The Latest from Iran (30 August): Khamenei Slaps Down Ahmadinejad

2010 GMT: Khatami's Qods Day Message for Iran. The Facebook page supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi has posted the English text of Mohammad Khatami's message for Qods Day. Inevitably, much of the statement was about Palestine, but Khatami did have a sharp passage directed at Tehran rather than Jerusalem:

We cannot suffer from colonial dependence in one place and say that we should fight that and be ignorant toward that in another place; or vice versa we say that others should be free and have sovereignty to chose their own fate and should ne not be under tyranny, colonialism and dictatorship but if such issues happen to us we be ignorant toward them! No! human problems are linked together.

The roots of many of these issues are in the teachings and history of Islam as well. One of these issues is what gives legitimacy to a system, a society and a government? What is the basis for legitimacy? There is a common principle that humanity have reached and we as Muslims also have accepted that and that is the fact that people's votes and satisfaction are the foundations to establish a legitimate system.

If people's consent does not exist, no government can be imposed on the people; and even if it is imposed it will not be legitimate. Of course according to our views based on Islam and Shia teachings a government should have some principles and meet some conditions and if it does not then it will not be legitimate. Government should meet some conditions and the rulers also should meet some conditions.

According to teachings of Imam Ali (Shia's first Imam), he had stated that if people's votes and presence did not exist, he would have never accepted to govern. It means that even in case of Imam Ali's government if people did not voted of it, it would have not been imposed on the people because if such thing would have happened it would have been wrong.

When we say democracy this is it: democracy in line with religion....

NEW Iran: The Regime Feels the Pressure on Stoning
NEW Iran Special: Political Prisoners, Election Fraud, & The Regime’s Backfiring Propaganda
NEW Iran Breaking: Karroubi on Election Fraud; House Surrounded by Pro-Regime Crowd
Iran: Ahmadinejad Attacks Rafsanjani & “Corrupt” Foes; “Overthrowers Have Not Been Punished Yet” (Kamdar)
UPDATED Iran: Tehran Declares Readiness for Nuclear Talks?
Iran: An Ayatollah’s “Larijani is a Jew” Declaration
The Latest from Iran (29 August): The “Hidden Imam” Circle

1800 GMT: Families Protected. The Los Angeles Times, via Iran Labor News Agency, reports that the Parliament has referred controversial articles of the Family Protection Bill back to committee for further study.

Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani said, "According to the notification of the lawmakers and in consultation with the judiciary branch, seemingly the articles 22, 23 and 24 contain some Islamic shortcomings. Therefore, they will be returned to legal and judiciary commission to be corrected."

Parliament had already voted down a provision that would have allowed registration of "temporary marriages". The bill also would make ease the financial and legal regulations on polygamy for men.

1755 GMT: Supreme Leader Slaps Down the President. And the day gets even more interesting....

The website of Ayatollah Khamenei's office reports that, in a meeting with the President and the Cabinet, the Supreme Leader said they must "avoid parallel work in areas including foreign policy". That is an in-your-face message to Ahmadinejad that Khamenei is not happy with the President's appointment of four special representatives for international matters.

1740 GMT: Karroubi Watch --- Urgent. We've added to our feature on Mehdi Karroubi's latest statement, condeming election fraud and repression, with the disturbing news that his house is being declared the meeting place for plotters of sedition and that it has been surrounded by 50 "plainclothes forces".

1730 GMT: It's a bad propaganda week so far for the Iranian Government. We had already posted a feature on its bungled publicity over detained reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh; now we write about Tehran's nervousness that its image is being damaged by the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, condemned to death for adultery.

1400 GMT: Electricity Squeeze. DayPress claims that residents in Ahwaz in southern Iran have protested sharp rises in electricity bills, amidst 50-degree Celsius (122-degree Fahrenheit) heat.

1350 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani is maintaining a tough line on international matters: “The United States propped up Islamic extremism and created the extremist groups to impede the Islamic Revolution, but ... now they are plagued with [the acts of] their own puppets....The ill-informed and prejudiced [officials] in the West overtly express their animosity towards the liberating teachings of Islam and the Quran under the pretext of [opposing] the blind al-Qaeda terrorism and Islamic extremism.”

1344 GMT: Economy Watch. Despite sanctions and economic difficulties, the Tehran Stock Exchange continues to rise because of trading by state-run firms, increased liquidity, and the government's push for privatisation. The Exchange has hit a record high, rose nearly 4 percent on Sunday and Monday, adding a nominal $10 billion to its value.

1340 GMT: Qods Day Alert. Five days before Iranians are asked to recognise the situation of Palestine, former President Mohammad Khatami has declared that Qods Day "is a symbolic day against oppressors".

