Iran's Qods Day: The Participants Speak

The Latest from Iran (18 September): Qods Day
NEW Iran Video: Qods Day Protests (18 September)

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An EA source brings us first-hand testimony from his relatives, who were in five different locations across Tehran today:

1. The number of Green Movement was much higher than the supporters of Ahmadinejad. Bear in mind that some people were scared to carry a Green symbol. Ahmadinejad supporters were shocked indeed, seeing all these people.

2. For the first time in the history of the Islamic Revolution, the main parts of the opposition group were from the religious and revolutionary people.

3. The presence of women and youth were much higher than on previous occasions.

4. For the first time many people who came to the rally didn’t go to the Friday prayers. Even though speakers were inviting people to go to the prayers, some took part and some ignored it, in contrast to what happened with the Friday prayers which Hashemi Rafsanjani led.

5. It was the first time that police attack demonstrators who were fasting with tear gas. (Tear gas, if it is breathed in, will break the Ramadan fast.)

6. For the first, IRIB broadcast rallies in other cities than Tehran, and a few images from Tehran were in close-up shot.

7. When Ahmadinejad had a short live interview after his speech with IRIB Channel 2 in front of Tehran University, you could hear the protestors shouting, “Ahmadi, Ahmadi, resign, resign!”

8. On some Government buildings and on the public buses, demonstrators had sprayed green slogans in support of Mousavi and the Green Movement.

9. People were showing their support for Mousavi and Karrubi with no fear of IRIB’s cameras and those of the police and the intelligence services.

10. Young supporters of Green Movement had decided to go to Azadi stadium to carry on their protests tonight, as the football team of Ali Karimi and Hussain Ka’abi was playing (both are supporters of green movement).

Iran: What's at Stake on Qods Day for Green Movement and Regime?

The Latest from Iran (18 September): Qods Day

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Enduring America's Mr Smith prepares for today:

Qods Day is going to be a significant development in the post-June 12 election drama that has gripped Iran. It will probably be at least equivalent in significance to 17 July, when former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a strong sermon stressing the need to respect popular will within the confines of the Islamic Republic's elite.

The reformists are chasing a few important goals in tomorrow's demonstration. First and foremost, it gives an opportunity both for the leadership and the rank and file supporters of the Green Wave to "stand up and be counted". It will be the possible setting for a morale-boosting strong presence. Protestors will be back in the streets of central Tehran, following month of retreat from the waning but ever-lively cycle of martyr commemorations and street demonstrations that proceeded unabated from 13 June to the end of July. It will also be an opportunity to indicate that the most recent tool of repression set loose by the regime, the indiscriminate raping of opposition supporters that joined baton attacks and occasional murder as methods of coercion, did not succeed in dampening the morale of the reformist supporters.


Of the reformist leaders, Mousavi is the one that needs to capitalise most from marching alongside his supporters. The former Prime Minister has largely played second fiddle to the other defeated moderate candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, in the latter part of the three-month post-election saga. He has lost the lead in producing communiques challenging the regime, and he has not produced anything as ground-breaking and earth-shattering as Karroubi's series of strong accusations regarding rape that has cost the former Majlis speaker the ban of his long-running newspaper, Etemade Melli, but has won him tremendous popular support. Likewise, former president Mohammad Khatami has largely lurked in the shadows since initially coming out strongly and challenging the Supreme Leader in very thinly veiled terms for the Kahrizak Prison abuses. Both Mousavi and Khatami will therefore need to augment their stature as reformist leaders, as neither is yet ready to bow to Karroubi. Although the three are adamant opponents of Ahmadinejad, they are also vying at the same time for the leadership of the opposition.

The government forces have several paths to tread with utmost care. Ahmadinejad will be heading to New York within hours of the Friday Qods Day events, and he will most likely want to avoid arriving in the Big Apple to account for yet another high violence toll in what is going to be a long sparring match with the international media. Likewise, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will want to minimise public violence in the first, major street demonstration to hit Iran during Ramadan for at least 30 years. It is therefore to be expected that the ordinary law enforcement forces will have the order to keep violence at a minimum. The same cannot be applied to the Basiji and other autonomous forces, who are probably going to unleash violence of their own accord. The traditional itinerary of the Qods Day march also poses serious logistical problems for the government, starting as it does in various parts of the city to converge in front of the University, where participants would usually go and attend Friday prayers.

