The Latest from Iran (13 October): Government Threatens Karroubi

NEW Latest Iran Video: The Shiraz Protest Against Ahmadinejad (12 October)
NEW Video: Protest at Tehran Azad University (13 October)
Iran: The Politics of the Death Sentences
The Latest from Iran (12 October): Green Shoots?

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1915 GMT: The Internet is buzzing over the story that Narges Kalhor, the daughter of President Ahmadinejad's advisor for cultural and media affairs, has applied for asylum in Germany. Kalhor made the application after showing her film The Rake at the International Human Rights Film Festival in Nuremberg. The movie condemns the use of torture in Iranian prisons and the totalitarianism of Iran's authorities.

The filmmaker Hana Makhmalbaf has conducted a video interview with Kalhor.

1810 GMT: Everyone's piling in to mention the Iranian Government's threat to prosecute Mehdi Karroubi for "lies" about the abuse of detainees. Iran's Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie has added to the earlier warnings from his Tehran counterpart, Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi: "They [Clerical Court] have been tasked with hearing cases raised against the clergy and [you can] be sure that they will deal with this issue."

1700 GMT: We've posted a set of videos from today's protests by students at Tehran Azad University.

1625 GMT: Yes, A Rafsanjani Signal. EA's Mr Smith checks in to tell us that the interview with Hossein Mar'ashi of the Kargozaran party is even more significant than we thought (1000 GMT):

Mar'ashi is a close relative of Rafsanjani and served as his point man in the Khatami administration (1997-2005). The full text of the interview was published on the youth wing website of Kargozaran, and they explained that the interview had been previously published in censored form by the Etemaad daily due to "heavy pressures". One can surmise that it was Rafsanjani that gave the green light to the publication of the full text to send the message that he is aware of what's going on in the country.

The most significant snippet of the interview is the part in which Mar'ashi states that the regime wishes to have Hashemi "fall on his knees" and they want to make a "Jannati out of him", alluding to the puppet-like stance of the head of the Guardian Council [Ayatollah Jannati] vis-a-vis Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader. He also claimed that "senior leaders" of the IRGC want to arrest the reformist leaders.

1615 GMT: Fereshteh Ghazi has posted another set of information about the latest condition of detainees.

1600 GMT: Back from an afternoon of teaching with some most interesting inside information. An EA source with excellent links inside Iran tells us of President Ahmadinejad's trip to Shiraz yesterday.

The vast majority of students who turned out protested against the visit, in which Ahmadinejad reportedly arrived late and left early.

At the same time, Ayatollah Dastgheib, a vocal critic of the Government, gave an important speech to a small audience. The speech has not yet been published but, according to the source's information, Dastgheib went even further in his questioning of the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad's authority and also challenged the position of the Supreme Leader.

1145 GMT: No Worries About Corruption/Mismanagement Allegations? Really? This is the current lead story on the Islamic Republic News Agency website: "Not even one rial [Iranian currency] of oil revenue has been lost. The Ahmadinejad Government is a clean government." The claim comes from a "parliamentary deputy" on the Supreme Audit Court.

1100 GMT: Turning Up the Pressure. Here's the regime response to Mehdi Karroubi's recent renewal of his claims -- expressed through the letter sent by his son to the head of Iranian state broadcasting and his Saturday meeting with Mir Hossein Mousavi --- on abuses of detainees and, more broadly, flaws and injustices in the system. Tehran's Prosecutor-General, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, has said that a special clerical court is leading an enquiry into whether Karroubi broke the law when he accused security forces of rape and other abuses. (English-language summary available via the Los Angeles Times)

This is not yet a prosecution, more of a "final final warning". EA readers will recall last month when Ali Larijani was despatched, probably by the Supreme Leader, to tell Karroubi to maintain a low-profile silence and when the Government raided Karroubi's offices. Karroubi still joined the Qods Days marches, and his renewed statements have been matched by a restored Web presence.

So the ball is back in Karroubi's court but I fully expect him to play another shot. Game on.

