The Latest from Iran (1 October): Challenging the Supreme Leader, Trying the Hikers

1945 GMT: Breaking the Reformists (cont.). Press TV gives the regime line on the arrest of Freedom Movement of Iran leaders Ebrahim Yazdi and Hashem Sabbaghian (see 1710 GMT).

Yazdi and Sabbaghian were arrested after they appeared in a Friday Prayers mass "led by a well-known Wahhabi element" in Isfahan. Iranian authorities had ordered the cancellation of prayers by the "extremist elements" but Yazdi and Sabbaghian had encouraged the Wahhabi figures to persist. Despite a pledge to give up his illegal behaviour, Yazdi has" reportedly expanded the scope of his group's activities". 

1830 GMT: The Powers of the Guards Expand. Peyke Iran reports what we have just learned from sources: the internal security duties of the Ministry of Intelligence have been handed to the Revolutionary Guard.

1825 GMT: Economy Watch. Kalemeh reports that the implementation of the Government's subsidy cuts plan has been delayed from October to November. 

1710 GMT: Breaking the Reformists. Both Islamic Republic News Agency and Saham News report that the head of the Freedom Movement of Iran, former Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi, and other members have been arrested today.

1705 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. During his trial, singer Aria Aramnejad has spoken about the abuse and solitary detention that he endured.  

1700 GMT: Proper Schools. The Ministry of Education has announced a five-year plan to change the content of textbooks “in order to turn students into thinkers". It said the plan is aimed at connecting teachers with the supreme leadership as well as religious thinking and positive attitudes toward the regime.

The Ministry claims 10,000 Quranic schools will open within a week and will be increased to 50,000 thousand, administered by local clergy and Basij forces.

1640 GMT: MediaWatch (cont. --- see 0615 GMT). An intriguing reaction by the "conservative" newspaper Tabnak, which has asked Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini to clarify his statement that his ministry will not pay subsidies to those national newspapers which do not support the Islamic system.

Interpretation? Tabnak, linked to key conservative Mohsen Rezaei, does not see Hosseini's statement as a warning only to the Green Movement and reformists; it is also a sign of lines to be drawn in a fight amongst conservatives.

1615 GMT: Friday Prayer Meets Conspiracy Theory. Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani took the podium today for Tehran Friday Prayers and thinking about the challenge of whipping up the crowd.

Of course, there's the nuclear issue, but that gets a bit repetitive. And how many times can you get a rise out of "dominating hegemony" of the Western powers?

So Emami Kashani went to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's playbook: how about a call for an independent probe into who caused 9-11? 

The cleric wagged a finger at those in Washington who might think the culprits were Al Qa'eda members: "Many in the world have welcomed [this]....Iran's argument means that your word should not be the only one dominating the world because the international community and even the American people no longer buy these words." 

Emami Kashani linked the possible truth behind 9-11 to the subsequent US military action, "Nations welcome a probe into this incident, but you accused others with [your] incoherent talk and blamed them for the attacks and massacred and violated the innocent people of Afghanistan." 

Of course, not that this at all a diversion, but the 9-11 chatter occurs as Iran is facing pressure over its approach to human rights and the economic restrictions of the West.

So Emami Kashani has to move beyond the conspiracy theoory: "Considering what you have done, no one trusts you anymore; you have numerous prisons in which you torture detainees." He dismissed Western sanctions against Iran, saying the measures could not shake the Iranian people and government and will yield no result other than the "awakening of the Iranian nation and elites".

1610 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Back from Dublin to find that political activist Amir Shaybani has been arrested in Mashhad. 

0815 GMT: Meet the Press. The International Association of Iranian Journalists has been formed in Paris. The provisonal board includes, Noushabeh Amiri, Alireza Nourizadeh, Omid Habibnia, Nikahang Kowsar, and Ahmad Raafat.

0735 GMT: Flashback --- The Slain Protestors. Going back to an alleged incident from July 2009....

Opposition websites reported claims that more than 40 protestors, killed in demonstrations against the result of the Presidential election, had been quickly and secretly buried in a Tehran cemetery. 

A video has been posted which claims to be of two interviews with workers in the cemetery who witnessed the burials.

0725 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Jinous Sobhani, a secretary with Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi's Center for Defenders of Human Rights, has been sentenced to two years in prison. 

