homylafayette Iran News in English

Half Iranian urban population under poverty line says report

2011-03-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this piece for Tehran Bureau which published it on March 4, 2011.

44.5% to 55% of Iran's urban population lives under the poverty line, according to a new report entitled 'Measurement and Economic Analysis of Urban Poverty.'

The paper was presented by three senior government researchers at a conference organized two weeks ago by the national statistics center (Markazeh amareh Iran), under the aegis of several ministries, Tehran University, and the United Nations Population Fund. It was included in a compilation published by the conference, '50 Years of Household Economics,' and made available to the general public on Wednesday, reported the Islamic Students News Agency (ISNA).

The study provides a rare statistical glimpse into the country's economic welfare, a topic generally treated with secrecy by the Ahmadinejad administration.

The authors, Mansour Kiani, Khalil Attar,and Jila Habibi, determined that at least 23.3 million city dwellers are under the poverty line and cannot subsist on their households' incomes. Iran's rural population was not included in the report.

The researchers found that the average poverty line for urban households with 3.7 members is 653,000 toumans (about $630) a month if normal goods are consumed. Tehran province had the highest poverty line, 813,000 toumans a month, while Qom province had the lowest with 523,000 toumans monthly. Using this gauge, 55% of the country's city dwellers are under the poverty line.

The average figure falls to 547,000 toumans a month if cheaper substitutes, for example chicken instead of red meat, are used. In this scenario, 44.5% of urban households live under the poverty line.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's governments, over the course of his two terms, have consistently refused to provide proper statistics concerning poverty, although the 4th Development Plan which was passed into law by the Majlis six years ago clearly requires that the Welfare Ministry issue regular figures concerning the poverty line (article 95.3).

'None of the laws state what should be done or indeed what use it is to know if the poverty line is 100,000 or 400,000 toumans,' then Welfare Minister Abdolreza Mesri told a television interviewer in January 2008. 'Calculating the poverty line is good for the country's planners, but telling the people that if you make 300,000 toumans, then you are poor, only creates mental issues for them and has no other use.'

Mesri's successor, Sadegh Mahsouli, has not been more cooperative. Mahsouli, an IRGC officer who has managed to become a multi-millionaire in between stints in various governments is known as 'Ba-Mahsouli' (roughly translated as bountiful). Before taking the reins at the Welfare Ministry, he served as Interior Minister in the previous administration and, as such, oversaw the 2009 presidential election.

On the eve of the subsidy reform vote in the Majlis, he told Jameh Jam daily last November that the poverty line did not 'have any meaning in our country,' but insisted that the bill being presented by the government would help the poor and 'make the meek more powerful.'

In February of last year, the Welfare Ministry took the curious step of denying the poverty line figure presented a week earlier by the Central Bank.

'Determining the poverty line is one of the duties of the Welfare Ministry, but this ministry has yet to fulfill its obligations,' Majlis representative Sirous Borna Boldaji, who is on the legislature's social affairs committee, told Farda News (close to Tehran Mayor Ghalibaf and not to be confused with Radio Farda). 'Previously it was said that the poverty line was 900,000 toumans, but it is currently being declared that it is 500,000 toumans. Meanwhile, the Welfare Ministry doesn't accept either one of these statistics.'

A lack of hard figures has not prevented government officials from maintaining an optimistic outlook. 'The measures taken by the ninth and tenth administrations (NB Ahmadinejad's first and second terms) have considerably reduced malnutrition and severe poverty in the country,' Seyed Abdollah Emadi, in charge of the poverty alleviation office of the Welfare Ministry, told Borna News in January of last year.

But the authors of the recent report see the outlook differently. 'The conclusions of the poverty model confirm the complexity of poverty and its institutionalization in urban society,' they write. 'It appears that poverty will continue to exist as a social and economic phenomenon, at least over the next ten years.'

10 Esfand Scrapbook

2011-03-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

The opposition has called for rallies to protest the incarceration of leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi on the 10th of Esfand (March 1). I will not be providing a live blog, but I will regularly post documents and videos related to today's events.

For live blogs, please consult Tehran Bureau and Enduring America (in English) or Mardomak, RAHANA News Agency, BBC Persian, (in Farsi)...

City workers collect large empty trash bins to prevent protesters from setting them on fire, according to RAHANA:

On RAHANA's web site: Mashhad's Ahmad Abad Street has become the scene of heavy clashes between the people and security forces. An eyewitness told RAHANA, 'The clashes are severe. Any more violent and they would be firing mortar shells! The number of arrests is very high. I can say that there have been at least 150 arrests till now.'
This is the first time I'm reading about such numbers of arrests in Khamenei's hometown

Caller to BBC Persian: 'A lot of people were on the north side of Enghelab street. Security forces shot tear gas at us when we reached a crossroads and corraled us into North Kargar Street. Once there, people started chanting. The sidewalks were filled with people.'

Purportedly Shiraz today:

Eyewitness on BBC Persian's call-in program Nobateh Shoma: 'Security did not know what to do. People were everywhere, chanting here and there. The Revolutionary Guards and Basijis started smashing car windows because they were at a loss about what to do. The people have to be thanked for coming out in their cars in such numbers. I'm going home now to freshen up, then go out again.'

Video purportedly of Mashhad this evening:

BBC Persian has posted a video to YouTube, purportedly showing Shiraz this evening. The ability to embed the video has been disabled by the BBC so you have to follow this link to see it.
Unity4Iran has kindly also posted the video. The crowd chants, 'Mubarak, Ben Ali, Seyed Ali [Khamenei]'s turn.':

Banner proclaiming 'Dictator, say hello to the end' hung over Niyayesh Freeway:

And a video of a protester hanging up the banner:

'Honorable army, come towards the nation!':

Eyewitness accounts describe a cat-and-mouse game between security forces and large numbers of protesters who were less inclined to congregate in groups of more than even three or to chant slogans. Security was huge and less inclined to use force unless people stopped moving, congregated, or started chanting. Callers to radio stations and TV stations said that they went out, just to show their presence, but did nothing more because security kept people moving and even closed off streets, telling the people, 'Why do you want to go there? There are no stores there.' Many eyewitnesses spoke of security rushing to places where people had been chanting minutes before, only to hear chants coming from elsewhere:

Reports cite at least one dead protester on February 20

2011-02-21T04:06:00.000-08:00

At least one protester was killed during nationwide demonstrations on February 20 in Iran, according to opposition sources.

Hamed Nour-Mohammadi, a second-year molecular biology student at Shiraz University (I had initially written that he was a fourth-year biology student), was thrown off Namazi Bridge in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, eyewitnesses said.

View Namazi Bridge, Shiraz, Iran - 20 February 2011 in a larger map

Nour-Mohammadi resided at the Dastgheib university dormitory and was a native of Khorramabad, Lorestan province, wrote the opposition Jaras web site (NB He may have been from the town of Alashter, see below). His family is under intense pressure from security authorities to remain silent.

Sources in Iran reported that another protester was shot to death in Tehran's Haft Tir Square, but no details have been forthcoming.

Yesterday's marches were called to commemorate the deaths of two demonstrators, Mohammad Mokhtari and Saneh Jaleh, on February 14.

Update

The semi-official Fars News, close to the IRGC, reported that Nour-Mohammadi was not a protester and that he had died as a result of being run over by a car in a banal road accident.

I came across the following comment on Radio Farda's web site (I've translated it from the original Farsi):

I am a friend of Hamed and come from the same town
Hamed is from Alashtar (NB also in Lorestan province), not Khorramabad
As I'm writing this, I can't even see the computer screen through my tears
My hand is trembling
You mean Hamed?
They killed our Hamed
Hamed I salute you
I salute your sense of honor
[...]
Hamed was a true Green
a true patriot
he loved the sunset over Persepolis
That's why he chose Shiraz University (NB Shiraz is close to the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis)
My Hamed, your friends and I will continue on your path
I can't believe it
Just a week ago you said, I'm off to Shiraz, let me take a photo of you.

Pro-regime twitter accounts try to spread disinformation, fear, or calls for violence

2011-02-20T03:47:00.000-08:00

Pro-regime Twitter accounts have intensified their activity on February 20 (Esfand 1 in Iranian calendar), a day of protests called by the opposition. The following screen capture shows some of the culprits tweeting the same messages at the same time (From FormoUSAvi to Daghkon). Some of the messages aim to create fear ('Motorcyclists are jotting down our car registration number...) and spread disinformation ('URGENT/ Mousavi arrested + photo'). Others are incitements to violence ('Esfand 1 - a day to demand blood')...

We are all Basijis...

2011-02-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

No comment:

Regime becomes more tech savvy... sort of

2011-02-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

Following the announcement by the Islamic Republic's security forces that a cyber-police squad had been formed, it was interesting to note the recent creation of a dozen pro-regime Twitter accounts.

They're a bit far from properly impersonating independent and grass-roots accounts as the following screen capture shows: identical tweets lauding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were posted by several different 'users' at exactly the same time.

Brick in the wall: Saneh Jaleh story continues

2011-02-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote an article describing the Iranian regime's desperate claims that Saneh Jaleh, a protester who was killed by security forces during demonstrations on February 14, was actually a Basij militia member and had been killed by opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Friends, classmates, and others have denounced what they consider the regime's cynical exploitation of the slain protester. They have posted documents, photos, and now a video clip to show who Jaleh really was: a Green dramatic arts student, interested in writing, who had participated in past protests against the government.

Here is the student film featuring Saneh Jaleh as an actor in some of the opening scenes. The film was apparently banned at the Arts University, which is also shown at the start of the video:

Bodysnatchers: Iran regime exploits protester that it killed

2011-02-15T16:14:00.000-08:00

'Saneh Jaleh-Green martyr'

I originally wrote this piece for Tehran Bureau which posted it on February 15.

A day after a university student was shot to death during anti-regime protests in Tehran, a battle is waging for his soul.

Saneh Jaleh, 26, was killed on Jamalzadeh Street, north of Azadi Street which was the main fulcrum of demonstrations on February 14.

News outlets close to the government now claim that he was a supporter of the regime and that he was shot by agents provocateurs controlled by various opposition groups. The regime announced it would organize a funeral procession for Jaleh, from the Arts University of Tehran, where he studied theater, to Tehran University at 9:30 AM, Wednesday morning.

Opposition forces, with Jaleh's friends and classmates at the forefront, are leading a counter-offensive to prevent what they see as the cynical exploitation of the slain protester. They have called on all those who oppose the appropriation of Jaleh by the government to convene at the Arts University near Vali Asr crossroads half an hour earlier.

'He was definitely not a Basij member,' said Hatef Soltani, one of Jaleh's friends and former fellow students who accepted to speak on the record by telephone, referring to the pro-regime militia which has employed violence to subdue previous rallies. 'He participated in past demonstrations, particularly on Ashura,' added Soltani. 'He managed to escape harm that day, but this time...'

Until yesterday, the last major protest in Iran took place on Ashura (the commemoration of Imam Hossein's martyrdom), 27 December 2009.

Asked why he was ready to divulge his own name and possibly endanger himself, Soltani simply said, 'Well he was also a human being who is no longer with us, come what may.'

The barrage of what appears to be a well-orchestrated disinformation operation is reminiscent of the regime's attempts to blame anyone but its security forces for the death of Neda Agha Soltan during the unrest of 2009. In June of that year, state media and semi-official news outlets like Fars made unsubstantiated accusations against a broad group of likely culprits that included the CIA, the Mujaheddin Khalgh Organization, the Greens themselves and BBC correspondent Jon Leyne. The regime also widely distributed an edited interview showing Agha Soltan's father saying that his daughter was not a member of the Green movement.

The photo of Saneh Jaleh used by official and semi-official outlets close to the government -- stern and glum with a short beard -- does not quite correspond to the rakish young man with a mischievous glint in his eyes that appears in numerous candid shots that his friends have distributed.

Similarly, Jaleh's background does not quite mesh with that of a Basij member or government supporter. He was in his third year of studies in the field of dramatic arts at the faculty of cinema and theater at Tehran's Arts University. He was also interested in writing fiction, according to Soltani, and published at least one short story entitled 'The Bus' in Azma magazine, which has been accused in some quarters of being a part of the 'soft war' against the Islamic Republic. He was a native of Kurdistan province and was a Sunni. 'I think he was from the town of Bijar or Paveh,' said Soltani. 'In any case, he spoke both Turkish and Kurdish.'

Jaleh with Ayatollah Montazeri

'He was not what you would call an active militant in politics (mobarezeh siassi), but you have to be somehow political when you engage in protests' said former fellow theater student Soltani. Jaleh's opinions led him to accompany his university's student association on a visit to the late dissident Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who spent a good portion of the past 20 years under house arrest in Ghom.

The progression of the official presentation of Jaleh from devout student to regime sympathizer to full-fledged Basij militia member has left a trail on cyberspace, implicating news agencies, the head of the Arts University of Tehran, and the Basijeh Daneshjouyi (Student Basij organization).

The Arts University's public relations office released a cautious statement on Jaleh's death early in the day, saying that it was with a 'heart filled with sorrow and pain' that it had to announce 'the martyrdom of Saneh Jaleh, one of the dear and devout children of this university.' The statement went on to say, 'We will not rest until the agents and instigators of this savage act are identified.'

Towards noon, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) spoke of Jaleh as a 'martyr who was killed yesterday during the riots of the seditionists,' a catchphrase for those who oppose the regime. Although Hadi Ghassemi, in charge of public relations for the Student Basij, was quoted in IRNA's report, he never said that Jaleh was a Basij member. IRNA added, 'Jaleh was a guardian of the Qoran and a religious person and was considered a supporter of the regime.' The article planted the first seeds of the scenario that the regime would be promoting: 'This young man was killed with a bullet fired from a small arm.' In the case of Neda, the regime's news agencies insisted that the bullet which killed the young woman came from a weapon which is not used by the Islamic Republic's security forces.

Fars News, close to the IRGC, also quoted Hadi Ghassemi around noon, but this time the Student Basij spokesperson had more to say. Jaleh had been 'the target of a direct shot from the Monafeghin (hypocrites) terrorist groupuscule,' said Ghassemi, using the regime's term for the MKO.

Saeed Kashn Fallah

By early afternoon, the president of the Arts University, Saeed Kashn Fallah, was quoted by Tabnak news, close to former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai, and Fars News as saying that 'Jaleh was a third-year student of theater at the Arts University, who was killed by terrorist agents of the Monafeghin during the illegal gatherings in Tehran yesterday.' He added, 'Jaleh was a Basiji student and guardian of the Qoran at the Arts University.' Tabnak concluded the piece by writing, 'The Monafeghin terrorist groupuscule also targeted four other fellow citizens with direct gunshots. They are being treated in hospitals.'

By this point in the day, contrary voices were being raised to denounce the regime's campaign to exploit Jaleh and to invite the people to pre-empt the official funeral service on Wednesday morning. 'The height of shamelessness,' one Internet user wrote on the Balatarin news aggregator. 'Our next meeting... tomorrow to bury Green martyr Saneh Jaleh,' wrote blogger Arezooabedini. It was time for the official news outlets to go to the next level.

Fars News, which has been known to make creative use of Photoshop, published what it purported to be Saneh Jaleh's Basij membership card at 2 PM. But some inconsistencies in the document were quickly pointed out by Internet users. Blogger Irandust2000 wrote that the stamp on the photo bore the name of the town of Paveh, but that the back of the card had a postal code for Tehran. Irandust2000 said that the postal codes on the back of Basij cards correspond to the city where they are issued and that this discrepancy indicated that the individuals who had prepared the document had not waited for a proper Basij card from Paveh to be sent to Tehran. Also, the alleged card which had been supposedly issued 3 years ago had a higher serial number than those issued 2 years ago. Bloggers posted scanned images of genuine Basij cards from two years ago to prove their point.

Soltani and other friends of Jaleh have set up a Facebook group called 'Green martyr Saneh Jaleh' to protect the memory of their slain comrade and to provoke a popular backlash.

Though the most immediate task of the group is to invite people to convene at the Arts University funeral service tomorrow to prevent the regime from burying Jaleh as a Basiji, one member posted another request.

'I read the words of [Arts University president] Saeed Kashn Fallah,' he wrote. 'Friends of the university community! Let us begin housecleaning from the university and [...] demand the removal of this un-chivalrous character (najavanmard). Let us take this step in our own home, until we take the next ones.'

25 Bahman scrapbook

2011-02-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

The opposition has announced its intention to demonstrate on 14 February 2011 (25 Bahman in the Iranian calendar). I'll be regularly updating this scrapbook to provide an overview of events and to give an idea of the mood in the country today. Please be advised that the times quoted reflect the moment that I became aware of an event or wrote it down, not necessarily the hour at which it occurred. I have tried to only post information and video clips which are credible. Although there is now a great volume of footage and photos showing extensive protests around Tehran (and other cities and towns in Iran), I have only posted those that appeared to be from today with a very high degree of certainty. One of the slogans of the day was 'Mubarak, Ben Ali, Nobateh Seyed Ali' (...Seyed Ali's turn) referring to the former presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, and Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Other outlets such as Enduring America and Tehran Bureau will post what I expect to be more detailed live blogs in English.

For more videos, here are a few very interesting YouTube channels: Unity4Iran, Freedom Messenger, Only Mehdi, Iran Students Committee...You can also check out more videos that I selected through my Twitter feed.

Purported sites of protests

View Alleged sites of protests - 25 Bahman in a larger map

3:20 AM Tehran time - 11:50 PM GMT
Tehran
I cannot remember demonstrators continuing their street protest into the late hours during previous rallies (perhaps an astute reader will correct me on this), but for whatever reason (calls to learn from the Egyptians and not relinquish the streets to security forces?), Iranians continued their protests as night fell. Here are a few videos purportedly from this evening.

Demonstrators chant 'Independence, freedom, an Iranian Republic' -- a deliberate twist on the revolutionary slogan which ended with 'Islamic Republic' -- as a bonfire burns under a pedestrian bridge.

