Iran Today: Rafsanjani & Jalili Put Out Campaign Slogans

A Former Soldier And A Diplomat: Presidential Candidate Saeed Jalili Tweets Photograph of Military Past

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Presidential Election Watch: Backing Rafsanjani (continued)

The Reformist Coordination Council has welcomed the candidacy of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and called on all reformists to participate in a statement of support.

Presidential Election Watch: Hardline Kayhan Criticizes Rafsanjani

In a lengthy editorial on Monday, Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of hardline newspaper Kayhan, which is close to the Supreme Leader, criticized the decision of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani to register his candidacy, asking what the point of doing so had been, and suggesting that it could have been a cover for the reformists to return to the political scene.

Kayhan criticized the wide coverage the Iranian press has given to Rafsanjani's registration as a candidate.

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Iran Snap Analysis: Some People Were Selected for the Parliament --- Does It Matter?

There is an important conclusion to be drawn from Friday's outcome, but it is only a reiteration of what we noted after the first round two months ago, not in the overwhelming victory of a faction, but in the lack of one: "While the Islamic Republic's system is far too complex to reduce it to the plaything of the Supreme Leader, "stability" --- if not legitimacy --- lay in an arrangement in which he and his circle could be assured that they would not face trouble from a President, Parliament, or judiciary."

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The Latest from Iran (25 November): Down, Down, Down

Claimed footage, posted yesterday, of a recent strike by workers in Tabriz in northwest Iran

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2045 GMT: The Lesser-of-Two-Evils Watch. Kayhan editor Hossei Shariatmadari, criticising the Green Movement for saying the Iranian system should apologise to the people, has remarked, "We would rather bribe the US than the people."

2035 GMT: Elections Watch. Solat Mortazavi, the head of Iran’s Elections Headquarters, has repeated that two leading reformist organizations, the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution, will not be allowed to field candidates in March's Parliamentary elections.

Mortazavi told a workshop for provincial elections officials that the Supreme Leader has instructed officials to ensure that the “enemy” does not turn the elections into a challenge to the Islamic Republic. He said individual reformists are not barred from the elections so long as the Guardian Council declares them eligible.

The two reformist organisations were dissolved by court order last year. Many of their members have been arrested and given long prison sentences.

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The Latest from Iran (4 November): Ahmadinejad Punches Back

Iranians demonstrate on the 32nd anniversary of the takeover of the US Embassy

See also Iran-Israel War Talk: "Do We Always Have to Be Taken In By This Transparent Ploy?"
Iran-Israel Opinion: Why Jerusalem Is Making War Noises
The Latest from Iran (3 November): Threats, Threats, More Threats

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2120 GMT: Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Another angle on Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's address to the faithful (see 1515 GMT), as Fars picks up the warning to the Bahraini and Saudi regimes: "With these crimes, you will have the fate of Qaddafi and the treacherous Saddam."

But, in the end, today's message came back to America: "The US administration has never seen such days of humiliation."

2050 GMT: Economy Watch. Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, a leading MP on economic affairs, has warned that people will spend part of their support payments for subsidy cuts to buy foreign currencies, which are rising in value against the Iranian currency.

An EA correspondent analyses, "There is much chatter about people buying dollars because of fear of more sanctions and a worsening economy."

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The Latest from Iran (23 July): A Furlough in Repression

1840 GMT: The Slain Scientist --- Confusion Alert. We have been working throughout the day on the initial report that the scientist slain today in Tehran was a 35-year-old "Professor of Physics" named Dariush Rezaei, as initially reported by Iranian media (see 1503 and 1530 GMT).

This led us to Dariush Rezaei, also identified as Dariush Rezaei-Ochbolagh, a faculty member at Mohaghegh Ardabili University (see 1600 GMT). However, there is a curiosity in Rezaei's profile --- he is listed as 46 years old.

(Mehr, however, do seem to have a consistent story, with Rezaei a 45-year-old professor at the University, which is in the city of Ardebil in northwest Iran.)

Now Fars and IRNA that the victim, named Dariush Rezaeinejad, is actually a postgraduate student in electrical engineering at Khaje Nasir University in Tehran. IRNA, from an "informed source", says Rezaeinejad was "cooperating with a number of universities and scientific centers".

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The Latest from Iran (31 May): The Political Battle Over Control of Oil

2025 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Hojatoleslam Mojtaba Zolnour, the Supreme Leader's representative to the Revolutionary Guards, has told a university audience that they should beware of the attempt by the Hojjatieh Association to influence the Government.

Hojjatieh is a Shia organisation, founded in 1953, that was forced to disband by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1983 over views about the imminent return of the Hidden Imam. There have been numerous claims that President Ahmadinejad and his key advisors like Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai are secret members.

2000 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Iran and India have failed to agree a method for Delhi's payment for oil exprots from Tehran.

A delegation from Iran met officials from different Indian ministries to find a resolution for the five-month-old issue, sparked by international sanctions on Iran's oil products.

India is reportedly mulling using multiple currencies, including the rupee, to pay for the crude oil. Iran is Delhi's second-largest supplier after Saudi Arabia.

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The Latest from Iran (13 April): The Movie, The Hidden Imam, and Ahmadinejad's Right-Hand Man

2040 GMT: In an interview with RASA TV, Nooshabeh Amiri speaks about her interview with Said Tajik, the man accused of verbally assaulting Hashemi Rafsanjani's daughter Faezeh Hashemi in February.

Amiri says Tajik, who was briefly detained over the incident, was released out of fear of his supporters. She said he questioned why he had been interrogated and was "very arrogant towards the judiciary".

Amiri has also written an article in Rooz Online about the encounter.

1945 GMT: Setting the Election Rules. Conservative MP Habibollah Asgaroladi tries to set the ground rules for the 2012 Parliament elections --- those who are against the Iranian system (nezam) and the clerical supremacy of velayat-e faqih cannot run. He continues with the observation that reformists are not yet "off the record", i.e., eliminated"; they are, he says, "serious rivals" in the elections.

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The Latest from Iran (5 November): A Disappointment?

1740 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Ali Gholizadeh has been arrested in Mashhad.

1640 GMT: The Medical University. Claimed video of a Thursday protest at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences, closed last week by Government order. The students chant, "We will not go to class until we've reclaimed Iran."

1635 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Ayatollahs Bayat Zanjani, Dastgheib & Sadeghi Tehrani have condemned attacks on Gonabadi dervishes.

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The Latest from Iran (16 October): Prisoners and the Economy

1905 GMT: Currency Watch. Green Correspondents is claiming that Iranian banks are offering European financial institutions a 16% brokerage fee, four times the typical rate, for wire transfers of currency.

1845 GMT: Iranian-American National Freed. A family spokesman says Iranian-American dual national Reza Taghavi, detained in Iran since 2008, has been freed from Evin Prison and will be leaving the country soon.

Tehran accused Taghavi, 71, of passing $200 in cash to an Iranian man linked to the monarchist group Tondar. There was no reason given for his sudden release.

Taghavi's lawyer had asked for the businessman's freedom on humanitarian grounds. His family claim Taghavi has diabetes and was in poor health.

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