The complex scenario above leads to think that Qods will effectively protract the stalemate between the various contenders in Iran's chess game. The government will not find solace in the fact that Iran's calendar is replete with other religious festivities and anniversaries that the reformist opposition can use at will to return to the streets. In the background, impenetrable as ever, stands Hashemi Rafsanjani, who inched closer to the opposition this week as he was thrusted out of the leadership of the first Qods prayer in almost a quarter century. The million-dollar question was, and remains, does he really have the power to break that stalemate and is he willing to do so?

The Latest from Iran (17 September): Tomorrow

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The Latest from Iran (16 September): Smoke Before Battle

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2055 GMT: Reports that writer and blogger Ali Pirhousienlou and hsi wife Fatemeh Sotoudeh have been arrested.

1930 GMT: In addition to the assassination of the Assembly of Experts member (1750 GMT), it is reported that the Chief Prosecutor in Kurdestan has been shot.

1845 GMT: Tomorrow's march routes for Mashhad and for Rasht have been posted.

1750 GMT: In the latest of a series of assassinations in the province, the Kurdistan representative on the Assembly of Experts was killed today.

1705 GMT: An EA source sends us this from a Tehran resident: "People will come out but many are also leaving Tehran as it is a long weekend. Saturday is half closed and Sunday is a holiday. Many who participated in previous demonstrations are leaving Tehran or have left already and many are much scared of what happened to their colleagues, friends and other citizens."

1640 GMT: The Marches. Iranian activist HomyLafayette has posted the routes for tomorrow's marches in Tehran (7 routes ending at the University of Tehran; start at 10 a.m. local time; 0530 GMT), Isfahan, and Tabriz.

1545 GMT: Radio Farda reports that Mohammad Maleki, the former chancellor of Tehran University, has been charged with acting against Iran's national security. Maleki, who is 76 and suffering from prostate cancer, was arrested on 22 August.

1410 GMT: Mehdi Mousavi-Nejad, the brother of the wife of detained former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, has been arrested.

1310 GMT: Lemming MediaFail. Adding to NBC's threatened ludicrous journalism at the court of President Ahmadinejad (see separate entry), Reuters offers a spectacularly bad headline, "Iran opposition leaders to attend anti-Israel rally".

And in case you think that this is a slip-up and they do realise that the main reason for marching tomorrow is to maintain pressure on the Government, they repeat in the article, "Defeated presidential candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi said they would attend the anti-Israel rally."

1305 GMT: The Government Warning. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has issued its threat through the Islamic Republic News Agency: "We are warning people and the movements who want to help the Zionist regime that if you seek any disruption or disorder during the glorious Quds Day rally, you will be decisively confronted by the courageous children of Iran....The enemies of the regime and the revolution and those who were defeated in the recent election are trying to take revenge for what happened on election day."

The IRGC claimed that dissent is part of a plan by "foreign networks, especially the Zionist regime's intelligence service to create disruption and division in the people's united movement."

1300 GMT: The Plan. Mehdi Karroubi's office has announced that the cleric will leave his offices at 11 a.m. local time tomorrow to march to 7 Tir Square for the Qods Day rally.

1240 GMT: Well, Well. The Internet is buzzing with reports of a visit by Mir Hossein Mousavi to Qom on Tuesday night, where he met Ayatollah Sane'i, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, the brother of Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Mousavi-Tabrizi, and the representative of Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani. Mousavi also participated in a meeting of the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom.

We are confirming the exact date of the trip.

1030 GMT: Going After the Children. Confirming news we received last night: Mehdi Mirdamadi, the son of Mohsen Mirdamadi, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, was arrested last night. Mohsen Mirdamadi has been detained since shortly after the election.

Hossein Nourinejad, head of the information committee of the IIPF, and IIPF member Mehdi Mahmoudian have also been arrested.

1015 GMT: Credit to The Guardian of London, who have been running some interesting analysis on their website (though, unfortunately, not in the print edition). This morning Ranj Alaaldin and Nicholas Zanjani offer thoughts on "Ahmadinejad's desperate gamble", believing that his "administration depends on a redistribution of wealth for support and the flight of capital from Iran will hurt".

The article may be over-dramatic --- "As money continues to reverse course and leave the pockets of his supporters, those who voted for Ahmadinejad are being left to wonder why the government deserves their continuing loyalty" --- but it does raise the point, overlooked by most in the media but pressed on EA by Chris Emery, that the long-term weakness for the Government and possibly the regime lies in their management of the economy.