Sobhani was arrested in January, a week after the anti-government demonstrations on the religious day of Ashura. She is a member of the banned Baha'i faith.

0655 GMT: More MediaWatch. Following up his promise to support only those newspapers who backed the Islamic system, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini declared on Thursday that Iran will have zero tolerance for filmmakers who support the country's political opposition. 

0650 GMT: Where There's Currency Smoke, There's Fire. Confirmation of the economic tension over Iran's falling currency comes from no less than the head of Iran's Central Bank. From Press TV:

Following instability in the price of gold and foreign currency in Tehran's markets, Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced plans to normalize prices next week.

"By next week, the Central Bank [of Iran] will definitely return the price of gold and foreign currency to its normal market rate," CBI governor, Mahmoud Bahmani, said on Thursday. 

He said the CBI plans to reduce the price of the dollar to 10,600 rials. 

“The price of the dollar in the market will reach [10,600 rials] or less and the foreign currency market will soon be balanced," Mehr news agency quoted Bahmani as saying. 

Referring to rise in gold prices in Iran's markets, Bahmani said the CBI would inject gold into the market until "the prices are reduced and balanced." 

0645 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The updated list of political detainees in Iran's jails now has 633 names.

0615 GMT: MediaWatch. Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini has announced that newspapers which do not support the Islamic system will not receive subsidies: "The subsidies will be paid considering the newspapers' stances. We can not help a newspaper that does not move in line with the Islamic system's policies." 

However, the ministry would give complete support to those newspapers that promote the Islamic systems' policies and principles.

0605 GMT: Oil Squeeze. In a high-profile announcement on Thursday, Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg said four of Europe's five largest oil companies --- Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total; Eni of Italy, and Norway-based Statoil --- had pledged to halt investments in Iran. 

US officials added that they were pressing China and other countries to bar their companies from filling the vacuum created by the departing Europeans.

The State Department also said that European and Kuwaiti firms, Russia's Lukoil, India's Reliance and Turkey's Turpras have promised to stop selling gasoline and other refined products to Iran. 

Steinberg's announcement did not refer to purchases of oil from Iran. It was revealed this week that, despite sanctions, Shell, Total, and Eni had significantly increased those purchases, partly because of falling prices.

0555 GMT: US Detainees. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two of the three American hikers detained in July 2009, are scheduled to appear in court on 6 November, said their lawyer, Massoud Shafii.

Bauer and Fattal will appear before Judge Abolqasem Salavati, who has the reputation of a "hard-line" justice. Most recently, he sentenced the Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan to 19 1/2 years in prison.

Sarah Shourd, the third hiker and fiancee of Bauer, was released by Iran last month.

0550 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Iran has given its initial response to Wednesday's announcement by the US Government of "rights-first" sanctions targeting eight senior Iranian officials.

"Livia Leu Agosti, the Swiss ambassador who manages US interests in Iran, was summoned to the foreign ministry over the illegal sanctions," reported the Islamic Republic News Agency.

A Foreign Ministry official said the  sanctions would disrupt "international order", claiming, "This act spells the disruption of international order because no law permits the American government to do such a thing, while it is also a political abuser of human rights."

0530 GMT: We begin this morning, after a long break during our trip to Dublin, by catching up with a summary on insideIRAN of Ayatollah Dastgheib's latest questions over the authority of the Supreme Leader. 

Responding on his website to a question by one of his followers about the concept of velayae-faqih (clerical authority), Dastgheib argues in five pages that the current theory does not correspond to the interpretation of the concept by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Dastgheib asserted, “Absolute Velayat Faqih and Vali Faqih [the person who carries out the duties] appointed by the Assembly of Experts are two different things that can at times take place and be observed in one person, such as Imam Khomeini,” implying that the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei does not bring these two together.

He continued the only duties of someone selected by the Assembly of Experts are "to coordinate the efforts of the three branches of government and to prevent the violation of citizens’ rights by the three branches....This person of Vali Faqih has no right to interfere in the affairs of the people.”

Ayatollah Dastgheib also criticised the Assembly of Experts for being too passive in Iran's current crisis: “These gentlemen’s only duty is not to appoint or to approve of a leader; they are also responsible for solving the problems of their constituents.”