The Latest from Iran (21 August): Political Battles

NEW Video: The Sohrab Protests (20 August)
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The Latest from Iran (20 August): Grinding to a Halt

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2035 GMT: We had heard rumours all day about this story but, given its explosive nature, had held off posting without confirmation. It has now appeared on a "reformist site", Norooz, and has been recommended by the Facebook page of Zahra Rahnavard, Mir Hossein Mousavi's wife.

A member of staff of a Tehran cemetery told Norooz that on both 12 July and 15 July, the bodies of tens of protestors were brought in without any identification, secretly and under strict security. Staff were forced to issue compulsory burial licences, and the bodies were interred in Section 302 of the cemetery.

2030 GMT: We had reported earlier on protests last night in Tehran (1015 GMT), but it is only after seeing some video that a reader recommended that we realised quite how powerful those demonstrations, both against President Ahmadinejad and in honour of slain protestors such as Sohrab Arabi and Neda Agha Soltan, were. We have posted the video in a separate entry.

2010 GMT: Follow-up on Kayhan. It looks like the "hard-line" newspaper will escape suspension. Tabnak reports that the Tehran Prosecutor's office has denied accounts that the Media Court ordered Kayhan's temporary closure after its editor twice failed to answer court summons. (An English-language summary is on Tehran Bureau.)

1945 GMT: More extracts from the significant event of the day, Friday prayers in Qom (1445 GMT), where Ayatollah Amini criticised the Government:

You are not one another’s enemy. You are all in favor of the establishment, Islam and the rule of the Just Jurisprudent. Why don’t you, instead of talking to the enemy, talk to one another and find a solution to this disunity?

I am not talking about one party or the other… You, as the elite, must sit down and talk. If injustice has really been done to people, deal with it. If an innocent has been incarcerated, release him. And if someone has been shamed [publicly], apologize to him, and properly deal with those who are really guilty.

How must I advise you to set aside disunity for it to register? We are not enemies and our solidarity is possible. Resolve this issue through dialogue and stop giving the enemy something to talk about.

If you want to mend the situation as caring individuals, end the conflict and prevent it from expanding.

1445 GMT: News is emerging that the significant Friday prayers address was not in Tehran but from Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini in Qom. Amini demanded the release of all innocent prisoners and comforted those who had been unfairly victimised by recent events. Reportedly, the sermon has caused supporters of the pro-Government Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi to back away from plans to protest against Ayatollah Yusuf Sane'i and his now-famous video condemnation of the regime.

Amini's address follows his meeting this week, with other clerics, with the Supreme Leader, reportedly to raise criticisms about the role of Khamenei's son Mojtaba in political affairs.

1130 GMT: Officially, Not a Peach. President Ahmadinejad's office has removed his reference to former Minister of Health Kamran Lankarani as "a peach one wants to eat" (see 1000 GMT) from the official transcript of his televised broadcast.

1030 GMT: Iran Republic News Agency does not mention Jannati's challenge to arrest opposition leaders although it says he pointed out "the consequences of slander".

1025 GMT: Jannati Answers. In our first update (0645 GMT), we advised, "Watch...for how far Jannati pushes for punishment of the "ringleaders" of the protest."

Here's the response from Friday prayers in Tehran: "Riots are our main issue today ... Some people were arrested and some were not. Why weren't the leaders behind the riots arrested? ... Their arrest should be the first thing that the judiciary must do."

1015 GMT: A bit more on the broadcast: a reader points us to this from the Green movement's Mowj-e-Sabz, "There were rooftop protests all over the country and especially the Apadana area in Tehran [the neighbourhood of Sohrab Arabi, who was killed on 15 June but whose death was not confirmed for a month]. People gathered ...in streets in protest and were chanting 'Death to Dictator'. This was in solidarity with Sohrab’s family, as it was also the 40th day anniversary of his martyrdom."

1005 GMT: Ahmadinejad - Compromise or Showdown? There is one clue in last night's Presidential broadcast for this question, highlighted in an EA Soundcheck yesterday. Ahmadinejad said that, if the Ministry of Intelligence had done its job properly, there would have been no post-election conflict.

That's a clear slap at former Minister of Intelligence Ejeie and Iran's judiciary, which has just appointed him as Prosecutor General. But it also is a shot in the ongoing battle over who controls the Ministry, amidst the firing of up to 25 key officials. Look for a response from "conservative" and "principlist" opponents of Ahmadinejad.