0800 GMT: MediaWatch. The New York Times focuses on "Iran Opposition Leader Sidelined from Rally", in what Robert Worth sees as "a striking break from precedent that suggests the country’s hard-line leaders fear the event could turn into an opposition rally". Borzou Daragahi runs the same story in The Los Angeles Times but turns the analysis into "the declining influence of Iranian moderates within the political elite". The Washington Post, with its preference for worry over Iran's nuclear programme, has nothing this morning.

Some of the broadcast media have now wandered from poor to terrible. NBC Television's staff have been shouting about their "exclusive" interview with President Ahmadinejad, to be broadcast in a few hours, but they have no apparent knowledge of Qods Day. CNN's Twitter posse have just proclaimed that they'll be following Qods Day. Last news story on the CNN website from inside Iran? 11 September.

0550 GMT: Looking towards the speeches and rallies on Qods (Jerusalem) Day on Friday, we've posted an analysis in the form of an important question, "What are the Green Movement's Goals?" Later this morning, we'll post an overview of the Qods Day marches by Meir Javedanfar.

Catching up with a couple of developments from yesterday:

An EA correspondent notes that the Rafsanjani interview downplaying his forced withdrawal from Qods Day prayers, summarised in Wednesday's updates, was carried by Al-Alam, the Arabic-language service of Iran's state television. The correspondent notes, "Why Rafsanajani chose to grant them his first post-electoral interview could be subject of speculation. Maybe he was told to tell the Arab world that Iran is not imploding?"

And a warning sign for Friday: Mowj-e-Sabz reports that Basiji militia in the town of Varamin have been distributing leaflets calling on their forces to converge on Tehran.

The Latest from Iran (16 September): Smoke Before Battle

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2030 GMT: An Artistic Clash for the Supreme Leader? A colleague writes with an essential correction of our first item today (0710 GMT) on Ayatollah Khamenei's meeting yesterday with ""artists, directors, screenwriters, poets, and writers":

"The English version of Khamenei's speech to the artists actually doesn't reflect what the meeting was about. It wasn't for him to give them any guidance but rather, as Fars News fascinating account of it reveals, it was meant for the various artists to speak 'frankly' with Khamenei. While Fars New tries to whitewash some of the conversations that the artists had with Khamenei, it is clear even by their own censored account that it was a raucous meeting and that at least a couple of the artists, including Majid Majidi (who accoring to Fars News breaks down into tears) conveyed some kind of oppositional sentiment. One filmmaker when asked to speak says he doesn't feel well and sits down. Another when told there is no time for him to speak, after he had prepared a talk complains, 'You keep contacting me for a couple of days asking me to come and speak my mind and now you tell me there's no time?'"

1855 GMT: Really? According to Peykeiran, the Supreme Leader's representative with the Revolutionary Guard has warned that the arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi or Mehdi Karroubi would turn them into martyrs for the Green opposition.

Given that the Supreme Leader supposedly signed the order for Karroubi's arrest two weeks ago, this is a bit confusing. Then again, as our readers are debating in their comments, Ayatollah Khamenei's position may be far from secure.

1800 GMT: Easy Does It. In a measured, even careful, interview with Tabnak, Hashemi Rafsanjani has downplayed his absence from leading Friday Prayers on Qods Day for the first time in a quarter-century: "It is not necessary after 30 years that I should lead the prayers."

1555 GMT: Why are tents being erected around the main campus of Tehran University, where this Friday's prayers will be held?

1545 GMT: Make of this what you will: the Iranian Government has declared national holidays on Saturday and Monday, the day before and after the celebration of the end of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr.

1310 GMT: Cyber-charge. Talk about a story turning in a few hours. The opposition's aggressive fightback on the Web continues: Mowj-e-Sabz has launched an English-language website.

1215 GMT: Cyber-bounce. Indeed, after our worry this morning (0950 GMT) about a drop in information via the Web, there is a bit of a resurgence. Mehdi Karroubi seems to have a new website for his statements and news. Is this an alternative for the Etemade Melli site, which is still down?

News is also being posted on tagheer.ir.

1200 GMT: If the Iranian regime is trying to block news in and out of Iran, the effort is incomplete. Fereshteh Ghazi has interviewed Ayatollah Mousavi-Tabrizi, who highlights the clerical resistance: "The authorities know [their] pressures have no effect on my position and action or those of Qom scholars." He adds, in relation to the arrest of his children and the family members of other clerics on Monday, "My sons and the sons of Mr. Nazemzadeh and Mr. Ahmadi aren't clerics, so why are they tried in clerics' court?"(summary in English via Ghazi's Twitter account)

Twitter traffic from inside Iran is also picking up.