Cars honk in support as protesters chant around a trash can that has been set on fire:

Traffic at a standstill, while demonstrators shout 'Death to Khamenei' and 'I will kill the one who killed my brother.'

3:15 AM Tehran time - 11:45 PM GMT
Tehran
Protesters shout 'Mubarak, Ben Ali, Nobateh Seyed Ali!' on Azerbaijan Street, south of Azadi Street:

3:00 AM Tehran time - 11:30 PM GMT
Tehran
Seyed Mohamad Marandi, professor at Tehran's University's Institute for North American and European Studies, was at it again. Famously referred to by Fareed Zakaria as a 'mouthpiece for a dying, repressive regime' during a tense interview on CNN's GPS and grilled on Al Jazeera for callously supporting the execution of Arash Rahmanipour, 19, and Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, 38 (the two men were tried for waging war against God during the regime's infamous show trials), Marandi was in the warmer embrace of Russia Today tv channel this evening. He told the station's journalist that 'the Islamic Republic of Iran is highly popular' and that the protesters today were 'no more than a few hundred':

11:10 PM Tehran time - 7:40 PM GMT
Tehran
Compelling evidence that the protests continued into the night (and may still be going on, according to some reports). One of the ways to confirm the date of a video is to listen to the slogans being chanted. This clip features today's favorite phrase: 'Mubarak, Ben Ali, Nobateh Seyed Ali!' (...Seyed Ali [Khamenei's] turn). One protester screams out, 'This is the rage of the people!' This looks like it was filmed in one of the city's main thoroughfares, Azadi Street:

11:00 PM Tehran time - 7:30 PM GMT
Tehran
Video shows a regime supporter in unfamiliar territory as he tries to boss protesters around and gets a beating for his efforts. This clip is the prelude to another one below (where the poster bearing photos of Khomeini and Khamenei is burned):

10:45 PM Tehran time - 7:15 PM GMT
Tehran
'Seyed Ali's turn,' mutters the cameraman, referring to Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. It seemed this was the theme for much of the day. 'It looks like a war zone,' the cameraman says as he looks upon streets strewn with burning debris:

9:10 PM Tehran time - 5:40 PM GMT
Tehran
It is quite likely that this video was shot today as the protesters reject the Islamic Republic's allies in the region and underline their kinship with the people of Tunisia and Egypt: 'Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon! Tunisia, Egypt, and Iran!'

9:00 PM Tehran time - 5:30 PM GMT
Tehran
Another video, purportedly from today, showing protesters tearing down a poster of Khamenei. The 'Mubarak, Ben Ali, Seyed Ali [Khamenei's] turn' chant can be heard in the background:

8:30 PM Tehran time - 5:00 PM GMT
Tehran
Video showing protesters burning Khamenei's picture in the middle of the street. It is highly likely that this clip was filmed today as the poster is promoting 'Neshasteh Basirat,' loosely translated as 'enlightenment gathering.' A series of these types of ideological/propaganda conferences are organized during the ten days of official celebrations which lead up to the anniversary of the 1979 revolution on February 11. We can also hear the crowd chanting 'Mobarak, Ben Ali, Seyed Ali [Khamenei's] turn.' As explained below, the chants may have been added to an old video, but this does not appear to be the case:

8:10 PM Tehran time - 4:40 PM GMT
Tehran
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's web site has issued a photo showing a police van blocking his alley to prevent him from leaving. The site reports that Mousavi's bodyguards were told he could not leave. Mousavi then tried to obtain his car keys in order to drive to the protests, but was rebuffed. He and his wife, Zahra rahnavard, then decided to leave on foot, at which point the police van was driven into the alley to seal off the exit:

7:30 PM Tehran time - 4:00 PM GMT
Tehran
I can conclusively identify where this next video, showing protesters chanting and burning garbage cans, was filmed. Towards the end we get a glimpse of Shahriar Hospital's sign.

This clinic is situated at the corner of Karun and Azarbaijan streets, about 2 kilometers northwest of Khamenei's offices, and about 2 kilometers east of Azadi Square:

View Untitled in a larger map

Here's the video:

7:15 PM Tehran time - 3:45 PM GMT
Tehran
Video purportedly showing protesters chanting 'Political prisoners must be freed' near Enghelab today. They are dispersed with tear gas:

6:25 PM Tehran time - 2:55 PM GMT
Tehran
Another video, purportedly from Enghelab Street today ('Death to the dictator!'):

6:20 PM Tehran time - 2:50 PM GMT
Tehran
Photos of the heavy security presence in Tehran today:

5:55 PM Tehran time - 2:25 PM GMT
Tehran
An amazing video. If authentic, it shows the first massive protest in Tehran in over a year. The only thing that makes me consider that it is possibly credible is the chant that can be heard: 'Mobarak, Ben Ali, nobateh Seyed Ali!' ([Hosni] Mobarak, [Zeinolabeddine] Ben Ali, Seyed Ali [Khamenei's] turn!) But was the chant added to an old video? I'm afraid I can't say. Update: This clip does not feature today's protests and was deliberately doctored with the sounds of today's chants. I'm keeping it as a reminder that rumor and falsehood can be the by-products of a closed society like the Islamic Republic:

5:50 PM Tehran time - 2:20 PM GMT
Tehran
Video purportedly of Sharif University protest today:

5:35 PM Tehran time - 2:05 PM GMT
Tehran
Cries of 'death to the dictator!' can be heard over the mobile phone of an eyewitness in a Tehran street. Another slogan I personally heard: 'Mobarak, Ben Ali. Nobateh Seyed Ali' (Mobarak, Ben Ali, now Seyed Ali [Khamenei's] turn.) I also heard: 'Nezami joda sho, ba mellat hamseda sho.' (Military separate [from the regime], join the people's voice).

Another opposition news outlet hacked? Daneshjoo News appears to be down.

5:30 PM Tehran time - 2:00 PM GMT
Tehran
Portions of the police radio recording discussed previously have been posted on the Net:

5:20 PM Tehran time - 1:50 PM GMT
Tehran
Reports of large numbers of people coming out into the streets, but scattered for now. More reports of burning garbage cans from the Ferdowsi square area. Many Basijis around Enghelab Square. Roads have been closed off by security forces, but passengers are getting out of their cars and walking towards squares and roads around the Imam Hossein-Azadi axis.

5:05 PM Tehran time - 1:35 PM GMT
Shiraz
More reports of protests and clashes in Shiraz.

Isfahan
Reports of demonstration in Enghelab Square.

Tehran
Mobile telephone service has been cut in parts of Tehran, according to sources in the city. There are increasing reports of clashes and protests around the city, though no convincing videos have been posted yet. ePersian radio broadcast what was purported to be Tehran police radio dispatcher: '5,000 to 6,000 protesters going from Vali Asr towards Enghelab... They're chanting pretty sharp slogans.'

5:00 PM Tehran time - 1:30 PM GMT
Tehran
Video purportedly showing large number of Basij security forces on motorcycles driving towards sensitive spots in Tehran:

4:15 PM Tehran time - 12:45 PM GMT
Tehran
ePersian radio's reporter on the ground reports: Tear gas fired, protesters have lit garbage cans on fire, motorcycle-riding security forces, protesters beaten between Enghelab and Azadi squares.

Shiraz
Protesters near Mollah Sadra and in Shiraz University.

3:55 PM Tehran time - 12:25 PM GMT
Tehran
Hacker vs. Hacker
The opposition Saham News web site (Karroubi's outlet) was hacked, but is back online (see screen capture of Saham News homepage minutes before coming back online). The new cyber-police force in action?
Update: I'm told the site is offline again.

3:30 PM Tehran time - 12:00 PM GMT
Tehran
Video, purportedly from today, showing a group of motorcycle-riding security forces, possibly Basij:

3:15 PM Tehran time - 11:45 AM GMT
Tehran
Some sources claim a sit-in is being organized in Imam Hossein square.

3:00 PM Tehran time - 11:30 AM GMT
Tehran
Contradictory reports about the Interior Ministry having issued a permit for today's protest. Some serious outlets like BBC Persian have reported that the Interior Ministry has finally issued such a permit (some sources say this was done after the intercession of Turkey's President Gul who is visiting Iran today). The news is serious enough for IRNA to have reacted immediately with a denial from Deputy Interior Minister Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini, who accused the BBC of making trouble.
Update: Foreign Ministry source claims permit was issued to appease Turkish President Gul, but some security outlets are denying this in order to dissuade people from demonstrating, a caller tells ePersian radio.

2:40 PM Tehran time - 11:10 AM GMT
Radio watch

ePersian radio: The usual coterie of regime supporters are phoning the call-in program to insult host Saeed Ghaem Maghami. Ghaem Maghami responds by saying to one of them, 'You may hate me, but I love you, sister, and I'll definitely see you in Tehran.' Callers report disturbances in Naziabad district, Azadi Square, and Sadeghiyeh.

Radio Farda: Caller says he is a veteran and brother of a martyr of the Iran-Iraq War. Says he will be present on Azadi Street today. Mir Hossein Mousavi senior adviser Ardeshir Amir Arjmand: 'Today's peaceful protest will be a test for Iran's armed and security forces.'

2:30 PM Tehran time - 11:00 AM GMT
Tehran
Initial videos appearing on the Internet and purporting to be from today do not appear authentic. Weather in Tehran is brisk today, but protesters in this clip are not dressed warmly:

2:15 PM Tehran time - 10:45 AM GMT
Tehran
I tweeted these updates earlier:

- Etemad Melli Party spokesman (Mehdi Karroubi's party) Esmail Gerami Moghaddam declared, 'According to the constitution, the February 14 demonstration does not require a permit from the Interior Ministry.'

- The state TV web site is still down, apparently the victim of a denial of service attack. The hacker group Anonymous had announced it would wage such attacks in a video released late last week.

- In an attempt to keep people from demonstrating, the government has told civil servants that they can benefit from overtime by staying at their desks until 6PM today.

2:00 PM Tehran time - 10:30 AM GMT
Tehran
Reports of people massing in Tehran's Sadeghiyeh district, north of Azadi Square.

View Sadeghiyeh, Tehran - 14 February 2011 in a larger map

Earlier today (8:30AM Tehran time), a protester climbed a crane near Chahar Raheh Ghasr, hoisted flags, and held up photos of 'martyrs.' He/she threatened to jump off if security forces attempted to apprehend him/her.

Bomb kills at least 30 in port city

2010-12-15T08:06:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this article for Tehran Bureau.

Two suicide bombers killed at least 30 people and injured 55 in a mourning procession in Chabahar on Wednesday morning, according to news reports in Iran.

The Jundullah armed group, which was designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization in November, took responsibility for the attack in a statement posted to the Internet today.The group published photos of two young men wearing explosives vests and purported to be the suicide bombers, who were identified as Seifolrahman Chabahari and Hessan Khashi. (This blog will not post the photos glorifying the suicide bombers) The statement said that the attack had been carried out to avenge the Islamic Republic's execution of Jundullah's leader, Abdol Malek Rigi, in June of this year.

Information from official sources was confusing, at times contradictory, in the immediate aftermath of the bloody attacks which took place between Farmandari Square and Imam Hossein mosque in this balmy port with a free-trade zone on the Gulf of Oman.

Chabahar is situated in the southern fringes of Sistan-va-Baluchistan province which has a large Sunni Muslim population and has been the scene of terrorist attacks by the Jundullah armed group which proclaims that the country's majority Shiites persecute Sunnis. The Interior Ministry was prompt in blaming foreign governments, particularly the U.S. 'The equipment and logistical support of the terrorists indicate that these elements were backed by advanced intelligence services of the region and the United States,' said a statement.

The head of the country's Red Crescent and emergency services, Mahmoud Mozaffar, declared that 36 people had perished, before revising the figure to 31. Some injured victims who were subsequently revived had been counted among the dead, according to Mozaffar. Mohammad Yaghoub Jadgal, the parliamentary representative from Chabahar, told the state news agency IRNA that 50 to 60 injured had been transferred to hospitals.

The following video shows security forces and emergency workers in the area, shortly after the attack:

Inside Imam Hossein Mosque

Witnesses spoke of two explosions in front of Imam Hossein Mosque on Imam Boulevard that cuts the city in two, along an east-west axis. The city's predominantly Sunni population worships at the much larger Jameh Mosque, a few blocks to the east. The attacks came on one of the holiest days, Tasoua, of one of the holiest months, Moharram, of the Shiite calendar. The first ten days of Moharram are devoted to mourning the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, one of the most revered figures in the Shiite faith, culminating in the commemoration of Ashura tomorrow.

View Chabahar, Iran - Imam Hossein Mosque - 15 Decemeber 2010 in a larger map

Today's attack took place in the official mourning procession of fishery workers and their families, according to Mehr News.

Deputy Interior Minister in charge of security Ali Abdollahi told reporters that two bombs went off in close proximity between 10:00 and 10:30 AM, but subsequent news releases said that one of the two blasts was an acoustic bomb. It now appears that the latter conflagration was from the detonator of a second explosive device that did not go off.

Local intelligence and security sources informed Mehr News that three assailants had been involved and that the 'main instigator' had been arrested, while another had been killed when his explosives vest blew up. Mehr News reported that the third individual had been shot by the police. Chabahar Governor Ali Bateni denied that three men were responsible for the attacks, but he confirmed that the 'main element in the terrorist attack' has been arrested.

The official line slowly emerging from the chatter seems to be that two suicide bombers carried out the attack, that only one succeeded in exploding his device, and that both men are now dead. 'One explosion had a lower toll because the assailant was identified before the blast,' said Deputy Interior Minister Abdollahi in a later statement; 'The individual was identified by the police and shot. But he managed to detonate the device which did not cause much damage.'

Sistan-va-Baluchistan Governor Ali Mohammad Azad told the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network that the 'two terrorists waited along the procession's route because they had not been able to approach the official stand. They were suicide bombers. As soon as the security forces became suspicious of them, the first individual exploded his device, martyring and injuring some of our loved ones. The second individual who intended to blow himself up at the same time was identified by the security forces and shot and killed. Some 30 loved ones were killed and 55 injured thus far.' (see video below)

So no terrorist was arrested? 'Both were killed,' said Governor Azad. 'The second individual's belt did not function because he had been shot. Only its detonator exploded. This second one did not cause any casualties.'

Opposition groups have announced that they will participate in tomorrow's Ashura ceremonies. Last year's ceremonies turned into a bloody protest against the regime, during which security forces killed demonstrators, at least in two documented instances by running over them with police vehicles.

It is unclear whether today's blasts will result in tougher security measures tomorrow.

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The following is further footage from state television. I apologize for not having the time to translate:

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Atom chief becomes acting foreign minister

2010-12-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has unceremoniously replaced Manouchehr Mottaki, the longtime foreign minister of the Islamic Republic, with the head of the country's Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, according to a terse statement posted to the presidency's site early Monday afternoon.

Salehi was named the caretaker of the ministry as any change to the cabinet must be confirmed by the legislature before it becomes official. Article 135 of the constitution allows the president to name a caretaker minister for a maximum of three months.

This development may signal a new round of acrimony between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Majlis. Mottaki reportedly enjoyed broad support in the parliament and had been endorsed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a televised meeting with the government on August 30. 'If Mottaki is replaced, the president should expect a strong reaction from the Majlis,' Mohammad Karamirad, member of the national security and foreign affairs committee of the legislature, had said around the same time.

The president's office published a two-sentence decree appointing Salehi and a separate short letter thanking Mottaki for his service. No further information or explanation was provided in the statement.

The dismissal appears particularly brusque since Mottaki is currently in Senegal, bearing a message from Ahmadinejad to President Abdoulaye Wade.

Alaeddine Boroujerdi, the chairman of the national security and foreign affairs committee, told Khabar Online's reporter that he was unaware of the news. 'Isn't Mr. Mottaki on a trip?' he asked the reporter. 'You mean the dismissal decree was issued while he was on a mission?'

Boroujerdi directed the reporter to contact Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast for more information.

Student Day scrapbook - 7 December 2010

2010-12-07T07:28:00.000-08:00

Updated 3:30 PM GMT, 8 December 2010.

I have started compiling video, photos, and information concerning protests on Student Day, 7 December 2010, at 3:15 PM GMT. My aim is to give a raw idea of today's events. This should not be considered a live blog. I will update and bring a semblance of organization as the day progresses.

Young Iranians living abroad have launched a campaign called 'Where is my classmate?' to promote awareness of jailed students in the Islamic Republic. Posters show an empty classroom chair. The tag line is reminiscent of last year's 'Where is my vote?'

Sistan-va-Baluchistan University

A declaration demanding the release of all jailed students was read at a candlelight vigil at this university in southeastern Iran. The students also stressed that neither the threat of imprisonment, nor death, would diminish their resolve.

What appears to be back entrance of Amir Kabir University

Protesters sing student anthem Yareh dabestaniyeh man. This song will probably feature prominently in today's rallies. (click here to hear a fantastic new version of the song with an animation subtitled in English)

The song, once again. Then, 'Students would rather die than be humiliated.' Notice security agent at 1:15, talking into a walkie-talkie as he climbs a light post. Later, 'Mir Hossein!' referring to Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

A public circle dance...

Basijis try to disrupt the protest by forcing their way to the center and beating their chests (0:21). Cameraman says, 'Less than fifty [Basijis] keep sticking to the crowd like ticks.'

More footage of a few dozen Basijis staging a counter-demonstration next to the hundreds of green students.

Various student sources report four arrests in Amir Kabir University today. Bagheri and Zowghi (no first names available), members of the university's security forces, were particularly active in clashes against the students. Basijis prevented students from unfurling a poster of Majid Tavakoli, jailed student leader who was arrested here last year.

The following image shows Tavakoli. 'We will never forget you,' read the top two lines. 'We are speaking in the heart of oppression. We shout out, strengthened by our beliefs. We stand alongside each other... Majid Tavakoli, the dignity of the student movement.'