1000 GMT: It is a relatively slow news day in Iran. We're awaiting the summary of Ayatollah Jannati's Friday prayer address in Tehran, and there has been surprisingly little reaction to President Ahmadinejad's national broadcast promoting his Cabinet choices.

We'll take advantage of the pause to feature the "hot" story on the Internet about the broadcast, noting the President's remarks about his outgoing Minister of Health, Kamran Lankarani: "In his TV appearance last night, Ahmadinejad praised him as one of the most able administrators of his previous cabinet and said: 'I have a special personal interest in him, a pious and faithful young man. Once I said he is like a peach, one wants to eat him!"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUwNDG1Tdc[/youtube]

I leave further interpretation and analysis up to EA readers.

0725 GMT: Picking up on another (largely unreported) story from yesterday. A Parliamentary Commission member has warned that Mir Hossein Mousavi's proposed "Green Path of Hope" political front will not receive a license for public activity.

0700 GMT: Last night's EA Soundcheck podcast includes a lengthy discussion of the pressure on President Ahmadinejad, both from inside the "establishment" and from public protest. General verdict? The President is in a long-term battle. I don't think he'll win, but before that comes the urgent question, will he offer any compromise or press even harder (possibly in co-operation with the Revolutionary Guard) for a showdown?

One clue to an answer: see if next Tuesday's fourth round of trials of political detainees goes ahead and how much publicity it gets in state media.

0645 GMT: With Ramadan starting tomorrow, this could be the last full day for political manoeuvres for the next few weeks. At the same time, nothing can defer the manoeuvres over President Ahmadinejad's submission of his Cabinet choices to the Iran Parliament.

And the challenge may have another dimension. An EA correspondent has reviewed the speech that Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani gave to the Iranian Society of Engineers, mentioned in yesterday's updates. He notes that Larijani offered a response to Mehdi Karroubi's initiative on the abuse of detainees.

On Wednesday, Karroubi sent an official letter to Larijani asking him to arrange a meeting including Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran's judiciary, Mohammad Larijani, the head of the Assembly of Experts and Expediency Council, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and the Prosecutor General, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, where Karroubi would produce his graphic evidence of the abuses.

Larijani said yesterday that he is willing to participate in such a meeting, "We do not want to preserve any secrecy in this regard and hide any evidence from the public." So will the Speaker not only willingness but press for the gathering, knowing this could be the issue that bends if not breaks the Ahmadinejad Government?

On the public front, Ayatollah Jannati will lead Friday prayers in Tehran today. Expect a hard-line address continuing the recent theme, after last week's replacement of Hashemi Rafsanjani by Ahmad Khatami, supporting the Supreme Leader and Government and deriding the foreign-inspired protest movement. Watch, however, for how far Jannati pushes for punishment of the "ringleaders" of the protest.

EA Soundcheck: Assessing Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq

EA Soundcheck: 7 Points on Afghanistan’s Presidential Election
The Latest from Iran (20 August): Grinding to a Halt
The Latest from Afghanistan (20 August): The Election

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Fintan Dunne and I had an excellent, if challenging, discussion on Thursday night about the significance of the Afghanistan election. We also considered the threats to President Ahmadinejad from within the Iranian establishment and from the renewed opposition (be this from the catalyst of Mehdi Karroubi or from the development of "guerrilla" protest). The chat concluded with a provocative analysis stemming from Wednesday's bombing in Baghdad that killed almost 100 people --- what does it indicate about the political future for Iraqis?

Listen to podcast....

The Latest from Iran (19 August): Challenges in Parliament and from Prisons

NEW Is Rafsanjani (or Ahmadinejad) A Spent Force? The Sequel
Text of Latest Karroubi Statement “You Will Not Force Me Into Silence”

The Latest from Iran (18 August): Which Way for the Government?

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1700 GMT: More, Much More on that Assembly of Experts Meeting. The Executive Committee's agenda appears to have been a delay in the next meeting of the Assembly, which was due to take place within the next 10-12 days, for a month because of Ramadan.
This rules out any quick intervention by the Assembly in the political crisis.

But the big question: who asked for the delay? Was it the head of the Committee, Hashemi Rafsanjani, to give himself time for his next moves? Or was it the other members --- former head of judiciary Hashemi Shahroudi, Mohammad Yazdi, Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi, and Ahmad Khatami --- all of whom are more supportive of President Ahmadinejad?

1605 GMT: The Executive Committee of the Assembly of Experts has met, but there are no details of the agenda or content of the discussion.