1000 GMT: A Rafsanjani Signal? Hossein Mar'ashi, a high-level official in the Kargozaran party, has said: "Today I believe devoutly that this trueborn way which is presented by Mr. [Mir Hosssein] Mousavi as the "Green Path of Hope", implemented by the ...people in the framework of a movement. The power establishment cannot stand against it in the long-term neither structurally nor legally and has to accept the people's will sooner or later."

Kargozaran has been linked to Hashemi Rafsanjani since its formation in the 1990s, though it is a matter for discussion whether he is associated with this latest move. The Facebook site associated with Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi's wife, is hopeful, calling the party "close to Rafsanjani".

0945 GMT: So What is This "Ground Resistance Force"? It's a genuine question, as we can't quite get our hands around the significance of this declaration by the head of Iran's armed forces, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi:

After two years of study we decided to change the IRGC [Islamic Revolution Guard Corps]’s structure, for the Basij to work in areas such as software work and the propagation of the Basiji culture in society, and to delegate the tasks, duties and mobilization of Basij units to a new called the IRGC Ground Resistance in order to increase expertise among the units.

The easy read is of a merger of the Basiji militia into the military organisation, but what does mean in terms of the control of those forces? Is this an effective IRGC expansion of authority, accompanying the possibility of its widening political influence? And, in the short term, what does this means for operations against the Green opposition and other demonstrators?

0615 GMT: Little breaking news out of Iran so far today. The New York Times runs instead a context article on "dozens of reporters, photographers and bloggers who have either fled Iran or are trying to flee in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election", featuring interviews with two of the photographers, one who is still in the country. Mowj-e-Sabz looks forward to the 4 November demonstrations, "reminding the coup government that the issue of the elections is far from over".

Arguably, the most significant development on Monday was the Parliamentary passage of Government cuts in subsidies for energy and food. (Subscription required, but the full article can be accessed via Google Search using title and author.) Of course, the action risks public opposition, particularly as President Ahmadinejad has based his electoral appeal on helping the lower classes of Iran, but as the Minister of Economy told Parliament, "Under the current circumstances about a third of the country's income is directly or indirectly paid in subsidies," the cost of which has risen to $100 billion/year.

Is the Government on rocky economic ground that could cause political shifts? Far too soon to tell, of course, but a sign of nerves comes in Press TV's coverage. Ignoring the subsidy story this morning, its website prefers the reassurance of a natural gas deal between Switzerland and Iran.

EA readers have been paying attention to the economic aspects of the current crisis for several days, including a telling exchange last night, "Why people are taking it so much?" Iran specialists with whom I have been corresponding believe that the initial cuts in subsidies are manageable --- for example, households still get the full discount on purchases to fuel to a certian level, and then pay a "full price" which is amongst the cheapest in the world. However, there may be a cumulative effect. Add the Government measures to non-payment of wages in certain sectors and, in particular cases, strikes.

Despite the quiet, the situation is far from settled, and money and politics could be a combustible mix.

The Latest from Iran (12 October): Green Shoots?

NEW Iran: The Politics of the Death Sentences
NEW Iran: English Text of Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting (10 October)
Iran: The Washington-Tehran Deal on Enriched Uranium?
Iran: So Who Controls the Islamic Republic?
The Latest from Iran (11 October): The Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting

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1930 GMT: The reformist Assembly of Combatant Clergymen, paralleling the statements of Mohammad Khatami, have written an open letter to the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, warning about the consequences of the current lawlessness and stressing that the judiciary should be held accountable for crimes, violation of law, and injustices. Among these violations are detentions in solitary confinement and uncertainties about charges:

Our fear and concern is because of the reduction or even destruction of the peoples trust and faith in the judiciary system. How can it be that, with a simple gesture, a newspaper is closed down and thus the artery of information of a party or group is blocked instantly; however, hundreds of newspapers and [Government] media with different kinds of accusations and convictions in their evidence become richer in their unbounded cheek and still the judiciary system is unable to dispense justice and only casts some general conclusions about the reproach of lies?

