2100 GMT: Chahrshanbeh Suri. An activist reports a conversation with a relative in Gisha in Tehranm, who said basiji were roaming the streets on their bikes and tried to stop people celebrating. Told of a report that said nothing political had happened tonight, the relative answered, “In Iran everything is political.”
2010 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. More temporary releases — Behzad Nabavi, a leader of the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution Party serving a five-year term for “crimes against national security”, and journalist and economist Saeed Laylaz have been freed until 4 April. Laylaz posted $500,000 bail.
2000 GMT: Chahrshanbeh Suri Reza Sayah of CNN reports, via a Tehran witness, that police are spray painting passing cars that toss firecrackers out of windows. Basiji used tasers and batons to chase away 300 partiers near Mehr Park in Farmanieh.
2133 GMT: More Death Penalties or Old News? There’s chatter tonight about a supposed announcement of “six death sentences” for protesters on Ashura (27 December), featured on The New York Times website.
We’re being careful about this. Our perception is that the announcement is merely the restatement of death sentences which have already been announced by the Tehran Prosecutor General’s office, rather than — as the NYT piece indicates — a new set of capital punishments.
2130 GMT: We’ve posted a separate entry on the developing story of the ban on the Islamic Iran Participation Front.
1945 GMT: Resisting the Empire of Lies. Responding to the Government’s assertion that it has been banned (see 1650 GMT), the reformist party Islamic Iran Participation Front calls on all political and social activists to continue their social struggles and not to “give in to the empire of lies”. The IIPF claimed that the attempted ban reveals the “weakness of the government” and that civil institutions and activists will “grow and expand” their activities.
1940 GMT: Power, Money, and Oil. The engineering firm owned by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has been awarded an $850 million oil pipeline contract.
1910 GMT: More on the Universities Purge (see 1145 GMT). The Revolutionary Guards get in on the act, with Yahya Rahim-Safavi, the former commander and current advisor to the Supreme Leader, declaring, “The universities aren’t in good shape today, missing from them are revolutionary forces and experts who are beholden to the Imam, the Supreme Leader, and the Constitution.”
Rahim-Safavi, speaking at a conference organized for the “cultural experts” of the IRGC, said, “The goal of soft war is to change the culture, values and beliefs of the youth….Our weakness is in this very issue of culture, which our enemies have identified before we did. Therefore we must battle against and overcome the attacking culture with our soft and cultural power.”
1830 GMT: Let’s Make Up a Cyber-War. More regime propaganda — the Revolutionary Guard has briefed the Parliament on the nefarious cyber-plot of the opposition around Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, bringing in names like the filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and human rights activist Ahmad Batebi. (There’s a video as well.)
After the briefing, the head of Parliament’s National Security Committee said Human Rights Activists in Iran had fabricated a list of killed protesters and passed it to Mir Hossein Mousavi.
2225 GMT: Petraeus Pronounces. On a slowish political evening, General David Petraeus dishes out some rhetoric on Iran’s “thugocracy”. We’ll have an analysis tomorrow (hint: it’s actually a signal that US is backing off any immediate military pressure), but for now, we’ve posted the video.
1945 GMT: Larijani Watch. Nice move by the head of Iran’s judiciary, Mohammad Sadegh Larijani. He has announced the discovery of a large group inside the Government carrying out fraud and economic corruption: one case alone was embezzlement of 6 bilionl Toman more than $6 million).
2015 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch: The family of journalist Emaddedin Baghi have visited him in prison. Baghi’s wife Fatemeh Kamali said, “Although he became weak, his spirit is very strong.”
1920 GMT: P.S. Fatemeh Karroubi has said that she will file a lawsuit against the Iranian Press Supervisory Board for shutting down Iran Dokht magazine.
1900 GMT: Karroubi Watch. Fatemeh Karroubi, Mehdi Karroubi’s wife, has written an open letter to the Iranian nation after the closure of the magazine Iran Dokht and an attack on her home by plainclothesmen who threw eggs and tomatoes: “I should feel sorry for the country when its Government can’t even tolerate the only press that will critique it.”
2045 GMT: Sunday Absurdity. A slow day, which leading to a perusing of opinion in the newspapers. Unfortunately, that turns up a piece of anti-Muslim diatribe posing as analysis by Ephraim Karsh in The New York Times: “Muslims Won’t Play Together”. The slurs have to be read to be believed, but here is the policy recommendation: “A military strike must remain a serious option: there is no peaceful way to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, stemming as they do from its imperialist brand of national-Islamism.”
1700 GMT: Where’s Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad has been at a conference in Tehran attended by Palestinian leaders such as Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal, Islamic Jihad’s Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command), Ahmed Jibril. Ahmadinejad offered this commentary:
1955 GMT: The lawyer for 21-year-old Amir Reza Arefi says his client has been sentenced to death for “mohareb” (war against God). Arefi was arrested in April 2009, before the June election.
1945 GMT: Keeping Rafsanjani in His Box. An EA correspondent puts together an important story: with the 7th general assembly of the Assembly of Experts due next week, probably on Tuesday and Wednesday, new attacks have been launched upon Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly.
A statement from a number of clerics at Qom declares that, due to the performance of Hashemi Rafsanjani in the past few months, he is not suitable to continue in his post. And Fars News, criticising Rafsanjani’s son Mehdi Hashemi for not returning to Iran after five months abroad, asserts that his settling in London is “strange and suspicious”.
1715 GMT: The Karroubi Wave. It appears that the Karroubi family — not just Mehdi Karroubi, but the family — are ready to propel the next wave of opposition to the Government and regime. In addition to Fatemeh Karroubi’s interview (1600 GMT), Mehdi Karroubi’s son Hossein has spoken out to Radio Zamaneh.
Imagine for a moment that the son or daughter of a Presidential or Prime Ministerial candidate in the US or Britain had been taken away by plainclothes security forces and kept in an unknown locations for days. Imagine that he or she had been beaten and threatened with rape. Think of the headlines and furour.
Consider that this is what allegedly occurred in Tehran last Thursday. According to the son of Mehdi Karoubi, Hossein, his younger brother Ali was detained when Karroubi’s entourage was confronted by security forces. Fatemeh Karroubi, Ali’s mother, has written an open letter to the Supreme Leader, detailing the claimed torture and rape threats, which allegedly took place in a mosque. Ali Karroubi’s wife, Nafiseh Panahi, has said that her husband suffered a broken arm and fractured skull.
The response of the regime? Tehran’s Prosecutor General, Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi stated that there was no warrant for the arrest of Ali Karrroubi and that he concluded, from his enquiries of the police, intelligence agencies and Revolutionary Guards, that such a person was never detained. He added that Ali Karroubi shoulld prove his allegation by stating why he was detained and where. (Fatemeh Karroubi had already stated in her letter that the location of the alleged detention and abuse was Amir-al-Momenin Mosque in Tehran. It should also be noted that it is normally the arresting party who puts forth a reason for detention, not the suspect.)
2100 GMT: Chahrshanbeh Suri. An activist reports a conversation with a relative in Gisha in Tehranm, who said basiji were roaming the streets on their bikes and tried to stop people celebrating. Told of a report that said nothing political had happened tonight, the relative answered, “In Iran everything is political.”
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