2325 GMT: That’s it for today. We’ll be back at 0600 GMT. Look forward to seeing you then.
2315 GMT: What’s Your Punchline? Looking for a joke to end the evening. Here’s the set-up line, courtesy of Press TV: “A senior Iranian commander has announced that the country has developed a new system to distract missiles.”
2310 GMT: On the Labour Front. Mansour Osanloo, the leader of the Tehran bus drivers union, has been transferred to Solitary Ward Number 1 in Gohardasht Prison, also known as the “doghouse”.
2225 GMT: Taking Away Karroubi’s Protection? In an interview with Radio Farda, Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, Mehdi Karroubi’s son, says that several former Revolutionary Guards, wartime commanders, and family members of martyrs who had volunteered for protect Mehdi Karroubi on 22 Bahman have been called in for questioning and have not yet gone home. He says that they have probably been arrested. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 2100 GMT: Another possible twist tonight. Rafsanjani’s website has published an interview in which the former President talks about his letter to the Supreme Leader just before the elections, warning of President Ahmadinejad’s “lies” and calling for a “fraudless” ballot. (Rafsanjani claims that that Khamenei did not object to the contents of the letter, but would have preferred it to have been published after the elections.) Rafsanjani also speaks at length about how he gathered funds for the clergy before the Revolution and how, together with others (such as Grand Ayatollahs Montazeri or Sane’i but with no reference to Khamenei), he was trusted by Ayatollah Khomeini to manage the revolutionaries’ funds.
The title of the interview: “In 42 some people were asking, ‘Who will account for the blood of the 15 Khordad?’” That is a reference to the uprising of 5 June 1963, protesting the arrest of Khomeini; the protest was put down after six days by the Iranian military.
Perhaps Rafsanjani’s question is not just historical recollection but an enquiry for today?
UPDATE 10 FEBRUARY, 1500 GMT: EA is now treated this story as confirmed. A reliable source has said that the Rafsanjani-Khamenei meeting was on Monday. Normally, in his official roles, Rafsanjani sees the Supreme Leaders on Tuesday; in this case, the former President asked for a special discussion.
While the immediate cause for Rafsanjani’s intervention was the detention of Mousavi advisor Alireza Beheshti and the reported search by Iranian authorities for Beheshti’s wife, Rafsanjani did ask the Supreme Leader to act on all cases involving political prisoners. Our source notes perceptively the “7 Tir families”, relatives of those killed in a bombing in the early days of the Revolution, had asked Rafsanjani for help with Beheshti and other cases; other families, learning of this appeal, then approached the former President.
The Rafsanjani intervention should also be connected to another important meeting, days earlier, between the Supreme Leader and Grand Ayatollah Mousavi-Ardebili, one of the most important clerics in Iran and Shi’a Islam. Mousavi-Ardebili, in his first meeting in 17 years with Khamenei, declared that he was “disappointed” in the Supreme Leader’s actions and urged him to act decisively for justice in the cases of the detained.
An EA correspondent adds:
It is reported that Ardebili had told Khamenei, “I know the leaders of the protests in Qom and Tehran. I testify that they are after reforming the affairs of the state based on the constitution and are not after toppling you. Your concerns over this are misplaced.”
By mentioning “Qom”, the seat of clerical learning in Iran, Ardebili is telling Khamenei that there is a substantial movement against the establishment in its heartland. The mention of “not after toppling you”: either means that Khamenei is very worried about his own position now or it is a threat from one of Shi’a Islam’s few Grand Ayatollahs. Ardebili could mean, “They are not after toppling you, but don’t do something that will force us, the marjas (senior clerics), to have to topple you.”
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Let’s assume that the Rah-e Sabz news about the Rafsanjani meeting with Supreme Leader, spurred by the attempt to arrest Alireza Beheshi’s wife, is accurate. Read the rest of this entry »
2205 GMT: The Tajik Show? BBC Persian follows up on the curious story of the “release” of former Vice President Mohammad Reza Tajik from detention. Tajik appeared on the 22:30 programme on IRIB 2 saying that there was no election “fraud” and that “foreign and Zionist media” are riding the wave of the protests.
