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Saturday
Mar262011

The Latest from Iran (26 March): Trying Not to Forget

1640 GMT: CyberWatch. Is there an Iran-related blog you quite like? Deutsche Welle's awards, The BOBs, is looking for nominations for "Best Blog Persian".

1630 GMT: In the Skies. Austria's OMV says it has stopped refuelling Iran Air flights.

Several European companies suspended supplies to Iran Air last year, leading to the grounding of aircraft and cancellation of flights in Europe.

1140 GMT: Economy Watch. Workers of the Bandar Emam Petrochemical Plant are protesting against temporary employment contracts.

1120 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Jila Bani Yaghoob http://www.rahesabz.net/story/34712/">has written to the Tehran Prosecutor General:

I assure you that I will not beg for the release of my husband, let alone a 20-minute visit. But give me the right to ask you one day who fears my expression of love for my husband? And which national security is threatened by this expression of love?

Bani Yaghoob asked Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi, "My expression of love has threatened which national security?"

Ahmadi Amoui was sentenced in January 2010 to 7 years and 4 months in prison and 34 lashes. Bani Yaghoob was also detained after the 2009 election; she was released in August 2009 on $100,000 bail.

0620 GMT: The New Year period in Iran continues to be exceptionally quiet, in the context of the last 21 months, but that was one notable intervention on Friday to break the silence.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's representative for foreign policy, demanded the unconditional release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi from their house arrest/detention. She said Iranian authorities had "no convincing answer" for why the two men --- whose wives are also held incommunicado --- are detained.

Mousavi and Karroubi were shut away in mid-February The regime has offered little information since it was forced at the end of the month to admit their house arrests.

And indeed there is little domestic news at all in State outlets this morning. Press TV's only Iran story so far today is a statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Behrouz Kamalvandi repeating Tehran's denunciation of a UN resolution, appointing a Special Rapporteur to investigate human rights in Iran, as "politically motivated".

But it is IRNA and Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations who win the prize for attempt to change the subject. Trying to deflect attention from the Iranian human rights situation, the Ambassador, Mohammad Khazaei, writes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to claim the UN has abetted the campaign of a Florida preacher --- which ended six months ago --- to burn the Qur'an.

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