The Latest from Iran (6 June): The Fallout from Friday

2150 GMT: More on That Rumour. We've checked with correspondents, who assess that the claim that Seyed Hassan Khomeini hit Minister of Interior, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, should be treated as "flimsy". They can find no corroborating evidence for the story from Javan.

(We should have noted in the post below that Javan is connected to the Revolutionary Guard, and it could be in its interest to portray the opposition --- and Hassan Khomeini --- as violent and irrational. My apologies for the omission, and my thanks to readers for pointing this out.)

1955 GMT: And Now The Rumour of the Day. Javan reports that the Interior Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, is currently in hospital after being hit by Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the  grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, during Friday's ceremony.

According to "multiple sources", Hassan was upset that in a TV interview last week, Najjar referred to him as "Seyed Hassan Mostafavi" --- a "secondary" surname of the Khomeini clan --- to minimise his ties with his grandfather. (Javan also refers to Hassan as "Hassan Mostafavi".)

Najjar already had stitches on his face when he arrived at the Khomeini shrine on Friday, due to surgery for sinusitis. His face was bloody again after being hit by Hassan.

NEW Iran Document: Mehdi Karroubi on Khomeini, the Rule of Law, and Protest in 2010 (4 June)
NEW Iran Document: The Supreme Leader’s Speech (4 June)
Iran Special: The Regime Disappoints, So It’s Over to the Opposition
Iran Document: Detained Filmmaker Nourizad Writes the Supreme Leader
The Latest from Iran (5 June): Is That All There Is?

1625 GMT: Friday Fall-Out. Mehdi Karroubi has written Seyed Hassan Khomeini, “You know very well that the account of these few trained and organized individuals [who shouted down Khomeini during his Friday speech] is separate from the account of the massive number of the devotees of Imam [Khomeini], his children and relatives, and especially you.”


1545 GMT: Reports are coming in that high-profile member of Parliament Ali Motahari has been summoned by his "principlist" party for his criticism of President Ahmadinejad over Friday's events.

1540 GMT: More Fall-Out. Ayatollah Sane'i has phoned Seyed Hassan Khomeini to express his regret over Friday's incident, directing his criticism at authorities: "If they were not politically insane, they would have not prevented the freedom of speech and people’s right to hear the speech in front of hundreds of national and international reporters and while this event was broadcast live. This act is a sign of their weakness and is the sign that the will and desire of God is that their plans would be ruined.”

Sane'i added: “Those how plan these incidents be it those who order it or who execute it or who provoke it are incapable of solving country’s social, economic, political and foreign problems and therefore commit such acts to divert the public mind".

1305 GMT: Friday Fall-Out. Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili has added his voice to the chorus condemning the sabotage of Seyed Hassan Khomeini's speech at the commemoration ceremony for the death of his grandfather.

1300 GMT: Karroubi Watch. The US magazine Newsweek has published the text of an interview by e-mail with Mehdi Karroubi, which follows the line of the discussion with Masih Alinejad that we posted on EA on 27 May: "My family and myself, we are all ready to pay any price for our struggle for the people of Iran."

1243 GMT: The Executed. The families of Farzad Kamangar,Farhad Vakili, and Ali Heydarian,,three of five Iranians executed on 9 May, have met with the Governor of Kurdestan Province to ask for help in getting the return of their bodies.

The Governor told the families that their children were buried at a place that cannot be disclosed for "security reasons".

1239 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labor activist Alireza Akhavan has been arrested by security forces. Farhad Fathi, the director of the Reformist Organization of Qazvin's International University, has also been detained.

Human Rights Activists News Agency claims Reza Malek, former deputy of Research and Investigation in the Intelligence Ministry, has been severely beaten by prison guards.

1228 GMT: Economy Watch. Iran is 94th out of 104 countries on the 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, between Cambodia and Kenya.

1224 GMT: We Don't Need No Women's Studies. Hossein Naderi-Manesh, the Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, has allegedly said that it is "no problem to eliminate women's studies from universities as the Quran is full of subjects about them".