2145 GMT: Lawyer Forough Mirzaei and Mahin Fahimi, a member of “Mothers for Peace”, have been released from detention.
2100 GMT: And Analysing Rumour of Day (Week? Month?). We’ve posted a snap analysis considering the reasons for and implications of a Rafsanjani “ultimatum” to the Supreme Leader.
2200 GMT: And The Pace Accelerates. Hard to keep up tonight — Mehdi Karroubi’s Etemade Melli party has now made another move for 22 Bahman, following up the cleric’s declarations today with a list of proposals for reconciliation. We have posted them in a separate entry.
2100 GMT: An Extraordinary Offer? We have posted what we think might be a significant move by the “conservative opposition” to the President: an open letter to Mir Hossein Mousavi with the offer, “Back Khamenei and We Can Move Against Ahmadinejad”.
1950 GMT: Another Attack on Ahmadinejad’s Camp. Ayatollah Safi Golpaygani has effectively asked for the President’s Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, to be put on trial. Once again, the challenge is circulated through the pro-Rafsanjani Ayande News.
2330 GMT: Mahmoud Down. Signing off tonight with this news — looks like the latest victim in the cyber-war is President Ahmadinejad’s blog.
2320 GMT: Another Rights-First Shot from the Obama Administration. Despite (possibly because of) the recent sanctions-related rush of spin in US newspapers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a moment to focus on Iran’s political conflict today, criticising the regime’s “ruthless repression” of protesters: “We have deep concerns about their behavior, we have concerns about their intentions and we are deeply disturbed by the mounting signs of ruthless repression that they are exercising against those who assemble and express viewpoints that are at variance with what the leadership of Iran wants to hear.”
2220 GMT: Have You Made “The List”? Fars News has published the names of the 60 organisations and media outlets “outed” by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence as unacceptable for contact by Iranians.
There are a lot of familiar faces, given that many of these dangerous groups were listed in indictments in the Tehran trials in August: Georges Soros’ Open Society Institute is here, as is the Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Center, whose scholar Haleh Esfandiari was detained by the Iranians in 2007. Both the National Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute get a mention. So doe the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hoover Institute in California, Freedom House, and of course the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The National Endowment for Democracy, funded but not run by the US Government, also gets a citation, and Human Rights Watch is a definite no-go area.
Looks like we’ve missed out — in the United Kingdom, the conference centre at Wilton Park, where foreign agents must gather to plan regime change, is mentioned as is the “Centre for Democracy Studies”.
Just one question, if anyone at the Ministry of Intelligence is on Overnight Foreigner Watch: why does Yale get to be the one university to receive the Great Satan’s Helper prize? (And, yes, we’re already getting furious e-mails from our Harvard friends.)
2200 GMT: Have just arrived in Beirut, where I will be learning from the best specialists on the Middle East and Iran this week. Thanks to EA staff for finding journalist Maziar Bahari’s interview with Britain’s Channel 4. We’ve now posted the video of Bahari, who was detained for four months after the Presidential election.
2000 GMT: Britain’s Channel 4 News has just broadcast a moving interview with journalist Maziar Bahari who was held in Evin prison for 119 days. We’ll post a link when it becomes available. Chief political correspondent Jon Snow also referred back to his exclusive interview with President Ahmadinejad which took place in Shiraz just before Christmas. Ahmadinejad denied troops were intimidating opponents and warned the West not to assume his country was weak.
1540 GMT: I’m en route to a conference in the Middle East (more news tomorrow) so updates may be limited today. The EA team is minding the shop so keep sending in information and analysis. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 2225 GMT: Rah-e-Sabz has published what it claims is the circular issued by the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance on coverage of Montazeri’s death. It states that reference should be made to Montazeri’s differences with Ayatollah Khomeini, but there should be no mention of his political career.
