The Latest from Iran (9 November): Assessing the Government

NEW Iran: An Eyewitness on 13 Aban “Protest An Inseparable Part of People’s Lives”
NEW Iran's Nuclear Programme: Washington's Unhelpful Misperceptions
Latest Iran Video: Mehdi Karroubi on the 13 Aban Protests
NEW Iran: An Opposition Renewing, A Government in Trouble
Iran: Question for the Regime “What’s Your Next Punch?”
NEW Latest Iran Video: More from 13 Aban & from Today (8-9 November)

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2030 GMT: We're still waiting for an English translation of today's Mir Hossein Mousavi newspaper with Jamaran, the newspaper of the Khomeini family (see 1015 GMT). The headline is Mousavi's declaration that Iran is "vulnerable" in the current political situation: “People who entered the scene of the Revolution did not do it to suffer such difficulties. They came to secure their freedom and welfare, and if the system fails to deliver, it will lose its legitimacy for certain.”

2020 GMT: An EA reader has sent us the petition, printed in full in the comments below, to the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, to commute the death sentence of Ehsan Fatahian, a 28-year-old Kurd who is scheduled for execution on Wednesday. Fatahian was initially given a 10-year prison term for “plotting against national security” but this was changed to a death sentence by an appeal court when the charge “waging war against God” was added.

2000 GMT: Back from a break to find excellent material from readers. With university demonstrations continuing today, we've posted four clips from a rally at Azad University, Khomeini Shahr, outside Isfahan.

An EA reader describes, in a comment below, today's  ceremony awarding the Human Rights Defenders Tulip to Iranian lawyer and human/women’s rights activist Shadi Sadr in The Hague.

Tomorrow (10 November) at 12:00 CET she will present a film, Women in Shrouds, and hold a Q&A about human rights in Iran. If anyone here would like to ask her a question through me, please post it here in these comments.

1645 GMT: Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat, the main reformist student and alumni organisation, has issued a statement announcing that it will withstand the oppression of "coup agents" with all of its organisational power, even as almost half of its key members are imprisoned or sought by the security forces.


The significance beyond this general assertion is that when the organisation issued a statement of defiance on the eve of 13 Aban, the regime arrested three of its leading members. So renewing this show of resistance is a clear signal that, less than a month before the next mass rally on 16 Azar (7 December), the students will not be cowed into silence.

1630 GMT: Hillary Responds and Iran's State Media Takes Note. No surprise that Secretary of State Clinton would offer a boiler-plate response to the news of the charging of the three hikers:

We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever. And we would renew our request on the behalf of these three young people and their families that the Iranian government exercise compassion and release them so they can return home. And we will continue to make that case through our Swiss protecting power, who represents the United States in Tehran.

More interesting, perhaps, that the statement would be prominently featured on Press TV's website.

1440 GMT: The Story Beyond the Headline Story --- 3 US Hikers Charged with Espionage. Western media will be dominated for the next 24 hours by the breaking news that three Americans who strayed across the Iraq-Iran border will be charged with spying, according to Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi.

Here's the unreported dimension of the event. The news came through only hours after the US representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Glyn Davies, offered Washington's olive branch in the nuclear talks:

"There have been communications back and forth. We are in extra innings in these negotiations. That's sometimes the way these things go....We want to give some space to Iran to work through this. It's a tough issue for them, quite obviously, and we're hoping for an early positive answer from the Iranians."

Davies' kind words appear to be tied to the new Iranian counter-proposal (see separate entry), which in visit may be linked to Russian intervention through the visit of its Deputy Foreign Minister to Tehran this weekend.

So is the Iranian Government playing a cunning game where it can engage the US with one hand and strike at Washington, via its citizens,  with the other? Or are we now seeing a schizophrenic Government in which one group is pursuing negotiations while another is going for intimidation?

1225 GMT: Ahmadinejad and the CIA. The politics around the President's "engagement" with the US, given the regime's simultaneous post-election use of "velvet coup" to crack down on opponents, is getting very confusing.

The Iranian Labor News Agency features an interview with conservative activist Mojtaba Shakeri, who says that  some of the journalists and scholars who met with Ahmadinejad, presumably during the President's trip to New York, were undoubtedly CIA operatives. Shakeri says this is common US practice and occurred in previous encounters with Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami.

For Mir Hossein Mousavi's Kalemeh, the interview is enough to become the sensational revelation that the President has met CIA officials. That, of course, is part of the current opposition campaign to question the President's duplicity in negotiating with the Obama Administration while denouncing the evils of the US.