1220 GMT: Mousavi Challenges Regime on "Foreign Threat". In a statement on Kalemeh, Mir Hossein Mousavi has thrown the allegation of subversion by foreigners and "terrorists" back at the Iranian regime: "It should be asked who has presented a golden opportunity to the US, Israel, the hypocrites, and the monarchists with all these destructive, non-transparent and misleading policies. Is it those who seek freedom and justice or dubious cults which have devastated the lives of laborers, teachers and farmers?"

1119 GMT: Friday Follow-Up. The denunciations of the treatment of Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, Seyed Hassan Khomeini, are piling up. The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, joining politicians from Mir Hossein Mousavi to conservative MP Ali Motahari, has written an open letter to clerics in Qom declaring that Friday's hecklers are against an independent clergy.

1115 GMT: 22 Khordaad. Daneshjoo News carries a call by Green Movement students for demonstrations across Iran on 12 June, the anniversary of the Presidential election.

1045 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. There is still uncertainty over the supposed 81 pardons handed out by the Supreme Leader. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi said that "a series of prisoners" have already been released, with repentance as a requirement for amnesty. Still, there are no names of those who have supposedly been freed.

0620 GMT: We are in Warwick this morning, so the latest news from Iran will be posted around midday British time.

0610 GMT: Some inside and outside Iran are pondering what they claim is a relatively low turnout for the regime's ceremonies and speeches.

Could one possible reason be a lack of faith in Government? Fazel Mousavi, a member of Parliament's Article 90 Commission, has declared, "In our country, no party in the real meaning of the world, is active."

Reformist Mohammad Reza Khabbaz adds that, in the last year, 122 Government declarations contravened Majlis legislation, "a new record".

0555 GMT: Friday's Controversies. The political thunder rumbles on over the speeches at the ceremony for Ayatollah Khomeini's death. Rah-e-Sabz claims that, by citing Imam Ali, the Supreme Leader has compared himself to Shia's first Imam.

Regime supporter Hojatoleslam Hossein Sobhani-Nia has given indirect approval of the shout-down of the Imam's grandson, Khomeini: "People are alert, when someone deviates from Imam's path."

Meanwhile, some Iranian sites are taking aim at former President Mohammad Khatami, claiming he went to the Caspian Sea for "fun and vacation" while millions were mourning for Ayatollah Khomeini.

0525 GMT: We have posted two documents: there is a key extract from the Supreme Leader's speech on Friday and Mehdi Karroubi's lengthy consideration of "Khomeini, the Rule of Law, and Protest".

Comments

[Arshama]

@ Khatami at the Caspian Sea (Shomal)

Just read an old joke about "ertehal holiday" (demise h.): a child asks his mother "Was Khomeini drowned in the Caspian Sea?" "No!" "So why do the people drive each year to Shomal on that day?"

Picture of the day: Advertisement on Washington busses: Stop AN for Green Energy ;-)
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[Catherine]

Arshama,
Very funny joke! In 2008 we spent the day (4 June) doing what Iranians did in the place we happened to be - Isfahan. The morning was spent walking along the river, where we sat down with some elderly gentlemen who were discretely (because of the "holiday") playing the ney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ney" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ney) and singing, then underneath one of the old bridges we came upon a much younger group of men doing the same thing. They asked us not to applaud so as not to draw unwanted attention to their music-making on what was supposed to be a day of mourning :-). The afternoon was spent in the company of countless Iranian families at the only place open: the lovely Isfahan bird park, where people of all ages and both sexes were also swimming or wading in the river. We had a really good time, and our guide was greatly relieved to have found something for us to do when everything was closed, but afterward I thought what a screwed up system it is when people have to be careful about playing music and singing, and women have to go into the water fully clothed. Now, I bet those old men playing the ney would be arrested on the spot. Last year we found ourselves along the Caspian around this date and indeed, it seemed like the entire country was on holiday there!

[Arshama]

Scott,

Congratulations to your election to NIAC's Advisory Board. http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jun/1030.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jun/1030.html

I'm already awaiting the reactions of NIAC dislikers, but as we say in Persian "shotor-savari dola dola nemisheh", you cannot ride bent over on a camel (because everyone sees you ;-)

Arshama

[Catherine]

Scott,
9 Books, 40 articles, a non-stop cutting-edge blog and a film! Not to mention the teaching and interviews on AJE with the lovely Shuli Goosh. You're a busy guy. Good thing you've chucked all that other stuff to focus on EA, though :-).