1910 GMT: A Very Gentle Day. Gentle by post-election standards, with the big domestic news Parliament's approval of Government cuts in food and gasoline/petrol subsidies. Reuters is only now catching up with Saturday's Karroubi-Mousavi meeting, loosely translating Mousavi as claiming, "It seems some people are trying to take us back to the Inquisition era."

1340 GMT: Posturing. After the flurry of political movement over the weekend, relatively quiet today. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is making an appearance in Shiraz, hoping that he doesn't face too many demonstrators. Mohammad Khatami is celebrating his 66th birthday with friends.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Government continues the ritual tough-talk two-step with its US partner, covering up the private movement towards accommodation. Responding to Hillary Clinton's finger-shaking that "the world will not wait indefinitely" for Iranian movement on the nuclear issue, the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry blustered on Monday, "So far, western powers have achieved nothing by using the language of threats and sanctions against Iran. The West, itself, knows that this language is useless. We have always announced that we advocate negotiations."

0905 GMT: We've posted a special analysis of the politics surrounding the four death sentences handed out by the regime in recent days. And we've updated our feature on "Who Controls Iran?".

0900 GMT: A new poster (left) for the 4 November demonstrations is circulating. It repeats the slogans of previous flyers and adds, "United, we will be on the streets.
Join our million-strong green crowd on 13 Aban [4 November] in support of freedom in Iran. Stay in your car in silence in the areas where people are sitting in."

0720 GMT: Iranian state media is trying to keep President Ahmadinejad firmly in the international arena rather than within internal difficulties. The President's latest statement was the reassurance that Iran, not "the West", was setting the agenda for the next round of talks on Tehran's nuclear programme:

We have already agreed to discuss Iran's latest package of proposals. I don't think there will be any problems in the next round of talks but if someone wants to cause problems, they will fail. And if they succeed to do so, they will harm themselves.

Meanwhile the Iranian military is putting out its own tough reassurances, with a Brigadier General asserting, “Updating the defense systems is moving on an excellent progressive trend at present and (Iran’s systems) can compete with hi-tech systems of the world. Now we are in our best conditions of defensive preparedness."

0600 GMT:  Are we seeing an opposition revival? Consider that in the last 48 hours:

*Mohammad Khatami has made a high-profile appearance in Yazd Province and issued one of the strongest criticisms of the Government to date: “Be sure that people will never back down."

*Mehdi Karroubi, in a letter sent in his son's name, used the call for fairness from Iranian state broadcasting to attack the Iran judiciary's handling of his claims of detainee abuses;

*Karroubi has also re-established his web presence with the re-launch of Tagheer;

*Mir Hossein Mousavi, after seeing senior clerics on Thursday about his "social network", had a lengthy meeting on Saturday with Karroubi. In the summary of the meeting, both in Farsi and in English, their emphasis is on a renewal of pressure against the Government over electoral fraud, "legal" injustices, and abuses.

Add to this the re-appearance of Mousavi chief advisor Alireza Beheshti after the attempt to silence him through detention. Yesterday he issued a sharp response to Ahmad Khamati's Friday Prayer, deriding the cleric's claims of a US-sponsored "velvet revolution" (given that the Iranian Government had just sat across from US delegates at the Geneva talks) and calling for "rights" and "respect" for all Iranians.

Iran: So Who Controls the Islamic Republic?

The Latest from Iran (11 October): “Media Operations”

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UPDATE 12 October 0845 GMT: EA's Mr Smith offers his reading of the Foreign Affairs analysis:

"I do not see what this adds to what we knew already. Besides making the silly mistake of identifying Mesbah Yazdi with Mohammad Yazdi, and stating that the former was head of Iran's judiciary (in reality his real influence and authority are, until proven otherwise, rather limited to "spiritual guidance" of Ahmadinejad), the rest are allegations that have been fed to him after having floated on the Web for months. The Taeb-Jalili-Khamenei trio was floated by Roger Cohen [of The New York Times] in one of his dispatches from Tehran.

