The Latest from Iran (5 May): "Protest is Not Provocation"

2025 GMT: Locked in Iran. Activists are reporting that Mohammad Sadeghi, a member of the central branch of the alumni association Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat, has been banned from leaving the country.

2015 GMT: Labour Watch. Iran Labor Report offers a full summary of the recent pressure upon the Free Assembly of Iranian Workers with threat, arrests, and interrogations by Iranian security forces.

2010 GMT: Humour Failure. Update on the Bin Laden In Tehran, No, He's in Washington, DC story: looks like the US State Department doesn't realise that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was having a bit of a joke with his American interviewer.

NEW Iran Follow-Up: Ahmadinejad “Bin Laden Lives in Washington DC!”
NEW A Female Detainee in Iran: “Stripped by the Basiji”
Iran Video and Transcript: Ahmadinejad on Charlie Rose (3 May)
Iran Document: Mehdi Karroubi “The Movement Has Spread Everywhere”
Iran: Bin Laden Lives in Tehran Shocker!
The Latest from Iran (4 May): Beyond the “Main Event”

1930 GMT: Maryam Abbasinejad, the former secretary of the reformist Islamic Association at Tehran University, was arrested by security forces on 1 May. The detention followed protests by students against President Ahmadinejad’s speech on campus.


One week after their arrests, there is still no information on the condition of Alireza Hashemi, the secretary general of the Iranian Teachers Organization, Ali Akbar Baghbani, the secretary general of the Teachers Trade Union, and Mohamoud Beheshti Langarudi, the spokesman of the Teachers Trade Union.

1400 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Vahid Talai, a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s legal team, has been arrested.

Ali Tajernia, a former member of Parliament and leading member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been imprisoned again. Tajernia was arrested shortly after the June 2009 election and subsequently sentenced to six years in prison plus 70 lashes . The sentence was reduced to a year after appeal.

1225 GMT: Media Moment of the Day. Did you think that news couldn't get more absurd after Fox News's pseudo-story "Bin Laden in Tehran", which we took apart yesterday?

Well, you hadn't counted on a prominent American anchorman taking the story so seriously that he would try and spring it on President Ahmadinejad. We've got the lurid tale, complete with Ahmadinejad's response, in a separate entry.

0825 GMT: Oil and the Revolutionary Guard. Thomas Erdbrink writes in The Washington Post:

Taking advantage of the very sanctions directed against it, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is assuming a leading role in developing the country's lucrative petroleum sector, Western oil executives and Iranian analysts say.

The Guard's engineering companies, replacing European oil firms that have largely abandoned Iran, have been rewarded with huge no-bid contracts.

0805 GMT: A Deal on Uranium? We wrote on Monday about President Ahmadinejad's New York adventure:

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.

Well, well. Fars News is now reporting that, in a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced "agreement in principle" to Brazil mediating a deal on uranium enrichment.

But, and we ask the question for the 484th time, can the exchange of Tehran's current uranium stock for 20%-enriched fuel take place outside Iran?

0755 GMT: Curbing the Lawyers? Iranian lawyers have warned that new regulations threaten the independence of the Bar Association.

0745 GMT: Economy Watch. Rah-e-Sabz claims a "worker's crisis" in the cities of Tehran, Kerman, and Eslamshahr with the closure of plants, including a major tyre manufacturer and a ceramics factory. The site claims that some workers have not been paid for six or seven months.

0710 GMT: Corruption Watch. The head of Iran's armed forces, General Hossein Firouzabadi, has given this "reassurance": there are less than 1000 corrupt people in the Government and Iranian administration.

0700 GMT: Surprise of the Day --- Conservative Turns Reformist? Leading conservative member of Parliament Ali Motahari was speaking at Tehran University yesterday and, if Rah-e-Sabz is to be believed, was sounding distinctly un-conservative.

Motahari allegedly said that one has to distinguish the behaviour of the Government and even clerics from "Islam", and he asserted that the velayat-e-faqih (Supreme Leader) has to be elected and only be an observer of politics. ,

And more: Motahari supposedly argued that the regime should have given the people the right to protest last summer and state media should have broadcast the demonstrations, that dissident professors should be allowed to teach at universities, and that the judiciary is not independent.

Motahari did apparently tip his hat to the party line with the claim that, while Ahmadinejad played a role in the election uproar, Mousavi carries an even greater responsibility.

0630 GMT: The Female Detainee's Story. We have posted in a separate entry the account of an Iranian woman detained on 11 February, "Stripped by the Basiji".

