UPDATE 1600 GMT: EA’s Chris Emery has now posted a response, adding to Mr Smith’s points that 13 Aban has been “a major blow to the Supreme Leader’s authority”.
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Mr Smith, who was one of the EA correspondents following and updating on yesterday’s events, offers his analysis:
The Green Wave has bounced back. The strongly-worded threats by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps did not deter the supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who made it to the police-infested streets of Tehran in their tens of thousands for yet another day of demonstrations, countering the official ones organised by the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei regime.
Yesterday’s events are yet again proof of the fact that the opposition has not been defeated and is not going away. Nearly five months into the Iranian post-electoral crisis, the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei camp has not quite figured out a workable plan to fulfil its intent of silencing the critics. The litany of street violence unleashed by security forces, the background of the occasional killing and raping of reformist activists, and the current warnings by the IRGC and Ayatollah Khamenei that criticism of the “legitimate government” amounted to a crime did little to cow the Green Wave supporters. Instead, the Supreme Leader found himself at the receiving end of the street chants. Read the rest of this entry »
2040 GMT: It’s Official: Bring It On. First we had Mir Hossein Mousavi’s statement, now we have Mehdi Karroubi’s signal that he will be joining the crowds on 13 Aban. The cleric has promised further details soon but indicated that he will be joining students at the “Polytechnic” in Tehran. This may refer to Amir Kabir University, although earlier chatter said Karroubi would be going to Sharif University.
2020 GMT: Handing Down “Justice”. The deputy head of Iran’s judiciary, Ebrahim Raeesi, has announced that sentences for 50 post-election detainees have been issued. Some detainees are appealing the verdicts, and Raeesi urged colleagues to speed up the processing of the cases.
For Raeesi, it is clear, has made his mind: “Those who have proposed the elections were fraudulent and created doubt in the public’s mind have undoubtedly committed a grave crime and naturally will have to answer for the crime they have committed.”
1930 GMT: We’ve now posted the English translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s statement welcoming the 13 Aban (4 November) demonstrations (see 1200 and 1215 GMT). The declaration is a spirited presentation of and for the Green movement in the context of the history of 13 Aban, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Islamic Revolution.
And it is also a spirited criticism of Ahmadinejad’s negotiations over the nuclear programme with the United States and other countries, accusing the President of selling out Iran for the sake of his personal position: “Today, it appears that a large proportion of the product of Iran’s nuclear program, which has caused much chaos and brought a number of sanctions for the people, must be handed to another country, in hopes that they will be kind enough to offer us some fuel later on.
1740 GMT: Former President Mohammad Khatami has met with members of the Central Council of the Islamic Association of Tehran University and Tehran Medical Sciences. Khatami warned that surveillance into personal affairs of people is not allowed even in the cases of those who do not believe in the Establishment or in God, as long as they do not use weapons.
The former President emphasised that the Green movement is against violence but in the opposite side there are some who only think and act violently. Khatami said it must first be accepted that there is a crisis in the society, and then one can find the solution; if there are mistakes in analysing the current situation, there will be more problems in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
2000 GMT: We’ve posted video of tonight’s protests at Sharif University in Tehran.
1840 GMT: Meanwhile, despite Larijani’s harsh and perhaps troublesome intervention, the Government strategy — as signalled by the President — unfolds. The Islamic Republic News Agency is quoting an “unnamed source” that Iran has not given an “answer” to a specific deal on third-party enrichment. Instead, “The Islamic republic only announced its positive view to the negotiation and has said it is ready to have negotiations based on its technical and economic considerations regarding how to procure fuel for the Tehran reactor.” (English summary in Agence France Presse article)
Translation? Iran is trying to take the proposal for shipment of 80 percent of stock off the table, beginning from scratch on the questions of timing and amounts to be delivered to Russia. That in effect undoes three months of talks on the US-led plan while maintaining Tehran’s claim that it is still committed to discussions.
1835 GMT: Larijani the Hard-Liner. What is Iran’s Speaker of the Parliament playing at?
1940 GMT: Isn’t It Ironic, Don’t You Think? The Iranian Government has celebrated Teachers Day by arresting 12 teachers. (To clarify, in light of comments below, World Teachers Day is 5 October. Iran’s Teachers Day is 2 May.)
1745 GMT: Rumours and Audits. Tomorrow could be a very interesting day in the Iranian Parliament. The hot whisper is that former Tehran Prosecutor General and now Iran Deputy Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi could be set up as the “fall guy” for abuses mentioned in a Parliamentary report.
More substantial — at this point — is another criticism of President Ahmadinejad, this time over Government expenditure. The National Audit Report to the Parliament claims mismanagement, embezzlement, and fraud and accuses the Government of 2005-2009 of harming the nation.
1725 GMT: The release of the editor-in-chief of Etemade Melli, Mohammad Ghoochani, has been delayed.
1635 GMT: Another Player on the Pitch. OK, the reformists are in play with their meeting with senior clerics (1555 GMT). Rafsanjani’s gone public with his meeting with clerics (1608 GMT). And now Alireza Beheshti, Mir Hossein Mousavi’s chief advisor, re-enters after his recent detention. He has written an open letter of scathing criticism of the Revolutionary Guard and its commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari.
1835 GMT: A reader writes to clarify the “first woman” Minister reference in the Reuters report (1645 GMT), and just now repeated by a CNN reporter: “Iran’s first female minister, Mrs. F. Parsa, was appointed by the Shah to serve the Ministry of Education.” Parsa was arrested by the new Islamic Republic in February 1980 and executed three months later.
