The Latest from Iran (5 December): A Regime in Deadlock Drones On

Mana Neyestani comments on the international situation

See also Iran Analysis: Re-Assessing the Explosion at the Revolutionary Guards Base
The Latest from Iran (4 December): When Your Dad is a Political Prisoner

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1930 GMT: The Embassy Attacks. In the aftermath of the storming of the British Embassy, international schools in Tehran have closed.

The French school is located on grounds of the British Embassy and children were in class when protesters moved through the compound gates. Windows at the German school nearby were shattered. Teachers at the British school had sent students home early.

Parents have been told that foreign teachers and their families have left Iran. The French school hopes to resume lessons on Sunday, and the British school in the New Year.

1900 GMT: Arresting the President's Men. The President's media advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr, already sentenced to a year in prison for an issue of his Iran newspaper, has claimed that he was forced to give a controversial interview to the daily newspaper Etemaad.

In the interview, Javanfekr sharply criticised senior clerics and conservatives/principlists who challenged Ahmadinejad. The article led to the banning of Etemaad; the next day, Javanfekr was given his one-year sentence, and the day after that, security forces ransacked the Iran building as they tried to detain the advisor.

Javanfekr did not say who forced him to give the interview.

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The Latest from Iran (6 August): Enemies Everywhere (and Beware of the Books)

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami2120 GMT: About Those Water Fights.... In our separate feature, we have been following the story of the regime's crackdown on the crime of public water fights, first in Tehran and now in other Iranian cities. Well, Ayande News is not so certain about the approach....

The website asks, "Which sin is bigger? Water games or slander, lies and corruption?" Considering the behaviour of "senior Iranian officials", it considers where there are "great sins" of misuse of public funds, embezzlement, and fraud. Without naming names, it describes situations of alleged corruption involving 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Vice President Hamid Baghaei.

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The Latest from Iran (6 May): "The Government Has Lifted Up Its Hands to Pray"

1955 GMT: Media Watch. The Guardian of London has picked up on the story with which we began today (see 0445 GMT), "Iran's Supreme Leader tells Ahmadinejad: Accept Minister [of Intelligence] or Quit", quoting the President's ally, Morteza Agha-Tehrani.

And Robert Tait of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a thorough overview of the crisis --- with an appearance by EA --- "Ahmadinejad Floored By Bugs, Spirits, And Djinns":

Whenever cornered, Mahmud Ahmadinejad always seems to come out swinging. But Iran's notoriously abrasive president appears in danger of suffering a knockout blow over his political attachment to Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, a man widely seen as a threat to the country's clerical-based political system.

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The Latest from Iran (29 April): "We Will Destroy You"

1340 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Summary (Ahmadinejad Watch Edition). Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami takes the podium and has a straightforward message: "Enemies want to convey that there are differences in Iran, and media who follow them inflame the situation."

Khatami made no direct reference to the dispute over President Ahmadinejad's forced "resignation", later rescinded by the Supreme Leader. of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi (see separate analysis).

However, Khatami had this message: "The President should know that the majority vote for him was not absolute but conditional on his obedience towards the orders by the Supreme Leadership. The top of the system is the constitution, which has clarified the power structure."

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The Latest from Iran (31 December): Selling the President's Car, Seizing the President's Election

1200 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Summary. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's message from the pulpit today....

1. We defeated the "sedition" with our march on 30 December last year.

2. Subsidy cuts are excellent.

3. Help Pakistan's flood victims. (And, Pakistan, don't send us your terrorists.)

4. The ban on the hijab in Azerbaijan is very, very bad.

1140 GMT: Rafsanjani Sedition Watch. On the surface, it was just another ritual denunciation of the evil British. Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi told an audience in southern Tehran on Thursday, "One of the intelligence services that sought to overthrow the Islamic Republic since the advent of the Revolution, was British....[It] acted quite diligently with precise knowledge of our culture to influence individuals, and they learned that one of the ways to harm people was through their relatives.”

Go a bit farther, however, and you'll see that Moslehi had a target closer to home....

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The Latest from Iran (3 December): A Phantom Bombing

2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (Power Politics Edition). Keep your eyes on this story....

A group of 16 Iranian political prisoners, including prominent reformist politicians Mohsen Aminzadeh and Mostafa Tajzadeh and journalists Bahman Ahmadi Amoui and Mohammad Nourizad have written an open letter to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, describing their continued incarceration “in violation of the law” and in the “framework of settling political accounts”.

Addressing Rafsanjani in his role as head of the Expediency Council, the detainees said the treatment of political activists in the Islamic Republic today “bears no sign of the principles of the Revolution and its constitution". They maintain that their charges are fabricated and the “heavy sentences and restrictions that they have been handed are part of a political and security plan by the establishment to completely erase the political opposition”.

The prisoners compared the current situation to the political detentions before the 1979 Revolution, with officials forcing prisoners to give false confessions and then issuing sentences based on them: “The issued sentences in view of level and kind of punishment seem to indicate that they have been set by security officials based on their own ideas and personal preference, and relayed to the judges.”

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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 (8 October): Hey, Look Over There!

1845 GMT: Banning the Reformists (Confusion Edition). Yesterday we erroneously reported, "Alireza Avayi, the head of the judiciary in Tehran Province, has denied that a banning order has been issued against the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front."

Here's the rather muddled story. The IIPF is claiming that, after it complained about a ban on its activities, an Iranian court cancelled its dissolution and authorised the resumption of its activities.

Avayi has denied the IIPF's claim, saying that the file on the case has merely been transferred to the Tehran Revolutionary Court. The IIPF is still not allowed to engage in any political activity.

Last week, Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei said the IIPF and another reformist party, the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, were banned.

1815 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Iranian Labor News Agency reports that paint factories are unable to import raw material due to sanctions, and retailers are now out of stock.

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