[Arshama]

Catherine,

Fully agree with you on Scott :-)

My "ertehal holiday" experience from 2004 was even more dramatic, sitting with Iranian friends in a lofty cherry and apple garden at Lavasan (north of Tehran), where they served us everything from beer to whiskey, together with extremely loud Western music. We could hear the same loud, although rather "javad" Persian music from the next garden, about 300 m away. A lady from Vienna and me were the only "foreign" guests, anxiously awaiting one of the feared IRGC "committees" to arrive and blow up the party, but nothing happened and our generous Iranian hosts only laughed at us. I wouldn't believe this story, if not experienced by myself, and I certainly don't forget how scared we were ;-)

Arshama

[Freedom4Iran]

Scott,

Javan is an IRGC propaganda tool and the way this story is told by them is only to paint the opposition group as a bunch of violent lunatics. How can you report this as a news on your blog, without disclosing the fact that Javan's is not an unbiased source of news.

[wdavit]

Even in death the regime finds a way to continue the oppression! -- "The Governor told the families that their children were buried at a place that cannot be disclosed for “security reasons."

Hypocrisy alert--Iran voted on the UN board of Womens rights then says " “no problem to eliminate women’s studies from universities as the Quran is full of subjects about them” Hmm could he be referencing the portion in the Quran that says it alright to beat your wife to back this up!!! Gosh maybe we should just do away with all books across the globe and have everyone just read the Quran. He can then show us what a model the Islamic world has been for Womens rights over the years to back all this up. Of course no mention of the fact that it is Islamic states that uniquely occupy 80% of the top 20 worlds worst human and religious rights abusers--of course it is not valid because well the infidels runnning these organizations have not read the Quran.

[M. Ali]

I spent it this year in the shomal city of Chaloos. We rented a villa and danced and sang till 4am in the morning. The next day we rented a villa in the tourist city of Nakaboud, where at late night, we'd walk the streets and hear loud music from some villas, and on some passerbys had girls wearing no hijab, only baseball caps hiding their hair.

[M. Ali]

So many wrong comments like usual:

1) Scott himself said "allegedly said", we don't know if it was actually accurate

2) If he said it, how important is Hossein Naderi-Manesh in the decision making?

3) Shouldn't it be expected in a complex country like Iran for officials to have different view points?

4) Iran is ranked one of the highest when it comes to girls to boys ratio in schools and universities

5) In all ofthe Quran there is only one contraversial verse that could be used to indicate beating your wife. Even that, many Islamic scholars argue, is not referring to beating your wife. A lot of scholars claim the word "beat" has another Arabic translation which means "leave", that is, if no other resolution works, "leave" your wife. This makes sense, because the next verses deal with divorce.

6) Islam was centuries ahead of the western world when it came to women's right, dealing with issues such as inheritance and property rights a great deal sooner than the rest of the world.

7) There is currently a conflict of ideas in the Islamic world in where women's right should head. While many are not happy with the current state of affairs, a large majority do not want it to mimic the western world of what they perceive as loose morals and distructive family life.

[Arshama]

M. Ali,

At 2) He is important enough to be quoted by your "farmayeshi" (heelers) media!

At 3) In the IR there are no different view points, but only what is allowed to be published by the SL, government and judiciary. Otherwise the judiciary hadn't shut down the last two reformist newspapers, banning a total of 13 print media within the past 11 months!

At 4) The high girls to boys ratio is due to the resistance of Iranians against your IR's mysoginic policies, i.e. a reaction AGAINST discrimination of women on all levels!

At 5) Whenever it comes to translation, you quickly put the blame on the translators (same for AN asking "Israel to be wiped off the map"). Who do you think you're fooling?

At 6) Islam is centuries backward, when it comes to women's inheritance and property rights. Islam propagates child abuse, when it declares a girl to be legally competent, i.e. ready for marriage with 9 years. It was only by force of HR activists, that the age of marriage was raised to 13 years in the IR. Go and read your own Holy Republic laws before spreading lies on EA!