1645 GMT: A bit of a lull as most of the Western media condense today’s events to fit their agenda: 1) the approval of Cabinet should be linked to “an international dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program”; 2) the Minister of Oil is a “relative novice”; 3) Iran has its first female Minister; 4) the Minister of Defense is wanted by Interpol for a 1994 attack in Argentina. (Reuters wins the prize for getting all of this into two paragraphs.)
But here’s a wacky flashback from the morning (0808 GMT): remember the moment when an MP joked, “”If you say the confidence vote was rigged, we’ll take you to Kahrizak [Prison, where presumably you will be abused like other detainees]!” Well, the video is now posted in a separate entry.
At the end of a dramatic and surprising day, perhaps one of the most important since 12 June, Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau offers a concise summary of the 4th Tehran trial. This picks up on a lot of the developments we’ve noted in our live blog, bringing them together in one place. Even more importantly, Sahimi notes the goals of the regime that we’ve identified: 1) to break the reformists through charges of treason; 2) to humiliate Saeed Hajjarian, one of the key figures in the movement; and 3) the objective missed by all others in the Western media, the curbing of Hashemi Rafsanjani:
Stalinist Show Trials, Part Four
The fourth installment of the Stalinesque show trials of the leaders of the reformist movement was held today in Tehran. In this part of the big show, some of the most important reformist leaders were featured, including Dr. Mohsen Mirdamadi, secretary-general of Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), the most important reformist group in Iran; Mohsen Safaei Farahani, Saeed Shariati, Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, Shahabolddin Tabatabaei, and Dr. Saeed Hajjarian, all leading members of the IIPF; Mostafa Tajzadeh, a member of the IIPF and the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organization (IRMO), another leading reformist group; Behzad Nabavi, a leading member of the IRMO, and Hedayatollah Aghaei, a leading member of the Executives of Reconstruction Party (ERP), a reformist group close to former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Also present in court were Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, who used to work for the George Soros Open Society, and three of the journalists arrested, Jalal Karami, Masoud Bastani, and Mohammad Quchani, a leading reformist journalist and editor of many reformist newspapers that have been closed by the hardliners. [Overall, 42 journalists were arrested, but some were later released]. Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour, who was a leader of the Mir Hossein Mousavi campaign, and a doctoral student at Oxford University in Britain, was also present in court. The court has apparently ordered the release of Quchani and Jalaeipour before the court session took place, but they were still brought to court for an appearance.
Once again, the prosecutor read a long “indictment” that had been prepared by Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s notorious Prosecutor General and the Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court. Once again, the “indictment” was not a legal document, but a political manifesto of the hardliners, almost all of which had been published over the past few years by the daily newspaper Kayhan, the mouthpiece of the security-intelligence apparatus, and Fars News Agency, which operates more like a propaganda machine.
Once again, the reformist leaders were accused of having links with foreign powers, and in particular Britain and the United States, through a variety of channels, from the Open Society to people who are, or were at some point, supposedly members of western intelligence agencies.
Throughout yesterday, there was a fascinating (and, I think, important) debate between two of Enduring America’s specialists on Iran, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, about the political fortunes of Hashemi Rafsanjani. The discussion not only considers whether the former President retains a significant influence over the future of the Islamic Republic but also looks at the positions of the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad. Feedback from readers would be welcome, as I believe this may be one of the defining contexts for the outcome of this post-election crisis:
SMITH: I think that Rafsanjani has been giving up his “Godfather” role within the Green movement progressively. If you add up his non-reply to [Mehdi] Karroubi’s letter [on abuse of detainees], his embarassing retreat from Friday prayers, and today [appearing with President Ahmadinejad], you get the impression of someone who is deeply distressed but does not feel secure enough to embark on a major confrontation with the state power. It is unnerving in the sense that, as the Mehr photos show [of the Rafsanjani-Ahmadinejad encounter], it is actually Rafsanjani that is adopting a body language geared towards subordination, and not the other way round. The gesture is the single most important “frame” to have come out of elite circles in Iran afte the shoulder kiss of Ahmadinejad to the Supreme Leader during his inauguration. Read the rest of this entry »
For the 2nd consecutive night reps of prosecutor general & Cultural Ministry were present in publication house demanding alteration of some pages of the Etememad Melli paper. Those reps asked for omitting the interview of the paper’s manager as well as [an] analysis of Iran election. The interview was about the reasons for which the paper’s publication was prohibited yesterday.
UPDATE 1600 GMT: EA’s Chris Emery has now posted a response, adding to Mr Smith’s points that 13 Aban has been “a major blow to the Supreme Leader’s authority”.
2040 GMT: It’s Official: Bring It On. First we had Mir Hossein Mousavi’s statement, now we have Mehdi Karroubi’s signal that 
2000 GMT: We’ve 
1940 GMT: Isn’t It Ironic, Don’t You Think? The Iranian Government has celebrated Teachers Day 
1835 GMT: A reader writes to clarify the “first woman” Minister reference in the Reuters report (1645 GMT), and just now 
At the end of a dramatic and surprising day, perhaps one of the most important since 12 June, Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau 
Throughout yesterday, there was a fascinating (and, I think, important) debate between two of Enduring America’s specialists on Iran, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, about the political fortunes of Hashemi Rafsanjani. The discussion not only considers whether the former President retains a significant influence over the future of the Islamic Republic but also looks at the positions of the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad. Feedback from readers would be welcome, as I believe this may be one of the defining contexts for the outcome of this post-election crisis:
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