1330 GMT: Interview of the Day. It has to be Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's exchange with the German magazine Der Spiegel, "The West Lacks Political Maturity". This is the mature start to the discussion:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Foreign Minister, you are the senior diplomat of the Islamic Republic of Iran. You represent a nation that prides itself on a cultural history stretching back more than 2,500 years. Don't you find it shameful that people are stoned to death in your country?

Manouchehr Mottaki: You come from a country that murdered millions of people during a tyrannical war, and you want to talk to me about human rights? OK, we can certainly discuss the laws in various countries and naturally we can, in a friendly atmosphere, debate the different legal principles.

The interview features Mottaki's claims, "No one is executed in Iran for political reasons. You have no evidence to prove the opposite," and "Confessions were made in an open atmosphere, in the presence of media representatives. They were also repeated in front of other witnesses." However, this is the maturity showpiece from the Foreign Minister:

This election was a triumph. We had the highest turnout for a presidential election since the 1979 revolution. Of 40 million voters, a turnout of 85 percent, 25 million voted for Mr. Ahmadinejad. But as was already the case during Mr. Ahmadinejad's first election in 2005, the West apparently expected a different election result. We think the Western countries lack political maturity.

Manipulation is an issue in elections everywhere. Just think of the differences of opinion that elections have triggered in the United States, where a court had to step in to end a dispute over the validity of ballots. The accusations were also investigated in our country, at the urging of the opposition and our leadership. The votes were recounted. Since then, the result has been legally binding.

1210 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Looks like the Ahmadinejad office is ready for a fight with conservative MP Elyas Naderan over the claim that Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai met the former US ambassador in Israel: "We reject the baseless claim made by an Iranian parliamentarian...and we secure our right to pursue the issue legally."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, trying to defend the President's appointment of Rahim-Mashai and three others as special representatives for foreign policy, has said that Naderan's remarks in Parliament had "nothing to do" with the questions he had tabled over the appointments. Mottaki said he might have to give Naderan a "yellow card" for his behaviour.

1000 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch.Ghorban Behzadian-Nejad, the manager of Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, is free on bail after 9 months in detention.

Women's rights activist Mahboubeh Karami is reportedly in hospital after her release on $50,000 bail. Karami has been sentenced to four years in prison.

0855 GMT: We have now posted our special feature, "Political Prisoners, Election Fraud, & The Regime’s Backfiring Propaganda."

0700 GMT: Sanctions Watch. William Yong of The New York Times follows up on the development, which we noted last week, that Iran is withdrawing its assets from European banks to prevent them being frozen.

0645 GMT: Shutting Down the Lawyers. Fereshteh Ghazi reports on another instance of harassment and intimidation of Iran's defence attorneys. Nasrin Sotudeh's office and home have been searched, and the lawyer has been accused of propaganda against the regime.

0640 GMT: Discussing, Organising. Activists have announced a conference from 1 to 3 October at the Free University in Berlin to discussion the formation of "an independent, widespread organization of Iranian youth and students abroad".

0636 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch --- The Latest Names. An activist, drawing from RAHANA, has published an English-language list of 574 known political prisoners currently in detention.

0633 GMT: Political Defiance. The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, banned by the Government, continues to defy its "non-existence". Rah-e-Sabz has photos of an Iftar, the meal breaking the daily fast during Ramadan, of IIPF members.

0630 GMT: Execution Protests. Mission Free Iran claims that Rasht, a city in northwest Iran, joined the global demonstrations this weekend against stoning.

0625 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Kodoom claims, without citing the original source, that prominent conservative MP Elyas Naderan has accused Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, of meeting a former American Ambassador to Israel, hosting mixed-gender dance parties, and serving alcohol at some gatherings.

0610 GMT: We open today with two specials surrounding the claimed rigging --- some going as far to call it a "coup" --- of the 2009 Presidential election. We have the English text of Mehdi Karroubi's statement on Sunday condemning the election fraud and repression of the Iranian people. Later this morning, we'll have an update on the increasingly desperate Government campaign (which we noted 12 days ago after a manipulated video appeared, failed, and disappeared) to fabricate a "confession" by former Deputy Minister of Interior Mostafa Tajzadeh that the election was legitimate.

Rah-e-Sabz features Tajzadeh's latest resistance, via his wife's blog to the regime's propaganda and pressure upon him and his family. He challenges defenders of the vote to a public debate and asks, "I have written 7 pages about the rigged election in jail, why don't they [the Government] publish them?" (See English version of report.)

Iran: The Regime Feels the Pressure on Stoning

Who says that international campaigns have no effect?

Last week, speaking to a journalist, I said that I had the sense that the Iranian Government was getting rattled over the international attention to the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the 43-year-old woman sentenced to death, initially for adultery and then for complicity in the murder of her husband. Reactions against the sentence this summer had already pushed Tehran into declaring that the carrying out of the death sentence had been held up and that it would not be by stoning; however, the prospect remained that Ashtiani would die by hanging.