The only tidbit that would be interesting, if verified, is the purge of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and the removal of pro-Mousavi Guardsmen before the elections. That would make sense, and it would be interesting to have real statistics on that.
--
Earlier this week Foreign Affairs published an article by Jerry Guo on "the rise of a new power elite" of "the Revolutionary Guard and its allies" in Iran. The article raised points which have been discussed by Enduring America readers for several weeks, considering politics, the military situation, and the battle for control of key sections of Iran's economy. In addition to Guo's attention to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, notice his inclusion of Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran's National Security Council, and the Supreme Leader's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, amongst the "coalition of power".

Letter from Tehran: Iran's New Hard-Liners

The headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are in a European-style palace, replete with Greek columns and a grand staircase, in the eastern suburbs of Tehran. From here, the IRGC orchestrated the crackdown that followed Iran's disputed presidential vote in June, beating protestors on the street and torturing those behind bars. More ominously, the IGRC and other extreme hard-liners have sidelined fellow conservatives in the Iranian government, carving out their own power base in a regime that is becoming increasingly insular, reactionary, and violent.

So far, much of the analysis of the emerging Iranian power struggle has focused on the clash between the country's conservatives and reformers, pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his patron, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, against Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two thwarted presidential candidates, and Mohammad Khatami, a former president. (Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and seasoned kingmaker has eased toward the reformists in the election's aftermath.)

The real struggle, however, is the conflict among the hard-liners themselves, many of whom operate behind the headlines in unseen corners of the state machinery. Although Iran's opposition movement has witnessed an unprecedented surge in public support, the election and its aftermath mark a radicalization of the system not seen since the early days of the Islamic revolution.

In the reformist era of Khatami, and to some extent during Ahmadinejad's first term, the country's conservative theocrats and technocrats -- such as Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament, and Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ejei, the ousted intelligence minister who criticized the state's use of forced confessions -- held much of the power over the executive and legislative branches. Although they were entrenched status quo forces, these pragmatists believed in the dual nature of the Islamic Republic's statehood -- a country with religious and political legitimacy.

But now such figures are losing their influence to a new breed of second-generation revolutionaries from Iran's security apparatus known as "the New Right." They are joined in the emerging power structure by ultraconservative clerics and organizations such as the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran. These neo-fundamentalists call for the "re-Islamization" of the theocracy, but their true agenda is to block further reform to the political system in terms of reconciling with both domestic opponents and the West.

This coalition includes Hassan Taeb, the commander of the Basij, the paramilitary branch of the IRGC; Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran's National Security Council and the country's chief nuclear negotiator; and Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader's second son, a man so feared that his name is not often uttered in public.

Hard-line figures such as the younger Khamenei and the IRGC leadership are granted religious legitimacy through the support of the most radical mullahs in the theocratic establishment: Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, the committee that certified the election tallies, and Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah Yazdi, a former head of the judiciary and Ahmadinejad's spiritual adviser. Yazdi is affiliated with an underground messianic sect called the Hojjatieh Society, which hopes to quicken the coming of the apocalypse. Democratic reforms, the Majlis (parliament), and elections are mere annoyances under this radical Islamic worldview.

It is not surprising, then, that Yazdi issued a fatwa shortly before June 12 that gave authorities tacit approval to fudge the vote. Indeed, the clerics seem to have gotten the intended result: after the election, a number of employees at Iran's Interior Ministry released an open letter stating that "the election supervisors, who had become happy and energetic for having obtained the religious fatwa to use any trick for changing the votes, began immediately to develop plans for it."

