2100 GMT: Law and Order Story of the Week. After the court session for Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of Kayhan, the newspaper’s journalist Payam Fazli-Nejad was reportedly “heavily beaten, barely escaping his death”, and Ahmadinejad right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai has become “mamnou ol-tasvir” (his photos forbidden) on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
2040 GMT: War on Terror, I Tell You. I’m sure it is entirely coincidental in light of current events — announcement of arrest of Jundullah leader a week after it occurred, Ahmadinejad declaring that it is Iran not “the West” that is fighting terrorism (1745 GMT), declaration of 100 arrested on 22 Bahman as “terrorists” (1435 GMT) — but this just in from the Ministry of Intelligence:
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs have been on a roll since Friday defending Iran’s assertions that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
You heard right.
In response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent claims that Iran had enriched uranium to the 20% level required for medical isotopes at the Natanz enrichment facility, Gibbs declared: “The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.”
Iran: More posturing today over the nuclear issue, as well as slurs and counter-claims between the US and Iran on which country is the “dictatorship”.Human rights continues to dominate internal news, and labour activism appears to be gathering speed, although there no firm signs of a nationwide general strike yet. We have live-blogging from Ahmadinejad’s press conference, and as always, all news and links will be updated throughout the day on our live weblog.
Late-breaking news is of a rising challenge from the Karroubi family, with both Mehdi Karroubi’s wife and son making pointed challenges to the regime. That bears out the importance of the analysis by EA’s Mr Verdeof the beating of Medhi Karroubi’s son Ali: “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….”
ABDERRAHIM FOUKARA, AL JAZEERA: Madam Secretary, if the criteria for judging U.S.-Muslim relations is the issue of Palestine, as millions of Arabs and Muslims seem to feel, they would say that those relations, taking that criterion into consideration, are not in very good shape right now. What say you to that?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, I am delighted to be part of this exciting interview and town hall at Al Jazeera. And thank you for participating.
The first thing I would say is that, obviously, our relations with people around the world is much broader than any one issue, even an issue as important as the future of the Palestinian people and the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. I think it is a mistake to only look at the United States and our role in working with other countries through any single prism. But I accept the fact that this is a critical issue. It’s a critical issue to us.
Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.
The evidence contradicts the claims by top officials of the Barack Obama administration that Mullah Omar was complicit in Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the al Qaeda plot to carry out the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sep. 11, 2001. It also bolsters the credibility of Taliban statements in recent months asserting that it has no interest in al Qaeda’s global jihadist aims.
A primary source on the relationship between bin Laden and Mullah Omar before 9/11 is a detailed personal account provided by Egyptian jihadist Abu’l Walid al-Masri published on Arabic-language jihadist websites in 1997.
1925 GMT: A (Pick the) Number of Protesters Will Be Tried Sometime in the Future with War Against the Regime (and Maybe God). Press TV trots out the latest press release to show Justice Will Be Done over the protests of Ashura (27 December):
Iran’s judiciary says it has forwarded the cases of sixteen individuals indicted in connection with the Ashura riot in Tehran to the Revolution Court.
The Tehran Prosecutor’s office said in a statement that one of the defendants could be charged with being “mohareb” (enemy of God) — a crime punishable by execution.
The fifteen [other] suspects were charged with “conspiring against national security and carrying out acts against the establishment,” the statement added.
This is the latest in a series of public set-pieces. A couple of weeks ago, “seven” defendants appeared in Revolutionary Guard. Then there was the announcement that “five” demonstrators would be charged as “mohareb”.
All of this, in contrast to the public show of the Tehran trials in August, seems just a bit haphazard.
1840 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi has offered condolences to the family of Professor Ali-Mohammadi.
1825 GMT: Professor Ali-Mohammadi and Sweden. There has been a lot of chatter around the theory that Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was killed by regime loyalists, in part because he was going to take up a fellowship at Stockholm University in Sweden. We’ve done some checking:
1. We can establish nothing beyond the claim of the physicist’s colleagues that “he had been in touch” with Stockholm about a one-year research grant. That’s not necessarily “taking up” a fellowship, since in many cases, an application is made to a funding body, e.g., the European Union’s research support programmes, for a Visiting Scholar.
The claim, without further evidence, was exaggerated on prominent blogs into Ali-Mohammadi definitely leading the country.
2. It is not necessarily an anti-regime step to take up an overseas fellowship. I personally know academics who support the regime who have held such fellowships.
3. There is nothing to indicate that Ali-Mohammadi’s research fellowship would have turned into a defection.
4. There’s a contradiction in the theory. If Ali-Mohammadi was in fact a particle physicist who had little or no connection with Iran’s nuclear programme, why would there be a risk for the regime in his taking up a fellowship, since he would have no sensitive information to disclose?
On Sunday, I was on Al Jazeera English’s “Inside Story” to discuss whether the agreements at the Copenhagen summit on climate change offered any grounds for optimism. The other panellists were Daniela Vincenti-Mitchener, the managing editor of EurActiv, the European Union’s information website, and Vandana Shiva, an ecologist and environmental activist.
2100 GMT: Law and Order Story of the Week. After the court session for Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of Kayhan, the newspaper’s journalist Payam Fazli-Nejad was reportedly “heavily beaten, barely escaping his death”, and Ahmadinejad right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai has become “mamnou ol-tasvir” (his photos forbidden) on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
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