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.
UPDATE 14 MARCH: A statement from the International Security Assistance Force has rejected Starkey’s latest report as “categorically false”. Later it attributes the claims of bound and killed civilians were due to “confusion” from “initial operational reports”.
UPDATE 13 MARCH: Jerome Starkey, the reporter who broke the story of the handcuffed and executed civilians, makes another claim today: “A night raid carried out by US and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up, survivors have told The Times.”
When Charlie Company’s Lt. William Calley ordered and encouraged his men to rape, maim and slaughter over 400 men, women and children in My Lai in Vietnam back in 1968, there were at least four Americans who tried to stop him or bring him and higher officers to justice. One was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jr., who evacuated some of the wounded victims, and who set his chopper down between a group of Vietnamese and Calley’s men, ordering his door gunner to open fire on the US soldiers if they shot any more people. One was Ron Ridenhour, a soldier who learned of the massacre, and began a private investigation, ultimately reporting the crime to the Pentagon and Congress. One was Michael Bernhardt, a soldier in Charlie Company who witnessed the whole thing, and reported it all to Ridenhour. And one was journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story in the US media.
1220 GMT: The excellent analyst Marc Lynch has just made the immediate point, “All the Iraqi lists appear to be claiming victory. I’d wait for official results, which will be a while.” His comment comes a few hours after a CNN correspondent pondered, “Each TV station corresponding to each political bloc saying that they are the winners…hmmm….”
This is the real politics of Iraq, a day after the headlines of bombings and “democracy”. With no party in the position to establish a national majority and indeed, outside Kurdistan, even a regional dominance, the negotiations, coercions, and manipulations take over, even before the preliminary results are announced on Thursday.
In Kurdistan, there is an intriguing contest between the Kurdistan List — made up of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Kurdish Prime Minister Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Iraq President Jalal Talabani — and the Gorran Party, established to break the stranglehold of the KDP and PUK on Kurdish politics. An activist says that Gorran narrowly won in the city of Suleymaniyah and lost in province of the same name; however, Gorran is claiming fraud in the provincial vote. Another activist says that Gorran has also secured seats in Diyala, Mosul, and Salahaddin; however, the Kurdistan List has triumphed by a 2:1 margin in Erbil.
Downtown Tehran, winter: impossible traffic, the energy of 9 million Iranians making their way through congested streets, the white peaks of the Alborz Mountains disappearing shade by shade in the ever-increasing smog. The government’s declared another pollution emergency, and the center city is closed to license plates ending in odd numbers. The students at the university, where I am teaching a seminar on American Studies, are complaining openly about the failures of their elected officials.
“Nahal” and I are sitting in a café off Haft-e Tir Square. She is smart and dynamic, a graduate student and freelance journalist who is quick to criticize the US government and the perfidy of CNN. When I mention that, a few days ago, I had overheard Friday prayers and was taken aback by the chanting of Marg bar Amrika! (“Death to America”) she retorts: “But you call us the Axis of Evil!”
Given the damage and deaths from today’s earthquake off the coast of Chile and the declaration of a Tsunami Warning, EA is “mirroring” the LiveBlog of Josh Shahryar:
There is a live stream from Chile (in Spanish) on latest developments. The country is three hours behind Greenwich Mean Time:
Continued activity but no drama — CNN is loudly filling time. We’re handing over to the Hawaii live stream. Readers are invited to send in any information.
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:
2120 GMT: Author, translator and journalist Omid Mehregan has been released from detention.
2100 GMT: So all our watching on many fronts is overtaken by the “Iran Might Be Getting A Bomb” story. Little coming out of Iran tonight; in contrast, every “Western” news outlet is screaming about the draft International Atomic Energy report on Iran’s nuclear programme. (Funny how each, like CNN, is implying that it “obtained” an exclusive copy.)
1830 GMT: Political Prisoner News. “Green media” pull together reports that we carried last night: 50 detainees were released, including Shahabeddin Tabatabei, member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and head of youth in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami, Parisa Kakaei of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, student activist Maziar Samiee, and Khosrow Ghashghai of the Freedom Movement of Iran.
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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