UPDATE 6 MARCH: Iranian Students News Agency has confirmed the “mohareb” death sentence handed down to Mohammad Amin Valian. Valian’s attorney says the case has not yet gone to appeal.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran claims, from a source, that “[Valian's] family is under immense pressure to withhold interviews with the media and human rights organizations….Ministry of Information authorities have promised his family that if they don’t get the media involved, they would somehow secure a clemency for him from the Supreme Leader.”
We still do not have confirmation of the “mohareb” (war against God) death sentence allegedly handed to Mohammad Amin Valian. What we do have, however, are some high-profile politics and religious moves which may point to deeper issues for the Islamic Republic. Mr Verde analyses:
Ayatollah Sane’i, in response to the question: “What are the criteria for identifying mohareb and what are the punishments for it?” has issued a fatwa (decree) on his site.
The fatwa describes what is mohareb (which, from my reading, clearly does not include the actions of protesters, even on Ashura — 27 December). More significantly, it says that in certain conditions when people are protesting for their rights, their defence of those rights is not only permitted, but is obligatory. [Sane'i uses the word “vajeb”, which is a strong word when it is used in fatwas --- for example, "vajeb" is used in relations to namaz (daily prayers), roozeh (fasting in Ramadan), and Hajj (the once in the lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca).]
2030 GMT: Academic Special. We’ve posted an entry noting how Iran’s regime and America’s self-proclaimed “Truthful Encyclopedia”, Conservapedia, have allied against deviant professors.
2015 GMT: Karroubi Watch. Iranian authorities have prevented the son of Mehdi Karroubi, Professor Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, from flying to Britain. Mohammad Karroubi’s passport was seized at the airport.
Mehdi Karroubi’s website, Saham News, reported, “[Mohammad Karroubi] was planning to fly to London for university related work, including the re-publication of his book ‘Just or Unjust War?’ and the completion of another book related to international law.”
2200 GMT: To close the day, a video — courtesy of The Flying Carpet Institute — of a workers’ demonstration in Arak on Wednesday:
2155 GMT: The Amir Kabir student website, a valuable source of information throughout the post-election crisis, has been attacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.
2135 GMT: Brother, Where Art Thou (cont.)? Davoud Ahmadinejad, the brother of the President, has declared that he is ready to prove that the beliefs of Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, clash with Islam. Once again, the attack appears in Khabar Online, the publication close to Ali Larijani.
2125 GMT: Journalists and press managers have requested the freedom of Ali Ashraf Fathi, clergyman and writer of the Tourjaan weblog (named after the location where Fathi’s father was killed during the Iran-Iraq War), who was arrested last week during the “40th Day” memorial for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.
2110 GMT: Crackdown and Blackout. So the regime’s strategy of breaking up any mass movement on 22 Bahman continues. Iranian activists and websites such as Reporters and Humanrights Activists in Iran continue to document arrests, and there is even a claim that three members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters — Mehrdad Rahimi, Saeed Haeri, and Shiva Nazar-Ahari — have been charged with “mohareb” (war against God).
Reports continue to circulate that Internet service has slowed significantly and even been halted in parts of Iran. Official explanations have included disruptions because of the loss of a major cable and “developments and expansions in the Tehran-Mashad corridor”.
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 »
2220 GMT: BBC Persian is reporting on the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution. One interesting claim in the statement: anti-establishment monarchist slogans were encouraged by Government agent provocateurs in the Ashura crowd.
222055 GMT: The Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, following the earlier endorsement of the Islamic Iran Participation Front of the Mousavi post-Ashura statement (1420 GMT), have issued their response to the declaration.
2000 GMT: The Regime’s Fist-Waving. Edward Yeranian of the Voice of America has a useful summary of today’s denunciations of protesters, invocation of “foreign agents”, and threats of prosecution from Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar (1645 GMT) and the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadegh Larijani. Press TV continues to play up the Larijani combination of assurance (“fair trial”) and warning (“investigate the events quickly and firmly”). Read the rest of this entry »
2205 GMT: The Iranian regime, as it blames foreign media for fomenting unrest, continues the attempt to block the services. Voice of America and BBC Persian report sustained jamming efforts.
2055 GMT: The Hidden Story? An Iranian activist makes the interesting and important claim that the rumours around Mousavi and Karroubi have obscured a major story tonight — “500 thugs attacked students with knives and machetes” at Mashhad University. We’ve got footage of the clash in our video section.
2050 GMT: Nothing has happened to change our opinion of 1915 GMT. We are treating Iranian state media’s story of “two opposition figures” fleeing to northern Iran as rumour or disinformation.
Hossein Karoubi, the son of moderate defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi, said his father and opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi were still in Tehran.
“My father and Mr. Mousavi are in Tehran and IRNA’s report is baseless. They are still pursuing the people’s demands,” Hossein Karoubi told moderate Parlemannews.
2005 GMT: Andrew Sullivan has gotten wind of what appears to be a five minute video of a group of security forces disarming after being surrounded by a crowd of demonstrators. We’ve added it to today’s video page.
1915 GMT: Rumours. We’re off on a 90-minute break. At this point, we consider the Islamic Republic News Agency story of the Karroubi/Mousavi flight to northern Iran “unconfirmed”, with the possibility that it is either a rumour being elevated to “news” or a regime disinformation campaign.
Both the Karroubi and Mousavi camps have denied the story. It should also be noted that the rumour was being spread earlier today that Mousavi’s wife Zahra Rahnavard had been detained, and no confirmation has followed.
BBC Persian is interviewing one of Karroubi’s sons about 1930 GMT.
1905 GMT: The Regime Rally (cont.). Peyke Iran, which has published photos indicating a smaller rally than the “hundreds of thousands” cited by other outlets (see 1853 GMT), is now off-line. (1926 GMT: Website is back up.)
1853 GMT: The Regime Rally. CNN’s Shirzad Bozorgmehr claims “hundreds of thousands” at today’s gathering. He said that at Vali-e Asr Square, he could not get further because of the dense crowd. From a bridge, he watched an area from Imam Hossein Square to Enghelab Square, a distance of about 18 kilometres (11 miles).
Less than 24 hours after we posted our analysis of the politics surrounding and beyond Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s funeral, I think most of the arguments hold up.
The momentum of challenge to the regime has not ebbed. The Western media has turned from bored/gloomy/hostile sceptic into unreserved cheerleader, as in this editorial from The Washington Post, which echoes some of our analysis but with a much louder, dramatic shout:
We would not underestimate the fact that a figure such as this can bring forth multitudes — even in death — while Mr. Ahmadinejad is reduced to unleashing his militia and shrieking at the West. The most momentous international event of 2009 was the uprising in Iran, and though the regime’s collapse is not imminent, it is hardly unthinkable.
More substantially, Faraj Sorkouhi argues that the Supreme Leader’s latest public move, the message to those marking Montazeri’s death, may further expose a self-glorification being pursued not as an outcome of support for Ayatollah Khameini, but as a reaction to the lack of it. In condemning Montazeri under the cover of offering condolences — pointing to his “sins”, asking God to forgive him, and thus declaring Montazeri’s 20 years of isolation and punishment were of a divine nature — Khamenei may have stepped too far in trying to adpoe his own God-like image. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 6 MARCH: Iranian Students News Agency has confirmed the “mohareb” death sentence handed down to Mohammad Amin Valian. Valian’s attorney says the case has not yet gone to appeal. 
2330 GMT: Mahmoud Down. Signing off tonight with this news — looks like the latest victim in the cyber-war is 
Less than 24 hours after we posted our analysis of the politics surrounding and beyond Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s funeral, I think most of the arguments hold up.
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