A few days ago the Government confirmed my suspicions through two linked statements. The judiciary tried to explain that, while it protected the rights of all citizens, Ashtiani had been tried fairly and convicted on the weight of evidence. The Iranian Foreign Ministry complained, with notable irritation, about "foreign interference".

Earlier today we noted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's ill-tempered response to the magazine Der Spiegel, ruling out German criticism of stoning because the country had killed millions of people under a totalitarian regime. And speaking of ill-tempered, Keyhan has called Carla Bruni, the singer and wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a "prostitute" for joining activists in asking for clemency for Ashtiani.

But it is the high-profile conservative newspaper Tabnak that gives the most telling testimony today. The publication, linked to Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of the Expediency Council and 2009 Presidential candidate, carries out a full review of the case.

Tabnak does not say the sentence should be reversed; however, it frets about the criticism of Iran from sources as varied as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy representative of the European Union. In light of the attempt by the "West" to "mobilise public opinion against Iran", Tabnak insists "the country's authorities should seriously watch the next move by the West and not ignore it".

The take-away quote (hat tip to an EA correspondent):

Would it not be better if, right from the beginning, we showed more diligence in issuing stoning sentences rather than incurring the great cost of changing the sentence to execution?

The statement from the Council of Human Rights of the Judiciary was well able to reveal the reality of this case and they must be thanked. However, it must be accepted that this came about very late in the day. If only in those first days of the western media campaign an official had made this statement in an interview with one of the major international media.

Stay tuned....

Iran Special: Political Prisoners, Election Fraud, & The Regime's Backfiring Propaganda

Two weeks ago we wrote about a curious episode inside Iran. Fars News posted a video which claimed to show prominent reformist and former Deputy Minister of Interior Mostafa Tajzadeh, who had just been returned to detention in Evin Prison, "confessing" to three other men that Mir Hossein Mousavi had lost the 2009 Presidential election.

The effort fell apart pretty quickly. The video was clearly not from Evin, and the audio showed signs of manipulation. Tajzadeh's camp said that the remarks from the reformist had been edited together and did not refer to the 2009 election --- EA correspondents have subsequently confirmed that the audio, if not the video, is probably concerned with the 2005 Presidential vote. (We have not been able to access the video since 20 August; Government supporters assert that it can still be seen inside Iran.)

NEW Iran Document: Karroubi on Election Fraud and Repression (29 August)
Iran Video Special: Have Fars (& Revolutionary Guard) Faked a Reformist “Confession” on Election?

We thought that was that, although the regime maintained its attempt to break Tajzadeh, blocking any contact between him and his family for 11 days after he was returned to prison.

We were wrong. Yesterday a Government supporter eagerly wrote me, "What excuse can you provide for us now?" He linked to an item from Iran Newspaper on Network (INN). A student activist, Said Rajavi Faqih, had supposedly said in an interview that Tajzadeh's "election confession" was true: the reformists knew they lost the 2009 elections.

The only problem with the INN piece? Almost none of it was true.

EA correspondents quickly found the Rajavi Faqih interview in Rooz Online and did some other checking of sources:

1. Razavi Faqih actually said that a) while Tajzadeh doubted fraud the day after the June 2009 election, he was immediately imprisoned and so had no additional information about the manipulation; b) when Tajzadeh received the information after he was temporarily released, he changed his mind; c) Tajzadeh is now convinced of a massive “mohandessi”, i.e. a complete plan for election-rigging, long before election day. (Indeed, we reported two weeks ago that Tajzadeh had said this, just before he was summoned back to Evin.)

Razavi Faqih, for his part, denounced the regime’s efforts to regain legitimacy one year after the elections — by distorting Tajzadeh’s earlier remarks — and concluded that after a creeping coup the Islamic Republic is neither Islamic nor a republic anymore.

2. While he is an activist, Razavi Faqih is not linked to Tajzadeh and is no position to know first-hand of Tajzadeh’s beliefs or to act as a spokesman for him. (It should also be noted that Razavi Faqih is currently under duress inside Iran, with his passport taken from him so he is unable to return to Paris, where he usually resides.)

3. The reliable, “official” spokesperson for Tajzadeh is his wife, Fakhrosaadat Mohtashamipour. In a post on her personal weblog on Saturday, she published a statement that Tajzadeh managed to relay to her during their first visit since he returned to prison. In that message, he refers without reservation to election “fraud” and a “coup”.

That message is now making its way around the Internet. Tajzadeh is challenging Government supporters to a public debate over the election's legitimacy --- Mehdi Karroubi made a similar statement yesterday --- and asked the regime, if it was so confident, had not dared to publish the "seven pages" he has written in prisons detailing his thoughts.