Yazdi's influence on Ahmadinejad became pronounced in the early days of the president's first term, when Ahmadinejad declared that the return of the apocalyptic 12th imam would come within two years. Now, his second term will likely be marked by even more radical behavior: in a meeting with Yazdi in June to discuss his domestic agenda, Ahmadinejad promised to Islamize the country's educational and cultural systems, declaring that Iranians had not yet witnessed "true Islam." Then, in August, amid calls to purge reformist professors, a presidential panel began investigating university humanities curricula deemed to be "un-Islamic." Several progressive students told me that they have been barred from returning to campus this semester, including a top law student at Tehran University. "I was going to continue the protests with my law degree in a more effective manner," he said. "But now I am just a simple pedestrian."

But ideology remains secondary in the struggle to maintain and consolidate control within the fractured regime. It is becoming increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and his associated faction of neo-fundamentalists no longer aim to take on the mantle of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolutionary ideals. As Khamenei's representative to the IRGC put it, "Some people are sticking to Imam Khomeini's ideas ... [but] the situation has changed." Accordingly, religion and revolutionary ideology have become convenient means to an end, but not the end themselves. Purges of un-Islamic faculty and students are meant to target the organizers of mass protests; the arrests and subsequent trials of political opponents, meanwhile, act to shield the financial interests of the IRGC and its hard-line partners.

Read rest of article...

The Latest from Iran (11 October): The Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting

NEW Iran: English Text of Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting (10 October)
NEW Iran: The Washington-Tehran Deal on Enriched Uranium?
NEW Iran: So Who Controls the Islamic Republic?
The Latest from Iran (10 October): Karroubi is Back

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1900 GMT: Former President Khatami has followed up his speech in Yazd Province (1445 GMT) with a strong challenge to the regime on his website: “Be sure that people will never back down. Today, we are living in a world in which no dictator could be imposed on people to force them to be absolute obedient to him. An acceptable government is a government born out of people.” An English summary is in the Los Angeles Times.)

1845 GMT: We've posted the full English-language summary of the Mousavi-Karroubi meeting in a separate entry.

1630 GMT: EA's Mr Smith checks in with a snap analysis of the Mousavi-Karroubi meeting (1430 GMT):

General mood appears to be to be firmness on opposition to government, but strictly within the parameters of the nezam (political system)....They both asked for airtime on national television to air their version of the post-election events. All in all, I think they are attempting to settle in for a more long-term strategy of opposition, one that implicitly relies on sporadic street protests, coinciding with the main "mobilisation" events of the regime. They will keep well within the boundaries of the political system to progressively claw away at Ahmadinejad's power.

I personally think they reached this conclusion after running out of other options, and frankly it is not quite clear whether it holds at all as a long-term strategy.

1445 GMT: Former President Mohammad Khatami has spoken with an audience in Yazd Province. Criticising violent and brutal acts against reformists and protestors, he warned the Government that, if they do not let critics express their opinions, then the movement will move toward radicalism. (English summary on Facebook page connected with Zahra Rahnavard)

1430 GMT: Green Talks. Tagheer, the website connected with Mehdi Karroubi, has a lengthy article on a meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi yesterday.

1420 GMT: An Iranian activist is reporting a fourth post-election detainee has been sentenced to death. Hamed Rouhinejad, like Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Pour-Rahmani, is accused of belonging to a monarchist organisation carrying out crimes against the state.

1050 GMT: Fereshteh Ghazi is reporting the sentences handed out to 16 post-election protesters (according to state media, 18 were convicted in September and are now appealing the verdicts): "Alireza Eshraghi 5 years, Mohsen Jafari 4 years, Mehrdad Varshoie 3 years, Yaghoutil Shanoulian 2 years 6 months, Faramarz Abdollah Nezhad 2 years 4 months, Amir Hojjati 2 years 3 months, Mousa Shah Karami 2 years 3 months, Kamran Jahanbani 2 years, Hossein Bastani 2 years, Hossein Ezami 2 years, Mehdi Fatah Bakhsh 1 year 9 months, Majid Moghimi 1 year, Mohammad Farahani 10 months, Mohammad Rasouli 10 months, Meysam Ghorbani 6 months and 74 lashes, Reza Imanpour 6 months".