Elm-o-Sanat (Science and Technology) University

A silent protest, which began in what students have started calling 'Martyr Asa Park,' in memory of Kianoush Asa. Asa was killed in last year's anti-regime demonstrations (For more information on Kianoush Asa, click here.)

Entrance of Sharif University

We hear a part of a popular ditty from the revolution. The words have been changed, making Ahmadinejad rather than the Shah the target of the lyrics:
Mahmoudeh Khaen, avareh gardi,
To in vatan ra, viraneh kardi,
Koshti javananeh vatan, Allaho akbar,
Kardi hezaran dar kafan, Allaho akbar,
Marg bar to, marg bar to,
Marg bar to, MARG BAR TO.

Mahmoud the traitor, may you become a displaced person,
You have destroyed this country,
You've killed the youth of the nation, Allaho akbar,
You've put thousands in burial shrouds, Allaho akbar,
Death to you, death to you,
Death to you, DEATH TO YOU!

The demonstrators then chant, 'Honorable Karroubi, come to the nation's aid!' referring to Green leader Mehdi Karroubi. This slogan is followed by 'Coup government, this is your last warning. Iran's green movement is ready to rebel.' Security officers stand, arms folded, in front of the sit-in.

Ghazvin University

(For close-up analysis of last year's protest at this university, please click here)

The students take security officials to task for breaking up their rally.

Security official: It is illegal.
Young woman: Everything is illegal in this country.
Young man: They've turned the university into an army barracks.
Young man: The 16th of Azar (December 7) is not illegal.
Young woman: Today is Student Day. It's our day. It's our day, mister.

'Death to the dictator!'

Tehran University

New video showing yesterday's protest.

College of Arts

Screen blocks view of the entrance of Tehran University...

Technical College (photo courtesy Radio Farda). Photo could be of yesterday's protest.

Zahedan University

Candlelight vigil. One protester holds up a photo of slain student Kianoush Asa. Another shows a sign which reads 'Silence...' A third displays a photo of student Amir Javadifar, killed by torturers in Kahrizak detention center.

Babol University

And now a comic moment... Basiji rally attracts two dozen people, chanting 'Death to England!' and similar slogans, as students file past them without casting a glance.

Gilan University

After Babol, staying in the north of the country. 'Students would rather die than accept humiliation...'

Hamedan's Bou Ali Sina University

Yesterday, green students hijacked the screens of the computers in the common area.

Today...

Enghelab Square, Tehran

Heavy security presence...

Niayesh Highway, Tehran

Green banner proclaiming '16 Azar' (Student Day, December 7)...

Tokyo

Though only a small group of demonstrators in Tokyo voiced their support for Iranian students on December 5, it's an opportunity to hear this version of Lean On Me, by Iranian singer Andy, Jon Bon Jovi, and Richie Sambora...

Athens

Demonstrators congregated in front of the IRI embassy in Greece and protested the presence of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and the regime's oppressive acts, including the persecution of Iranian Christians.

Tabriz's Sahand University

Student sources claim these photos are of yesterday's official ceremony in which protesting students chanted slogans and held up signs.

'A star in your file = the student's share of justice.' Stars are attributed to dissident students by disciplinary committees.

Student reads flier with photo of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

***

Protests on eve of Student Day

2010-12-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Students at Tehran University's Technical College defied a security clampdown to stage a protest on their campus on the eve of Student Day, according to videos posted on YouTube by Unity4Iran.

Student Day in Iran, December 7, is different from International Student Day which takes place on November 17. While celebrating student activism in general, the Iranian event is also a commemoration of the slaying of three Tehran University students by the Shah's police in 1953, shortly after the coup that brought Mohammad Reza Pahlavi back to power.

Students organized mass rallies against the regime on this day last year. (For a look at a live blog of December 7, 2009, please click here. For a detailed analysis of one video taken at Ghazvin University, please click here). Reports from Iran indicate that the regime has bolstered security in an effort to prevent similar incidents from occurring tomorrow.

The following videos were taken at Tehran University at approximately 3 PM, 6 December 2010, Unity4Iran explained in an e-mail exchange.

'Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein,' the students chant in support of Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. 'Death to the dictator!'

'With God's help, victory is near,' they shout. 'Death to this deceitful government!' And later: 'Students will die before they accept humiliation.'

'Political prisoners must be freed!'

Messianic or messy antics: The politics of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - Part 2

2010-12-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this article for Tehran Bureau. This is part 2 of a series of two articles, which explore whether Ahmadinejad is a religious fanatic or a populist. Or perhaps a mixture of both. For part 1, please click here.

On the offensive

Seyed Morteza Nabavi

On July 10 of this year, Panjereh magazine published an interview with Seyed Morteza Nabavi, which was picked up in full the next day by Jahan News, considered close to the intelligence unit of the IRGC. The piece was entitled 'A Deviant Faction is Being Formed Within the Principlist Camp.'

Nabavi is considered a theoretician of the regime whose influence surpasses his official functions within the political organization he helped found, the Islamic Society of Engineers. Though Ahmadinejad is also a member of the ISE, the group supported one of Ahmadinejad's rivals, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, in the 2005 presidential race. Nabavi is also close to the Islamic Coalition (Mowtalefeh) Party and the conservative Combatant Clergy Association, not be confused with the reformist Association of Combatant Clerics of which ex-President Mohammad Khatami is a leading voice. He runs the Resalat newspaper and has stated that 'The main concern of Resalat is the ruling ideology.'

Nabavi had this to say about the 'deviant faction' mentioned in the interview's title. 'Young Principlists must be very careful not to fall into this trap. [...] This is a faction whose deviance is plain to see. They say that they have a direct link to the Imam Zaman. They want to put aside the clergy in all matters of religion, law, and politics,' Nabavi warned, before adding, 'This faction of Principlists seeks Principlism minus the clergy.'

Shariati and family, 1960s, Tehran

It was unlikely that Nabavi had chosen this last phrase by accident. 'Principlism minus the clergy' (osoulgarayi menhayeh rohaniyat) is clearly reminiscent of 'Islam minus the clergy,' a concept made famous by Ali Shariati, a prominent Islamic thinker and considered an ideologue of the 1979 revolution, even though he was at odds with the mullarchy and passed away in 1977 in Southampton, England, before the fall of the Shah. 'Theocracy is a system in which clerics, instead of politicians, assume political and governmental positions. In other words, theocracy is the rule of clerics over the nation. The natural outcome of such a [system] is despotism because the cleric considers himself the surrogate of God and the executor of His affairs on Earth,' Shariati wrote. In another instance, he wrote, '[In Islam], an organization known as the "clergy" does not exist and no one becomes a professional cleric. In Islam, there is no middleman between the people and God. Everyone is in direct contact with Him.' Supporters of the regime will of course argue that Iran is an Islamic republic and not a theocracy.

Shariati and Khomeini posters, 1979 revolution

Without getting into the details or merit of Shariati's philosophy which cannot be summarized in the two quotes above, it should be noted that his blend of Marxism/Socialism and Islamic reformation was extremely popular among the idealistic youth of the period. So much so that in the years leading up to the revolution, and despite numerous fatwas against him, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did not take an official stand against Shariati. Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, a confidant of Khomeini, wrote the founder of the Islamic Republic a letter in which his frustration is palpable: 'The least of [Shariati's] sins is that he has given a bad name to the clergy. He described cooperation between the clergy and unjust governments against the masses as a general social principle. [In other words, he claimed] that the blade, gold, and prayer beads lie alongside one another and share the same goal.' (The Martyred Sheikh, Sadra Publications, p.39-46)

In his interview with Panjereh magazine, Nabavi was issuing a warning against an idea -- 'Principlism minus the clergy' -- that, while not as extreme as 'Islam minus the clergy,' still had the potential to be immensely popular. So who are the 'deviants,' whom Nabavi spoke of, who would exploit this popular idea?

One indication comes from an interview given by Deputy Minister of Islamic Guidance Mohammad Ali Ramin in September. 'Instead of being active behind the closed doors of political parties, NGOs, or other Western-style institutions, our clergy should return to their mosques,' said Ramin. He tempered his words by adding that he meant that the clergy could restore the central position of mosques in Iranian society and re-mobilize the vitality of the devout population which had stopped going to mosques.

The mullahs however took a very dim view of what Ramin had said. The head of the clerical faction of the Majlis, Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, contended, 'Nobody pays attention to what the deputy minister says. [...] The main goal of individuals making such remarks is to remove the clergy from the [national scene] and take religion out of the government and politics.' When radio host Ahmad Tavakoli (no relation to the Majlis MP of the same name) questioned Ramin about his remarks on a live show, the deputy minister lost his cool and insulted Tavakoli with a phrase that means, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' (Shoma ghalat kardid...) (Listen to the show below)

Ramin lived in Germany from 1971 until 1994, when he was deported, allegedly for his links with neo-Nazi and far-right parties. He was unknown on the national stage until Ahmadinejad's first term, when he became a presidential adviser, most notably contributing to the president's negationist positions on the Holocaust. He was the organizer of the infamous Holocaust Conference in Tehran, to which he invited old friends from Germany, including Benedikt Frings of the NPD (National Democratic Party). It is doubtful that he would have made the comments about returning the clergy to mosques without the consent of Ahmadinejad, who has yet to chastise him.

Ahmadinejad's aides presented other novel ideas about Islam and Iranian society over the summer. 'There are many takes on the school of Islam, but our understanding of the reality of Iran and the reality of Islam is the school of Iran, and we must henceforth introduce the school of Iran to the world,' said Chief-of-Staff Rahim Mashai at a conference for Iranian expatriates in August. The identity and mythology of the regime is Islamic, the basis for its power has been Islamic, and here was a very senior government official touting the school of Iran (maktabeh Irani), and not even the school of Iranian Islam.

The reactions from regime insiders were swift and unequivocal. General Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, Armed Forces joint Chief of Staff said, 'We consider such words to be a deviation and a crime against national security and an attack on the values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution.' Regime officials almost always refer to the Islamic Republic and not the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As Habibollah Asgaroladi, secretary general of Supporters of the Line of the Imam and the Leader (a coalition of a dozen parties under the Principlist umbrella), said in response to Rahim Mashai, 'The basis for the Islamic movement and revolution was Islam, and the republic was based on the meaning of Islam. Imam Khomeini, at a time when there was mention of an Iranian Republic or a National Democratic Republic, declared an Islamic Republic, not one word less, not one word more.' And to stress the dangers of forsaking Islamic identity to patriotism or national identity, he added, 'The Imam [Khomeini] tried very hard to make the Arabs understand that as long as they called Palestine Arabic it would come to no good and that Palestine was Islamic.'

'If Rahim Mashai persists in his errors, we will not remain silent in the face of these perverted, nationalistic acts of conjuring schools (maktab-sazi enherafi nasionalisti),' said Ayatollah Abbas Kaabi of the Society of Qom Seminary Teachers and a member of the Assembly of Experts. 'Mr. Mashai's remarks about a school of Iran were all about conjuring up a nationalistic school [of thought] for Islam.'

And therein lies the crux. Nationalism and patriotism are extremely popular in Iran, perhaps more so than religion. Two of the most noteworthy slogans chanted in last years opposition demonstrations were 'Neither eastern, nor western, but an Iranian Republic' and 'Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon. I give my life only for Iran.' The patriotic song 'Ey Iran,' written in the aftermath of World War II, has long been a favorite of Iranians and it has become something of an opposition anthem in the past years. Is it an accident that Ahmadinejad's chief of staff has brought up the idea of a 'school of Iran' so soon after last year's unrest? Perhaps not.

Not only has the president not disavowed Rahim Mashai's remarks, he has endorsed them despite the outcry by conservative clerics and regime insiders. 'What we say is very clear. the government speaks with only one voice. [Rahim Mashai] says the same thing, perhaps with a different vocabulary. Iran has had a singular role in developing a pure Islam. This is not nationalism,' he insisted at a press conference shortly after the incident. He maintained his support in a speech at last month's conference on 'Soft War' -- regime-speak for velvet or color revolutions -- held at Tehran University. 'There are many takes on Islam [...] in the world. The understanding of Islam which is worthy of consideration for us has to be Iranian,' he told the participants. 'We believe Iran's culture and understanding of truth to be the closest to truth,' he added.

Ahmadinejad's feigned crowd-pleasing statements, the Third-Worldism he shares with the likes of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, his attempts to gain a holy mantle, while tapping into quasi-reformation and anti-clerical ideology, and the appeals to the powerful social forces of nationalism and patriotism, give the appearance of a cynical, populist streak in the president. Whatever his plans, not many observers believe that Ahmadinejad will simply disappear from the political stage after serving his second term.

The president is not the official head of any party, which would have allowed him to maintain a voice in the Islamic Republic's affairs. He seemed to be addressing this issue at the national gathering of representatives of the Supreme Leader in July when he stated, 'The velayat and the revolution have but one party and that is the velayat party and God's party.' Velayat can be a reference to the Supreme Leader or the rule of the Imam Zaman. In both cases, Ahmadinejad may believe that he can occupy a central position within such a nebulous entity at the expense of the established groups. Certainly, the quick reactions of various political figures showed that that was their interpretation of the president's words. 'The velayat party has no basis in reality and the Imam [Khomeini] and the Supreme Leader have not referred to it even once. [...] Some people are creating disturbances among Principlists and we must be aware of this,' Islamic Coalition Party chairman Mohammad Nabi Habibi was quoted in Khabar Online, a news site close to Majlis Speaker Larijani.

The president may be taking concrete steps to place his ideological stamp on the regime. In August, Jahan News reported that a 'Principlist manifesto' (Ahmadinejadism?) was being drafted and that it would soon be submitted to Ahmadinejad. 'This manifesto, which will provide a clear description of Principlism, will restrict the scope of Principlism to such a degree that individuals such as [Tehran mayor] Ghalibaf and [Majlis Speaker] Larijani will no longer be considered Principlists,' wrote the news outlet close to the intelligence unit of the IRGC. (Ghalibaf and Larijani also ran in the 2005 presidential election, but failed to make it to the second round.) Majlis representative Ali Motahari reached the same conclusion in an interview with Aftab daily, accusing 'Principlist extremists' of devising the manifesto in order to eliminate Ahmadinejad's rivals. Motahari surmised that certain Principlists were taking this step in order to prepare for the next elections.

'It is a pity that the presidency only lasts two terms, because Ahmadinejad's record in this term has been much better than the previous one,' said Mohammad Javad Larijani, Khamenei's adviser and head of the human rights commission of the judiciary, in May. Whether Larijani was attempting to gain the support of the president's loyalists for his brother, Speaker Larijani, or whether he was putting on a show of impartiality, the statement did provoke some discussion about a possible amendment to the constitution. If Khamenei were to consider such an amendment to be expedient, it is quite possible that it would be railroaded through the legislature and Guardian Council.

However, it must be noted that unlike in the US constitution, where the 22nd amendment clearly sets two term limits on a president, the Islamic Republic's constitution says the following on the issue:

Article 114
The President is elected for a four-year term by the direct vote of the people. His re-election for a successive term is permissible only once.

In other words, a former president who has served two terms can run again after a lapse of one term. That is why Mohammad Khatami was able to consider (and reject) becoming a candidate again in 2009 and Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ran in 2005 even though he had already served two terms in the 1990s.

Some analysts believe that Ahmadinejad may attempt a 'Putin-Medvedev shuffle.' Former Russian President Vladimir Putin handpicked his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2008 when he faced the same type of constitutional restriction. He subsequently became the prime minister and is expected to run for president again in 2012. There have been persistent rumors that Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, whose daughter happens to be married to Ahmadinejad's son, would play the Medvedev role in the Iranian scenario.

As explained previously, Rahim Mashai is not popular among many conservative clerics and portions of the Principlist camp, who managed to convince Khamanei to block his nomination to the post of First Vice President last year. Ahmadinejad enraged his rivals by quickly naming him as his chief of staff, which could not have occurred without the acquiescence of the Supreme Leader. This suggests a certain symbiotic relationship between the president and Khamenei, each considering the other as necessary to advance their own goals.

It would not be outlandish for Khamenei to accept Rahim Mashai in the highest elected office of the land. He is one of Ahmadinejad's closest aides who has voiced many of the same populist positions as the president. He is considered more amenable to some reformist demands and maintains ties to the trendy artistic community. He could therefore bring some of the opponents of the regime back into the fold. If he were to become president, Khamenei would be able to maintain the delicate, yet tense, balance within the power structure and regain some luster as an arbiter.

Mashai with shaved head in Mecca

Furthermore, it would be difficult to disdainfully dismiss the preferred candidate of the Ahmadinejad camp, given the official claims that he garnered 24 million votes. 'Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mashai have pushed the Principlists into a corner in the sense that they say, [...] We have more votes than anyone else,' Alireza Namvar Haghighi, a political analyst in Tornonto told Radio Farda. 'This is the Principlists' paradox. Either they have to say that these are not your votes or that there was some fraud in the elections. Therefore, they must come to some skewed compromise with [Ahmadinejad and Mashai].'

Ahmadinejad's supporters seem to be laying the groundwork for a Rahim Mashai run for the presidency. In September, Principlist Majlis representative Behrouz Jafari announced the formation of the Justice and Welfare Front (Jebheyeh edalat va refah), a coalition of a dozen pro-Ahmadinejad groups in the legislature. Anti-Ahmadinejad conservative news outlets including Tabnak, controlled by former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai, and Alef, run by Malis research center head Ahmad Tavakoli, reported that the coalition's main function was to support Rahim Mashai. But the Justice and Welfare Front's secretary general, Hojjatoleslam Amirifar, denied the allegation and added, 'Mr. Rahim Mashai has not even declared that he will be a candidate [in the 2013 presidential race].'

'Some people seem to have an abnormal sensitivity towards Mr. Mashai,' Ahmadinejad said in a recent interview broadcast by the 20:30 news show. 'I have complete confidence in Mr. Mashai. I know him as someone who believes in the principles of the Islamic Republic, the values of the revolution and the Iranian nation. He is a person who believes in the line of the velayat. He is a pure individual.'