0515 GMT: The Ahmadinejad sideshow in New York trundles on. Having "run circles around" around Charlie Rose of the US Public Broadcasting Service, as an EA reader aptly put it (note to Mr Rose: you might want to hire a researcher on Iran's internal situation before Mahmoud drops by on his next promotional tour), Ahmadinejad offers a shorter interview to Al Jazeera English.

Hopefully, the immediate media temperature over the media will drop, so we'll venture back to Tehran's internal matters and related issues. As Farnaz Sanei of Human Rights Watch dared to note during the furour over Ahmadinejad at the United Nations: "The focus on that potential danger [of Tehran's nuclear programme] should not obscure the fact that thousands of people are currently experiencing not just a threat of violence from the Iranian government, but the everyday dispensing of it."

UK Deportation Postponed

Britain's deportation of Bita Ghaedi, the Iranian woman who fled because of alleged domestic abuse and claimed she would be persecuted on return to Tehran, has been delayed by judicial action. Both the UK High Court and the European Court of Human Rights ordered a halt to the process.

Ghaedi had been put on a flight for Iran from London today. Now she will face an oral hearing on 21 July; her attorney is petitioning for bail.

Khatami: "The Plaintiffs and Defendants Should Change Place"

More on Mohammad Khatami's comments to former members of Parliament yesterday: the former President insisted that "protest is not provocation" and said, ""We should not raise any charges against the protesters. I am sure, if the judicial system correctly performs its functions, then the plaintiffs and defendants will change place."

Khatami noted, "The parties and groups are not allowed to operate and their activities are limited. They face the threat of closure and the newspapers are just closed. Which of these steps corresponds to the constitution?"

Top Reformist Arabsorkhi Released

Feizollah Arabsorkhi, a leading member of the reformist Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, has been released on bail. Arabsorkhi, arrested in June, had been freed briefly for Iranian New Year but then returned to Evin Prison.

Cracking Down on the Students

Deutsche Welle posts a feature article on Iranian student protest and the attempt by authorities to suppress it through detentions and lengthy prison sentences.

Syria: A National Unity Government for More Democracy? (al-Assad)

Ribal al-Assad, the cousin of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad and the founder and director of the Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria (ODFS), has spoken to Der Spiegel. He criticized his cousin for being a "vassal of Iran" and stated that the international community should talk to Hezbollah and Iran's Green Movement to break up the "alliance" between Tehran and Damascus. He also pointedly called for change in Syria's political system:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Syria has been able to improve its relations with the United States and Turkey in recent years. Is the country on the path from pariah status to partner?

Assad: Syria should not see it as a triumph. The US's new approach is a test. Syria needs to now prove itself. Damascus should not in any case imagine that it has received a green light from the international community to oppress people.


SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your cousin is Syrian President Bashar Assad. The two of you are greatly divided over the issue of democracy. Is he at all willing to democratize the country further?

Assad: He has promised to do so. But so far nothing has happened. The problem is the influence of Iran. Syria is today a vassal state of Tehran.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should your cousin therefore break off relations with Iran?

Assad: Syria must act independently and should no longer be submissive or act subordinately. This can only succeed, however, if Syria has a government of national unity that can win popular support for the goal of more democracy.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: There were reports that Syria supplied the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon with Scud missiles. What do you know about this?

Assad: There is no proof and we should not speculate. So far, there have only been rumors about it. Hezbollah is not dependent on Syria, but on Iran. Hezbollah is part of the government in Beirut. They need to stop being a tool of Tehran. Iran uses Hezbollah to keep the war away from its frontiers. Hezbollah should know that Iran does not have good intentions towards the Arabs as Iran has a policy of expansion and destabilization in the Middle East.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What could persuade Hezbollah to give up this alliance?

Assad: The international community should speak with Hezbollah and offer something in return for renouncing Iran, such as money for schools and hospitals, for example.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Many people in the West believe that Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. What can still be done to stop Iran?

Assad: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is very close to his goal and is not willing to give up now. The only hope is the "Green Revolution" (editor's note: the Iranian opposition movement). The international community must support the movement very patiently. Sanctions don't achieve anything. They only affect ordinary people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is there still no peace agreement between Israel and Syria?

Assad: The precondition for that is Israel returning the Golan Heights to Syria. (Editor's note: Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since the 1967 Six Day War.)

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In other words, a compromise currently seems unrealistic.

Assad: The deal is land for peace. That is something that Israel will ultimately have to accept.

New Comments System: Introducing Disqus

THIS POST IS WAS STICKY- MORE RECENT POSTS APPEAR BELOW.

