2220 GMT: Student activist Majid Tavakoli returned to Revolutionary Court today, 2 1/2 months after his detention on 7 December. There are no details of the hearing.
2105 GMT: On the Academic Front. Dr Mohammad Sattarifar has been expelled from his post at Allameh Tabatabei University.
2055 GMT: What Are Mahmoud (and Ali) Doing Today? Trying to out-do each other in the bashing of the West, it seems.
Ahmadinejad used a meeting with the speaker of Azerbaijan’s Parliament to declare, “The so-called powerful countries are merely after their own interests. They are willing go so far as to sacrifice other countries and nations for their interests….The weakening of the so-called powerful countries will completely change the state of affairs on the regional and international scale.”
Larijani’s audience was the Parliament, as he warned President Obama about following the polices of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and declared that the 22 Bahman rallies had thwarted the US-Iran “plot” against Iran.
2010 GMT: Drawing a line. Peyke Iran claims that Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has convinced lawmaker Mostafa Kavakebian not to press his plan for further examination of detention centres.
2300 GMT: Urgent Correction on the Labour Front. Earlier today (1600 GMT) Tehran Bureau reported that the Tehran Bus Workers had called for civil disobedience over the case of jailed activist Mansur Osanloo. Tonight Iran Labour Report has issued an effective retraction of the story:
On February 12, a statement appeared on various Iranian websites, including Balatarin which is one of the largest Persian-speaking community websites in the world, in the form of a poster. The poster called for solidarity with the imprisoned leader of Tehran’s bus drivers union, Mansoor Osanloo, through acts of civil disobedience beginning on March 4 around Tehran’s Valiasr square. The statement purported to be an offcial statement of the union (formally known as the Syndicate of Vahed Company Workers of Tehran and Environs). Subsequently, in an article for the popular web journal Tehran Bureau, a staff member at Iran Labor Report wrote an analysis of the union statement as it had appeared on the various websites.
It now appears that the poster-statement was not authentic and that the union’s leadership had not issued the statement. Moreover, the provenance of the statement is still not clear. The union had apparently not published an official disclaimer earlier on due to the recent disuptions with internet use in Iran. Subsequent to this, the union requested that the inauthenticity of the statement be made public and that henceforth no reference would be made of it.
2145 GMT: Labour Rights. The joint statement of three Iranian unions — the Syndicate of Tehran Bus Workers, the Syndicate of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company, and The Free Union of Workers in Iran — to the United Nations Human Rights Council has been posted:
[Workers'] most urgent and most basic demands at the present time are:
2205 GMT: And Here’s Another One. Looks like the campaign against Hashemi Rafsanjani hasn’t stopped. Someone in the regime has ensured that he will not be leading the ceremony at Imam Khomeini’s memorial on 11 Bahman (1 February), the start of celebrations of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
2200 GMT: Political Teasers. While I’ve been out, EA readers have been sending in a series of interesting stories on the manoeuvres inside the establishment — we’ll have the best of them, with an analysis, to start Tuesday morning. Meanwhile….
Ayande News continues its campaign against former 1st Vice President and Ahmadinejad aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashi. The newspaper features the claim that several Rahim-Mashai relatives have been appointed to the board of the state automobile company Saipa, taking a controlling interest.
Rahim-Mashai’s son, Reza, has become managing director of Saipa’s investment branch while his nephew is now the company’s head of business development.
2150 GMT: More on the assassination of prosecutor Vali Haji Gholizadeh, shot dead in front of his home in Khoy City in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, bordering Turkey and Iraq. A police official says, “A special unit has been formed to identify those behind this assassination.” Read the rest of this entry »
1920 GMT: We have posted, in a separate entry, the English translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s interview with the Jamaran website.
1845 GMT: Mohammad Saleh Jokar, a senior official in the Student Basij organization, has announced that 6,000 Basij units will be created in elementary schools, seeking to promote Basij and revolutionary ideals among pupils from a young age. Jokar added that about 4.5 million students at elementary and high schools and 320,000 teachers are members of the Basij force.
The confessions that have been extracted in prison have absolutely no religious or legal value and cannot be the basis for the death or prison punishments that have been issued. Those who are responsible and their accomplices for such confessions, are religiously and legally guilty and criminal.
Whenever the execution of a religious punishment leads to negative consequences on religion or society, the judge can and must stop the execution. (see also “Ayatollah Montazeri’s Interview on Eve of 13 Aban“)
1820 GMT: Labour Activists Jailed. We reported in late October on the threats to detain leaders of the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company after protests. Four of them — Fereydoun Nikoufard, Jalil Ahmadi, Ghorban Alipour and Mohammad Haydari — have now begun prison terms.
1800 GMT: Publish and Be Damned. Tehran’s Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has warned that he will pursue sites that “publish baseless news”. The statement follows Monday’s declaration by Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, Iran’s commander of security forces, “There is need for greater supervision over the internet….Every time we have entered this scene, the media and individuals who show off as intellectuals attack and we step back.” Read the rest of this entry »
2220 GMT: Student activist Majid Tavakoli returned to Revolutionary Court today, 2 1/2 months after his detention on 7 December. There are no details of the hearing.
1920 GMT: We have posted, 
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