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.
The news stories in recent days might appear unrelated, but all of them point to behind-the-scenes manoeuvres and disagreements within the regime. It is too early, given the limited information, to understand exactly what is going on within the Islamic Republic, but it is well worth watching for emerging significance.
1. The Release of Mostafa Tajzadeh
During the week, Mostafa Tajzadeh, leading member of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front and former Deputy Interior Minister, was released without bail for the Iranian New Year.
2240 GMT: Human Rights — The Regime’s Breakdown Strategy. But if the Iranian Government on the one hand is offering release from prison if detainees (including a number of prominent journalists and political activists) are silenced, it is also moving aggressively to break apart the human rights movement.
The propaganda strategy of tarnishing human rights activists has been re-doubled tonight with Kayhan joining Fars in declaring that 25-30 activists have been arrested because they serve as “cover” for the Mujahedin-e-Khalq and US-sponsored cyber-warfare.
2200 GMT: The Dilemma. Paused when I read this statement from Trita Parsi: “Here is the central dilemma of Iranian policy: Iran’s greens need time, but Washington does not seem to think it can afford to wait.”
2150 GMT: Political Prisoner News. Reports that journalist Payman Aref has been released for ten days on a $100,000 bail.
2140 GMT: Today’s Super Spy Case. Here is one to watch: Italian authorities have rounded up five Iranians and two Italians (according to Associated Press, the BBC says two Iranians and five Italians), with two more Iranians being sought, on charges of sending arms to Iran in violation of the international embargo. Amongst those detained is the Rome correspondent of Iranian state television, Hamid Masouminejad.
2135 GMT: Rumour of Day. Kalameh alleges that prisoners held in cellblock 209 of Evin Prison have been commanded to fill in forms about their views on election fraud and whether the protest leaders are connected to foreign countries.
2100 GMT: Dr Mohammad Maleki, the former head of Tehran University, has reportedly been released after 191 days in detention. Maleki, 76, suffers from prostate cancer.
2055 GMT: United4Iran has a profile of Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, former advisor to Iran’s Minister of Interior in the Khatami Presidency, who was released on 24 February after spending more than eight months in prison. According to another released prisoner, Khanjani was under pressure to confess and was constantly moved from general confinement to solidarity confinement.
2230 GMT: Sneaking Out the News. It appears that the official statement of the Assembly of Experts meeting has been quietly placed on its website. We are reviewing and will have an analysis in the morning.
First impression is that while the statement is effusive about the “leadership and guidance” of the Supreme Leader to get Iran through the post-election crisis, it is not as severe in condemning the “sedition” of the opposition as the alleged statement released by Fars News in mid-week.
2115 GMT: Larijani Watch. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, continuing his Japan tour with a visit to the Peace Memorial Museum in Nagasaki, declared both Tehran’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and the perfidy of the West:
Iran will host an international conference on nuclear disarmament within the next two months….After the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US made no change in its policies. Two nuclear bombs of the United States have now increased to tens of thousands.
No doubt this morning about the big news out of Iran. On Thursday, the Supreme Leader tried to lock down the security of his position once and for all, declaring that opposition leaders “have lost their credibility by denying the results of the elections. They did not surrender to the law and committed a great sin….[They] have stepped down from the rescue ship and have lost their credibility to remain within the framework of the Islamic establishment.”
So that’s an unambiguous warning to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to shut up, for example, giving up on Karroubi’s latest call for a referendum on the Guardian Council and for the regime’s permission for mass protest. But Khamenei has made such statements before: he did so just after the June election, before the Qods Day marches in September, and before the Ashura demonstrations in December.
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.
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