1550 GMT: There is still no news on whether the President has formally submitted his Ministerial nomination to Parliament.

1415 GMT: Report that Mohammad Reza Jalaiepour, an activist close to Mohammad Khatami, will be released from detention today. Journalist Zhila Bani Yaghoub has been released on $200,000 bail.

1405 GMT: Mehdi Karroubi has written to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani to confirm that he is ready to present his evidence of the abuse of detainees.

1230 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz claims that a group of senior clerics have met the Supreme Leader and criticised the behaviour of his son, Mojtaba, but "to no avail".

1225 GMT: Did the President Miss the Deadline? The official Parliamentary News Agency has an item at 1530 local time (1100 GMT), 30 minutes before the deadline for the President to submit his Cabinet nominations. Aboutourabi Fard, the anti-Ahmadinejad Deputy Speaker, says no letter had been received.

It is now almost an hour after the deadline.

1220 GMT: The new head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, is moving briskly with appointments: Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie has become Prosecutor General, replacing Ghorban Ali Dorri-Najafabadi.

Hmmm....Would this be the same Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie fired as Minister of Intelligence by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a few weeks ago? Perhaps someone should give the President the latest news.

1130 GMT: EA source says that President Ahmadinejad's nationally-televised address, announcing his Ministerial nominations, has been postponed until tomorrow night after 9 p.m. local time.

1055 GMT: The Rah-e-Sabz website, quoting "reliable sources from Tehran", reports that Karroubi is resurrecting his plan from 2005 for the "Saba" satellite channel.

The plan was shelved four years ago after direct intervention by Ali Larijani, then chair of the National Security Council, who deemed the plan "an act against national security". Karroubi then founded the Etemade Melli newspaper to reach the masses.

Now Karroubi is threatening to get serious with the satellite channel should the regime's ban on the newspaper remain in place. Initial launch preparations are underway and "a group of film makers based inside the country" is willing to take part. The headquarters would be set up in another Mideast country (an EA correspondent suggests the United Arab Emirates), and the goal would be to air the "real news" that the state media neglects.

1045 GMT: To the Wire. Mehr News says President Ahmadinejad has still not decided on the appointments of three Ministers. Tabnak, however, says only one post (Justice) is still to be determined for the final submission to Parliament. The names of those Ministers who have been proposed, in both articles, are those posted earlier in Press TV/Fars accounts (see 0900 GMT).

0940 GMT: Saham News claims that a commission is investigating the Mosharekat and  Mojahedin political parties with a view to amending the law to prohibt contacts and exchange of views and information with foreign embassies and acceptance of foreign financial aid. An EA source confirms that this process started about six weeks ago.

0900 GMT: The President's Cabinet? Press TV, citing Fars News Agency, reveals Ministerial nominees. Among the appointments: Manouchehr Mottaki remains as Foreign Minister, Kamran Daneshjou at Science, Research and Technology, Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar as Minister of Interior, Mohammad Hosseini leading Ministry of Culture and the Islamic Guidance, and Ahmad Vahidi as Minister of Defense.

0855 GMT: And Yet More Support. The Association of Iran Alumni and Union of Islamic Associations of University Students have declared that they will not abandon Karroubi and other reformist leaders.

0850 GMT: The Green Wave of Support. We reported yesterday on the "reformist" front coming out in support of Mehdi Karroubi's position on abuse of detainees. Norooz have now published the text of the statement from the Islamic Iran Participation Front.

0820 GMT: Clarification on Reformist-Clerics Meeting (0740 GMT). Another EA correspondent explains, "Javad Shahrestani is not an Ayatollah, and most probably not even a mujtahid. He runs sistani.org from Qom and is the person who brought the Internet to the holy city and transformed it into a technology hub. However, he is not high on religious credentials. The fact that people refer to him as 'Ayatollah' underlies the attempt to indicate the higher level of these figures close to the opposition."

0740 GMT: A reader lets us know that the full English summary, provided by a Twitter activist, of Ayatollah Sanei's attack on the regime (full video in separate entry) is now available on the Internet.

0730 GMT: More Opposition Moves. An EA correspondent has verified news we saw yesterday, "The reformists Abdollah Nouri, Gholamhosein Karbaschi [former Mayor of Tehran and top advisor to Karroubi], and other reformists have been having separate meetings with Ayatollah Montazeri and Ayatollah Shahrestani, the son-in-law of Ayatollah Sistani [the leading Shia cleric in Iraq]. These reformists have requested that the Shia high clergy become more involved in the current issues of the country."