1030 GMT: Really? Someone needs to show Secretary of State Hillary Clinton our analysis of the story from The Washington Post. As the Obama Administration pursues a private deal with Tehran over uranium enrichment, she is blowing the public smoke of threat, telling reporters in London, the world "will not wait indefinitely" for Iran to meet international obligations.

1025 GMT: We've posted two important items this morning. Jerry Guo of Foreign Affairs, echoing analyses that our readers have discussed for weeks, considers the "control" of the Iranian Government by "the Revolutionary Guard and its allies". Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, fed the information by Obama Administration officials, reveals the developing US-Iran deal for enrichment of Tehran's uranium.

1020 GMT: Our sharp-eyed, sharp-minded readers have been discussing a number of stories about Iran's difficult economic situation and the impact it might have upon the regime. This item stood out: "1700 employees of Wagon Pars Company in Arak have gone on a hunger strike to protest the company’s failure to pay their wages and pension....This is the ninth protest organized by the employees this year." Wagon Pars, which was recently privatised, is one of Iran's largest manufacturers of railway vehicles.

1000 GMT: The reaction to the Behnoud Shojai execution (see 0630 GMT) continues to dominate Interenet discussion. A reader alerts to a moving statement on the case, and Rosemary Church of CNN has picked up via Twitter on the developments (though there is still no reference on CNN's website).

0630 GMT: Little political movement so far today. Iranian state media is reinforcing the image of Government by highlighting the attendance of President Ahmadinejad at a conference on...Iranian state media. The Islamic Republic News Agency reports that the discussions of media operations included more than 800 experts from 21 Government agencies and units, with the Head of Cultural Commission of Parliament and the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance also present.

One of those media operations is in Fars News. The newspaper features an Isfahan University professor declaring that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to recipients such as Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi and President Obama is a "green light" for the Green movement of post-election protest.

Meanwhile, after a day of tension and confusion over the death sentences handed down to three post-election detainees, activists have been occupied overnight with the execution of Behnoud Shojai. Shojai, whose case precedes the election, was 17 when convicted in 2005 of murder in a fight; the execution, which had been delayed four times, was carried out despite Shojai's claim of self-defence.

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The Latest from Iran (10 October): Karroubi is Back

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The Desperate Blogger at Salon breaks the real news of this year's prize:

Tehran, October 9 – In a rare appearance during Friday prayers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, announced that Iran’s Supreme Council has officially declared Mahmoud Ahamadinejad the 2009 Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  The 18-member Council voted 26-2 (with 3 abstentions) to certify the election result in an emergency session called amid confusion resulting from the Nobel Committee’s announcement that U.S. President Barack Obama had won the prestigious award.

Saying he was both “humbled and honored” to be chosen, Ahmadinejad, who is only the third Holocaust denier to win the prize, told an adoring crowd estimated at 200,000, give or take a few “British-sponsored troublemakers”, that the announcement caught him “totally off guard”.

“I thank the members of the Nobel Committee for having the courage to overlook all the ‘death to this country, death to that country’ stuff, as well as the ‘wiping Israel off the map’ comments,” the Iranian President said to chants of "Death to Norway!"

“And I thank them for recognizing the modern Iran which, at least officially, has lived and thrived in peace with our neighbors for over 20 years, and further, has done so entirely without homosexuals.”

Ahmadinejad went on to comment about what he saw as the moment’s “most profound irony”, pertaining to the fact that Alfred Nobel, who left an endowment to fund the awards that bear his name, made his fortune as the inventor of T.N.T.  “In December, in Oslo, I will most humbly and gratefully accept, on behalf of the Islamic Republic, a medal bearing the likeness of a great man – a great man whose invention sounds like a kid cracking bubble gum compared to what we’ve got in the pipeline…”

When asked for his thoughts on the announcement that Ahmadinejad had received the most votes from the Nobel Committee, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai told E! Network’s ‘The Soup’, “Not so fast.”

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