The Latest from Iran (18 May): Disputing Economic Growth

2055 GMT: Disputing Economic Growth. And so back to where we started this morning....

Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar has directly challenged the President over his economic claims in his Sunday night interview, disputing the promise that 2.5 million jobs could be created each year for the next two years.

And Bahonar went after Ahmadinejad's subsidy cuts plan, saying it was threatening production in the country.

2015 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Another challenge to the President's inner circle is emerging --- Iranian media are circulating claims of undue influence in Iran's automobile industry by the "diversionary current" within the Government.

"Diversionary current" has become the euphemism to refer to Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai and his allies.

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Iran Feature: Iranian Regime to Unveil "Islamic Charter of Human Rights" (Radio Zamaneh)

Tehran Trial of Political Prisoners, August 2009Iran's human rights chief has announced plans for an "Islamic Charter of Human Rights" that will be prepared jointly among some Islamic countries.

Iranian media quoted Mohammad Javad Larijani, the international advisor to the judiciary and the head of its Human Rights Council, from comments he made to a group of Iranians in South Africa: "The preliminaries of this project were accomplished in an earlier meeting in Tehran; however, we will finalize the details of the project in a meeting with judicial and legal representatives of Muslim countries and announce it to the world."

"The Islamic Charter of Human Rights will have the capacity to even affect non-Muslim nations," Larijani said.

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The Latest from Iran (28 January): The President Protects His Man

1020 GMT: Claim of Day. The hard-line Raja News writes that Mehdi Karroubi went to Behesht-e Zahra cemetery today to honor post-election victims but fled after families protested.

1015 GMT: Sedition Watch. Ayatollah Alamolhoda, the Friday Prayer leader in Mashhad, has proclaimed that some fitna (sedition) leaders and activists are trying to "desecrate" the Supreme Leader.

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The Latest from Iran (13 January): President's Right-Hand Man in Trouble?

2145 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The US Treasury added 26 firms to its sanctions list, claiming that 24 have ties with state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines --- linked to the Revolutionary Guards --- and two were affiliated with Aerospace Industries Organization, a subsidiary of Iran's Ministry of Defense.

Still, such news is a trifle for Press TV: it gleefully reports that Italy's oil imports from Iran are up 92%.

1730 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. More than 170 activists have signed a letter calling for the release of female detainees Reyhaneh Tabatabai, Nazanin Khosravani, Sajadeh Kianoush-Rad and Farzaneh Roustaei.

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The Latest from Iran (4 December): Behind the Postures

2050 GMT: Signs for a Deal? Signals from both Iran and the US that talks in next Monday and Tuesday on Tehran's nuclear programme can move toward a resolution.

The US media are picking up on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's implicit acknowledgement on Friday that Iran has a right to enrich uranium:

The position of the international community is clear. You have the right to a peaceful nuclear program, but with that right comes a reasonable responsibility, that you follow the treaty you signed and fully address the international community’s concerns about your nuclear activity. We urge you to make that choice … we urge you to restore the confidence of the international community and live up to your international obligations.

(And Iranian media and officials, despite the apparent snub to Clinton by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki only a few seats away, have also taken note. Mottaki said today, “This is a step forward that even the United States [officials] admit to Iran's right to acquire nuclear technology and fuel cycle in their every speech.")

Equally notable, however, is the statement of President Ahmadinejad today. After a week filled with denunciations of the "West", the US, and the UN, Ahmadinejad said:

We are ready to cooperate on a wide range of issues including economic, nuclear, international security and international political issues and the resolution of global problems. This is a unique opportunity...that we hope Western leaders will not waste.

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Iran Videos: A Wasted Interview --- Judiciary's Larijani on Sakineh, Nukes, & Israel

In the American tour of Mohammad Javad Larijani, the high-level official Iran's judiciary, this two-part video is a fine example of how not to conduct an interview.

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The Latest from Iran (21 November): Human Rights and Missing Constitutions

2025 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Tehran Azad University student activist Amir Ahmad Monazemi has been sentenced to one year in prison and 74 lashes. Monazemi was arrested last December at the mourning ceremonies for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and was held for one month before being freed on bail.

1950 GMT: Human Rights and the Hikers. So is this the other half of an Iranian strategy? Yesterday Mohammad Javad Larijani, the high-ranking Iranian judiciary official, was on American television with his assertion that he would like to see a resolution of the cases of detained US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer before a trial.

Today the lawyer for Fattal and Bauer, Masoud Shafiee, was told that they and the third US hiker Sarah Shourd --- released in September on a guarantee that she would return for trial --- would be in court on 6 February.

Possible translation? Tehran just gave the Americans a 2 1/2-month window for a negotiated release of Fattal and Bauer.

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Iran Videos: Judiciary's Larijani on Detained Sotoudeh and on US Hikers

In his public-relations tour in New York, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the human rights section of the Iranian judiciary, explains to NBC television that attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh was detained in early September as "a threat to national security". The threat? "She indulged in propaganda against Islam."

In the second video, Larijani sets out a careful position on the three US hikers detained in July 2009.

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Iran Video: US TV's June 2009 Interview with Attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh

An Internet-based resurrection yesterday....

In June 2009, the US network NBC carried a 99-second profile of and interview with defence attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh as part of a feature from Iran, "Behind the Veil". 

Until yesterday, I never knew of the programme --- which aired days before the Presidential election --- let alone the interview. But then, possibly because Iran's top official for human rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, spoke with NBC as part of his PR campaign in New York, someone decided to bring the clip to everyone's attention.

So Nasrine Sotoudeh, who sits in a Tehran prison for no apparent reason other than defending the accused, makes an appearance of freedom:

The Latest from Iran (20 November): A Curious "Stability"

2033 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. And so, at the end of the day, back to the start and our special analysis....

Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has edged closer to calling the Government's bluff on arresting him if he leaves London and steps foot on Iranian soil. Hashemi, in a letter to Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, has said, "If you stop bargaining, I'll return to Iran to expose the liars."

2030 GMT: More "Unity" from Parliament? Ali Asgari, known as a hard-line conservative MP, has said "getting to power by immoral acts is to be condemned" and reformists should not be excluded from the Iranian system.

2020 GMT: Execution Watch (Tour of Europe Edition). Khabar Online reports that 36 Iranian lawyers will soon be visiting the European Judicial Centre. Ostensbly, the tour is to discuss comparative law; however, the specific intention is tipped off in a passage about the death sentence imposed on Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

The Iranian attorneys will explain that execution is a legal sentence for the murder of Ashtiani's husband (actually, the sentence was initially imposed for adultery and Ashtiani was subsequently convicted of complicity in the murder, not of committing it), that execution by stoning has been suspended, and that very few people in Iran receive the stoning penalty.

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