So it appears that this latest propaganda effort, like the Fars video, will soon fizzle out. (Government supporters are doggedly pursuing the line that Tajzadeh must have made his confession in private, as his father-in-law has denounced his wife for publishing Tajzadeh's claims of a "coup".)

The INN attempt, however, takes a small place in a wider, more important story. The regime has been trying to break Tajzadeh for some time by getting him to publicly make a confession or distance himself from the reformists. When he refused to do so, he was summoned back to Evin and the Fars video was posted. He was then cut off from all contact with his family for 11 days. Still he refused to bend — unlike other figures like former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi who, at least temporarily, did so — and so the campaign against him, which included the “confession” that he has refused to make, continues.

Tajzadeh is not the only target, of course. One could add the names of other reformist politicians, journalists, and activists who have not only been told that they should be quiet, if they are to be freed, but also that they should renounce the opposition movement and testify to the Government's legitimacy.

And here is the even wider story. Tajzadeh and colleagues are counter-attacking. Two weeks ago, just before he was returned to detention, Tajzadeh joined six other reformists in the complaint --- supported by the leaked audio of a Revolutionary Guard commander setting out measures for repression of the opposition before and after the election --- that fraud had been carried out. That complaint is now being prominently featured by other critics of the Government, with Mehdi Karroubi's statement the latest volley against the regime, the Guardian Council, and the security forces.

So the curious paradox of the Government propaganda effort. A few weeks ago, I would have said that the issue of the 2009 election --- while still contested by the opposition --- had been superseded by broader questions of justice and rights. After all, there is no possible way, given the Government's suppression of the evidence, to find out how many votes each candidate actually received on 12 June 2009.

But now, with its fumbling attempts to post "confessions" or to at least break its opponents, the regime has opened itself up to more, rather than less, attention to the claims of fraud.

Where those claims will head --- to public protest or merely to the simmering of the fire under the ashes of post-election Iran --- is unknown, of course. But they are out there: opposition has not been "broken".

Israel-Palestine Opinion: Hamas, Northern Ireland, and US Diplomacy (Abunimah)

Abu Abunimah writes in The New York Times:

George J. Mitchell, the United States Middle East envoy, tried to counter low expectations for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations by harking back to his experience as a mediator in Northern Ireland.

At an Aug. 20 news conference with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announcing the talks that will begin this week, Mr. Mitchell reminded journalists that during difficult negotiations in Northern Ireland, “We had about 700 days of failure and one day of success” — the day in 1998 that the Belfast Agreement instituting power-sharing between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists was signed.

Israel-Palestine: The Hamas Factor (Yenidunya)

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists. The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.

A parallel can be seen with the American refusal to speak to the Palestinian party Hamas, which decisively won elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006. Asked what role Hamas would have in the renewed talks, Mr. Mitchell answered with one word: “None.” No serious analyst believes that peace can be made between Palestinians and Israelis without Hamas on board, any more than could have been the case in Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein and the I.R.A.

The United States insists that Hamas meet strict preconditions before it can take part in negotiations: recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by agreements previously signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Hamas is not a member. These demands are unworkable. Why should Hamas or any Palestinian accept Israel’s political demands, like recognition, when Israel refuses to recognize basic Palestinian demands like the right of return for refugees?...

Read full article....

US Culture: A Burned Mosque Site Far from New York City

CBS News reports:

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville [Tennessee] suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson....

US Politics & Religion: A Way Forward on and beyond the Islamic Cultural Centre (Ezell)

The chair of the center's planning committee, Essim Fathy, said he drove to the site at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning after he was contacted by the sheriff's department.

"Our people and community are so worried of what else can happen," said Fathy. "They are so scared."

The fire was smoldering by the time Fathy and the center's imam, Ossama Bahloul, had arrived. Fathy was told that responders had smelled gasoline near the fire....

Digging had begun at the site, which was planned as a place of worship for the approximately 250 Muslim families in the Murfreesboro area, but no structure had been built yet, according to Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the planning committee and a professor of engineering technology at Middle Tennessee State University.

"This is a shock," said Sbenaty. "We've had small act of vandals. But this is going to be a crime and whoever did it, they should be punished to the full extent of the law."

The center had operated for years out of a small business suite. Planning members said the new building, which was being constructed next to a church, would help accommodate the area's growing Muslim community.

"We unfortunately did not experience hostilities for the 30 years we've been here and have only seen the hostility since approval of the site plan for the new center," said Sbenaty.

Opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer; they are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area, told The Associated Press.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators who recently wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law.

Others took their opposition further, spray painting a sign announcing the "Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" and tearing it up....