At Young Advisers' conference

Beyond the official political organizations, Rahim Mashai can also count on the support of the President's Young Advisers, a broad network of up-and-coming activists present in various ministries, presidential offices, and provincial governments. Rahim Mashai happens to head this group, one of the dozen or so functions that he fills in the administration. Before the summer, he named Abbas Masjedi as his plenipotent representative within the group and instructed him to 'expand the Young Advisers network throughout all ministries, independent organizations, vice-presidential offices, and provincial governorships by the end of the [Iranian year],' according to the Ahmadinejad administration's news outlet. The president and Rahim Mashai received a rousing welcome at the 4th Conference of Young Advisers on October 10.

A week later, Hamid Reza Afrashteh, Young Advisers deputy chief in charge of provincial affairs, spoke at a gathering organized by Islamic Iran's Group of 72, and compared Rahim Mashai to some unlikely luminaries. 'The Western world began a new life with thinkers such as Adam Smith in the field of economics, Russell in the social sphere, and Montesquieu in politics, and it began developing knowledge. Meanwhile, on this side of the world, we have continued our existence with passivity,' said Afrashteh, according to Afkar News. 'Now that one person [Rahim Mashai] has taken a leap and and has entered the difficult field of developing ideas and turning them into models, some people unfortunately do not tolerate him.'

'Thief in the nation's house'

And while Ahmadinejad and his supporters have advanced their agenda, they have continued to confront their rivals, not only among the Greens, but within the Principlist camp itself. Speaker Ali Larijani has been the main target of such attacks, which have splintered the Principlist faction in the legislature and managed to erode his support within the Majlis.

On Sunday, November 7, Larijani barely squeaked by as the central committee of the Majlis's Principlist faction elected its chairman. Larijani, the incumbent, garnered 25 of 47 votes, while his opponent, Shahabedddin Sadr received 20 ballots. Khabar Online, close to Larijani, falsely stated that he had received 44 votes, while IRNA, the governmental news agency run by former Ahmadinejad media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr, correctly reported that the Speaker had won by 5 votes. (Clear election results apparently remain a rarity in the Islamic Republic. An explanation of the discrepancy will be the subject of a future article.) Pro-Ahmadinejad Majlis representative Hamid Rasaee wrote on his blog, 'How will Ali Larijani's "crisis of appeal" end?'

The G-72 web site claimed in an article last month that Larijani supporters within the Assembly of Experts were seeking to modify the constitution so that the president would be elected by the Majlis because 'they know for a fact that it is impossible for Larijani's name to come out of a ballot box, so their only recourse is to change the manner in which the president is elected.' Raja News wrote that Larijani had urged his brother-in-law, Majlis representative Ali Motahari, to try to collect signatures from fellow legislators in order to force the president to come before the Majlis to answer questions about his policies, but had only garnered less than 10 signatures. Motahari had engaged in his nefarious campaign against the president 'at the same time of the son of the nation's visit to Lebanon,' Raja News reported with an outraged tone, before turning to mockery: 'Motahari obtained only two votes in the election for the central committee of the Principlists. Given that he cast one ballot for himself, only one other person voted for him.'

The most noteworthy, and sinister clash, took place when pro-Ahmadinejad goons held a threatening rally in front of the Majlis in June.The Ahmadinejad administration had been involved in a struggle to gain control of the assets of a vast network of universities run by Rafsanjani loyalists. Larijani managed to sway the Majlis vote in favor of the Rafsanjani camp, thereby incurring the wrath of the demonstrators in Baharestan Square, in front of the legislature. One banner lofted by the protesters read 'A thief in the nation's house,' while another insultingly asked, 'Larijani, who the hell do you think you are to go against the Leader's opinion?'

'Ghadireh Ghom'

Regardless of his apparently premeditated skirmishes with the conservative clergy and some Principlists, Ahmadinejad has been careful to exude loyalty to Ayatollah Khamenei and the principle of velayateh faghih. His aides and supporters have followed suit. Mohammad Ali Ramin, Deputy Islamic Guidance Minister in charge of the press, who had suggested that the clergy should return to their mosques last summer, had an altogether obsequious attitude towards the Leader's 'historic' visit to Ghom (see video below). 'One of the most beautiful headlines of recent years that I can remember was one that I saw in one of these newspapers a couple of weeks ago, on the occasion of Imam Khamenei's visit to Ghom,' he told a television interviewer (italics are mine). '[The headline] was "Ghadireh Ghom." This was a very beautiful take on "Ghadireh Khom," meaning the people of Ghom had risen up to welcome the surrogate of the Imam Zaman.'

Not only did Ramin refer to Khamenei as Imam, rather than Ayatollah or Supreme Leader, but he compared him to one of the most inspirational figures of Shiite Islam, Imam Ali. It was at Ghadireh Khom or the pond of Khom that the Prophet Mohammad appointed Ali, his son-in-law, as his successor in 632 AD.

But what was on Khamanei's mind as he arrived in Ghom and gave his first speech?

'The debate about Islam minus the clergy... Of course, these murmurs were voiced before the revolution,' said Khamenei (see video below). 'The presence of the clergy in the revolution and their leadership in the revolution temporarily expelled this idea from the scene. But they have started it again. Islam minus the clergy is one idea, and Islam minus politics, the separation of religion and politics, is also among the things that they insist on spreading through the press, in their writings, and on the Internet.'

Real Arab support for Iran war or "possibility of a disinformation campaign"

2010-12-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

Paul Jay, senior editor at the The Real News Network, sat with Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell, to discuss references to Iran in the cables divulged by Wikileaks, particularly the alleged calls by Arab leaders to attack the Islamic Republic.

Wilkerson, a retired colonel, currently teaches a senior seminar at George Washington University entitled 'National Security Decision-Making.' He was responsible for vetting the intelligence reports used for Powell's infamous 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council, in which the Secretary of State argued for -- some would say, was duped into arguing for -- the Iraq War. Wilkerson only had a week to review the material which was riddled with inaccuracies. His subsequent disillusionment led to his resignation and vocal stance on what he termed 'a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.' (Click here for a detailed Washington Post article on Wilkerson's background, his position on the Iraq War, its aftermath, and the Bush administration.)

He has kept an understandable level of skepticism, as can be witnessed in the following interview:

More at The Real News

(To donate to The Real News Network, which operates solely on such generosity, please go their web site)

Tehran bomb blasts target nuclear scientists

2010-12-01T03:19:00.000-08:00

Covered body of Majid Shahriari next to his car

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and another was slightly injured in separate bomb attacks as they drove to work in Tehran early Monday morning, November 29. Reports of a third explosion in the Mahalati district, northeast Tehran, were not confirmed by police sources, according to Mehr News.

In both incidents which took place between 7:30 and 8:00 AM, motorcyclists attached explosive devices to the victims' cars in morning traffic, before fleeing the scene.

Dr. Majid Shahriari, an elementary particle physicist and a member of the scientific board of Beheshti University, died in the blast that tore through his automobile near the intersection of Imam Ali and Artesh freeways. His wife and driver were wounded in the attack. Artesh Freeway runs south of the Mahalati district and it is unclear whether the sound of the conflagration that killed Shahriari was the source of confusion about a third attack in that district.

Fereydoun Abbasi Davani's car

Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at Beheshti University and an expert in lasers, and his wife were lightly injured in the explosion that blew off the driver's door of their car in a square near Beheshti University in the Velenjak district. They dashed out of their Peugeot seconds before the device exploded, an eyewitness told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting corporation (IRIB). 'I was behind the damaged car. I saw the car stop and the driver jump out. He ran to his wife's side and got her out as well. They were two meters away from the automobile, when it blew up,' said the eyewitness to IRIB's Channel 1 news.

Close-up of Abbasi Davani's car

Abbas Davani and his wife were treated for their wounds at Taleghani Hospital, less than a mile from the attack, and released shortly before noon.

The public relations office of the greater Tehran police force declared that both spouses of the nuclear scientists also worked for Beheshti University, although it did not explain in what capacity.

View Tehran - Bomb blasts target nuclear scientists - 29 November 2010 in a larger map

Police chief Sajedinia, this afternoon

General Hossein Sajedinia, commander of greater Tehran's police force, told reporters that no group or individual has taken responsibility for the terrorist acts and that no suspects were in custody. He denied previous reports that a Peugeot 206 had been involved in the attacks and had been pursued and shot at by the police in the vicinity of Beheshti University. However, he attributed the criminal acts to 'lackeys of the Zionist regime.' Media outlets have echoed such sentiments, adding Britain, the United States, and the MKO to the list of suspects.

'Both attacks were carried out by motorcyclists who, according to witnesses, attached the explosive devices to the cars with magnets. The bombs exploded a few seconds later,' he added.

'The protection of professors is the responsibility of the universities and the Defense Ministry,' police commander Sajednia said. 'They are the ones who must answer for this.'

Massoud Alimohammadi

Another nuclear scientist, Dr. Massoud Alimohammadi, was killed by a bomb attached to a motorcycle outside his Tehran home on January 12. The device was detonated by remote control as Alimohammadi left for work. The Islamic Republic blamed foreign governments and banned opposition groups for that attack, but Alimohammadi's involvement in the country's nuclear program is far from established and it has been revealed that he was a supporter of Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Majid Shahriari

Alimohammadi knew both scientists who were targeted today. Shahriari was one of two Iranian advisers (Dr. Javad Rahighi was the other) on the Sesame Project, which stands for 'Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East,' an international scientific project under the auspices of UNESCO. Alimohammadi was one of the Islamic Republic's two official representatives on the project. Dr. Babak Shokri, the other official representative, and Rahighi are the surviving members of the initial four-man team.

Fereydoun Abbasi Davani and Alimohammadi were both non-resident researchers at the the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (NB Pajouheshgah Daneshhayeh Bonyadi, also knows by its acronym IPM, which stands for the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics). The two scientists were allegedly colleagues at Imam Hossein University, which is divided into two institutions, one for training officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the other which is open to the general public. Finally, Alimohammadi and Abbasi Davani have both been linked to the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP), which reportedly conducts research for the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

Fereydoun Abbasi Davani

Though proof of Alimohammadi and Shahriari's alleged ties to Iran's military nuclear program and the regime is tenuous, there were sufficiently compelling indications to place Abbasi Davani under international non-proliferation sanctions as a person 'involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities.' He appears in Annex I of UN Security Council Resolution 1747, which was adopted on 24 March 2007 and calls for member states to freeze his assets and exercise vigilance in allowing him to enter or transit through their territories.

UNSC resolution 1747

Abbasi Davani has been a member of the IRGC since 1980 and saw three tours of duty during the Iran-Iraq war, according to Mashregh News. Aty News, close to the regime, reports that he teaches at the Superior National Defense University. He reportedly runs the physics program at Imam Hossein University, where he works closely with another Guardsman and physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi, who is also under UN sanctions.

Abbasi Davani was honored by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an awards ceremony for 21 top academics in 2007, according to Ebtekar News. In October of this year, he was one of sixty award recipients at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of Beheshti University (formerly National University, Daneshgaheh Melli).

Abbasi Davani is cited as a co-author on two recent scientific articles entitled 'Implementation of main waveguide cavities of electron linear accelerator using integrated and separable methods and comparing their performance' and 'Design and construction of pulsed neutron diagnostic system for plasma focus device (SBUPF1).'

Messianic or messy antics: The politics of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - Part 1

2010-11-29T12:17:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this article for Tehran Bureau. Khamenei's trip to Ghom which is used as a reference point in a timeline, actually took place in mid-October and not 'three weeks ago.'

This is part 1 of a series of two articles, which explore whether Ahmadinejad is a religious fanatic or a populist. Or perhaps a mixture of both.

On a Tuesday three weeks ago, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went to the holy city of Qom to regain some of his legitimacy as the ruler of the Islamic Republic.

In many ways it has been a difficult year for the Supreme Leader. Though the security apparatus has managed to preserve his power at the pinnacle of the regime, it has come at a heavy price. The Islamic Republic's claims of justice and democracy ring hollow now more than ever. Khamenei is no longer considered an impartial arbiter between factions in an ever-tightening circle of insiders, which now appears to include only Principlist conservatives. (NB The term Principlist which appears throughout this article refers to pro-regime conservatives who seek a return to the founding principles of the revolution. It is a translation of the word osoulgara) Even this restricted camp is unable to stop feuding despite the Leader's exhortations to maintain unity.

And perhaps most importantly, differences between the grand ayatollahs and the regime have bubbled to the surface, imperiling the religious identity of the regime. 'Today, the fate of the clergy and Islam in this land depends on and is intertwined with the fate of the Islamic regime,' Khamenei warned a gathering of seminary students and basij militia members in Qom. His speech had an uncharacteristic tone of alarm (see video below). 'If the Islamic regime is harmed in the slightest, the clergy and the Islamic jurists will undoubtedly suffer more than any other portion of the people.' He ended with words of reassurance. 'Of course, the regime is alive, the regime is standing, the regime is powerful. I say with complete confidence that the regime will triumph over all the challenges that lie before it.'

Already in early December of last year, the Basirat web site, under the control of Hojjatoleslam Ali Saeedi, Khamanei's representative in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), published a report decrying 'a growing rift between the grand ayatollahs and clergy [on one side], and the Supreme Leader [on the other].' This was before pro-regime thugs raided Grand Ayatollah Youssef Sanei's home and office in Qom in June and Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Dastgheib's Ghoba mosque in Shiraz in September.

So it was that Ayatollah Khamenei arrived in Qom for a crucial nine-day visit to mend his image and gain the support of senior clerics.

And where was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on this all-important day? He was in Tehran, welcoming a friend and kindred spirit -- some would say a fellow practitioner of provocative antics on the international stage -- none other than Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The contrast between these two events and what they symbolize -- power through religion or populism -- raises fundamental questions about Ahmadinejad and his place within the Islamic Republic. Is he a true believer? Is he a religious fanatic hell-bent on pushing the world towards Armageddon to precipitate the coming of the Mahdi, the Shiite messiah figure? Or is he a populist using religion for political gain? The answer is not only significant for understanding the complex power structure of the regime and the fault lines between the various factions, but it also has repercussions on the future of the democracy movement, foreign policy, and the nuclear issue.

The background

The Assembly of Experts designated Ali Khamenei as the Leader of the Islamic Revolution shortly after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Without getting into the intriguing story of how this occurred, it is important to note that Khamenei was, at the time, a mid-level cleric -- a hojjatoleslam -- and that he was transformed into an ayatollah overnight for reasons of political expediency. This fast-track promotion placed the Leader's religious credentials under a question mark which dogs him to this day. 'There was no hiding the fact that Khamenei’s religious credentials were inferior, and the decision raised the ire of the country’s clerical elites in Qom,' writes Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader.

The position of Leader is enshrined in several articles of the constitution of the Islamic Republic, notably this one:

Article 5
During the Occultation of the Vali al-Asr (may God hasten his reappearance), the velayat and leadership of the Ummah devolve upon the just and pious faghih, who is fully aware of the circumstances of his age; courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability, he will assume the responsibilities of this office in accordance with Article 107.

The italics are mine. Vali al-Asr or ruler of the ages refers to the Shiite messiah who is alternately called the 12th Imam, Imam Mahdi, Imam Zaman, the Hidden Imam... He is said to have disappeared at the age of five in 874 AD, which is the start of the period of occultation or absence. Shiites believe that Imam Zaman will return to this world to bring universal justice and brotherhood. This constitutional article describes the principle of velayateh faghih (rule of the jurisprudent) from which Khamenei derives his power as a kind of 'surrogate to the Imam Zaman,' a title which is used by the regime with increasing frequency.

But obedience to a surrogate of the Imam Zaman with questionable religious credentials -- particularly after the mass protests following the disputed presidential election of 2009 -- apparently does not come easily to some people. Khamenei felt compelled to issue a fatwa or ruling in response to an alleged follower's question on the topic last summer:

Q: Could you please explain 'commitment to the velayateh faghih.' In other words, how must we act in order to know we completely believe in and are committed to the rightful surrogate of Imam Zaman?
A: The velayateh faghih is the rule of the Islamic scholar endowed with all the necessary qualifications in the age of Occultation and is a branch of the guardianship of the infallible imams and the Prophet, and obeying the administrative orders of the [Leader] is sufficient to show commitment to it.

Other senior clerics and grand ayatollahs found the comparisons to the Prophet and the infallible imams less than evident and, after a period of equivocation, the fatwa was quietly removed from Khamenei's web site, although it still remains on some pro-regime sites, including Tabnak which is run by Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the IRGC. Not exactly the sign of a Leader entirely confident of his position within the clerical hierarchy.

Ahmadinejad is not a cleric. He is, in fact, the first non-clerical president of the Islamic Republic since the early 1980s, when Abolhassan Bani Sadr fell victim to infighting and impeachment after a year and a half as president (he currently lives in exile in France), and Mohammad Ali Rajai was killed by a terrorist bomb less than a month after he took office.

Ahmadinejad is also the first president to emerge from the generation of veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. Not that he is recognized as a front-line warrior, despite the best efforts of his supporters and the misleading text of the official biography on his web site. Here is what Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who at the age of 22 was the commander of the Panj Nasr division during the war, had to say last year about the president's record:

Ahmadinejad does not have even one day's experience of revolutionary struggle, he did not receive even one slap for the cause of the revolution. If he did something, he should come and tell us where. Ahmadinejad did not see the war or the front. If he had been on the front for only one day, he would have boasted about it for a thousand days.

He also added:

I don't consider Ahmadinejad a revolutionary or a member of the party of God or a follower of the Leader or a manager or honest. Mr. Ahmadinejad, with all his being, fools himself and then fools everyone else.

Readers can decide whether Ghalibaf is describing a populist or not.

The Populist?