At 7) There has always been a conflict of fundamentalist Islamists with modernity, because modernity is equal to equal rights, which cannot be tolerated by misogynic radicals, who fear to loose control of their property, i.e. women. As all other fundamentalists you have a big problem with any form of freedom, be it freedom of expression or social freedom, which is also the main reason for your backwardedness. The alleged moral and social chaos in Western societies only exists in your fearsome, narrow-minded imagination - a perfect excuse to crack down on everyone, who wants to live in freedom. People like you are scared of freedom, because it means to be responsible for your own life and deeds. It is much easier to hand out this responsibility to a "vali", who thinks for you, decides for you and 'saves' you from being accountable.

Arshama

[pessimist]

Well said Arshama

Congrats to Scott, lets hope this leads to a new era of judicious relations in this delicate time.

[wdavit]

M. Ali,

I would beg to differ about the "controversial" verses regarding women in the Quran and Hadith. Here are some examples:

1) Quran 4:16 "If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way." This is the old 4 witness verse used for rapes.

2) Quran 2:223 "Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will, and send (good deeds) before you for your souls, and fear Allah, and know that ye will (one day) meet Him. Give glad tidings to believers, (O Muhammad)" Says spousal rape is okay basically meaning the wife is the property of the man.

3) Quran 4:11 "Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females, and if there be women more than two, then theirs is two-thirds of the inheritance, and if there be one (only) then the half. And to each of his parents a sixth of the inheritance, if he have a son; and if he have no son and his parents are his heirs, then to his mother appertaineth the third; and if he have brethren, then to his mother appertaineth the sixth, after any legacy he may have bequeathed, or debt (hath been paid). Your parents and your children: Ye know not which of them is nearer unto you in usefulness. It is an injunction from Allah. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise." This is the sticky one saying women are not entitled to equal shares of inheritance.

4) Quran 2:282 "Call in two male witnesses from among you, but if two men cannot be found, then one man and two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses." Well this basically says women are not equal to men when it comes to testimony.

5.) Bukhari 3:48:826 "Isn't the witness of a women equal to half that of a man?" The women said "yes". He said "This is because of the deficiency of the women's mind." Ironically the Hadiths are littered with quotes like these exclaiming how women are deficient mentally because of their disposition(ie hormones.)

Least of all lets not forget the Quran and Hadith sources says women will comprise most of the population of hell, are unclean, weak, deficient in intelligence, and unfit to rule. Yes Islam brought some rights to women such as property rights and in general one could make the arguement Islam did lift women up back in the day. However the rules for women have not changed that much due to the iviolate nature of Islam's scripture. As much as some want to "reform" Islam you cannot because in contradicts Allah's words in the Quran. Frankly its why so many women's rights activists end up jailed in Iran.

Oh almost forgot about the Mutah problem endemic throughout Iran. Yes prostitution is a worldwide problem but Iran took it another step institutionalizing it--Yikes!!!

thx
Bill

[wdavit]

Arshama,

Well said and you hit upon a salient point about individual responsibility. It's a huge point because it contradicts the "social" or "communal" group think of Islam. Muslims are innoculated from birth that their scripture is the perfect blue print how to live life and all are prescibed to follow it. It is all about protecting, promoting, and proliferating this system and all must do it. To not do it or deviate is to be an apostate(regime uses the enemy of god to enforce this one.) Thus its leads to a stagnation of individual and more importantly critical thought itself. The West on the other hand embraced individual liberty, freedom, and critical thought devoid of the mandates from one specific religion. The difference in Human development, technological advancement, and societal advancement are staggering when comparing the Islamic world to Western world.

If you ever up for it read Al Ghazali's master work "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" for it demarked the time in history when Islam rejected Greek thought(critical thinking/scientific method) in favor of the divine. It backed up what was in the Quran basically saying it was heresy to let man figure out things for himself when everything they needed was in scirpture. Thus Islam has been trapped in a time warp and its why it struggles so much with modernity as the world passes it by. Frankly individual man derived knowledge is a threat if you were to believe nut jobs like Al Ghazali--and sadly many Muslims love this guy.

Thx
Bill