0650 GMT: We asked moments ago "whether some in the Government have realised that the high-profile hard line may be counter-productive".

Hmmm, maybe not. Hojatoleslam Ali Saeedi, the Supreme Leader's liaison with the Revolutionary Guard, said yesterday, "[The] leaders of the recent unrest are still out of prison." Rounding up those leaders "could be the will of the nation and the media".

Saeedi also defended the regime's high-profile display of "confessions" by figures such as former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi:

These confessions were of utmost importance, since they shed light on the core of "the ordeal" and the rings linked to it....It was not unexpected that the foreigners would take us for the likes of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. However, it was strange that some of our compatriots were deceived by the enemies and played by their rules."

0630 GMT: Deadline day for President Ahmadinejad, as he has to present his selections for Ministerial posts to Parliament. The furour over the President's relations with the legislature, which had peaked with controversies over the 1st Vice President and Ministry of Intelligence, has quieted in the last week, but several key MPs have warned that Ahmadinejad must put forward candidates with expertise and judgement.

On another front, our Enduring America debate over the challenge of Hashemi Rafsanjani continues. After yesterday's spirited discussion between two of our correspondents and our readers, we've posted a sequel with the views of a third EA analyst. There is a clear split in our community on not only Rafsanjani's position but that of the President: some see Rafsanjani playing a clever game as Ahmadinejad loudly struggles, others see the President in the ascendancy. And, thanks to our readers, important factors such as the Revolutionary Guard, the "principlist" political bloc, and the Army have also been brought into the arena.

For me, however, the emerging story yesterday was the clear signal that the Green opposition has not gone away. While the organisation of public protest is still fragmented, many key secular and clerical figures rallied around Mehdi Karroubi's demand that the Government investigate and punish those responsible for abuse of detainees. Karroubi reiterated the protest in his statement, "You Will Not Force Me Into Silence", and Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, and the "reformist" front were among those who offered high-profile endorsements. These complemented the "hot" Internet story of the day, the video of Ayatollah Sane'i's scathing attack on the regime.

As I've said on several occasions, the regime may be keeping the opposition vibrant --- ironically --- by trying to break it with detentions, confessions, and trials. Today's planned 4th trial of post-election political prisoners has been postponed until next Tuesday, raising the question as to whether some in the Government have realised that the high-profile hard line may be counter-productive.

If this is just a pause, however (and one of the rumours yesterday was that politician Saeed Hajjarian would be amongst the defendants), we will not only be considering the President's Cabinet and Rafsanjani's future. The Green Path of Hope, which Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami joined yesterday, may be more than a symbol.

The Latest from Iran (18 August): Which Way for the Government?

NEW Text of Latest Karroubi Statement “You Will Not Force Me Into Silence”
NEW Is Hashemi Rafsanjani A Spent Force?
The Latest from Iran (17 August): Waiting for the Next Manoeuvre

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2010 GMT: Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, a critic of the Government throughout the post-election crisis, has called on the judiciary to take the lead in stopping the calamity that has befallen Iran.

1850 GMT: Responding to a reader's question, "Did Etemade Melli newspaper publish today?" No, and according to our sources, it is unlikely to appear for some time.

1610 GMT: Tehran's chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi has announced that the fourth Tehran trial has been postponed from tomorrow until next Tuesday to allow defendants' lawyers more time for preparation.

1415 GMT: Forward with the Green Path of Hope. Chief Mousavi advisor Alireza Beheshti has said, "The central council of the Green Path of Hope will be a small group of five to six, including Mr. Khatami and Mr. Karroubi." Beheshti He added that the party would have a "counselling board consisting of 30 to 40 members" and "monitoring committees".

1340 GMT: Reuters has now published a summary of the Mousavi letter of support for Karroubi (see 1020 GMT): "[The authorities] asked those who were abused and raped in prisons, to present four witnesses [to prove their claim]....Those who committed the crimes were the establishments' agents."

Earth News offers more extracts:

"Those who have committed these crimes are agents of the regime....Does the rulership have no interest in knowing what these agents are doing to the people?....
Your letter on ugly treatments of prisoners have made the pro-government dailies nervous. This indicates that there might even be more horrible abuses of which we are not yet aware....

Do you [in the regime] also want four witnesses to wash off the sin from your hands?...It is expected from the Islamic clergy to fulfil their spiritual duty and only to be afraid of God and not of liars and rapists.