Morality patrol in Tehran

One of the most active civil movements of the past decade has been the Campaign for One Million Signatures to abrogate gender-discriminatory laws in the Islamic Republic. And one of the most visible elements of that discrimination has been the morality patrols' enforcement of proper Islamic dress. Ahmadinejad's actions seem to indicate that he, or at least close advisers, recognized this as a wedge issue.

In early 2005, Ahmadinejad was running for president on a man-of-the-people, oil-wealth-distribution platform with the slogan 'It can be done and we can do it' (Mishavad va mitavanim). 'He cultivated his working-class image along with his piety to good effect,' writes Houman Majd in The Ayatollah Begs to Differ. 'His style, the bad suits, the cheap Windbreaker, the shoddy shoes, and the unstylish haircut, [...] is a signal to the working class that he is still one of them.' But he wanted to cast his net as wide as possible by also appealing to those who seek greater freedom.

'Are our children's hairstyles the real problem facing our people now? Our children want to wear their hair any way they want. What's it to you and me,' he said in a television interview prior to the 2005 election (video below). 'We have to focus on the main problems of the country. The government has to expand the economy, calm the climate in the country, make people feel safe, support the people.'

That Ahmadinejad reneged on those promises of a more tolerant government -- that his administration in fact supported stricter enforcement of morality and hijab laws compared to the relative springtime of the Khatami years -- is a matter of record. But it is interesting that he was willing to make such crowd-pleasing statements even if they ruffled some clerical feathers.

More recently, in another television interview in June, Ahmadinejad again paid lip service to a freer society, perhaps as a remedy for his crumbling popularity. Sitting in the casual setting of the presidential gardens, the journalist asked, 'Why is it that every time we talk about culture or society, women are the first people who are targeted? When we talk about the hijab or chastity or these confrontations that take place in our society... People talk about morality patrols, hundreds of thousands of toumans in fines... just because two strands of hair can be seen or a garment has problems.'

'Let me say in one word, this has nothing to do with the government,' responded Ahmadinejad (video below). 'The government does not meddle in these things. We consider these things to be insults. To have a man and a woman walking in the streets and then someone comes up and asks, What's your relation to each other? None of your business! We don't have the right, no one has the right to ask.'

Ahmdinejad had to know that his words would trigger a wave of condemnation from conservative clerics, and perhaps he welcomed this. It allowed him to position himself as apart from the conservative clergy, a champion not only of the economically disenfranchised, but also of some aspirations of the reformist camp whom he still considers important enough to woo. 'Nobody has the right to prevent the police from acting against unsuitable hijab,' countered Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, during Tehran's Friday prayer. 'Those who voted for you were the fully veiled people,' said Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khatami, taking a more direct approach (no relation to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami). 'The badly veiled "Greens" did not vote for you, so you'd better consider what pleases God is not pleasing a number of corrupt individuals.' Ahmadinejad's own adviser on religious affairs, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Nasser Biria, resigned over this issue and was subsequently reinstated following Khamenei's intervention.

A month later, on the occasion of the Chastity and Hijab Festival, the Islamic Guidance Ministry of the Ahmadinejad administration held a press conference which was related in comical fashion by the international press. At the gathering, government officials unveiled photos of male haircuts which were deemed sufficiently Islamic and therefore permissible.

So if Ahmadinejad claims that he is not responsible for the strict enforcement of hijab laws, who is?

During the heady days of the 2009 presidential race, journalist Masih Alinejad was in Tehran, preparing a documentary, and she asked the same question on a visit to Ahmadinejad's campaign headquarters near the corner of Enghelab and Vesal Shirazi streets. The response revealed more than the participants may have wanted (video excerpt below):

Younger man: Mr. Ahmadinejad came on television and said, Are our youth, their clothes and haircuts, the problem? He said we have bigger issues. But after he was elected, his opponents put morality patrols on street corners in order to tarnish Mr. Ahmadinejad. And they did tarnish him. I see young people on the streets today and they say, We have no problem, just take away the morality patrols and we'll all vote for Mr. Ahmadinejad [...].
Masih Alinejad: But the security forces are under the supervision of Mr. Ahmadinejad's Interior Ministry.

And then, in an extraordinary moment, the younger man and the older man behind the desk blurted out almost simultaneously:

Older man: No, they're under the control of the Leader.
Younger man: No, they're in the hands of Mr. Ahmadinejad's opponents.

The enforcement of morality laws is only one of the wedge issues exploited by the president in the past years.

Offside, directed by Jafar Panahi

Soccer is arguably one of the most popular pastimes of young Iranians -- men and women. In April 2006, as soccer fever attained new heights due to Iran's qualification for the World Cup in Germany, Ahmadinejad announced with great fanfare that he would lift the ban on women in stadiums. A month later, he reversed the decision, but not until he made it very clear who was responsible. 'The president has decided to revise his decision based on the Supreme Leader's opinion,' government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said.

Or take Ahmadinejad's remark on the judiciary, which has become one of the most hated institutions of the regime after months of show trials, executions, and stiff arbitrary sentences for journalists, human rights activists, or politicians. Speaking at a ceremony for the new head of the Islamic Republic News Agency in February, the president said something which most Iranians could only applaud: 'The Islamic Republic's judiciary has a dictatorial spirit. Unfortunately the relevant authorities overlook the law and pursue individuals because they have criticized such and such a member of parliament, a judiciary official, or a group. And then they say, you must be put on trial.'

His remark was not widely publicized by the state media, but the uncensored version was published by Raja News, which is run by Fatemeh Rajabi, Gholam Hossein Elham's wife. It should be pointed out that Ahmadinejad was condemning the prosecution of media outlets that were close to his government and had insulted his political rivals, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and Assembly of Experts head Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The head of the judiciary is Sadegh Larijani, brother of Ali Larijani, and he was named to his post by Khamenei.

'Come to my aid'

Ahmadinejad has also attempted to curry favor with the people through declarations of government largesse, most notably during his record number of tours of the country. A prominent feature of his presidency, the three rounds of provincial visits he has conducted thus far (the first two rounds took place during his first term) have allowed Ahmadinejad to promote his popular message to 'put oil money on people's tabletops.'

Ahmadinejad not only announced grand projects, from public housing to water purification plants, which would translate into jobs and prosperity, but he actively encouraged the people to petition him with letters for personal aid on these trips. The government proudly announced that 2.2 million such letters were received just during the first round of provincial visits and that $250 million (250 billion toumans) had been allocated to these requests.

Reality has caught up with the disingenuous statements. Shortly after being confronted with questions about how the government could verify the validity of such large numbers of requests and assuring that '90% of those who received aid were truly deserving,' relief fund head Hossein Anvari announced in January of this year that such letters would no longer be accepted during Ahmadinejad's third round of provincial visits. In April, Hojjatoleslam Mostafa Pourmohammadi, head of the country's General Inspection Organization, said that Ahmadinejad's decrees concerning projects were 'over and beyond the government's capabilities and do not correspond to the financial means and time lines. Most of these decrees do not get off the ground and the projects face delays.'

Ahmadinejad appears to be positioning himself alongside Bolivian President Evo Morales -- who was incidentally in Iran two weeks ago -- and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an anti-capitalist front, said Real News Network senior editor Paul Jay in a recent broadcast. During his last trip to New York for the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad met with one hundred anti-war, labor, and 'progressive' leaders, according to Fight Back News, one of the organizations present at the meeting.

The Islamic Republic's president ticked all the right boxes for the attendants -- who included former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and poet Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoi Jones -- as he declared, 'Violent capitalism is based on superiority, hegemony and violation of rights. [...] Capitalism has come to an end. It has reached a deadlock. Its historical moment has ended and efforts to restore it won’t go very far.'

Martin, left, and Mrs. Ahmadinejad

'Speaking with Mrs. Ahmadinejad [Azamolsadat Farahi] and hearing the president reinforced the importance of struggling against the US campaign to isolate and demonize Iran,' Sarah Martin of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization told Fight Back News. 'I think the meeting was important because we had the opportunity to meet with so many dedicated grassroots activists from all over the country and share our hopes for peace and justice with the Iranian people through their president and his wife,' gushed Margaret Sarfejooy of Women Against Military Madness.

Nader Hashemi, author of Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy, reacted starkly to Ahmadinejad's attempts to frame himself as a defender of the poor and a Chavez-style anti-capitalist. 'It's an exercise in hypocrisy,' he told the Real News Network. '[...] The fundamental issue that matters is to maintain political power. They will invoke any argument, whether it is in favor of capitalism or socialism to rally opinion, whether globally or internally.'

Hashemi also questioned the readiness of some activists to accept that Ahmadinejad 'is leading a populist fight for the poor.' 'Ahmadinejad is trying to pass through parliament, legislation [the subsidy reform bill] that will remove subsidies from basic commodities and products, the things that the average poor person needs to survive,' he said. 'The reason he is doing that is that Iran's economic house is in a mess. He wants to reduce subsidies so that the government will have an influx of cash which it can then spend as it pleases in order to entrench its own power.'

The Ahmadinejad government's consistent efforts to crush any independent labor movement and imprison union leaders, the very representatives of the poor workers whom the president professes to defend, also belie the official line. Mansour Osanlou, leader of the Tehran Transit Workers' Union, is only the most prominent of a long list of labor leaders who have been jailed and tortured by the Islamic Republic.

Rahim Mashai, Ahmadinejad

Why would Ahmadinejad make public remarks that ultimately get him into trouble with the conservative clerics and other regime insiders? The answer may lie in a remarkable statement made by his current chief of staff and one of his closes advisers, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, in August 2009. 'Of Ahmadinejad's 24 million votes, 20 million are critics of the regime and they are even more serious in their criticism than the 13 million [who voted for Mir Hossein Mousavi] because those 13 million people only put the Ahmadinejad government under question, whereas the 20 million said no to the total process of the years prior to Ahmadinejad,' Rahim Mashai said. 'In reality, Ahmadinejad only had 4 million votes of approval.'

'I believe that Mr. Ahmadinejad is seeking his social base in a place where the clergy is not popular,' reformist cleric and political analyst Mohammad Javad Akbarin, who currently resides in France, told Radio Farda a few months ago. 'He prefers to attract a section of the people by employing populist methods that he has used in the past. He knows that the people do not defer to the clergy as much as they did. By making such statements, he managed to defeat Hashemi Rafsanjani [his rival in the presidential race of 2005], who was a cleric and an individual with deep roots.'

Direct link to Imam Zaman?

'This is the government which has employed the highest level of religious discourse,' the president declared at a press conference in August. 'We are standing firm on divine goals and values.'

In another speech delivered to local leaders in Ghazvin province on November 12, Ahmadinejad said, 'All of religion and all of the universe is summarized in one word and that word is the Imam [Zaman]. All of creation is for the Imam, without whom the Kaaba has no meaning (NB The Kaaba is the small building at the center of Mecca's Great Mosque around which pilgrims turn and towards which all Muslims pray). Everyone turns around the Kaaba and the Kaaba revolves around the Imam. The way to God is the Imam. The Imam is both the path and the destination. The scent of the Imam has spread through the world and the world is rapidly entering a phase in which it will know that its only path is to be linked to the Imam.'

And then he concluded by linking the temporal to the divine: 'Therefore, work in such a way that whenever the Imam appears, he retains us in our positions.'

Ahmadinejad's actions and statements seem to indicate that, although he is not a cleric, he understands that he must endow himself with some religious legitimacy in order to appeal to the devout and, more importantly, to maintain a central place within the regime. And in this respect as well, he has not shied away from conflict with the clergy.

In September of 2005, Ahmadinejad made the first of his annual visits to New York for the UN General Assembly. While the international media concentrated on his speech at the United Nations and his comments concerning the nuclear issue, most Iranians became fascinated by what he did upon returning to the country. The president visited a number of senior clerics in Qom, among them Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli, the city's Friday prayer leader. It was at Javadi Amoli's house that the infamous 'halo of light incident' took place and was forever documented in a video taken by the ayatollah's staff (see video below).

The film shows the recently-elected president sitting on the floor alongside the other congregants at the private gathering and describing his trip to New York. 'They threatened me with arrest. [...] But I said, the Agha [Khamenei] had ordered it, so the visit had to take place. They had said so many things against us that all eyes and ears were focused on us. Who is this person? When we walked in the street or entered a building, all attention was on the Iranian delegation. The others didn't even exist,' said Ahmadinejad in an understandable moment of grandstanding. But then came a more fantastical claim:

That day when I made my speech, someone who was in the audience came and told me afterwards, When you started by saying 'In the name of God,' a light surrounded you and you were inside it until the end. I felt it myself. I felt that the surroundings had suddenly changed. For the next 27, 28 minutes, the world leaders did not blink. When I say they didn't blink, I'm not exaggerating. I was watching. They were all immobile, as if a hand was holding them.

The quest for religious legitimacy had become an act of attributing sacred qualities to himself.

The clergy and other observers grumbled about the president's blatant foray in to the realm of the sacred and Ahmadinejad, true to himself, denied the incident ever occurred. 'When did I ever say such a thing? Where would I have a halo of light?' he said during an impromptu interview on a flight taking him on a provincial visit (see video below). 'Of course, anyone who repeats the word of God, well the word of God is light itself.' Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham declared that he had never heard the president talk about a halo of light and that the video which had been broadly distributed among Iranians had been doctored. Elham, as can be seen in a still shot of the video, was not only present at the meeting with Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, but was sitting to the president's right and could not have failed to hear him. Ahmadinejad made the same denial during a presidential debate with Mehdi Karroubi in 2009. Javadi Amoli's office promptly issued a communiqué contradicting Ahmadinejad.

Last year at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of Fatemeh Zahra, the Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Ahmadinejad was again caught on tape as he took on a mantle of holiness. Standing on stage, rhythmically beating his chest in mourning, Ahmadinejad is seen conferring his blessing on a scarf by kissing it and handing it to a cohort (see video below). 'I am sorry that, after 30 years, this is the outcome of the Islamic revolution [...]', said the recently-exiled reporter who filmed the scene. 'Think of the holiness that he assumes for himself, to kiss a headscarf or a keffiyeh and present it to the people.'

Rahimi with the boss

Ahmadinejad's closest aides have also extolled the president's sacred qualities. Ali Alfoneh of the American Enterprise Institute recounts one such story -- featuring current First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi -- in a piece entitled Ahmadinejad Versus the Technocrats. 'In Syria, in the historical city of Basra which may be unknown to some, a Muslim told me that he believes that if there was to be a prophet after the prophet [Mohammad], it should be Ahmadinejad,' said Rahimi in the presence of Ahmadinejad in 2006. Rahimi was director general of the Supreme Audit Court at the time and the incident is also related in the Alef news site, which is run by Principlist Majlis representative and head of the legislature's research center Ahmad Tavakoli.

One group of Ahmadinejad's supporters in universities and within the clergy took a more subtle approach when they formed a grass-roots organization, Islamic Iran's Group of 72 also knows as the G-72, in late 2008. Neither the number of founding members, nor the current membership is 72, but a gathering of 72 individuals fighting for a cause is particularly evocative for Shiites. One of the most seminal events in Shiism is the martyrdom of Imam Hossein in 680 AD at the battle of Karbala, which is commemorated on the day of Ashura, the 10th of the holy month of Moharram. The battle pitted thousands of Umayyad Caliph Yazid's troops against Hossein and his companions, who according to various accounts numbered a mere 72. For Shiites, Hossein embodies the themes of martyrdom and fighting for justice against overwhelming odds. (In all fairness, the Green movement has also tried to invoke this type of symbolism, most notably in their provisional list of 72 dead protesters, which I believe was not expanded deliberately, although many more casualties had been identified. It is also interesting that Ayatollah Khamenei's favorite, and most expensive, horse is called Zuljanah, in reference to Imam Hossein's white stallion.)

Prison Break and Shariati

In addition to the religious allusions to Ahmadinejad as a man seeking justice against all odds, the G-72 web site paints a picture of the president as a selfless man of the people. (A look at the advertisements on the web site provides an amusing and anecdotal indication of the target audience and their interests: the final season of Prison Break and the complete works of Islamic thinker Ali Shariati. More on Shariati later.) The latest post on the site quotes Tehran provincial governor Morteza Tamaddon, who accompanied Ahmadinejad on a visit to the 'common folk' on October 28 and deserves a prize in sycophancy:

As usual he listened to the remarks and grievances of the people with patience and tolerance and a smiling face. And then he would [attentively] issue the necessary orders to resolve the problems of the people whom he loves with all his being. Towards the end of the meeting, the whispers of the attendants told me something was afoot until one of them came to me and said, 'Today (October 28) is the doctor's [Ahmadinejad's] birthday.' I cast a glance at the president. He was so submerged in dealing with the people's problems that I could not allow myself to remind him of this news. After the meeting, as we and a few friends were preparing for noon prayer, I told him, 'Happy birthday, Mr. President.' And I immediately asked him, 'Mr. President, did you know that today is your birthday?' He stared at us for a moment, then a smile crossed his lips. I said, 'If I'd known earlier, I would have prepared a birthday cake.' He laughed and said, 'Instead of these things, it's best if you concentrate on the people's affairs.' Another friend jokingly said, 'Doctor, you should hand out some sweets.' He responded, 'Usually people give presents and sweets for someone's birthday, they don't receive them. But in any case, let us distribute the sweet experience of resolving the people's problems among ourselves.' [Ahmadinejad], who loves the people, even spent his birthday in sweet servitude to God's people.

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For part 2, please click here.

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Larijani landslide questioned by... his own side?

2010-11-24T02:09:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this article for Tehran Bureau, which published it on November 23, 2010.

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani's recent election as chairman of the majority faction has highlighted the cracks in the pro-regime Principlist camp and the ambiguous nature of democracy in the Islamic Republic.

IRNA: 25 votes

The central council of the legislature's Principlist faction voted to choose its leader on Sunday, November 7, and depending on the source, Larijani either garnered 44 of 47 votes as the sole candidate or squeaked by with 25 ballots to 20 in a tightly contested race with his rival, Tehran representative and Second Deputy Speaker Shahabeddine Sadr.

