The Latest from Iran (7 November): Tearing Down (the Poster of) Ahmadinejad's Men

2100 GMT: Shutting Down Khatami. The head of the Baran Foundation, linked to former President Mohammad Khatami, has declared that its activities are legal and demanded an end to filtering of the website.

He may have a difficult task with that demand: the chair of Parliament's Article 10 Commission says the Baran Foundation has no file in the Ministry of Interior and thus no right to be active.

2000 GMT: The Supreme Leader and the Clerics. Rah-e-Sabz, citing Fars, offers an explanation for Ayatollah Khamenei's follow-up trip to Qom. According to a member of the Seminaries Council, the subjects were President Ahmadinejad's obedience to the Supreme Leader, the behaviour of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, hijab and chastity, and the "Iranian School of thought".

Khamenei defended Ahmadinjead against allegations that he was divisive. The Supreme Leader said that although he did not accept some of the government's behaviours, Ahmadinejad "obeys immediately when he is told so".

1840 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Alireza Kiani has been arrested in northern Iran.

1815 GMT: Parliament Watch. Ali Larijani has been re-elected for a third consecutive term as the head of the principlist faction, the majority group in Parliament.

Larijani’s success came despite some opposition from pro-Ahmadinejad MPs.

1750 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (Confession Edition). Fars has posted what it claims is the "confession" of women's rights activist Mahdieh Golroo, who has been detained since 3 November 2009.

Golroo's sister Marzieh reported this week, after a visit, that Mahdieh was suffering from an intestinal illness but was having difficulty getting medical attention.

Marzieh said that her sister had been denied furlough despite repeated requests.

1520 GMT: Khatami's Dialogue. The Facebook site supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi has posted the text of former President Mohammad Khatami's address to a London conference on “Islamophobia and Violence and How to Overcome Such Situations”.

Khatami could not attend last month's gathering because of travel restrictions imposed upon him by the Iranian government.

1430 GMT: Nuke Talks Move Closer. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said that Tehran and the 5+1 Powers (China, France, Russia, UK, US, and Germany) have agreed to meet in Turkey for discussions on Iran's uranium enrichment.

Mottaki said there was consensus "regarding [Iran's] views and proposed package", with the time and agenda of the talks to be confirmed "as soon as possible".

1259 GMT: Rahnavard Watch. Zahra Rahnavard, academic, activist, and wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has criticised the proposed family law, saying that gender equality is an insurmountable principle.

1255 GMT: Labour Front. Coal miners at Minoudasht in Golestan Province in northern Iran claim they have been unpaid for 10 months.

1115 GMT: Rights Watch. Press TV seems to be taking a sustained interested in American human rights cases these days. The latest article is on the "political prisoner" Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist sentenced to two life sentences in 1977 for allegedly killing a pair of FBI agents.

This attention, of course, has nothing to do whatsoever with a desire to turn attention from cases which may be occurring within Iran.

1110 GMT: No More Bazaar Strikes. The head of Iran's guilds council claims that conflict between gold-sellers and the government over value-added tax, which led to strikes this autumn, has been resolved.

1035 GMT: Debt Watch. Reports claim that the government owes $25 billion to Iran's social security system.

1030 GMT: Not Me. Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani has denied that he joined Ayatollahs Dastgheib and Sadeghi Tehrani in protesting attacks on Gonabadi dervishes.

1020 GMT: Cartoon of the Day. Nikahang Kowsar in Khodnevis overhears the spiders, "Don't worry: Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami won't come out soon":

1005 GMT: The Medical University. Iranian Labor News Agency picks up on the crisis over the Government's attempted closure of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences, noting that academic staff have filed a complaint to Parliament's Article 90 Commission.

Even more interesting is the website's attention to student protests, which it says not only continue but now include even Basij militia members on the campus. The demonstrators chanted, "We are Iranian students. [Minister of Health] Dastjerdi, Dastjerdi, we await an answer! We are here, we stay here, we are Iranian students!"

0935 GMT: Discussing Rights. Nazy Kaviani has posted a photo essay on last week's three-day conference, “Toward a Culture of Civil Liberties, Human Rights and Democracy in Iran”, at the University of Maryland.

0915 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Human rights attorney Jahangir Mahmoudi has been sentenced to 100 days in jail in Ahvaz in southern Iran.

0755 GMT: The Doctors Have Issues. Physicians in the Parliament have rejected privatisation of the health sector as Majlis rejected privatising education.

Alireza Marandi, a former Minister of Health, has complained that the government makes an agreement at 2 a.m. and forgets it by 7.

0750 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Kurdish political activist Hossein Khezri, detained in July 2008 and sentenced to death on charges of mohareb (war against God) in July 2009, has written an open letter to international human rights organisations detailing his interrogation.

Khezri asks, "I was subjected to torture and physical and mental pressure during the interrogation, so why is the evidence obtained under such conditions not only considered admissible in court, but is the same evidence used to sentence me to death?"

0730 GMT: Government, Parliament, and the British Game. Leading MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi has intervened on Thursday's curious episode --- as the regime was celebrating the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy by proclaiming that Britain was Top Enemy for the Day, someone was speaking the story that Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani had invited a leading representative of that enemy, former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw, to Iran.

Boroujerdi say that this was "a British devilment", trying to influence Iran's principlists and the re-election of Larijani as Speaker.

I fully agree with Boroujerdi on the motive, but is it really "the British" who started the rumour?

0725 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The whereabouts of journalist Nazanin Khosravani are unknown, with her family unable to see her, five days after she was apparently detained.

0710 GMT: A short video from a recent exhibition in Tehran. Deputy Minister of Culture Mohammad Ali Ramin finds, as he reaches the area where he is to speak, that someone has decorated it with a large poster of key Ahmadinejad advisor Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

The reaction is quick (and caught on camera, despite the efforts of security): Tear It Down.

That's a nice metaphor to start the day, especially with some apparent new moves by key MP and Government critic Ahmad Tavakoli. We noted yesterday that Tavakoli's Alef had defied the regime over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, writing that the sentence of stoning to death for adultery was inappropriate.

But this only followed an appearance by Tavakoli on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on Thursday, where he condemned the lack of free speech and attacks on critics.

Tavakoli pointedly set out his defiance: "Some pushed the dissidents into downfall; I did not keep my silence, but wrote Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami after the elections." He claimed that the government constantly violated laws and must be criticised, calling on Ahmadinejad and his men to co-operate with Parliament.