There are also stories that newspapers have been taken off printing presses to be altered. So far only Etelaat has a full obituary of Montazeri. so far.
1710 GMT: “Following the announcements made by a number of Grand Ayatollahs inviting public to mourn the departure of the great shia scholar and noble combatant, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, in a joint statement Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi declared Monday to be a national mourning day and invited the grieving public to attend Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s funeral which will be held (then).” Read the rest of this entry »
2145 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz Suspends Publication. The editors and reporters of the Green Movement website Mowj-e-Sabz/Mowjcamp, a key source of information in the post-election crisis, have announced tonight that they are suspending the posting of articles.
The authors declare that this is the “end of a wave but the beginning of a path”, as they “leave the arena temporarily to other Green [activists]“. The announcement points to 22 Bahman (11 February), the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a key date for mobilisation.
Overall impression? The Mowj-e-Sabz activists, having been under constant regime pressure and having had their domain “seized” by hackers (the announcement claims they were Russians hired by the regime) this week, are taking a step back and drawing breath. The impression is of an opposition movement preparing to move more slowly but consistently in a long-haul battle.
2130 GMT: Paying Respects. Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, have visited former Vice President and recently-released detainee Mohammad Ali Abtahi in his home.
2125 GMT: More than 900 Sharif University students have signed an open letter protesting the arrest of protesters on 16 Azar (7 December).
1920 GMT: Propaganda of the Day (2). Israeli officials are putting out the story that President Obama, on his trip to Beijing in November, “warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer”. This “part of the U.S. attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran” matches up with leaks to the US media from a faction (probably including Dennis Ross of the National Security Council) in the Obama Administration — which we noted — that Israel would send the missiles into Iran if nothing was done about Tehran’s nuclear program.
The bigger story, however, lies beyond the spin. The Israeli officials added that the effect on Beijing was short-lived: “the Americans now understand that the Chinese agreed to join the condemnation announcement [at the International Atomic Energy Agency] only because Obama made a personal request to [Chinese leader Hu Jintao], not as part of a policy change”. They noted that China has “refused a Saudi-American initiative designed to end Chinese dependence on Iranian oil”.
If true, that means — for all the bluster of the pro-sanctions crowd in Washington in conjunction with the Israelis — any notion of economic punishment including the Chinese is a fantasy. Read the rest of this entry »
1920 GMT: A Bit of Official Hesitation? Press TV’s website posts an article confirming the death sentences on three post-election detainees: “two are responsible for a deadly bombing and the remaining convict is a member of a terrorist organization”. It names only Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani.
Some of the article is repetition of the very thin pretext for conviction: Zamani and the other member [Arash Pour-Ramani] of the “Iran Royal Association” are not tied to any criminal incident; however, “the group is responsible for a deadly bombing in the southern city of Shiraz back in April 2008, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds were wounded”. The third detainee [Naser Abdul Hosseini] will die simply because his alleged membership in the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, the armed wing of the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran.
Yet, if you read closely, there are a couple of chinks in the article’s open-and-shut case. You’ll notice in the headline, “In Iran, three ‘terrorists’ are placed on death row”, the quote marks of uncertainty. And the text notes that Ali Zamani’s case has been highlighted by Amnesty International.
2325 GMT: That’s it for today. We’ll be back at 0600 GMT. Look forward to seeing you then.
2330 GMT: Mahmoud Down. Signing off tonight with this news — looks like the latest victim in the cyber-war is 
UPDATE 2225 GMT: Rah-e-Sabz has published what it claims is 
2145 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz Suspends Publication. The editors and reporters of the Green Movement website Mowj-e-Sabz/Mowjcamp, a key source of information in the post-election crisis, 
1920 GMT: A Bit of Official Hesitation? 
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