Khabar Online: 44 votes

The election took place amidst rising tension within the conservative camp. While Larijani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been direct rivals since 2005 when both men ran for president, it would be an over-simplification to describe the animosity among Principlists solely as a power struggle between the two political figures.

A review of news reports, interviews, and official blogs indicates that Larijani obtained only 25 votes, but that creative electioneering allowed his supporters to advance the figure of 44, under the pretense of presenting a picture of unity to the general public.

ILNA: 44 votes

The Islamic Republic News Agency, run by Ahmadinejad's former media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr, reported the correct number of ballots for Larijani, but the misleading figure of 44 was disseminated by a much greater number of outlets, including the '20:30' television news program. This was initially a public relations victory for Larijani supporters, but their subsequent attempts to explain the discrepancy has taken some of the luster off the conceit that the Majlis Speaker is an uncontested leader.

Mehr: 44 votes

Tension, dissension, and all-out conflict are not new in the Principlist camp. The impeachment of Interior Minister Ali Kordan for having a bogus doctorate -- a move initiated by fellow Principlist and Majlis representative Ahmad Tavakoli during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first term is only one example -- but the events following the disputed election of June 2009 have made the fault lines between conservatives even more brittle.

ISNA: 44 votes

Just in the past nine months, Elias Naderan, representative of Tehran, accused First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi of corruption and called for his arrest in an open session of the legislature; Morteza Nabavi of the Islamic Society of Engineers warned of the ascension of 'deviant Principlists;' Pro-Ahmadinejad goons besieged the parliament building after a majority of representatives voted down the government's attempts to appropriate Azad University assets; and the Majlis voted to remove Ahmadinejad from the chairmanship of the Central Bank's general assembly.

Press TV: 25 votes

It was within this vitriolic context that the Principlists set about to elect the leader of their Majlis faction, a post that Larijani has filled in addition to that of Speaker for the past two years. The vote had originally been scheduled for Tuesday, November 2, at 6 PM after the evening prayer, Vali Esmaili (representative of Germi, Ardabil province) told Aftab daily. But by Tuesday afternoon, Shargh daily reported that the meeting had been postponed. 'It has become clear that 37 of the central council's 44 members are critics of Larijani's stewardship. [...],' wrote the paper. 'Consequently, Larijani's supporters have again postponed the meeting of the Principlist faction's central council which was to have elected its board.'

Sadr et al

The Islamic Revolution faction, a sub-group of the Principlist faction, had yet to decide whether to field a candidate against Larijani. The Islamic Revolution faction was created in early 2009 with one primary message, 'Ahmadinejad is the best presidential nominee for the Principlists,' and as such, their candidate may have had a polarizing effect on the proceedings. They finally threw their support behind Shahabeddine Sadr, who, while not a member of their group, was a conservative with impeccable credentials and an independent streak. Sadr also had close relations with some of Ahmadinejad's key ministers. (The photo to the right shows, from left to right, Sadr, Islamic Guidance Minister Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, and Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi)

Principlists for Mousavi

Sadr, a physician and university professor, had been one of ten presidential candidates in the 2001 race which brought Mohammad Khatami to a second term (Sadr came in 7th place in the first round). While a Majlis representative, he was elected chairman of the national medical association in 2008.

As the deputy chief of the Front for Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader, an umbrella organization comprising over a dozen Principlist groups, he was approached by the Society of Combatant Clergy and the Islamic Coalition Party to make another run for the presidency in 2009. He turned down the offer, but made some surprisingly positive remarks about another candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who would go on to become one of the main leaders of the Green movement. 'He believed that Mousavi was a known individual with administrative experience and that he was respected by all,' wrote Khabar Online, which is incidentally close to Larijani. '[He believed that Mousavi] was loyal to the principles of the regime and the revolution, and that his red lines were the Imam [Ruhollah Khomeini], the constitution, and the velayateh faghih ('Rule of the jurisprudent,' principle from which Khamenei derives his power).' It was not unusual at the time for some conservatives to endorse Mousavi and indeed they formed an official organization called Principlist Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Sadr was not a member of that group and gave his endorsement to Ahmadinejad. Following the disputed election and in the past year, he has generally refrained from making speeches or appearing on television programs, although he did extend his congratulations to Ahmadinejad and the nation. In May, he was chosen by his peers as the Second Deputy Speaker of the Majlis. Larijani ran unchallenged for the post of Speaker in the same election.

In the central council meeting of November 7, Sadr accepted to run against Larijani for chairman of the Principlist faction of the legislature. There were 47 participants in the meeting -- the 44 members of the central council and the 3 members of the faction's arbitration committee -- and all had the right to vote, according to the statutes of the faction. Per two reports, one arbitrator and one member of the council were absent.

Esmail Kowsari (representative of Tehran), attempted to start the meeting with a few words about the Speaker's record, but was not given the floor. Ballots were distributed and Larijani won 25 votes to Sadr's 20. There were two blank votes.

Hamid Rasai

Here the accounts diverge. 'Upon the suggestion of Mr. [Hossein] Nejabat, after the official vote, an oral vote was carried out by uttering a salavat prayer. A few individuals disagreed with this and the rest said a salavat meaning, Yes, Larijani is the leader,' wrote Principlist representative Hamid Rasai in his blog. 'Immediately, Mr. Larijani's office mobilized and put pressure on various outlets, asking them to report 44 out of 47 votes for Larijani. [...] Some outlets contacted us and said that Larijani's office was insisting that this news be reported.'

Hossein Nejabat

Hossein Nejabat is one of Tehran's representatives, even though he is said to live mostly in Ghom (Larijani is one of Ghom's representatives), and is a member of the Society of Devotees of the Islamic Revolution (Jamiyateh isargaraneh jomhouriyeh eslami), which supported Tehran mayor and Ahmadinejad rival Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in the 2005 presidential election. Nejabat obtained a doctorate in nuclear physics from Durham University in England.

Larijani's supporters countered with their own version, which was not much more convincing. 'Before the [official] vote, Mr.Nejabat suggested that the vote with paper ballots be considered an exploratory vote (raygiriyeh estemzaji) and that whichever candidate obtained the favor of the majority, he should become the unique candidate of the faction and all of us should vote for him, so that the unity and homogeneity of the Principlists could be shown to the people,' explained Seyed Hossein Naghvi Hosseini (representative of Varamin) to Khabar Online.

What about the salavat prayer? 'The salavat was uttered when Mr. Nejabat made his suggestion and it was asked that those who favored the suggestion should say a salavat,' added Hosseini. Asked why so many central council members were complaining, Hosseini said, 'In any case, this drum of opposition in the central council of the Principlists is nothing new. In my opinion, the opposition of some of our colleagues to Mr. Larijani is entering the sphere of Principlism.'

While the drumbeat of opposition to Larijani is nothing new, neither are irregularities in his election to the chairmanship of the Principlist faction. Last year, when he ran against Morteza Agha Tehrani, 'Larijani's supporters were told that the meeting was at 4 PM and his critics were told that the meeting would start at 4:30 PM,' according to Rasai. 'Twelve of the 44 members of the central council arrived late, after the election had already taken place.'

But, of course, last year, the country was contending with another disputed election.

Sanandaj, Iran: Video of deadly gunfight emerges

2010-10-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

Two gunmen at the right of the image

Footage recently posted on the Internet shows last week's gunfight in front of a police station in Sanandaj, Iran, on Thursday, October 7, 2010.

The deadly battle left four security agents and a civilian dead, according to news sites. Five police officers and four civilians were injured in the attack, said Colonel Kazeminejad, deputy police chief of Kurdistan province.

The attack took place in front of the police station situated at the north end of Sanandaj's Azadi Square, formerly known as Eghbal Square:

View Azadi Square - Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, Iran in a larger map

The police station, a prominent concrete and glass structure, can be seen from another angle in the image to the the right. The cameraman was most likely in the brown building to the east of the police station.

Two individuals opened fire on police officers outside the building late in the afternoon, the spokesman for the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization, Ejlal Ghavami, told BBC Persian, citing eyewitnesses. The gunmen can be seen clearly in the video posted on Unity4Iran's YouTube channel:

Northwestern Iran has been wracked with violence in the past weeks. A bomb blast killed 12 people during a military parade in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province, on September 22. A security officer and a 4-year-old boy died in a gun battle on the streets of Saghez, Kurdistan province, on September 20.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack. Some opposition groups have pointed the finger of blame at the regime's security forces, accusing them of trying to unite the people against 'counter-revolutionaries' and attempting to justify the current crackdown in the country.

Breaking news: Bomb kills 11 during military parade

2010-09-22T03:35:00.000-07:00

Official pointing to explosion

At least eleven people were killed in a bomb blast during a military parade in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province, on Wednesday morning, 22 September 2010, according to various state and opposition news outlets. The Arabic-language Al Alam news channel, a subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, was one of the first sources to break the news and reported that the blast had occurred at 10:30 AM, local time.

The photo above shows spectators on the official parade stand looking and pointing to the right, where the explosion took place a second before.

Vahid Jalalzadeh

Immediately after the blast, Vahid Jalalzadeh, the provincial governor, told Mehr News by telephone that since the event had occurred only an hour earlier he had no exact figures on casualties or the manner in which the attack had occurred. He added, however, 'This incident was carried out by counter-revolutionaries in the women's section during the armed forces parade.' On this date, the regime's armed forces participate in annual ceremonies marking the start of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980.

Footage broadcast by IRIB's Channel 1 showed troops marching at the moment of the explosion -- though not the blast itself -- and the immediate aftermath.

In later interviews, Jalalzadeh said that the explosion had taken place 50 meters from the official stand at the parade. He set the provisional toll at 10 dead and 20 injured, four of them in critical condition.The numbers have since been revised by Issa Ghanbari, the province's deputy governor in charge of security and military affairs, to 11 dead and 32 injured. Ghanbari told the Islamic Students' News Agency that the bomb was placed in a handbag, but other news sources have reported that the device was hanging from a tree next to the sidewalk.

Women constituted most of the casualties, according to Jalalzadeh, who said that the injured were being transferred to hospitals. 'None of the troops attending the ceremony were harmed,' he said.

According to General Nosrati, West Azerbaijan's military commander, the explosion took place among female spectators who had come to watch the parade. Jalalzadeh later added that two of the dead were the wives of senior military commanders.

Jalalzadeh told Fars News, close to the Revolutionary Guards, that the operation was a form of revenge exacted on the people. 'Last week, the ever-present people of Mahabad, through their spontaneous demonstration, condemned the insult to the sacred Koran,' he said in reference to a government-sponsored rally protesting a small US church's plans to burn the Koran. 'This bomb explosion shows that the enemy is enraged.' In the Channel 1 footage posted above, Jalalzadeh blamed the US and other foreign governments of being behind the terrorist attack, at least by virtue of their aid to Kurdish armed groups and the Mujahedin Khalgh Organization.

In line with Governor Jalalzadeh, other officials and pro-regime news sites have been quick to point the finger of blame on a broad spectrum of the usual, and sometimes contradictory, suspects.

Raja News, close to the Ahmadinejad government, quoted Deputy Governor Fakhrali Nikbakht as saying that the operation was a suicide attack. Raja based itself on a Fars News interview which did not make any such claim.

Fars News has been minimizing the news and does not feature it on its front page, although it has been attributing the attack to 'enemies of the Iranian people,' counter-revolutionaries, terrorists, and 'groupuscules.' Armed Kurdish groups, particularly Pejak, are active in the area, though, as far as this blog has been able to ascertain, they have never organized a bomb attack on civilians. Mahabad has a large Kurdish and Sunni population.

Security officer and 4-year-old killed in gun battle, says Kurdistan province news source

2010-09-21T02:45:00.000-07:00

A battle between five unidentified gunmen and the regime's security forces in the streets of Saghez, Kurdistan province on September 20, 2010, left a 4-year-old boy and a member of the security detail dead, according to Rawa News.

Rawa, a site dedicated to news from Kurdistan province, reported that the skirmish occurred on Tuesday morning in Ostad Shirazi Street, on the fringes of Saghez, a town in northwestern Iran with a population of 150,000. The young boy was identified as Matin Ebrahimi, son of Ata.

View Saghez, Kurdistan province, Iran - 20 September 2010 in a larger map

Video posted on YouTube claimed to show the aftermath of the gunfight and the covered body of the child.

Another graphic video showed what appeared to be a lifeless body under a different sheet, though neither the age, nor the gender of the individual can be determined from the grainy footage. The language spoken in both videos is Kurdish.

The protracted gun battle raged for an hour after the unidentified men were surrounded by security forces, according to witnesses. Rawa News wrote that several regime troops were also injured, but that no other details of casualties were available.

Saghez is currently under a security blanket, per news sources.

Up to 600 national publications continuously attack government, complains regime's Deputy Islamic Guidance Minister

2010-07-31T16:54:00.000-07:00

Mohammad Ali Ramin

A senior official in the Ahmadinejad cabinet strongly denounced what he described as the 'undesirable situation of the press' in the Islamic Republic during a controversial speech to students at Qazvin's Imam Khomeini International University on Wednesday night, July 28, 2010.

Was he referring to the dozens of imprisoned journalists and banned newspapers? Think again.

'The government is criticized and even disparaged on a daily and weekly basis by at least 500 to 600 publications in the country in the strongest, sometimes insulting, terms,' complained Mohammad Ali Ramin, Deputy Islamic Guidance Minister in charge of the press, who is directly responsible for banning publications, towards the end of his question-and-answer session with the students, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Ramin also deplored the fact that there are too many publications in the country. 'In the period before me, the supervisory committee would issue 60 licenses during a one-hour meeting,' he said. 'We are now facing problems and some people have licenses over which there is no supervision. [...] Some of these publications which have obtained licenses are in the hands of individuals with no money and they become dependent on investors. The government must help them become absorbed into parties and organizations.'

Ramin, 56, was fairly unknown on the national stage until Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first term, when he became a presidential adviser. He allegedly contributed to Ahmadinejad's questionable positions about Israel and the Holocaust, and was the prime initiator of the infamous 2006 Holocaust conference held in Tehran, which was attended by such luminaries as Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. He headed Tehran's International Holocaust Foundation and was named deputy Islamic guidance minister last year.

Ramin lived in Germany from 1971 until 1994, when he was expelled from the country for unknown reasons, though some sources cite his activities in Islamist and neo-Nazi circles as the cause. He was jailed for a short period in 1982, again for reasons that have not been made public. He obtained degrees in engineering from Karlsruhe University and the Technical University of Clausthal, where he founded the Islamische Gemeinschaft in Clausthal (Islamic Community of Clausthal). It is said that during his time in Germany he forged close relations with neo-Nazi and extreme-right figures, including Benedikt Frings of the NPD (National Democratic Party), who was also a guest at the Holocaust conference.

For an individual whose devotion to the Islamic Republic and its principles was only exercised through a long-distance relationship for over 20 years, he has become quite a die-hard devotee of the concept of velayateh faghih (rule of the Islamic jurisprudent) and its embodiment Leader Ali Khamenei. 'The [Leader] has the position of surrogate of the Imam Zaman (NB The Mahdi or messiah of Shiites) and on his behalf must manage the world, in other words the imposition of God's proof upon humanity during the time of absence [of Imam Zaman],' Ramin said at the beginning of his address in Qazvin.

'We must find a way for the velayateh faghih system to manage the world,' Ramin told the students a bit later, obviously still enamored of the idea of world dominance with which he flirted in his younger days.

Genoa names square in honor of Iranian women

2010-07-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

The Italian city of Genoa renamed one of its squares 'Rotonda Donne di Teheran' (Women of Tehran Square) in the Fiumara commercial district as part of its Human Rights Week on July 21, 2010.

View Fiumara district, Genoa, Italy in a larger map

Mayor Marta Vincenzi, Shirin Ebadi

Mayor Marta Vincenzi unveiled the new plaque honoring the women who demonstrated for freedom on the streets of Iran's capital at a moving ceremony attended by Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. 'This is a sign of solidarity with the women of Iran, and other parts of the world, who are fighting for freedom,' said Mayor Vincenzi.

She expressed the hope that mayors in other major cities around the world would follow Genoa's lead and pay tribute to Iran's women.

Pro-regime, anti-Ahmadinejad site publishes photos of bazaar strike

2010-07-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

A conservative news site published a photo report showing that the strike in Tehran's Bazaar continued on Thursday, July 15, 2010.

The web site, Alef, is run by Ahmad Tavakoli, Majlis representative (Tehran) and head of the legislature's research center. Tavakoli is a cousin of Speaker Ali Larijani -- he is the son of Larijani's aunt -- and has been a critic of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since his first term as president. Tavakoli, who obtained his doctorate in economics from the University of Nottingham in the 1990s, was one of the first Malis deputies to accuse Ali Kordan, interior minister in Ahmadinejad's first administration, of faking his doctorate. The late Kordan was subsequently impeached. Tavakoli and several of his close allies in the Majlis have continued to denounce the government's economic policies, the level of the post-election crackdown, and the fake doctorates of several ministers and vice-presidents.

The article which was posted yesterday on Alef contended, 'While [National Traders' Council chief] Ghassem Nodeh [Farahani] has spoken of the conclusion of discussions on traders' taxes [...] and business as usual in the bazaar in recent days, Alef's journalist's report shows that some portions of the bazaar remain closed.' Alef posted photos of the bazaar which were purportedly taken at noon on Thursday.

The report was followed by 27 comments left by the site's readers as of noon GMT on Friday, July 16. Only one reader opined that the tax rate on traders should not be increased (the government has agreed to a tax hike of 15% after first mentioning 70%).

But this did not mean that the comments on this conservative site favored the government either. Only two readers expressed support for the Ahmadinejad administration. One wrote, 'Stick to perfecting your prose and let the government do its job.' This comment garnered 5 thumbs up and 34 thumbs down. The other comment read, 'The benefit-seeking profiteers are lining up against the president.' It scored 23 'likes' and 46 'dislikes' by the other readers.

