2250 GMT: Cyber-Warfare. Looks like someone wants to stop the latest Karroubi surge. The “Sun Army” took down Karroubi’s website Saham News. The Saham staff have control of the site again but a message indicates that it is “under construction”.
2230 GMT:It is reported that Parisa Kakaee of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters Maziar Samei of the One Million Signatures Campaign, Bahar Tarakameh, and Nazanin Hassania have been released from prison. 26 other political prisoners are also reported to have been freed.
1830 GMT: I’m on an evening break which happily involves dinner at Birmingham’s best Iranian restaurant.
Certain people inside Iran are fanning divisions that never existed and do not exist, and foreigners looking for propaganda feed themselves some tasty morsels….Why should we have differences? Even now we sit together every two weeks and discuss every issue in the country. These are meetings where we speak without restrictions because they are not recorded.
1815 GMT: For What It’s Worth. Some outlets are giving lots of play to the Supreme Leader’s use of Hillary Clinton’s “dictatorship” statement to issue his own challenges to the “West”.
You can get notable extracts in that coverage — frankly, I know this script and I can’t be bothered to post any more of it.
2200 GMT: And So To Tomorrow. We’re going to pull down the curtain for a few hours, but please keep bringing in news and comments. Back at 0600 GMT for what should be quite a big day, indeed.
2115 GMT: An Embassy Apology (see 1730 GMT). Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has said that, “considering the negative effects and heightened sensitivity” it produced amongst Americans, the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979 was a “mistaken” act.
Montazeri said the seizure, which led to the holding of 52 American hostages for 444 days, was akin to “declaring war on that country” and claimed that even “some of the revolutionary and committed youth, who were instrumental in that act at the time, now believe that it was a mistake”.
2050 GMT: Did You Write This with a Straight Face? Mehr News’ English-language site offers a classic one-eye-shut view of events: “Call for massive turnout on Aban 13 rallies”.
Here are the groups calling for that turnout: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Navy branch (“Iran’s great nation, especially students [should] commemorate the day and foil the plot of the enemies of the Islamic Revolution”), Moderation and Development Party, Islamic Association of Teachers, Ministry of Defense, Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom (“vigilance of nation against the enemies’ attempts to undermine this epical day”), Iran’s judiciary (“national unity, solidarity, obedience of the Supreme Leader, and resistance against hegemonic powers’ plots [will mark] the beginning of the downfall of the US”).
Gee, anyone missing from that list? You know, any other groups that may have been today, all day, throughout the day in these updates?
2040 GMT: Homy Lafayette has posted routes of the marches in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz, and Bushehr.
1830 GMT: An EA source sends us the news that Ali Pir-Hosseinloo, a translator and book editor, blogger, and member of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been freed from jail after spending 50 days in solitary confinement.