2110 GMT: The White House has put out the following statement:

The United States is deeply concerned about reports of additional charges facing Kian Tajbakhsh (see 1200 GMT), an Iranian-American scholar who has been detained in Iran without access to an independent lawyer since July 9, 2009. The charges against Mr. Tajbakhsh are baseless, and his original sentence on October 20 was an outrage. The Iranian government cannot earn the respect of the international community when it violates universal rights, and continues to imprison innocent people. We call on the Islamic Republic of Iran to release Mr. Tajbakhsh, and to respect the human rights of those within its borders.

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1945 GMT: Seizing the Peace Prize. EA readers have now picked up on the incident, building since yesterday, that Iranian authorities have seized the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to lawyer and rights activist Shirin Ebadi.
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Tags: Ahmet Davutoglu, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Behzad Nabavi, David Miliband, Gaza, George Soros, Guido Westerwelle, Hajj, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Hillary Clinton, Hossein Taeb, Hugo Chavez, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Khaje Nasir University, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad el Baradei, Nobel Peace Prize, Open Society Institute, Rooz Online, Shapour Kazemi, Shirin Ebadi, Turkey, Venezuela, Zahra Rahnavard

Our partner blog, State of the United States, has a fascinating item explaining why there will be no pilgrims from Palestine to Mecca this year. The incident, involving not only the rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas but also Saudi Arabia, is almost as illuminating as it is depressing.

There is further coverage of the story in The New York Times.

Tags: Fatah, Gaza, Hajj, Hamas, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, State of the United States