The vast majority of the comments either blasted the bazaaris (9 comments), without any kind words for the government, or questioned the coverage of the pro-regime media, particularly state radio-television, which have denied the existence of a strike or have tried to minimize its scope (6 comments).

'It's great that, after a week, you're finally covering this issue,' wrote one person. 106 readers gave this a thumbs up, while 7 disliked it. 'So why was television portraying the bazaar news in a different manner?' asked another individual. 110 readers approved this question, while 7 did not. Another comment read, 'We really didn't expect this text and the photos from you... You should have prepared a report on the bazaar like the 20:30 television newscast which said that everything is fine and dandy and the economy is growing and everything is open and what shutdown are you talking about... To hell with the age of technology and communications and the Internet... As long as these gentlemen, instead of resolving problems, continue to deny them and cover them up, not only will nothing be solved, but our problems will get worse every day.' 112 readers agreed with this, while 12 disagreed.

One angry comment said, 'So these heavy-hitting bazaaris shouldn't pay taxes and my father who is an employee should? Is this justice? 7% of my father's small salary goes to taxes.' 84 readers liked this and 7 did not. Another person said, 'Don't get me angry. How much do these people make every month? Where are their homes? Why are employees' salaries taxed before they see any money, while these privileged individuals refrain from paying taxes? I want to see their stores boarded up, by Imam Hossein.' 73 people supported this opinion while 20 did not. 'I think it's the best time for rivals of the bazaar to come on the scene. Chain stores and companies which engage in marketing and selling directly to customers are better solutions,' wrote another individual. This comment was approved by 26 people and opposed by one.

These are some of the photos published by Alef:

A view of the textile traders' section:

Jewelery and gold traders:

The jewelry and gold bazaar:

Shahram Amiri's first interview on the Islamic Republic's news network

2010-07-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Shahram Amiri, the Iranian researcher who disappeared in June of last year and is now en route to Tehran, gave an interview to the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) while still in Washington, D.C., at the Iranian interests section maintained by the Pakistani embassy. (For a post on the first videos released by Amiri in early June of this year, please click here).

The following is footage of Amiri's interview, of which the 8 PM news show only broadcast segments. A translation follows. I have tried to stay as true as possible to the exact phrases used, even if they appear somewhat convoluted:

Anchorman:
Thank you for watching '20.' The abducted Iranian scientist is en route to Tehran. The Foreign Ministry spokesman gave news of Shahram Amiri's departure from American soil and said that he would soon arrive in Iran from a third country. [Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin] Mehmanparast stressed that the US's responsibilities in the abduction of Amiri would be pursued through various legal and diplomatic channels.

Shahram Amiri, the abducted scientist who took refuge in the Iranian interests section in Washington on Tuesday, said that the White House was responsible for his abduction. Amiri said this about the manner of his arrest in Saudi Arabia...

Shahram Amiri:
After I crossed about two streets, a white van stopped in front of me. There were three individuals in the automobile: a driver, a bearded person wearing an official suit, and a person sitting in the back of the automobile with the same well-grounded and official look.

The spoke to me in Farsi and said, "We're from another group and we're going to the Nabi Mosque. If you'd like, we'd be delighted to take you there."

I'd halted out of respect for the fact that they had stopped. I went towards the automobile to get in. When I opened the door to get in, the passenger in the back seat stuck a weapon into my side and said, "Please be quiet and don't make any noise."

Anchorman:
Shahram Amiri said, "After I managed to escape from the American agents and posted a video on the Internet, I was arrested once again in the state of Virginia. When the American agents became aware that this video had been made and that it might be broadcast by Iran or Internet sites, they decided to make another video of me through which they could announce that I was on my way back to Iran."

The Iranian scientist, given the many details which are known about his abduction, said that he would cover these topics with media outlets after arriving on Iranian soil.

The Iranian scientist also gave explanations about the remarks of leaders of the Zionist regime about a request to the US to deliver him to that regime for propaganda purposes...

Shahram Amiri:
In fact, Israel wanted to take responsibility for this case. It said, If you're unable to force this individual to cooperate, we're ready to take responsibility for this abduction and to take custody of this individual and to make him talk. And if he doesn't talk, we'll keep him in our secret prisons and we can transfer information in his name to the world press, and his name, we can say that he has cooperated with us and this information, this false information, can be used against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Press TV broadcast more segments of the same interview with subtitles in English:

Regime's propagandist welcomed by two German television network presidents

2010-07-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Ezatollah Zarghami

Earlier this week, the head of the Islamic Republic's radio-television broadcaster (IRIB), Ezatollah Zarghami, canceled his trip to the Netherlands where he was to have met with Dutch network heads. The official reason was that he had conflicts in his schedule, but perhaps protests planned by opponents of the regime which could have embarrassed Zarghami during his photo ops also played a part in the cancellation.

So where does the top media executive of a pariah regime have to go to get some love in Europe?

Germany, it seems, where Zarghami was welcomed by not one, but two network presidents in Mainz yesterday, Friday, July 9, 2010. Islamic Republic TV cameras were present to film Zarghami's meeting with ARD chairman Peter Boudgoust and ZDF director-general Markus Schächter:

Peter Boudgoust

'In a friendly meeting with Mr. Zarghami, ARD chief Peter Boudgoust expressed satisfaction with the encounter and said, "We would like to increase our cooperation with [IRIB] by collaborating on all facets of program production and exchanges,"' IRIB journalist Jafar Azizi gushed. Boudgoust also asked Zarghami to help ARD set up an office for its radio operations in Tehran, according to the segment.

'Schächter, the head of the ZDF network, welcomed a close relationship with IRIB and said, "We seek to pave the way for cooperation in all fields of radio and television with Iran,"' IRIB's correspondent said in the report. 'In an official letter, ZDF's president requested the establishment of a representative office in Tehran.'

Markus Schächter

At a time when major German companies such as Siemens and Mercedes are pulling out of the Islamic Republic, the cozy meeting and the statements attributed to the heads of the media outlets, which happen to be public-service networks, are bizarre.

A beaming Zarghami said, 'ZDF and IRIB are two powerful organizations which can engage in extremely worthy cooperation in the field of media. The people of Iran and Germany will be able to see the results.' I'm sure they will.

---
In order to congratulate these two pioneering German media executives on their spirit of entrepreneurship:

Peter Boudgoust
ARD chairman
ARD
Neckarstraße 230
70 190 Stuttgart
Telephone: +49-7 11-92 90
Fax: +49-7 11-9 29 2600
Press office: Harald Dietz
ARD contact page

Markus Schächter
Director-General
ZDF Enterprises GmbH
Erich-Dombrowski-Str. 1
D-55127 Mainz
Tel. +49 (0) 6131-991-0
Fax +49 (0) 6131-991-1552
ZDF contact page

Regime's populist riposte to bazaar strike: 'Merchants sell rugs adorned with pictures of Angelina Jolie and half-naked women'

2010-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Following three days of strikes in Tehran's Bazaar over increased taxes on tradesmen, a semi-official news site launched an attack on rug merchants because they allegedly sell decorative carpets with pictures of female movie stars and bare women in an article posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010. (The photos of the 'offensive rugs' are courtesy of Jahan News)

The regime has long depended on the support of the bazaar and the current unrest which was triggered by reports of a 70% tax hike and has spread to at least two other cities, Tabriz and Khorramshahr, has provoked concern in the government. Rug merchants, along with gold, home appliance, shoe and textile traders, have played a central role in organizing the strikes.

Yesterday, Jahan News, widely considered to be a mouthpiece for the intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), published a report entitled 'Angelina Jolie and half-naked women instead of traditional rug designs.'

The author of the piece bemoaned the fact that in most stores in Tehran's rug bazaar 'there were wall carpets bearing half-bare women and girls, and the faces of [Indian superstar] Aishwarya Rai, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, and some Iranian actresses were more prominently displayed than [traditional rug designs].' But there were more sinister signs of moral decay, according to Jahan News. 'Regretfully, master rug weavers, who in the old days would not sit before their looms before performing ablution, now weave pictures of skulls and swastikas of Satanist groups into Iranian carpets. And even more regretfully, the bulk of rug traders' orders to weavers consists of vulgar pictures of women in various poses.'

Jahan News did not publish any photos of rugs with Hollywood stars or Satanic symbols in its article.

While one merchant told the reporter that he was merely following the shifting tastes of customers -- 'People aren't willing to pay anything for a picture of a vase full of flowers any more.' -- Jahan News pointed an accusatory finger at rug merchants. 'The main culprits are the leading rug traders and merchants who order such carpets in large numbers,' Jahan quoted an anonymous weaver and designer.

Jahan News expressed anger at an alleged CD of designs that rug traders gave to weavers. The CD, according to Jahan, contains designs of Koranic verses and holy cities such as Mecca and Medina along with 'designs of bare women and girls and famous vulgar Bollywood and Hollywood actresses.' Perhaps a digital curtain should have been placed between the sacred and the 'vulgar.'

The editors of the Jahan site took this opportunity to take a jab at the Cultural Heritage Organization. Though the organization is not mentioned in the piece, the title of the post was preceded by the line 'The Cultural Heritage Organization is asleep.'

Rahim Mashai

The CHO was formerly headed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chief-of-staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who was in charge of the arts at Tehran's City Hall when Ahmadinejad was mayor. Rahim Mashai, not a choirboy himself, has been the focus of attacks by some regime hardliners, including portions of the IRGC, and anti-Ahmadinejad Principlists (The reasons for and history of this enmity are too convoluted to explain in this short post). Last year, a majority of Majlis representatives managed to block Ahmadinejad's efforts to name Rahim Mashai first vice-president. Ahmadinejad subsequently made him his chief-of-staff.

Hamid Bahjai

Rahim Mashai was often faulted for his lack of cultural and historical knowledge. He was replaced at the CHO by one of his proteges, Hamid Baghai, who is an IT specialist and whose main qualification for the post appears to have been his close relationship with Rahim Mashai.

Majlis deputies acclaim Khamenei more loudly than the Prophet Muhammed

2010-07-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

A video posted by Jonbesheh Raheh Sabz on Thursday, June 1, 2010, allegedly shows Principlist Majlis representatives mumbling a prayer after the Prophet Muhammed is mentioned at the start of a speech, but enthusiastically acclaiming Leader Ali Khamenei when Speaker Ali Larijani utters his name a few minutes later...

Conservatives who seek a return to the founding principles of the revolution are called Principlists. Though they form one parliamentary group, they have splintered into smaller factions, most notably those who are pro-Ahmadinejad and those who support Larijani. The group as a whole has been accused of deifying Khamenei as the surrogate of the Mahdi, the messiah of Shiites.

Taking Tehran’s Temperature: One Year On

2010-06-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

On June 8, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace organized a fascinating round table on the situation in Iran a year after the fateful and disputed presidential election of last summer. National Public Radio's Steve Inskeep moderated the discussion between Abbas Milani of Stanford University, Gary Sick of Columbia University, and Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour:

'Long live a free Iran!': Paris mayor calls for Iranian democracy on the eve of June 12

2010-06-15T04:43:00.000-07:00

Painting the Iranian people's struggle for freedom with the broad brushstrokes of history, popular Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë invoked his own city's tumultuous battles for liberty minutes before he made Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi an honorary citizen on Thursday, June 10, 2010 (video at the end of this report).

'At this particular moment in time, June 10, I would like to tell all Iranians if they are able to hear me, Paris stands alongside you. The Paris of the French Revolution, the Paris which with its people and its allies overcame Nazism at the liberation of this city on August 25, 1944,' said Delanoë, a senior Socialist leader and national figure. 'In exactly eight days, we will commemorate General de Gaulle's call for resistance, dignity, and love for the homeland, which unified, by the way, all religions, cultures, origins, and even all political opinions. The struggle of Iranians today is simply a struggle for Iran. It is a struggle for the greatness and nobility of this people.'

The press and guests had been called to Paris's city hall to attend a ceremony in honor of Shirin Ebadi. It was the third time the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist had been officially welcomed by Delanoë. Hundreds of guests and dozens of television, radio, and print journalists attended the event.

'By bestowing honorary citizenship of the city of Paris on you, I would like to offer our support to you -- for who you are -- and beyond that to the Iranian people. When I say that I would like to proffer the support of Paris to the Iranian people, I am not speaking of politics in the partisan sense of the word. I am not speaking of this or that candidate. I am speaking of the Iranian people in all their diversity, who have the right to live upright, free to express their beliefs as masters of their own destiny.'

In her acceptance speech, Ebadi recalled the events of a year ago, when millions took to the streets of Tehran and were countered with unabated state violence. 'They expressed their opposition peacefully, based on a right enshrined in the constitution,' Ebadi reminded the audience. 'The only response they obtained was bullets and violence. Over 70 people were killed and thousands were jailed. Some died under torture and others testified that they had been raped in prison.'

And of the regime's hypocritical and cynical release of some political prisoners, the Nobel peace laureate said, 'Some prisoners have been released temporarily, after having paid astronomical bails. The threat of extremely long prison sentences still hangs over them and there are still many detainees who have no access to due judicial process.'

Asked by a blogger after the ceremony how the cyber community can help prisoners of conscience, Ebadi responded, 'Tell the world what they are doing to the Iranian people.'

Ebadi shared the stage with representatives of Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation for Human Rights, who have launched a joint campaign for the release of all prisoners of conscience in Iran. Before the ceremony, the groups distributed leaflets bearing the names of 40 Iranian journalists currently in prison -- from Emadeddine Baghi to Ahmad Zeidabadi -- and recounting the Islamic regime's sorry record over the past year. The web site created by the two organizations contains a petition, naturally open to the general public, which has already been signed by dozens of artists, writers, and activists.

To date, the mayor of Paris is the only political leader to have signed the petition which demands the unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners held by the Islamic Republic. Delanoë has been a staunch supporter of the Iranian democratic movement from the start.

The day after the ceremony with Shirin Ebadi, Bertrand Delanoë published a virulent post on his blog entitled 'Long Live a Free Iran.' I invite readers to visit this page and leave a message of appreciation for this true friend of the Iranian people.

'Today, the intense hope for the future has not abated and the desire for freedom still inflames this proud people who aspire to live upright,' wrote Delanoë. 'Do we understand the extent of the courage these women and men exhibit by defying such a regime? In one year, 23 newspapers have been banned, opposition web sites have been blocked. Dozens of protesters have been arrested and torture appears to have become a sinister norm. On May 9, five political prisoners were hanged in Tehran's Evin prison.'

'Meanwhile, Iran, the one and only, the true Iran has risen up to express its yearning to live free. This is the Iran I would like to address today,' continued the Paris mayor on his personal blog.

And who represent the face of this free Iran? After mentioning Ebadi, Delanoë added, 'It has the face of filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who could not break his chains in time to attend the Cannes film festival and whose empty chair we will never forget. It has the face of poet Simin Behbahani, who was supposed to come to Paris at my invitation to attend International Women's Day on March 8, and who was informed by border police that she had been subjected to a travel ban as she tried to go through Tehran airport. It bears the faces of those young men who defied an order which pretends to be immutable and demonstrated with a veil over their heads, while young women marched with their heads uncovered. It has the face of Ahmad Zeidabadi, Shiva Nazar Ahari, and all prisoners of opinion who have committed no other crime than to want to think, speak, and write freely. It has, alas, the face of those who have left us: Neda, Taraneh, Sohrab, those victims of a security force which is becoming all-powerful as the regime falls increasingly into impotence.'

'To all of them, I wish to express my admiration and affection. And from Paris, on the anniversary of the start of their revolt, we join them in their struggle and their hopes, to cry out alongside them: Long live a free Iran!' concluded Delanoë.

---
Further information

Bertrand Delanoë's latest post on Iran: 'Long Live a Free Iran!' (and a previous post on Iran)
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Joint campaign for the release of prisoners of conscience in Iran

Video of the Shirin Ebadi ceremony at Paris's city hall, June 10, 2010

June 12 - Film projected onto facade of Islamic Republic's London embassy

2010-06-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

Outside embassy, June 2009

Protesters projected a short film documenting the unrest and crackdown following the disputed election onto the facade of the Islamic Republic's embassy in London, south of Hyde Park, on the evening of June 12, 2010.

View London - Islamic Republic's embassy - 12 June 2009 in a larger map

Embassy spotlight is turned on

Footage of the operation was posted on YouTube. The group placed the video projector on the roof a car which was parked across the street from the embassy building. After a few minutes, embassy staff turned on a spotlight situated on the front of the building. 'This is a new form of attack we can wage against the embassy,' the cameraman says at the end of the video:

Earlier in the day, hundreds of demonstrators had gathered in front of the embassy to mark the first anniversary of the disputed election, chanting, 'Neda [Agha Soltan] is not dead. It is the Leader [Ali Khamenei] who is dead.'

Another slogan called out by the crowd was, 'Mesbah, you're dreaming if you think you'll become the supreme leader,' referring to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a hard-line mentor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been a key leader of a faction within the regime which is inspired spiritually by the Hojjatiyeh Society and aims to radicalize the system even more. He has been accused by reformists in the Majlis of seeking to replace Khamenei as the country's next supreme leader.

Two weeks ago, reformist Hadi Khamenei, none other than the brother of Leader Ali Khamenei, blasted the Hojjatiyeh Society for trying to divert and endangering the values of the revolution and its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Hojjatiyeh is increasingly called the Mesbahiyeh because of Mesbah Yazdi's influence within the Shiite adventist organization which opposes religious minorities and adheres to a totalitarian interpretation of the position of supreme leader.

Footage of the London protest earlier in the day was also posted to YouTube:

World Cup 2010 - June12.org demonstrates for human rights in Iran

2010-06-12T04:42:00.000-07:00

The human rights group June12.org handed out fliers in support of human rights in Iran on the first day of the World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa. The group also paid for large advertisements on the backs of buses, calling for the release of jailed activists, including Tehran Transit Workers' Union chief Mansour Ossanlou and journalist Kouhyar Goudarzi.

