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.
2015 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch: The family of journalist Emaddedin Baghi have visited him in prison. Baghi’s wife Fatemeh Kamali said, “Although he became weak, his spirit is very strong.”
1920 GMT: P.S. Fatemeh Karroubi has said that she will file a lawsuit against the Iranian Press Supervisory Board for shutting down Iran Dokht magazine.
1900 GMT: Karroubi Watch. Fatemeh Karroubi, Mehdi Karroubi’s wife, has written an open letter to the Iranian nation after the closure of the magazine Iran Dokht and an attack on her home by plainclothesmen who threw eggs and tomatoes: “I should feel sorry for the country when its Government can’t even tolerate the only press that will critique it.”
2145 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. An activist reports that Layla Tavasoli and Mohamad Naeimpour of the Freedom Movement of Iran have been released from Evin Prison.
2130 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Another sign of the “conservative” push for changes within the system. The brother of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani, has told Khabar Online that the Expediency Council will seek to remove “ambiguities” in Iran’s election law. At the same time, Mohammad Rafsanjani denied that the Expediency Council will seek to remove the Guardian Council’s monitoring of elections.
1840 GMT: WaPo’ed (definition: “declaring an opposition movement dead without evidence and with dubious motives). Just a quick note to folks at The Washington Post: in the past 72 hours, you have distorted a piece by your own Iran correspondent to portray the demise of the Green movement on 22 Bahman and you have run an Associated Press report which declares from thin air:
The civil unrest that swept Iranian cities in the aftermath of the contested June 12th 2009 election escalates despite the Government crackdown. Violence has been intensifying. On Ashura (27 December), armed plain-clothed forces associated with the Basij paramilitaries beat and killed demonstrators who were also mourning the 7th day of the passing of dissident cleric Ayatollah Montazeri. Hundreds of human rights activists, journalists, opposition clerics, and women’s rights activists were detained on Ashura and the following weeks.
The question is now whether the state can suppress a grass-roots movement, albeit one without a leader, that has blossomed into broad and heterogeneous movement well-known to Iranians and to the world?
2155 GMT: Kalemeh reports that the wife of the late Seyed Ahmad Khomeini, the son of Ayatollah Khomeini, has been attacked by clerical students.
1905 GMT: Economic Rumour or Reality (cont. — see 1135 GMT)? The “bank crisis” continues to spark Internet chatter, whether accurate or mischievous — the German-based Akhbar Rooz reports on bank closures after panicked customers tried to withdraw their money because of reports of bankruptcies. And Voice of America Persian is now broadcasting on the topic.
1900 GMT: You Couldn’t Make It Up (Unless You’re Iranian State Media). Earlier this week Kayhan, the “hard-line” Iranian newspaper, reported that a US “HARP” energy-shifting weapon caused the earthquake in Haiti.
We noted the item in amazement and good humour — as a reader noted, shrewd Iranians think of Kayhan as Iran’s version of The Onion, the satirical US “newspaper” — and thought that would be that. However, Press TV, linking up with Venezuelan partners, keeps the joke going today: Read the rest of this entry »
2250 GMT: The Regime Sacrifices Mortazavi (on US Television). What a way to close the evening. In an interview on CNN tonight, Tehran University academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi effectively gave up former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi as the man responsible for the detainee abuses and deaths at Kahrizak Prison. We’ve got the video and a snap analysis.
1945 GMT: Don’t Look Now But…. Former 1st Vice President and Presidential ally Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai is handing out wisdom, according to Press TV: “The Islamic system’s adherence to keep an ‘unbreakable connection’ between its legitimacy and popularity is the key to its survival.”
Don’t want to rain on this supremacy parade, Mr R-M, but given recent developments (see 1035 GMT and 1100 GMT), you want to think about your own survival before pronouncing on that of the Islamic Republic. Read the rest of this entry »
Enduring America’s Mr Smith, who has first-hand sources and knowledge of Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, the physicist killed yesterday in the explosion of a booby-trapped motorcycle, assesses the consequences of the murder:
The murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi adds yet another mystery to the litany of violence, unexplained circumstances, and unpredictable twists that Iran has been witnessing since June 12.
Ali-Mohammadi was a mild-mannered academic who, like most of his colleagues, quietly supported reformist leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the run-up to the presidential vote and who became more vocal in its aftermath. However, his association with physics — he was among the very first scholars to emerge from the Islamic Republic’s universities with a Ph.D., made it easy for state media to link him to the nuclear field and for Western news organisations and Israeli analysts to quickly claim he was active in the nuclear programme of Iran. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps the first rule of analysis, when considering an event such as yesterday’s killing of Tehran University physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, is this:
Wait. Wait and watch the analyses of others.
Throughout the day, Iranian state media beat out a steady rhythm. Ali-Mohammadi was a worthy “revolutionary” for the Islamic Republic, who was involved with its nuclear programme. He had been murdered by “anti-revolutionaries” and “enemies” as part of the plot to overthrow the Republic. The only distinction in the coverage was whether Ali-Mohammadi’s assassins were monarchists or members of the “terrorist” Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MKO).
As there was no evidence for this line — apart from an assertion that the “Iran Royal Association” had taken responsibility for the assassination, a report immediately denied by the group — any analysis based on it is spurious. What is more interesting is that the Iranian regime’s declarations were echoed by another source: Israel. Read the rest of this entry »
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.”
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