You may have noticed that we've changed our commenting system this weekend. There are still a few kinks to iron out but overall the switch seems to have worked so I wanted to explain some of the many benefits Disqus comments will bring.

What are the benefits for you?:

1. A much improved commenting system. In the past we've installed various features designed to improve our blog comments, such as the ability to edit mistakes after you've posted, or the option to receive others' replies via email. Inevitably, system upgrades and changes to our website caused problems with these plugins and stopped them working. Now, all of this is handled by Disqus. You should be able to edit your comments, receive replies to email, reply to these replies by email, and if you wish subscribe to a post's comments by RSS. You can also show your appreciation for another person's comment by anonymously clicking 'Like'. By the same token, if you feel a comment is offensive or spammy you can easily flag it for review.


2. True ownership of your comments. Before, all of your comments were stored on our site only. Now, if you sign up to Disqus you'll have your own Disqus profile where any comment you make on any site which uses Disqus is stored. Here's mine.


3. An identity on EA. Instead of just a name and icon, you can now upload an avatar to your Disqus profile. You can also share things such as information about yourself, links to your own website/ Twitter page and so on. Disqus also includes social features- for example if you give it your Twitter details you'll have the option to tweet your comments.

There's much more information about all of this over at Disqus.

What are the benefits for us?:

1. Greater protection from trolls and flamers. If you're signed up to Disqus it will be more difficult for someone to imitate you on EA (thankfully a very rare occurrence, but one that can ruin an entire discussion when it happens). It will also be more obvious when someone is posting multiple times under multiple names.


2. Easing the load on our server. Because Disqus hosts the comments and serves them up on our site we save on disk space and bandwidth which, slowly but surely, saves us money.


3. It's one less headache when we move to our new site. Not only will we have all had a chance to get used to Disqus, but we're hoping that it will solve the problems we've had in moving comments over to our new site.

To summarise: please consider signing up for Disqus. Once you do this you can claim your comments from our pre-Disqus days.

For the time being you'll be able to comment on the site as a guest (giving just your name and an email address, as in the old days). However in a couple of weeks we may switch to pre-moderating all guest comments- this will mean that the only way to have your comments appear immediately on site will be to be signed in. (If you don't want to sign up to Disqus and create a profile you can also sign in via a Twitter, OpenID or Yahoo account, though this will mean you won't be able to use some of Disqus' best features.)

Thanks to everyone for putting up with a few bugs on the site this weekend and in the coming days as we get everything up to speed- hopefully it's been for the best.

Obama's War on Terror: Pressuring Journalists, Fighting for Secrecy

Presidential candidate Barack Obama campaigned for accountability in the US Government's foreign policy, even in campaigns against adversaries. President Obama, in his Inaugural Speech, pronounced, "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."



Let's see how all this is turning out, shall we? From Charlie Savage in The New York Times on 29 April:

The Obama administration is seeking to compel a writer to testify about his confidential sources for a 2006 book about the Central Intelligence Agency, a rare step that was authorized by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

The author, James Risen, who is a reporter for The New York Times, received a subpoena on Monday requiring him to provide documents and to testify May 4 before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., about his sources for a chapter of his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration.” The chapter largely focuses on problems with a covert C.I.A. effort to disrupt alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research.



Mr. Risen referred questions to his lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel L.L.P., who said that Mr. Risen would not comply with the demand and would ask a judge to quash the subpoena.

“He intends to honor his commitment of confidentiality to his source or sources,” Mr. Kurtzberg said. “We intend to fight this subpoena.”

The subpoena comes two weeks after the indictment of a former National Security Agency official on charges apparently arising from an investigation into a series of Baltimore Sun articles that exposed technical failings and cost overruns of several agency programs that cost billions of dollars.

The lead prosecutor in both investigations is William Welch II. He formerly led the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, but left that position in October after its botched prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Matthew A. Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to discuss the subpoena to Mr. Risen or to confirm its existence. “As a general matter, we have consistently said that leaks of classified information are a matter we take extremely seriously,” he said.

Mr. Risen and a colleague won a Pulitzer Prize for a December 2005 New York Times article that exposed the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. While many critics — including Barack Obama, then a senator — called that program illegal, the Bush administration denounced the article as a damaging leak of classified information and opened an investigation into its sources. No one has been indicted in that matter.

The second chapter in Mr. Risen’s book provides a detailed description of the program. But Mr. Kurtzberg said the Justice Department was seeking information only about Mr. Risen’s sources for the ninth chapter, which centers on the C.I.A.’s effort to disrupt Iranian nuclear research. That material did not appear in The Times.

