The Latest from Iran (17 September): Tomorrow

Latest Iran Video: Ayatollah Dastgheib Condemns Khamenei (31 Aug/5 Sept?)
UPDATED Iran: The NBC TV Interview with President Ahmadinejad
Qods Day: A Protest For Palestine or Against Iran’s Government?
Iran: So, What Are the Green Movement’s Goals Tomorrow?
Iran’s Chess Match: Setting Up the Pieces for Friday
The Latest from Iran (16 September): Smoke Before Battle

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

2055 GMT: Reports that writer and blogger Ali Pirhousienlou and hsi wife Fatemeh Sotoudeh have been arrested.

1930 GMT: In addition to the assassination of the Assembly of Experts member (1750 GMT), it is reported that the Chief Prosecutor in Kurdestan has been shot.

1845 GMT: Tomorrow's march routes for Mashhad and for Rasht have been posted.

1750 GMT: In the latest of a series of assassinations in the province, the Kurdistan representative on the Assembly of Experts was killed today.

1705 GMT: An EA source sends us this from a Tehran resident: "People will come out but many are also leaving Tehran as it is a long weekend. Saturday is half closed and Sunday is a holiday. Many who participated in previous demonstrations are leaving Tehran or have left already and many are much scared of what happened to their colleagues, friends and other citizens."

1640 GMT: The Marches. Iranian activist HomyLafayette has posted the routes for tomorrow's marches in Tehran (7 routes ending at the University of Tehran; start at 10 a.m. local time; 0530 GMT), Isfahan, and Tabriz.

1545 GMT: Radio Farda reports that Mohammad Maleki, the former chancellor of Tehran University, has been charged with acting against Iran's national security. Maleki, who is 76 and suffering from prostate cancer, was arrested on 22 August.

1410 GMT: Mehdi Mousavi-Nejad, the brother of the wife of detained former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, has been arrested.

1310 GMT: Lemming MediaFail. Adding to NBC's threatened ludicrous journalism at the court of President Ahmadinejad (see separate entry), Reuters offers a spectacularly bad headline, "Iran opposition leaders to attend anti-Israel rally".

And in case you think that this is a slip-up and they do realise that the main reason for marching tomorrow is to maintain pressure on the Government, they repeat in the article, "Defeated presidential candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi said they would attend the anti-Israel rally."

1305 GMT: The Government Warning. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has issued its threat through the Islamic Republic News Agency: "We are warning people and the movements who want to help the Zionist regime that if you seek any disruption or disorder during the glorious Quds Day rally, you will be decisively confronted by the courageous children of Iran....The enemies of the regime and the revolution and those who were defeated in the recent election are trying to take revenge for what happened on election day."

The IRGC claimed that dissent is part of a plan by "foreign networks, especially the Zionist regime's intelligence service to create disruption and division in the people's united movement."

1300 GMT: The Plan. Mehdi Karroubi's office has announced that the cleric will leave his offices at 11 a.m. local time tomorrow to march to 7 Tir Square for the Qods Day rally.

1240 GMT: Well, Well. The Internet is buzzing with reports of a visit by Mir Hossein Mousavi to Qom on Tuesday night, where he met Ayatollah Sane'i, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, the brother of Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Mousavi-Tabrizi, and the representative of Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani. Mousavi also participated in a meeting of the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom.

We are confirming the exact date of the trip.

1030 GMT: Going After the Children. Confirming news we received last night: Mehdi Mirdamadi, the son of Mohsen Mirdamadi, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, was arrested last night. Mohsen Mirdamadi has been detained since shortly after the election.

Hossein Nourinejad, head of the information committee of the IIPF, and IIPF member Mehdi Mahmoudian have also been arrested.

1015 GMT: Credit to The Guardian of London, who have been running some interesting analysis on their website (though, unfortunately, not in the print edition). This morning Ranj Alaaldin and Nicholas Zanjani offer thoughts on "Ahmadinejad's desperate gamble", believing that his "administration depends on a redistribution of wealth for support and the flight of capital from Iran will hurt".

The article may be over-dramatic --- "As money continues to reverse course and leave the pockets of his supporters, those who voted for Ahmadinejad are being left to wonder why the government deserves their continuing loyalty" --- but it does raise the point, overlooked by most in the media but pressed on EA by Chris Emery, that the long-term weakness for the Government and possibly the regime lies in their management of the economy.