1145 GMT: We have received a moving and thoughtful e-mail from an EA reader, offering an eyewitness summary of the importance of 13 Aban. It is posted in a separate entry.

1110 GMT: Saeed Mortazavi, the former Tehran Prosecutor General who organised the first post-election trials and has been linked to the abuses at Kahrizak Prison, may be moving post for the second times in three months. Mortazavi became Iran's Deputy Prosecutor General but may now become head of the economic crimes division of the Justice Ministry.

1015 GMT: Green Publicity. Mir Hossein Mousavi has spoken with Jamaran, the newspaper of the Khomeini family, about the need for unity through adherence to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. This is the second major interview Jamaran has featured in 72 hours, having spoken with former President Mohammad Khatami this weekend.

0945 GMT: Why are Bread Prices Rising? EA correspondent Mohammad Khiabani, who specialises in analysis on the Iranian economy, has a look at the recent increase in bread prices (see yesterday's updates), "This is not completely unrelated to subsidy removals, since merchants often increase prices in future expectation of inflation, which of course leads to inflation." This from the US Open Source Center:

In its November 8 issue, Hemayat said that the two traditional breads including Barbari and Sangak were being sold for 600 and 2,000 tomans, respectively (approximately 1,000 tomans = US $1). The newspaper said that, coming before the announcement of the new rates for bread, evidence shows that the increase in prices is more than what was officially declared. Officials had declared new rates for the traditional bread in the first week of November. Under this scheme the price per bread for unsubsidized Sangak is 400 tomans and in subsidized bakeries it is 175 tomans.

Jomhouri Eslami headlined: "New wave of expensive bread". The report pointed out that the offenders are overcharging while the authorities are only giving warnings. Jomhuri Islami reported the cost of bread in various Tehran neighborhoods. In southern Tehran Barbari costs 150 tomans, Pasadaran (northeast) 200 tomans, Saadatabad (northwest) 250 tomans, Shahrake Gharb (northwest) 300 tomans, Shahrake Omid (northeast) 500 tomans, Ketabi Square (north) 600 tomans.
As for the Sangak, which uses a more expensive flour and baking process, it was sold in Pasdaran for 1,000 tomans, Saadatabad 700 tomans, and Shahrake Gharb for 2,000 tomans.

0900 GMT: Iran's Telecommunications Privatised. Press TV reports:

An Iranian consortium has signed a deal to buy 50 percent plus one of the shares of Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) for around eight billion dollars. According to the deputy of Iran's Privatization Company, the related contract was signed Sunday with an Iranian consortium named Etemad Mobin Development that includes three firms.

"The historical deal was signed after an article was added to the $7.8 billion text of the contract according to which the buyer will be committed to the charter of TCI," said Mehdi Oghadaei.

0805 GMT: The muddle inside Iran on the nuclear negotiations and a useful but disturbing New York Times article this morning prompt us to offer an analysis, "Iran's Nuclear Programme: Washington's Unhelpful Misperceptions".

0640 GMT: Unsurprisingly, Iranian state media are playing up the meetings of President Ahmadinejad with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul. No details are offered, though Erdogan has recently been supportive of Iran's line on its nuclear programme, criticising its Israeli counterpart.

0610 GMT: An EA reader sends in a piece of interesting information about Internet trends inside Iran. The search volume for Mohsen Sazegara, a founder of the Revolutionary Guard who is now a fervent opponent of the regime from his exile in the US, is twice that for Mehdi Karroubi.

Not sure of the significance of this; any ideas would be welcome.

0600 GMT: We'll be trying to put the pieces together on where the Iranian Government is heading, even if those involved don't know where they fit.

President Ahmadinejad is in Ankara for the meeting of the economic committee of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which raises the possibilities of the Government going into a holding phase or (more likely) others manoeuvring while Ahmadinejad is away.

One of the events which may or may not be significant in those calculations continues to be debated today. We initially speculated that Speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani, travelled to Najaf in Iraq to see senior clerics because of the internal discussions in Tehran. EA correspondent Josh Mull has been putting the alternative that Larijani saw Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and others to encourage passage of the law for Iraqi elections in January, and other observers also back that view.

On the opposition side, there is a lot of Internet chatter this morning about Mehdi Karroubi's webcast yesterday, recounting the events of 13 Aban and criticising the Government's manipulation of the issue of relations with the US. And discussion is picking up over a planned demonstration at Shiraz University today.