1120 GMT: The US network NBC is interviewing President Ahmadinejad today and broadcasting the discussion on tomorrow morning's Today programme.

1110 GMT: The Mousavi Facebook page is still active, just posting the statement of Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomenei, inviting all Iranians to participate in the rally on Qods Day "a day...for the oppressed to fight oppressors and tyranny".

1100 GMT: Morning MediaFail. CNN ($199/story) are not eligible, since they no longer have news from inside Iran. Instead, the award goes to Robert Tait and The Guardian of London. Amidst all the tension in advance of Qods Day, the confusion over Friday Prayers, the raids, the arrests, the Karroubi letters, the protests by senior clerics, their story today?

"Chinese jeans bearing name of God anger Iranians".

In their quasi-defence, the prominent notation "Read This in Chinese" is a clue that The Guardian's market attention is far away from Tehran.

1050 GMT: Cyber-war. Internet traffic from Iranians inside Iran is almost at a standstill this morning. Nothing is coming through via Twitter and contacts also remove no interaction on Facebook.

Etemade Melli/Saham News and Norooz are down. Mowj-e-Sabz and Kaleme are both up.

0950 GMT: Correcting an oversight. We have reported the arrest of the three grandchildren of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri on Monday. The children of Ayatollah Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi,were also arrested.

The catalyst for the arrests may have been an Iftar at the house of Ayatollah Yusuf Sane'i. EA has received information that this Iftar, where reformist clerics and their families gathered, angered the regime and also led to the filing of a court action by President Ahmadinejad's office against Sane'i.

0935 GMT: The Islamic Republic News Agency carries the short item that President Ahmadinejad will introduce Ahmad Khatami, who will give the Friday Prayer address this week.

0925 GMT: Associated Press is claiming, from Iranian state radio, that the Government has confirmed Ahmad Khatami will lead Qods Day prayers.

0710 GMT: Yesterday's confusion over Qods Day continues. While Tuesday was a pretty good one for the Green leadership, as Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami signalled that they would join forces with Mehdi Karroubi, the Government's disarray over Friday prayers was never resolved. We've tried to see the events in wider perspective, leading up to Qods Day, in a separate analysis, "Iran's Chess Match: Setting Up the Pieces".

Rather than offer any specific guidance, the Supreme Leader spent Tuesday telling "artists, directors, screenwriters, poets, and writers" that they should be putting out proper art. His reference point was not the current internal conflict but the 1980-1988 war with Iraq: "The eight-year Sacred Defense was the embodiment of outstanding characteristics, prominent cultural values, and lofty beliefs, and those who recount it in an artistic manner are like a mirror reflecting the manifestation of splendor and glory."

If there was contemporary resonance in Ayatollah Khamenei's address, it may be in this cryptic injunction to artists that "their sensitive views should not create a spirit of despair in people".

Iran: The Supreme Leader and the Larijani-Karroubi Meeting

Iran’s Chess Match: Setting Up the Pieces for Friday
The Latest from Iran (16 September): Smoke Before Battle

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Maryam at Keeping the Change has posted an article on Monday's meeting between Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani and Mehdi Karroubi, offering important detail on the discussion. Equally significant is her reading of the power politics behind the encounter:

"The combination of these contradictory tactics may indicate that Khamanei is carefully crafting a strategy for resolving the post-election conflict that applies these different forms of pressure where appropriate. At the same time, however, Khamanei's approach could indicate that the Supreme Leader has a thin, unguided non-strategy and is simply throwing all his resources at the Opposition, in a desperate attempt to end the political standoff -- on this analysis, Khamanei's alternative use of aggression and diplomacy is less an affirmative, calculated decision and more a reaction to the failure of one or the other approach."

Maryam's reading is a vital contrast to our analysis, developed this morning, that it is President Ahmadinejad and his allies that are in the lead with the Supreme Leader scrambling to regain his own position. At the same time, her pondering of "careful strategy" v. "non-strategy" could be applied not only to Ayatollah Khamenei but to the Government's measures in the run-up to Qods Day.

More Details on Karroubi's Meeting Monday with Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani

The website Rouydad adds additional detail to the earlier piece we posted from Karroubi's news outlet, Eteemade Melli. According to this newest report, during yesterday's meeting Karroubi informed Larijani of his concerns with the work of the three-man committee investing the prisoner rape and assault claims, as well as the actions of the state news agecy "Voice & Visage." At the end of the meeting Karroubi reportedly told Larijani of his hope that "unlike his brother [Sadegh Larijani], [Ali Larijani] will not sell his religion to the world." The report goes on to claim that Larijani asked Karroubi to "keep quiet" until the domestic situation improves, promising that his allegations would be properly investigated once calm had been restored. Karroubi replied, "I would prefer death to remaining quite in the face of these violations."