The book describes how the agency sent a Russian nuclear scientist — who had defected to the United States and was secretly working for the C.I.A. — to Vienna in February 2000 to give plans for a nuclear bomb triggering device to an Iranian official under the pretext that he would provide further assistance in exchange for money. The C.I.A. had hidden a technical flaw in the designs.

The scientist immediately spotted the flaw, Mr. Risen reported. Nevertheless, the agency proceeded with the operation, so the scientist decided on his own to alert the Iranians that there was a problem in the designs, thinking they would not take him seriously otherwise.

Mr. Risen described the operation as reckless, arguing that Iranian scientists may have been able to “extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.” He also wrote that a C.I.A. case officer, believing that the agency had “assisted the Iranians in joining the nuclear club,” told a Congressional intelligence committee about the problems, but that no action was taken.

It is not clear whether the Iranians had figured out that the Russian scientist had been working for the C.I.A. before publication of Mr. Risen’s book.

The Bush administration had sought Mr. Risen’s cooperation in identifying his sources for the Iran chapter of his book, and it obtained an earlier subpoena against him in January 2008 under Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey. But Mr. Risen fought the subpoena, and never had to testify before it expired last summer. That left it up to Mr. Holder to decide whether to press forward with the matter by seeking a new subpoena.

If a judge does not agree to quash the subpoena and Mr. Risen still refuses to comply, he risks being held in contempt of court. In 2005, a Times reporter, Judith Miller, was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify in connection with the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case.

Department rules say prosecutors may seek such subpoenas only if the information they are seeking is essential and cannot be obtained another way, and the attorney general must personally sign off after balancing the public’s interest in the news against the public’s interest in effective law enforcement.

Congress is considering legislation that would let judges make that determination, giving them greater power to quash subpoenas to reporters. The Obama administration supports such a media-shield bill, and the House of Representatives has passed a version of it. But a Senate version has been stalled for months.

A Female Detainee in Iran: "Stripped by the Basiji"

After much deliberation, I have decided to post this account, purportedly from an Iranian woman detained on 11 February, posted by Saeed Veladbaygi on A Street Journalist. Of course, we cannot verify the claims, but Veladbaygi has been a solid reporter of events throughout the post-election crisis.

Warning: even as words on the page, these recollections are very graphic:

[Veladbaygi's Introduction: I had no news from my good friend “Courageous Purity” and in order to not take any risks I hadn’t even called her on her cell, lest it create even more problems for her, particularly as we communicated often via email. When visiting Iran during the New Year holidays, I finally had the opportunity to see my family and to inquire about my dear friend Courageous Purity. No one was at her house, so I assumed that they must be traveling. In any event, after the New Year holidays, I left Iran without any news of her, until yesterday when I received an email from her that read:]

On the 22nd of Bahman like all other times, we decided to go to the demonstrations with our friends. We planned to meet at 10am on the south side of the 2nd square at Ariashahr. When we arrived at our destination at 10am we realized that even though Ariashahr was looking more like a military post, people were still congregating on the sides of the streets, waiting for Mr. Karroubi to arrive. With time, more and more people arrived. As the crowd increased, you began to hear slogans. People were chanting “death to the dictator” and “we support you Karroubi” and many other slogans that I no longer recall (it was 80 days ago).



I suddenly heard bullets being fired. We were surrounded by tear gas and some people’s clothing was smeared with colored paint. We were standing perplexed by the color on people’s clothing when the coup government thugs attacked us. As we began running away, we bumped into each other. My clothes were tainted with paint as my body brushed against someone else’s that had paint on it.

While we were fleeing, I noticed that the coup government thugs had zoomed in on me. It became clear to me that they were going to arrest me. Though I began to run with all my mite, it didn’t take very long for them to surround me. As I stood facing them, one of the coup government thugs lashed out at me from behind with something that felt like a hose. The impact was so strong that I fell to the ground face down. I tried to scramble to my feet, when one of the thugs who was wearing boots put his foot on my neck, forced me back down and said “Don’t move an inch!”

Another thug tied my hands to my back. My body was still aching from the pain of the previous lashing when they pushed me face down into the floor of a van with blue curtains. I expected to see female police officers in the van, but was greeted instead by two very rude male officers, who approached us and called us every name in the book while they blind folded us.

I am not sure how many were in the van when it started moving. I was on the floor blindfolded, but I felt the van move. I’m not sure how long it was moving or where we were going to, but it felt as though we were in the van for a good 15 minutes. As soon as we arrived at the headquarters of the regime thugs, they began insulting us and calling us names again. They tossed us out of the car. I felt as though I was in a dark and enclosed area, because the voices were echoing.