1300 GMT: Reformist groups have also announced their full support for Mehdi Karroubi.

1020 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi has written a letter of support to Mehdi Karroubi over Karroubi's claim of the abuse of detainees, thanking him and calling on others to share his "courage and commitment".

0945 GMT: The report of the arrest of an employee of the Italian Embassy in Tehran now appears to be an incorrect rumour spread by an Iranian blogger. The Italian Foreign Ministry has denied the story.

0930 GMT: The Iranian Labor News Agency has provided a timeline and summary of yesterday's ceremony installing Sadegh Larijani as head of Iran's judiciary (our correspondent's comment: "Not sure if it's good for him behaving in this way, but Ahmadinejad is treating Rafsanjani like a has-been"):

President Ahmadinejad entered the hall 68 minutes late for the ceremony, scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Police chief Radan, Deputy Majlis Speaker Abotourabi Fard, former IRGC [Revolutionary Guard] head Rahim Safavi, Guardian Council head Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Mohsen Rezaei, and others were in their seats at 9:30. Jannati did not move towards them or Rafsanjani and "sat alone" for a while.

Head of judiciary Hashemi Shahroudi, Sadegh Larijani, the Supreme Leader's Chief of Staff Mohammad Golpaygani, and Hashemi entered the room together at around 10 a.m. Salavats were shouted in direction of Rafsanjani.

Ali Larijani walked in 20 minutess after the start of the ceremony

Sadegh's passage on need to prosecute those who have committed violence (reported on Enduring America yesterday) was "met with congratulatory remarks" by those present in the hall.

Ahmadinejad talked immediately after Sadegh and spoke of the necessity to bring "the holders of power and wealth" to justice, referring to Sadegh's previous remarks (see 0615 GMT).

Ahmadinejad left the room immediately after the end of his speech and did not wait for Rafsanjani's. Rafsanjani did not dwell at all on Ahmadinejad's remarks in his own comments. However, ILNA reiterates that Rafsanjani treated Ahmadinejad with visible respect upon the latter's entry into the hall.

Ali Larijani referred to his brother as "Agha Sadegh" in his speech and stated: "We are all offspring of the seminary and the marjayyat [clerics] who have strayed into the path of government service." His remark were met with laughter.

After the end of the ceremony, lobbying took place between various parties to try to patch up the acrimony between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad.

0850 GMT: Italian media report that an employee of the Italian Embassy in Tehran has been arrested. Iranian reports call the detainee a blogger who has supplied information to foreign media.

The employee's nationality is not known.

0825 GMT: There are indications that the legal file against the Minister of Industry, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, may be "nullified". Mehrabian was convicted last month of taking credit for the invention of "an earthquake safe room" by another scientist.

On Sunday, President Ahmadinejad proposed that Mehrabian retain his post in the new Cabinet.

0820 GMT: Mowj-e-Sabz reports, from an "informed source", that Dr.Zabih, the head of the organisation of clerics supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi, and his son have been arrested.

0810 GMT: We've just posted an exchange between two of my colleagues which I think is one of the most important analyses of the post-election situation in Iran: "Is Hashemi Rafsanjani a Spent Force?"

0720 GMT:The head of the special Parliamentary committee on national security, Parviz Sorouri, has asked Mehdi Karroubi to present his evidence of sexual abuse of prisoners to the committee and Parliament. The request is a reversal, as the committee had initially declared that there was no basis for the allegations.

Saham News also reports that the committee will investigate conditions in Evin Prison today and will visit other detention centres, speaking with detainees. Those centres include "unofficial" sites such as Shapour, Eshratabad, and Pasargad.

0658 GMT: Ayatollah Sane'i's scathing attack on the regime, which was made in a speech on 12 August but emerged yesterday in a five-part video (posted on Enduring America in a separate entry), has stung the Government. Both Iran News and Raja News have called the Ayatollah a "shameless" "sinner" and "adulterer" and asked that he be given 80 lashes.

0655 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi's website, Ghalam News, is still down several days after apparently being hacked.

0640 GMT: Hossein Ali Arab, a professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Tehran, and Ali Asghar Khodayari, a professor in mineral sciences and former Deputy Chancellor, have been released after two months in detention in Evin Prison.

0630 GMT: So is the new head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, going to be on the front line of the power struggle? Both Jomhoori Eslami and Tabnak are reporting that Larijani is going to remove Tehran's chief prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi.

