now it's the parties and groups which are following people. They cannot tell people to accept or follow their ideologies like before. The heroes of today's Iran are civilians and victims like Neda Agha Soltan, not the political elite. This is a new social and political development. The moral legitimacy that these heroes have established in the country is a kind of moral capital that Iran's civil movement had not experienced before.

I also wanted to ask your opinion about the issue of leadership in this movement. So far it seems that Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been acting more like opposition candidates than leaders of a movement. For instance, most of the gatherings and demonstrations have been organized by people communicating through social media and not by any invitation from the opposition. Now, do you think this kind of people's collective leadership is a positive point, or would it be better if the movement had a classic leadership?

I think the aspect of being self-esteemed should be considered as an advantage for the movement at this point. Of course maybe if the movement had the capacity of ascending a leader such as Mandela or Gandhi, it could be an important inspiration for its followers. But the point is that this movement is a post-charismatic movement, which is something quite new for Iran. Almost all of the movements during the history of the country have been dependant on a charismatic character, but this time what you see as the symbols of the movement are the members if it—ordinary members who are young, innocent and nonviolent. kids like Mohsen Roohol Amini or Neda Agha Soltan, who have been victims of brutality, while all they wanted was truthfulness and respecting the ethics of democracy. For instance, it was very interesting to hear the remarks of that young boy who said he was raped in the prison [by security guards, after he was arrested during the protests]. He said, although, after divulging what happened, he would be ashamed of going back to his family, he still wants everyone to know what he went through in Kahrizak [detention center in Tehran]. This notion of seeking the truth among young protesters is very much interesting for me. Their passion for fighting the falsehood is so intense that they are willing to break any taboo over it. You see, the issue for them is not just a shift of power anymore; it is condemnation of the violence which has gotten solidified in the society. They want to break out of the vicious circle of violence. I think if we closely study such details, we would reach the assumption that we are walking towards a new phase of the civil society.

And do you believe this new path would lead to any result in future?

Yes, I think that it would succeed if it turns into a sort of social and political behavior, if the civil values take stronger roots in the society, and if the movement keeps human rights as its priority. Such capabilities can sustain the existence of the movement and step-by-step broaden the demands. Of course the most vital condition is that it would not turn into an ideological path, and stay nonviolent.