0800 GMT: MediaWatch. The New York Times focuses on "Iran Opposition Leader Sidelined from Rally", in what Robert Worth sees as "a striking break from precedent that suggests the country’s hard-line leaders fear the event could turn into an opposition rally". Borzou Daragahi runs the same story in The Los Angeles Times but turns the analysis into "the declining influence of Iranian moderates within the political elite". The Washington Post, with its preference for worry over Iran's nuclear programme, has nothing this morning.

Some of the broadcast media have now wandered from poor to terrible. NBC Television's staff have been shouting about their "exclusive" interview with President Ahmadinejad, to be broadcast in a few hours, but they have no apparent knowledge of Qods Day. CNN's Twitter posse have just proclaimed that they'll be following Qods Day. Last news story on the CNN website from inside Iran? 11 September.

0550 GMT: Looking towards the speeches and rallies on Qods (Jerusalem) Day on Friday, we've posted an analysis in the form of an important question, "What are the Green Movement's Goals?" Later this morning, we'll post an overview of the Qods Day marches by Meir Javedanfar.

Catching up with a couple of developments from yesterday:

An EA correspondent notes that the Rafsanjani interview downplaying his forced withdrawal from Qods Day prayers, summarised in Wednesday's updates, was carried by Al-Alam, the Arabic-language service of Iran's state television. The correspondent notes, "Why Rafsanajani chose to grant them his first post-electoral interview could be subject of speculation. Maybe he was told to tell the Arab world that Iran is not imploding?"

And a warning sign for Friday: Mowj-e-Sabz reports that Basiji militia in the town of Varamin have been distributing leaflets calling on their forces to converge on Tehran.

UPDATED Iran: Law & Politics - Misinterpreting Mortazavi

The Latest from Iran (31 August): The Debate over the Cabinet

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

UPDATED 1 September: Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Prize Laureate and human rights lawyer, offers an interpretation in support of the Mostaghim-Daragahi analysis: "The setting aside of Mortazavi from his position of Tehran's chief prosecutor and his installment as [one of the] deputy general prosecutors of Iran must not to be considered as a promotion....The latitude and power of Mortazavi in his new position is much less and this new position has made him more vulnerable to prosecutions."

An EA correspondent adds, "I suspect that Larijani's Mortazavi promotion/demotion was a stroke of diabolical cunning. First of all, a powerful official, accustomed to act independently (and, more importantly, from a political faction that is rather hostile towards the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani) is removed from a sensitive post, placed under supervision, and therefore prevented from causing trouble for the Larijanis. Secondly, since this removal is "a promotion", Mortazavi and his cronies, however upset by the loss of power, cannot make a noise. Thirdly, placing Mortazavi in a higher position that at the same time is vulnerable to prosecution allows the Larijani-headed judiciary to control him. When Mortazavi was Tehran's prosecutor he could use his influence to block and stonewall all charges made against him, but in his new position this power has been taken away from him.

Yesterday, in a graphic illustration of the twists and turns of Iranian politics, Saeed Mortazavi went from being "fired" in the morning as Tehran's Chief Prosecutor to being "promoted" in the afternoon as Iran's Deputy Prosecutor General. The sudden shift led to some misleading headlines --- the New York Post is still crowing about the sacking of the "Butcher of Tehran" --- and a lot of uncertainty. What did Mortazavi's fortunes say about the intra-Establishment battle for power as well as the future of detentions and trials of post-election political prisoners?

A couple of Enduring America correspondents cautiously navigated the possibilities yesterday before concluding "wait and see". Others, however, have not been as cautious and, I fear, as shrewd.

Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times are about as good as you get in reporting on Iran for US media (Mostaghim is based in Tehran, persisting despite the Iran Government's restrictions, and Daragahi is in Beirut), but they may have mis-stepped by jumping to the conclusion that Mortazavi now has "a fancy title" that "strips him of his power to pursue his hardline political agenda".

This is a favoured theory of some Iranian activists who are pushing the idea of a political overthrow of the President by the Larijani brothers, one of whom is the new head of judiciary, and Hashemi Rafsanjani. In this case, the LA Times reporters rely on two Iranian trial lawyers who claim that Mortazavi's" authority and power have been diminished almost to zero, nothing ... because he cannot make any judiciary decision".

That's a comforting thought for those who hope that Mortazavi,  with his hard-line approach to detention and trials (and alleged abuses of prisoners), will no longer have influence. It ignores, however, the reality that his new role is as much a political matter as a judicial one.

The truth is that we simply don't know what impact Mortazavi will have until his relationship with his superior, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, and judiciary head Sadegh Larijani emerges.