Mortazavi is considered a member of President Ahmadinejad's camp, who lobbied strongly against Larijani's appointment by the Supreme Leader. That conflict in turn is part of the wider, important struggle for control of the judiciary, which we analysed on Sunday.

0615 GMT: 36 hours to go before the deadline for President Ahmadinejad's submission of his Cabinet choices to Parliament, and there is a good deal of chatter about the possible moves and conflicts.

The President, however, did take time out yesterday for the inauguration of Sadegh Larijani as head of Iran's judiciary. While the initial images and chatter were about Ahmadinejad's greeting of rival Hashemi Rafsanjani, a later headline offers a different perspective: "If the power-holders and the wealthy are taken to court, then there would be no place left for those who hold lower ranks to commit any wrongdoings."

Since presumably the President isn't suggesting that he should be the "power-holder" arrested, to whom is he referring? Surely it couldn't be "the [very] wealthy" Rafsanjani, despite Ahmadinejad's election charges of corruption against his predecessor?

Iran: Text of Latest Karroubi Statement "You Will Not Force Me Into Silence"

The Latest from Iran (19 August): Challenges in Parliament and from Prisons

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Mehdi Karroubi has continued his campaign against the Government, particularly with regard to the treatment of detainees, with a new statement published in Saham News and, in a shorter version, in Aftab Yazd. This English translation should be read in conjunction with Karroubi's letter of 29 July to Hashemi Rafsanjani and his interview last week with Saham News:


Some individuals think that these insults and defamations [in response to Karroubi's letter claiming abuse of detainees] will force me to retreat. I advise these gentlemen to study history and observe that after the Revolution and at the end of the 3rd Parliament [1992] many people said whatever they could about me, including accusing me of embezzling funds and sending them out of the country. Who was the person who toughed it out?

In the last week I have been at the receiving end of many harsh attacks from MPs , IRIB [Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting], the media, and some clergymen. If this trend continues, I will say things that [those individuals] would prefer to remain unsaid....

After the 10th Presidential election [of 12 June] horrific events involving violence, lawlessness, irresponsibility by individuals having no official position interfering in the name of protecting the establishment, by paramillitary groups, and by plainclothes security forces have occurred in our country. These events are such that responsible, concerned. and informed individuals must set aside caution and self-preservation in order to do whatever they can in order to prevent a repetition of these events and destroy all the roots of such styles of confrontation....

In any part of the world it is possible that during demonstrations people get arrested, but I doubt that those arrested will be carted off to special locations and left to the mercies of their jailers. Here they are first transported to an unknown location such that even the head of the judiciary and the head prosecutor claim that the prisoners were not subjected to such treatment in official prisons under our jurisdiction....

All these events have occurred because the public are protesting the results of an election. Is this the correct way to treat people who are only want to know what was the fate of their votes?....Usually a protocol and regulations exist for obtaining confessions....The fact that such lawlessness has been observed in the methodolgies used for extraction confessions leads me to say that these confessions were extracted violently by ill-informed and unprudent and foolish individuals....

I am sorry to say that the SAVAK [security forces of the Shah] behaved in a more humane fashion than the individuals in charge of the recent arrests....

The head of this newspaper [Kayhan] that writes such lies about the children of the revolution is a near friend and colleague of Said Emami [a Deputy Minister of Intelligence who allegedly ordered the chain killing of intellectuals and dissidents in Tehran]...The head of Friday prayers who calls me a terrorist and anti-revolutionary is the same person who, during the Shah's time when all of us clergymen were persecuted, ran away to Pakistan to ostensibly do mission work for the Ayatollah....

Some of my friends in Parliament who have made statements against me should not forget that they have only gained their seats because [the Guardian Council] disqualified their rivals from running against them.... The reaction of some individuals in the armed forces towards me is to be expected because these individuals have amassed a huge amount of political and econonomic power, but they must also know that ideas are not limited or dependent to a few individuals and they diffuse into families as well. As indeed members of your own families have disagreements with you....

48 years ago in Mashaad, when the mosque of Goharshad incident occurred, a number of ignorant security forces [of the Shah] wanted to impede Imam Khomeini's movement with a campaign of misinformation, and they were thwarted by the truth leaking out....How can the officals expect anything to happen in Modern Tehran in the age of communications without anyone finding out?

You have now induced conditions so that no one dares to speak out, I reiterate to you that these behaviors and the atmosphere of fear that you have caused will not force me into silence and if there is a requirement I will state the relevent issues.