One of the most important happenings that took place after the revolution was the takeover of the American Embassy, both for those who supported it and those who opposed it. Annually, actions were taken to commemorate this event. This year, keeping in mind the current situation in the country, some political groups made announcements, and I also announced that I would come to 7 Tir Square and from 7 Tir would go towards the [American] Embassy. I had especially told the masses that, wherever subversive slogans were chanted, I would stop there so that people would not chant these slogans and those who do could be separated from me. Read the rest of this entry »
2000 GMT: Psychological Warfare. Unsurprisingly, the Fars News story that Mehdi Karroubi’s son Ali is the subject of an arrest warrant, due to a financial dispute with the mobile phone company Irancell, appears to be a bit of fiction to shake up the reformist movement.
The specific claim is that Ali Karroubi is connected with Persian Telecom, which failed to carry out advertising obligations for Irancell. However, Irancell has told Saham News, connected with Karroubi party’s Etemade Melli:
Mr. Ali Karroubi does not hold any shares in Persian Telecom….The two companies have a business association in the form of purchasing Irancell products and selling them and therefore no advertisement is done on behalf of Irancell by Persian Telecom. (Translation from Tehran Bureau)
1925 GMT: The Reformist Fightback. A series of reformist members of Parliament and clerics have been striking back at the comments of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps commander, General Ali Mohammad Jafari (see 1730 GMT), all day. The latest is Hojatoleslam Alikhani, a cleric and MP, who has emphasised that the military should not enter political issues.
1920 GMT: The Battle for the Universities (Cont.). Iranian newspapers and the Islamic Republic News Agency report, “The Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies [has been] tasked by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council to revise the human sciences curriculum.”
The head of the Institute declared, “In our country a large part of the syllabus… is not in line with our Iranian-Islamic culture. This calls for a revision.” The syllabus will be revised
“based on the supreme leader’s recommendations.” (Agence France Press has an English summary.)
1730 GMT: Pursuing the Revolutionary Guard. Following up our last update yesterday, The Assembly of Combatant Clerics had responded to the claims of Revolutionary Guard Commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari, alleging that former President Khatami and other prominent reformists have tried to “unseat” the Supreme Leader and Government, by filing a formal complaint against Jafari and Keyhan newspaper for publishing lies and insulting several members of the Assembly.
1725 GMT: Responding to claims by Deputy Head of Judiciary, Ebrahim Raeesi, that he had not presented any evidence of detainee abuse in his meeting with the three-member panel investigating the claims, Mehdi Karroubi has described three documents that he presented.
The second story is potentially bigger. Press TV’s website reports that former President Mohammad Khatami met former members of Parliament and said, “We are the real protectors of the Islamic Republic not those who showed in recent months that they are uprooting the republic and Islamic nature of the establishment.” Khatami expressed concern about the “illegal” attitude adopted towards the Iranian nation after the election: “Certain ongoing moves run counter to legal principles.”
What Press TV fails to note is that those former members of Parliament issued a statement a few days ago raising the issue of the authority of the Supreme Leader. So this meeting may be part of the move to invoke Law 111 over the prudence and justice of Khamenei.
2005 GMT: Agence France Presse reports, “Iran released 24-year-old French academic Clotilde Reiss on bail Sunday six weeks after she was arrested on suspicion of spying, the French presidency said, adding that she is in good health.”
2000 GMT: Revolutionary Road has posted a summary in English, including the names of the defendants, in today’s third trial of post-election political detainees.
1905 GMT: And it’s not just Press TV that is giving airtime to the opposition and “enemies” of the regime. An EA correspondent reports that Iranian state television, including IRIB Channel 1, is also carrying the denial of charges by an attorney for one of the defendants in today’s trial in Tehran (see 1625 GMT).
1855 GMT: Press TV’s website is now summarising, in fact almost reprinting in full, the latest statement from Mir Hossein Mousavi: “Our election campaign was conducted under the Constitution and the principles which the Iranian nation holds dear. We still remain committed to the same slogans.”
The article prints, without any critical commentary, Mousavi’s memories of Election Night:
[At first] we thought that mismanagement was the cause of chaos. I, myself, made contacts with authorities of the country. On the election day, I called the Judiciary Chief [Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi] twice, the Prosecutor General [Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi] two times, the Majlis Speaker [Ali Larijani] twice, and the Office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution [Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] four times to raise issues about the pre-planned scenarios.
Mousavi, the former prime minister who worked under the founder of the Islamic Revolution, added that he had dispatched a team to see Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, “but, surprisingly, he refused to meet” with them.
Mousavi’s challenge to the regime is also featured: “We are confident that an atmosphere of mistrust would not have been created in the country if a fair attitude had been adopted [after the election], to the demands of the Iranian people, and if the media had been prevented from attributing the nation’s will to foreigners and diverting facts.”
I believe that even if the US had used all of its might, it could not have inflicted a greater damage to the country and the Islamic revolution than [the horrific events] happening in the detention centers….Isn’t Keyhan by positioning the cultured and intellectual class against the establishment, acting in concert with foreign powers as it is displaying an enmity towards the establishment similar to that of the doubters [the People's Mujahedin] and maintaining the interests of the US and the UK? Read the rest of this entry »
The English translation of a Saturday editorial in the “conservative” newspaper Keyhan, written by managing editor Hoseyn Shari’atmadari, a close advisor of the Supreme Leader. From Juan Cole:
“A political party or a fifth column?”
On Wednesday afternoon 10/4/88 (1st July 2009) when the MSM system and text messages through the mobiles was once again restored after a short break, the above message was one of the messages that was sent on text message system in an extensive way among the citizens. Although the text of that message is laughable, yet it is exactly in keeping with Mirhoseyn Musavi’s claim about fraud in the election, and his strange and inexplicable refusal to go through the legal channels to follow up his claim. Even stranger is the fact that in his latest statement Mr Musavi has repeatedly stressed the need to abide by law and resolving the problems through legal means. He goes so far as saying that ‘even the corpse of the law must be respected!” Read the rest of this entry »
2000 GMT: Psychological Warfare. Unsurprisingly, the Fars News story that Mehdi Karroubi’s son Ali is the subject of an arrest warrant, due to a financial dispute with the mobile phone company Irancell, appears to be a bit of fiction to shake up the reformist movement.
Speaking to the Central Committee for organising reforms
The English translation of a Saturday editorial in the “conservative” newspaper Keyhan, written by managing editor Hoseyn Shari’atmadari, a close advisor of the Supreme Leader. 
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