They picked us up from the floor and spoke to us as though we were prostitutes. One of them said “We have to sleep with one of them every night?” I was petrified. I had been afraid from the moment they arrested me, but hearing these words was something else all together. Another one who seemed older said “Let’s undress all of them.” while the others laughed at us.

Another thug said “They have to increase our quota. This is not enough girls for us.” The thugs continued to humiliate us. We were very tired and thirst and hunger was beginning to set in too. Then they said “We’ll come back for you tonight.”

I’m not sure how many we were, but I could hear other girls weeping quietly. It was towards the end of the night when they came back for us. It was cold. We weren’t sure where we were and we didn’t even dare to get up or move. Suddenly we heard the frightful voices of the thugs. They began picking us up from the floor one by one and taking us to another room. They started with one girl. They told her to get up. She began screaming and protesting as they lifted her. It was obvious that she didn’t want to go with them. I could hear the sound of a slap, punch and kick, mixed with the girl’s cries and swearing by the thugs. We were engulfed with fear as we knew that one of us was going to be next.

As it turned out, I was the next in line. I began to scream. I yelled “I won’t come!” but they dragged me out while insulting, slapping and kicking me around to what looked like a room in the same area. They untied my hands and asked me to remove my clothes. I was crying and I was scared. I said “I won’t take them off.” I pleaded with them and asked “Don’t you have sisters?” when one of them slapped me hard in the ear and said “Don’t compare yourself to my sister you whore!”

I was paralyzed with fear. He said,”Take off your clothes”. I was really scared. I removed my clothes. He said “Why are you just standing there? Take the rest off too.” (my undergarments) I pleaded “These undergarments are all that are left of the honor of a girl, if I take these two items off too, I will be insulting your honor as well.” They started insulting me again and someone smacked me on my bottom and screamed “Hurry up, continue.” I said “I won’t take any thing else off. I know that you have enough honor and dignity that you too don’t want me to take off these last two items of clothing.” One of the thugs attacked me like an animal, he beat me and tore off my undergarments. Now I was completely naked…

I think there were four of them. They were eying me now that I was stark naked. One of them lifted me and put me on a desk, so that with utmost brazenness, they could all take a better look at me. He said “Haji, this one’s mine tonight okay?” I heard the one I believe was referred to as Haji reply “We haven’t stripped the rest of them yet. Wait, you might end up with a better one!” But the first man replied “I already checked them all out. This one’s the good one of the bunch.” Then the Haji said “Okay then take her.” As he began to lift me and take me out of the room, the Haji asked “Wait, would you prefer to stay?”

I felt a sliver of hope and said “Please Haji. Yes. I beg you. For the love of god save me. I’ll do what ever you say.” He said “Get her a chair so she can sit.” I sat on the chair. He said “I want you to answer every question I’m about to ask you correctly. I know your name already and I know where you work. I want you to tell me the names of your accomplices. I want you to tell me who you take your orders from. Are you one of Mousavi’s gang or are you a Karroubi follower? Which one of your coworkers is anti regime?” He asked me these questions and many more that I no longer remember….

I said “How am I to supposed to write the answers to so many questions when I’m blind folded?” He asked that they remove my blindfolds. I saw the Haji. He was approximately 50 years old and had a light colored, thin beard. There were three other very young boys with him. I’m guessing that they were around 17 or 18 years old. It dawned on me then, that it was these young men who had wanted to spend the night with me.

My head was aching. I kept thinking, what is the Islamic Republic promoting amongst the young Basijis? Sex? Casual intercourse? I was reminded of Imam Khomeini’s saying “Basij is the school of love”. Is Basij the school of love, or the school for love making? Or maybe it’s the school for learning how to have sex.

In the end, I wrote down everything the Haji asked me to and confessed to everything he wanted. Even if he had asked me to write that the bombing of the 7th of Tir was my doing, I would have done it, though the truth is I was only 9 years old when it happened. When I finally wrote down everything he had asked me to, he told me I could get dressed and once I was dressed I was taken to another room (from the look of the walls, I felt as though I was in a mosque. When they opened the door to the room, I saw another girl in the room. They threw me in and I began talking to her when we heard the screams and pleas of the other girls outside who were being taken to see the Haji.

We slept in the same room that night. In the early hours of the next day, they came for us, handcuffed us, blindfolded us, put us in a car and took us to a destination that I think took about ten minutes to get to. When we arrived, we realized that we were at Evin prison.

I’m exhausted. I was just released from Evin. In my next email, I will tell you about my 80 day imprisonment at Evin.