Interestingly, Rouydad's account of the meeting begins with a quotation from a source inside Parliament, stating that: "On the orders of the Supreme Leader, Larijani met with Karroubi. Mr. Larijani is the bearer of the Leader's message." With this in mind, Larijani's request for restraint from Karroubi and Karroubi's purported refusal to do so take on added signficance. As we observed in our earlier post on this meeting, it appears that the Refomists' hand is not as weak as some have suggested and that attempts at conciliation have not been wholly put aside by the Supreme Leader. If anything, this development, taken together with the events of the last week, may indicate that Khamanei is taking multiple approaches to the post-election conflict. On the one hand, he appears to be using some elements of his arsenal, such as the Revolutionary Guard, to strike a confrontational approach with the Reformists, while at the same time using other allies, such as the hardline pragmatic Ali Larijani, to pursue negotiations with Opposition leaders.

The combination of these contradictory tactics may indicate that Khamanei is carefully crafting a strategy for resolving the post-election conflict that applies these different forms of pressure where appropriate. At the same time, however, Khamanei's approach could indicate that the Supreme Leader has a thin, unguided non-strategy and is simply throwing all his resources at the Opposition, in a desperate attempt to end the political standoff -- on this analysis, Khamanei's alternative use of aggression and diplomacy is less an affirmative, calculated decision and more a reaction to the failure of one or the other approach. This reading is borne out by a pattern which appears to have developed post June 12, with periods of intense confrontation followed by spurts of appeasement and vice-versa (witness the fourth Tehran trials and accusations against Reformist leaders of collusion with foreign governments, followed by Khamanei's public statements denying the possibility of any such conspiracy) .

In all likelihood, it is the second analysis that may best capture Khamanei's mindset -- Khamanei is, after all, known to be less than an astute politician, with a tendency to favor uncompromising, agressive political strategies to diplomacy. He is, as such, disinclined to pursue appeasement unless his preferred confrontational approach has failed. In this vein, the recent events surrounding Karroubi are telling. After the raid on his offices, the closure of his newspaper, and the threats of arrest against him have all failed to silence Karroubi, Khamanei may have decided that conciliation should, at least in the short term, be explored. If Karroubi remains defiant, however, we should expect to see Khamanei return to his tried and true aggressive posture.

Other than providing potential insight into Khamanei's political strategy, Karroubi's meeting with Larijani should serve as a small reminder of the in-roads made by the Reformists over the last two months and of the Government's heretofore inability to decisively snuff out the Movement's leaders. There is little doubt that the current situation inside the country, as well as the Government's response, is unique in the history of the Islamic Republic. This is hardly the Iran of 1988, when thousands of political activists were summarily executed, expelled, and otherwise removed from the Iranian political scene. Of course, the circumstances were differen then: those killed and exiled during that period were hardly Establishment darlings, but rather were, by and large, members of dissident groups ideologically opposed to the Islamic Republic; moreover, their elimination was religiously sanctioned by a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini. Perhaps more tellingly, however, the recent events in Iran also bear little ressemblance to the atmosphere that reigned during the Presidency of Mohammad Khatami, when the Reformists remained cowed and unable to unite against the conservative forces that were working to disrupt Khatami's efforts at change.

Outside of the brutal crackdown against demonstrators, the Government has not yet resorted to large scale violence, such as mass executions or targeted assassinations of Movement leaders, to resolve the crisis. At the same time, the Reformists have managed to maintain some semblance of unity (with Khatami, Karroubi, and Mousavi almost appearing to alternate in the role of "Movement Leader"). Moreover, the Opposition has adapted its tactics in order to maintain pressure on the Government, focusing its message less directly on the election issue and more on the events and incidents that occurred in the aftermath of the dispute, such as the show trials and allegations of prisoner rape and abuse. While these may seem like modest accomplishments, the country's history of political repression and opposition to reform over the last 30 years make them the signposts of a society in transition.

As always, trying to predict where this conflict is headed is futile. What we can conclude, however, is that the Establishment has yet to achieve a decisive victory and that this failure, in and of itself, may tell us more about the future of Iran than any one arrest, office closure, or high-ranking political meeting ever will.