Latest from Iran (2 November): 36 Hours to Go

NEW Latest Iran Video: Protest & Hunger Strike at Sharif University
NEW Iran: A Response to an American Who Asks, “What if the Green Movement Isn’t ‘Ours’?
NEW Iran Nuclear Talks: Tehran's Middle Way?
Video: Sharif and Khaje Nasir Universities Protests (1 November)
Video Flashback: Ahmadinejad v. The Giant Flying Bug
Iran: More 13 Aban Videos
Latest from Iran (1 November): Is This the Opposition’s Moment?

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2125 GMT: More University Protests. In addition to today's demonstration and hunger strike at Sharif University (video in separate entry), about 400 students at Islamic Azad University of Roodehen, near Tehran, chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein", “We support the brave Karroubi” , “Death to Dictator”, “Courageous student, join us at the November 4th rally” and “Viva Karoubi, Viva Mousavi” (English summary). There is also video of a rally at the University of Kashan, south of Tehran.

1930 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, have visited the family of detainee Feizollah Arabsorkhe and claimed "investigators have been challenged by their daily conversations and dialogues with the children of the Revolution”.

Feizollah Arabsorkhi is a leading member of the reformist Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution and has been in prison since June.

Mr. Mousavi insisted that political activists and youth in the post-election protests are not “sabotaging or destroying”: “If the media were free and people were allowed to have their say, we would not have fallen to this state.”

1915 GMT: Back from a break to find a couple of stories on a relatively quiet day, as various forces prepare for 13 Aban.

Journalist Fariba Pajooh has ended her hunger strike, begun on 26 October, because of serious health problems. Pajooh was arrested on 22 August and has been detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Iranian authorities have barred Emaddedin Baghi from leaving the country to collect the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Baghi is a prominent opponent of the death penalty in Iran and founder of the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights.

1525 GMT: The Facebook site associated with Mir Hossein Mousavi has published an English translation of the account of Mehdi Karroubi's meeting this weekend with the student organisation Daftar-Tahkim-Vahdat. Beyond his claim that votes were allocated in advance of the Presidential election on 12 June, Karroubi's speech was a rallying call:

In this circumstance it is necessary that activists maintain their network and use the opportunities for meetings and gatherings, and don’t let people to be pushed to corners. Activists should announce their ideas, and in our ideas and methods we should emphasise those that are based on the national and religious identity of our beloved Iran like the anniversary of the victory of the Revolution, the celebration of Ghorban [one of the Islamic celebrations after Haj], and Ashora [the day Imam Hossein, the third Imam of Shia Islam, was martyred]. Today my advice to you is to maintain forces and ideas and to retain our just position.

1335 GMT: Iran's press supervisory body has banned publication of the leading business daily, Sarmayeh, for "repeated violations of the press law." Sarmayeh's editor Saeed Laylaz has been detained since June.

1325 GMT: More than four months after his detention, the file on former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi's case has been sent to the Revolutionary Court. This raises the prospect of formal charges, possibly this week.

1320 GMT: It's Official --- Karroubi Marches. Mehdi Karroubi's Tagheer website has just confirmed that the cleric will be at Hafte-Tir (7 Tir) Square in Tehran, at 10:30 a.m. local time, for 13 Aban ceremonies. This supersedes previous claims that Karroubi would join students at Amir Kabir University.

1125 GMT: Video Specials. We've just gotten the footage from today's demonstration and hunger strike at Sharif University and have posted two clips. And an EA reader has pointed us to one of the finest speeches on modern Iran and the Green movement, delivered by a 7-year-old student, that we have had the privilege of hearing.

1100 GMT: I've just posted one of the most difficult articles that I have attempted since 12 June. It's a response to an opinion piece in today's Washington Post that dismisses the Green movement as "Iran's Unlovable Opposition".

0920 GMT: We've posted, courtesy of Iran Review, an analysis by Iranian foreign policy analyst Keyhan Bazargar of a possible "middle way" by Tehran to resolve talks on uranium enrichment.

0810 GMT: Meanwhile, The Internal Battle. Here is how complex the fight inside the Iranian establishment over talks with the "West" has become: the Islamic Republic News Agency is featuring an interview with a "State Department nuclear consultant", who emphasises the guarantees that the International Atomic Energy Agency will put in any agreement on Iran's nuclear programme.

That to me is a pretty clear indication that the Ahmadinejad Government, for internal reasons, wants to spin out discussions. But, given the now open hostility of high-profile members of Parliament and both Ali and Sadegh Larijani, how much support does the President have?

And what does the Supreme Leader think of all this?

0755 GMT: That Latest Iran Move on Uranium Enrichment (see 0700 GMT). Foreign Minister Mottaki's statement, made during a conference in Malaysia, was that Tehran had submitted its response to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday. This was for a technical commission to review the Vienna proposal of the "5+1" powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China, Germany), which was for 80 percent of Iran's uranium stock to be enriched in Russia.

Interpretation? Go no further than Enduring America last Friday:

Given Ahmadinejad’s position, the political advantages of spinning out the talks are there to be grasped. If there are alterations in the plan to reduce the amount shipped below 80 percent and to send it out in stages rather than in one delivery, these will be concession to Iran’s and the President’s strength. If the “West” walks away from the table, this will be an indication of their continuing deceptions and mistakes — despite their apparent request for forgiveness from Tehran — and Iran will be in the right as it maintains nuclear sovereignty.

0700 GMT: 48 hours to go before the demonstrations of 13 Aban (4 November), and what we sense is growing excitement inside and outside Iran is making its way into international news coverage. The New York Times rather staidly notes, "Opposition in Iran Urges Continuing Challenge", while The Observer of London announces, "Iran Students Plan Return to Street Protests".

The coverage, following Reuters' initial lead, is still troublesome with its distortion of the impending rally. The New York Times, perhaps unwittingly, links Green opposition to hostility to the US: "The occasion is the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the United States Embassy in Tehran by hard-line students on Nov. 4, 1979. The day is marked every year with anti-American rallies." And both newspapers are bizarrely cautious about the open challenge of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi in recent days: "Mousavi appeared to back the protests yesterday....Although the opposition leaders...did not openly call for street protests, their remarks were widely seen as a call to arms on a day of considerable symbolic importance."

And "Western" journalists will still be distracted by even the slightest of remarks on the nuclear issue. This morning, for example, all have jumped on the comments of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Iran has requested a technical commission to review the "third-party enrichment" proposal from the Vienna talks. (America's ABC News and even Fox News, which have not printed a word about 13 Aban, have seized on Mottaki's statement as a top story.)

Still, I cannot recall the "Western" media anticipating the last big marches on Qods Day (18 September), and it is interesting to note that The New York Times writes in retrospect, "Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets." With the possibility that 13 Aban will bring out even bigger marches, news organisations --- print and broadcast --- will be on alert Wednesday. Their coverage does not reply or supersede the rallies, of course, but it may support the Green movement in a way not seen since early in the post-election crisis.

It is two days to 13 Aban (4 November).