Palestine Opinion: Britain's Deportation of Sheikh Raed Salah (Patel)

Sheikh Raed Salah (Photo: EPA)The circumstances surrounding Home Secretary Theresa May's decision to issue an exclusion order against Sheikh Raed Salah is a cause for great concern. It is unacceptable that the British government ministers can be influenced heavily by lobby groups on the basis of little more than conflated "evidence" and hearsay, and to such an extent that a senior minister can actually be "misled" and operate under "misapprehension". That was the damning conclusion of the Upper Immigration Tribunal's vice-president who considered Sheikh Salah's appeal against the deportation order.

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The Latest from Iran (18 March): Relying on India

See also Iran Feature: Pushing Back with "Intelligence" Against the Drumbeats of War
The Latest from Iran (17 March): Ahmadinejad All-is-Well Alert

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1755 GMT: Currency Watch. In an effective admission that it can no longer control the exchange rate, the Central Bank has said it will allow official vendors to buy and sell foreign currency at open-market rates.

In January, after the Iranian rial almost halved in value in four months, the Bank tried to imposed a single rate of 12260:1 for the Iranian Rial vs. the US dollar. Vendors were threatened with suspension and unofficial traders with arrest if they did not observed the official rate, while websites posting currency information were blocked.

The steps were ineffective, however, as vendors simply refused to trade US dollars and other currencies. The street-market rate soon reached 19000:1, around its current level.

“Licensed exchange houses are given permission to buy and sell foreign currencies and answer customers’ needs based on the mechanism of the market’s supply and demand,” the Bank said in a statement posted on its website this weekend.

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Iraq Revealed: A Mysterious Death and Britain's Secret Detention Camp (Cobain)

British Soldier with DetaineesThe helicopter crews had been told that a number of detainees were under armed guard at the side of the highway. They were to pick them up after dark and take them to a prison camp. What followed was far from routine: before the night was out, one man had died on board one of the helicopters, allegedly beaten to death by RAF personnel.

The incident was immediately shrouded in secrecy. When The Guardian heard about it and began to ask questions, the Ministry of Defence responded with an extraordinary degree of obstruction and obfuscation, evading questions not just for days but for weeks and months. The RAF's own police examined the death in an investigation codenamed Operation Raker, but this ended with some of the most salient facts remaining deeply buried. The alleged culprits faced no charges.

Asked where the men were being taken, the MoD had initially indicated that they were en route to a prisoner of war camp, one inspected regularly by the Red Cross.

Later it became clear that this was not correct: they were being transported to an altogether more secret location.

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Iran 1st-Hand Special: Basij Student's Account of the Attack on the British Embassy

See also The Latest from Iran (2 December): After the Embassy, It's Back to the Economy

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A first-hand account from one of the Basij militia who attacked the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday --- the author, Hamid Darveshie Shahkolaie, is  the editor-in-chief of "Hayat", the monthly publication of the Basij students of Imam Sadeq University. Posted early Wednesday morning, it also offers photographs of the attack:

Our entrance sounded the alarm. That reminded me of computer games where you fire the first shot and you start hearing the alarm all of a sudden. To make it short, we found six staff members. We told them to be calm and not to be afraid. We [said that we] have come here because of the dangerous and animosity-filled policies of their government and its hand in the assassination of Dr. Shahriari [Majid Shahriari, a scientist killed in November 20010] and nuclear issues and such and that we would give them their passports at the airport so they can return to their country.

I don't want to brag, but their translator (the guard) told us: "You came in so fast and caught me off-guard that I wasn't able to fulfill my duty, which was to escort them out." He was a lowly man and a liar. For instance he told us there were just five staff members, but we found a sixth. The poor staff were very afraid and locked the door so that we would not find them.

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Iran Analysis: The Embassy Attack --- "A Serious Mis-Calculation" by the Regime

Even though we still do not have the answer to who gave the green light to Tuesday's plan, this appears to be a confused regime, trying to sort out its next steps after the unexpected turn in developments. Indeed, the lack of an answer to our questions, "Who is responsible? Who is co-ordinating?", is telling. A fragmented political system, beset by in-fighting for months, appears to have embarked on a risky venture which has quickly run into trouble.

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The Latest from Iran (30 November): After the Attack on the British Embassy

Footage from Britain's Channel 4 of the attack on the British Embassy on Tuesday

See also Iran Special Analysis: More Than a Game --- 6 Points About the Attack on the British Embassy
Iran Audio Feature: Scott Lucas with the BBC about Attack on UK Embassy
Iran Latest: Students Storm British Embassy
The Latest from Iran (29 November): Nothing To See Here, Move Along

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2130 GMT: The Embassy Attack. Hossein Alizadeh, the charge d’affaires at the Iranian embassy in Finland who resigned because of the crackdown on post-election dissent, has spoken to Inside Iran about the takeover of the British Embassy:

I would never believe that the Iranian security forces who had the power to crackdown on millions of street protesters in 2009 are now incapable of stopping a few hundred people from entering the British Embassy. Therefore, I believe there was a hidden agenda to drive this action. I am pretty sure that the attackers were not students. They are the same pressure groups that oppress the opposition forces within the country.

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Iran Feature: So Who Were the "Students" in the Embassy Attack?

Many reports have used the term "students" to describe those who demonstrated and occupied the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday. However, if you take a closer look at what the Iranian media and the "students" themselves are saying, you will get a much better idea of who is responsible. 

Throughout the attack, major State-run news organizations like Iranian Students News Agency and Islamic Republic News Agency were running updates of how "students" had broken into the Embassy. Fair enough ---  you would not expect these outlets to give away the identities of the attackers; there is a concept called plausible deniability, and the Iranian regime is fully aware of it. So to understand what was occurring, one has to look for the proverbial stupid friend.

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Iran Special Analysis: More Than a Game --- 6 Points About the Attack on the British Embassy

Protester Carries Picture of The Queen1. WHY DID THE IRANIAN REGIME PLAY THIS GAME?

Let's start with two points: 1) the regime almost certainly had an important connection with Tuesday's demonstration and attack on the British Embassy; 2) it supported that display of force not from strength, but from weakness.

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Iran Audio Feature: Scott Lucas with the BBC about Attack on UK Embassy

Last night I spoke with BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight about Tuesday's events in Tehran. The interview was too brief to get out some points --- I think one development behind the pressure on Britain, the "punching bag" for Tehran's fight-back against Western pressure, is the Iranian regime's uncertainty over the recent explosions at a Revolutionary Guards base and in Isfahan on Monday --- but hopefully it offers a few pointers to what happened and what happens next.

The discussion begins at the 40:13 mark.

Iran Latest: Students Storm British Embassy

Claimed video of the Basij student rally and the start of the assault on the British Embassy

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UPDATE 2104 GMT: Footage from Iran State outlet Press TV of the attack:

UPDATE 2051 GMT: Some additional information about the afternoon's events....

Claimed video of the Basij student rally and the start of the assault on the British Embassy

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UPDATE 2104 GMT: Footage from Iran State outlet Press TV of the attack:

UPDATE 2051 GMT: Some additional information about the afternoon's events....

Iranian media reports that Iran Deputy Police Chief Ahmad Reza Radan entered the embassy at one point and gave an ultimatum to the occupiers to leave, as the occupiers demanded an end to Iranian relations with Britain. Fars also claims that police resorted to force, beating some protesters.

And in one of the more unusual statements of the day, Tehran Provincial Governor Morteza Tamaddon, who appeared at the Embassy at one point, said that it was functioning normally.

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