June 12 - Heavy security presence on anniversary of disputed election

2010-06-12T04:28:00.000-07:00

Video posted to the Internet purports to show heavy security in the Iranian capital on the first anniversary of the disputed election of June 12, 2009. Opposition leaders earlier called off a march along Azadi all the way to Azadi Square. However, some opposition sites have announced plans to congregate on six squares around Tehran from 4PM local time: Sadeghiyeh, Vanak, Saadat Abad, Haft Howz, Rah Ahan, and Hafteh Tir.

Ferdowsi Square, Tehran

Hafteh Tir Square, Tehran

Paris group announces human chain for June 12 anniversary

2010-06-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

'We will not forget...'

In a video posted to YouTube, the Paris chapter of Where Is My Vote announced its intention to organize a human chain of green-clad, masked protesters to mark the anniversary of the June 12 disputed election and honor the faceless political prisoners being held in the Islamic Republic's jails.

The short film shows the preparations for Saturday's event which will begin at the Mur de la Paix (Wall of Peace art installation, southeast of the Eiffel Tower) and extend to the Invalides at 2PM, June 12, 2010.

In a tongue-in-cheek reference to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that the Islamic Republic is the freest democracy in the world and that any legal group can obtain a permit to stage a demonstration, the video begins with one of the group's members going to the Paris police headquarters. He exits a short while later, holding up his fingers in a V sign and brandishing a permit for Saturday's protest. 'It says we can do everything. Wear masks, make a human chain, expose Ahmadinejad,' says the organizer.

'Who said it was difficult to get a permit in France?' asks the cameraman. 'Ahmadinejad,' responds his associate. 'They said, wear masks, hold hands, and go all the way from the military school to Invalides.'

View Paris - protest - 2:00 PM - 12 June 2010 in a larger map

The organizers are then shown distributing and posting fliers around the city -- from crepe shops to rug stores to telephone booths.

Where Is My Vote has been particularly active over the past year and has launched spectacular protests. In the lead-up to the February 11 anniversary of the revolution, they splattered the IRI embassy with green paint and famously heckled a garden party organized by the Islamic Republic's embassy which led His Excellency the ambassador to get into a scuffle with French police. In August, they covered the windows of the Iran Air office with stickers bearing slogans against the Islamic regime:

Iranian film among Democracy Challenge finalists

2010-06-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

Farbod Khoshtinat

A young Iranian director's short film has garnered enough votes to be among the 18 finalists of the Democracy Challenge competition, organized by the US government and featured on YouTube. The film with the greatest number of votes by midnight, June 15, 2010, will be declared the winner of the challenge to create a short video that completes the phrase 'Democracy is...' and will be awarded with the chance to meet industry insiders, democracy activists, and government leaders in Washington DC, New York, and Los Angeles.

Farbod Khoshtinat, 21, entered the competition with a short film called 'ATTN: Mr. Democrat.' He is currently one of the front-runners, but needs more votes to win the challenge.

Khoshtinat, aka Fred, attended the 'Seda-va-Sima' high school where he obtained a degree in cinema. He graduated from Tehran's University of Applied Science and Technology (Elmi Karbordi) in 2007.

After founding Persian Underground Cinematic Arts, he directed the wildly-successful video of 'Ye Mosht Sarbaz' (Bunch of Soldiers) by rapper Hichkas in 2008. The regime's radio-television used a short segment of the clip in a propaganda program which compared rappers to drug-addled Satanists:

Director Bahman Ghobadi called on Khoshtinat's talents to edit all the video clips in 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' which won the special jury prize in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes film festival last year.

His short film 'ATTN: Mr. Democrat' features animation by Taraneh Golozar and a beautiful score by Shahin Pajoom.

To help Khoshtinat win the Democracy Challenge, please vote in the following manner:
Sign In to your YouTube account
Go to YouTube.com/DemocracyChallenge
Click on VOTE, search for ATTN: Mr. Democrat
Click on green thumbs up to vote

A new video of Neda's death

2010-06-11T01:33:00.000-07:00

A new video posted on the Internet shows the last moments of Neda Agha Soltan. It also provides a fleeting glance at the face of the person -- a balding, gray-haired man -- who filmed the original footage of her death.

For Neda: View HBO documentary in three languages

2010-06-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

This film will have its official television premiere on the American channel HBO on June 14, 2010. For more information on this documentary, please click here to go to HBO's page.

In Farsi:

In English:

In Arabic:

Close-up: The case of the missing nuclear scientist

2010-06-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

Much of the information coming out of Iran is in the form of footage uploaded to the Internet without the benefit of any description or explanation. Each installment in the Close-up series provides an in-depth analysis of a single video or a series of videos covering one event.

Summary
The Islamic Republic's state television broadcast a video on its evening news on Monday, June 7, 2010, which it contended was made by Shahram Amiri, an Iranian scientist who went missing on June 3, 2009, and was obtained through 'special methods' by the Islamic regime's intelligence agencies. The Islamic Republic claims that Amiri is a scientist who does not work for the country's nuclear program and that he was abducted in Medina, Saudi Arabia, by the United States while he was on a pilgrimage. The US has declared that it has no information concerning Amiri, although ABC News reported in March 2010 that Amiri was a scientist working in the IRI's nuclear program, and that he had defected to the US and was cooperating with the CIA. The grainy film, apparently shot on a computer, shows a person alleged to be Amiri saying that he is currently in the US, that he was abducted by the US, and that he had been tortured in order to get him to tell an American news outlet in a televised interview that he had handed over crucial secret information about the IRI's nuclear weapons program.

8 hours later, a second film, this one much more polished, appeared on the Internet, showing the same person. This time the person alleged to be Amiri said that he had not been abducted, that he was free and safe in the US, and that he planned to obtain a doctorate in an American institution.

The veracity of the films, their source, and whether or not they are a part of a disinformation campaign, are unclear.

The videos

Video 1
This is the first video from the state television of the Islamic Republic (translation follows). I am placing quotes around the name Shahram Amiri because the individual's identity remains to be confirmed:

Voice-over
This individual is Shahram Amiri, the Iranian researcher who disappeared a year ago. How was Amiri abducted and where is he now? The answer in Amiri's own words...

'Shahram Amiri'
In the name of God. Today is Tuesday, Farvardin 17, 1389, which corresponds to April 5, 2010. I am Shahram Amiri, expert and researcher at Malek-Ashtar University of Technology. I am currently in the city of Tucson, state of Arizona in the United States. On Khordad 13, 1388 (NB June 3, 2009) in an operation coordinated between the terroristic and abduction teams of the American intelligence agency CIA and Saudi Arabia's Istikhbarat, I was abducted from Medina Munnawarah (NB alternate name of Medina, Saudi Arabia, which means enlightened city). They transferred me to a house in an unknown location in Saudi Arabia. They injected me with a syringe which made me unconscious in this house. When I regained consciousness, (garbled) in an American wide-body aircraft going towards the United States.

Voice-over
During this time, what did the Americans want from Shahram Amiri, this Iranian researcher?

'Shahram Amiri'
Over the eight months that I was kept in the United States, I was subjected by interrogation teams of the American intelligence agency to the most severe torture and psychological pressure. The main goal and the main pressure that these interrogation, in reality torture, teams exerted on me... Their goal was, they wanted this from me, that I claim, in a televised interview with an American news outlet, that I am an important person in the Iranian nuclear program and that I requested asylum from the United States. And that in the course of requesting asylum, I had handed over important evidence and documents from my country, along with a laptop containing secret information on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Voice-over
Why do the Americans want to force Shahram Amiri to falsely claim that he has important information about Iran's nuclear program?

Shahram Amiri
The main goal in these developments is to put political pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran and to condemn... to prove the lies that the United States continuously utters about the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Voice-over
This Iranian researcher also directed a request to international organizations in this footage which lasts minutes...

'Shahram Amiri'
I ask organizations and departments which are concerned with human rights and are active in seeking freedom for captives to pursue my case. I have truly been abducted unjustly from a third country and brought to the United States. I ask that you put all your efforts and energy into obtaining my freedom so I may return to my dear homeland, Iran.

Voice-over
And his words for his family...

'Shahram Amiri'
I'd like to say a few words to my dear family. If they see my speech some day, if they hear my final words, I ask them to please be patient.

Voice-over
The words of this Iranian researcher which were obtained by Iran's intelligence bodies through special methods are the clearest evidence of his abduction by the United States, with the cooperation of Saudi Arabia's government. This film also constitutes unique proof that the United States' claims about Iran's nuclear program are no more than worthless fabrications. The United States must now answer for this abduction.

Video 2
The following is the footage posted to YouTube channel ShahramAmiri2010 about 8 hours later (translation follows):

'Shahram Amiri'
I would like to express my greetings and gratitude for the opportunity given to me to be able to speak directly to the international community. I, Shahram Amiri, citizen of the Islamic Republic of Iran, am in the United States and intend to continue my studies in this country.

I am free here and assure everyone that I am safe. My aim in today's comments is to put an end to all the rumors and accusations concerning me in the past year.

I am an Iranian and have not taken any action against my homeland. My hope is to see Iran and its people at the summit of progress and success. I am not a political individual and have no particular interest in the political affairs or positions of any government or country.

I do not believe in weapons research and have no experience or knowledge in this field. I am a simple health physics researcher who is studying and researching in the field of protection against radiation.

My plan, while I am in the United States, is to obtain a doctorate in health physics in order to help improve the health and safety of Iranians and the international community. After completing my studies, if the conditions for my safe travel are ensured, I hope that my studies here will be beneficial for Iranians and international academic and scientific circles.

During the period I have been engaged in scientific and academic activities, I have really missed my dear wife Azar and my son Amir Hossein. I know that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will take care of and protect my family. I want them to know that I never abandoned them and that I will always love them. I hope to see them again and to join them after the completion of my studies.

I ask everyone to stop giving the wrong image of me.

Finally, I thank and express gratitude to the international community for its correct understanding and support for Iran's positive advances and its proud people's achievements

Thank you.

What follows is my personal analysis, which is obviously not infallible. I must add that I believe that no intelligence service, including the CIA, is above carrying out such an abduction and that Amiri may very well have been taken to the US against his will.

But I also believe that the evidence strongly suggests that both videos were made by the same intelligence service, most probably the intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in order to put pressure on the US and to discredit allegations made against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. If this is the case, then either the person in the videos is Amiri, he was never abducted by anyone, and the whole affair was a disinformation operation from the start or the person in the videos is a lookalike employed by the IRGC. I lean towards the second option.

The videos are complementary although they are made to look as if one is genuine (Video 1 which is grainy) and the other is fabricated (Video 2 which is polished), a hurried reaction by the CIA. The messages in both, overt in Video 1 because it is supposed to be the truth and hidden in Video 2 because it is so obviously acted out that any any reasonably intelligent person is expected to believe the opposite of what is being said, is the same: 'I am not free. I was abducted. The US violates human rights and is making false accusations against the Iranian nuclear program.'

I encourage readers to freely comment at the end of the article.

Where is Shahram Amiri?
Given the Islamic Republic's astute use of disinformation in the past, it is worth asking whether Amiri is missing at all or whether he is somewhere in Iran. This is the same regime, for example, which created the story of a young woman, Saeedeh Pouraghai, who was allegedly raped and murdered by the Islamic Republic's security forces. After the opposition started reporting this 'fact,' the intelligence services presented Saeedeh, very much alive, on the evening news show '20:30.'

According to the Islamic Republic, Shahram Amiri went missing on June 2, 2009, but it was not until October 7 that Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki officially accused the US of being behind his disappearance. Meanwhile IRI Supreme National Security Council chief Saeed Jalili had been engaged in nuclear talks with US Undersecretary of State William Burns, of which even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had said, 'The U.S. representative had asked for talks, Mr. Jalili welcomed the proposal, and their negotiations were fruitful.' During the same period hard-liner Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the arch-conservative Keyhan daily and the representative of the Leader at the Keyhan Institute, was writing vociferously against the talks in his newspaper's columns and wrote of Ahmadinejad's positive comments about the discussions, 'There is no doubt that Dr. Ahmadinejad’s remark was a slip of the tongue.' (For a look at the reformists' opinion of these events, please click here to go to the foreign policy web site of Sadegh Kharrazi, former ambassador to the UN and France, and senior adviser to President Mohammad Khatami.)

The fiasco that ensued -- Jalili first accepted the terms put forth at the Geneva 2 Talks, but then Leader Ali Khamenei backtracked -- indicate that there may have been serious differences in the country's senior leadership at the time. Ali Alfoneh, an expert on the IRGC at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Voice of America that Jalili would not have been able to agree to the Geneva proposals if he had not received the express acquiescence of Khamenei. He surmised that the IRGC, which is in charge of the nuclear program, had subsequently convinced Khamenei that he should not accept the terms of the agreement.

Could the Amiri affair have been designed by hardliners to derail any nuclear agreement? Could part of the intelligence services, particularly the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guards whose power has increased at the expense of the Intelligence Ministry, have organized a fake disappearance?

Not only would such a plan have been useful in sidelining those in the regime who wish to reach some sort of nuclear settlement (and they certainly exist), but Amiri could also be pulled out at an opportune time, in a grainy video somehow secreted out of an American dungeon for example, to discredit accusations against Iran's nuclear program. This week, with Russia's hardening stance towards the Islamic Republic and UN sanctions looming in the near future, appears to be just such an opportune time.

Is the man in the videos Shahram Amiri?

It is particularly difficult to judge whether the man who appears in the videos is the same man whose photo has been presented by the Islamic Republic as Shahram Amiri.

First the easy part. I think it is clear to everyone that both videos almost certainly show the same man. So the best image, one from Video 2, can be used as a point of comparison.

The following are the very few photos which have been made public and I managed to find. If readers have located others, please send a file or a link.

First, a photo of Shahram Amiri's passport with a detail showing the ID photo. This is the passport used by Amiri to travel to Saudi Arabia. The pages on the left show a Saudi visa and an entry stamp:

Next, a batch of three photographs which are really variations of the same shot. Strangely, although the Islamic Republic has publicized the case of Amiri for close to a year, it had refrained from issuing any other image of the scientist except this low-quality shot until last night. Photo 1A appears stretched and Photo 1C seems compressed. Photo 1B is the most likely original portrait. My initial reaction is that any customs officer receiving a passport bearing the photos below from the gentleman in Video 2 would take a much closer look.

Photo 1A

Photo 1B

Photo 1C

The following photograph was used in the state television report last night. It was, as far as I could ascertain, the first new photo allegedly of Amiri that had been released since the one above. Notwithstanding the similar beard and the nose, a comparison between Photo 2 and Photo 1B does not seem conclusive. Why did state television suddenly decide to use this new photo instead?:

Photo 2

Photo 2 more closely resembles the man in Video 1 and Video 2, than Photo 1B. Is Photo 2 the image that state media will be using from now on?:

Most international news reports wrote that the person in the video somewhat resembled Shahram Amiri, but they were basing themselves on the photo that state television had placed next to the video. What if photo 1B had been used?:

The greater resemblance between Photo 2 and the man in the videos is more apparent when I place a beard on him and make him thinner:

Furthermore I find differences between the eyebrows of the man in Video 2, which actually appear plucked, and those of Photo 1B which arch slightly at the ends. The eyes are not completely similar either and appear larger in Photo 1B:

Biometrics is a complex science and I am not an expert by any means. However the inconclusive evidence seems to suggest that the man in the videos more strongly resembles the man in Photo 2 than the one in Photo 1B. That state media decided to introduce another alleged photo of Amiri (Photo 2), instead of the one which had been used thus far (Photo 1B), provokes some suspicion.

Tortured and placed under psychological pressure for eight months?
The man in video 1 claims that after his abduction he was taken to the US, where he was subjected 'to the most severe torture and psychological pressure' for 8 months. That means he was mistreated until early February, allegedly two months before the video was made. Is it likely that such a person would have gained so much weight? Is it also likely that such a person would have access to a computer and an unsupervised private room two months after enduring such hardship? And if he did, would he also be given a headset with a microphone?

Why the analysis?
Halfway through Video 1, the man explains why the US wanted him to say certain things in a televised interview: 'To put political pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran and to condemn... to prove the lies that the United States continuously utters about the Islamic Republic of Iran.' Would a captive give political analysis of this sort? The statement appears contrived and manufactured to play well on the evening news in Tehran. In fact, it is somehow the exact conclusion given in the voice-over at the end of the footage.

The Istikhbarat?
How does the man in Video 1 know that agents of the Saudi intelligence service helped the Americans abduct him? Because they spoke Arabic? Just like the analysis mentioned above, this detail appears incongruous and designed to play well to audiences. It also places pressure on a regional rival of the Islamic Republic and ally of the US.

The date
The man in Video 1 begins by giving the date: 'Tuesday, Farvardin 17, 1389, which corresponds to April 5, 2010.' The 17th of Farvardin was indeed a Tuesday, but it corresponded to April 6, not 5. Wouldn't a captive being held in the US be more familiar with the American date rather than the Iranian one?

Details of the actual abduction?
The man in Video 1 provides many details -- I'm an expert AND researcher, it was a wide-body aircraft that took me to the US... -- but he fails to give the first information that one would expect from a victim of an abduction: The actual place and time and manner he was taken. Was it at his hotel? On the street? In a restaurant's lavatory? Did four men jump out of a car?

Patently fake
Video 2 so obviously looks fake that it is laughable and seems designed to make the viewer question its veracity. The decor desperately screams out that it is in the US. All that's missing is a fireplace and prints of Sedona, Arizona, on the wall. The globe is turned so that the US is pointing towards the camera. The man hams it up to the camera to appear uncomfortable and glum, regularly swallowing hard, his eyes darting in an excessively obvious manner to the side every now and again to read what we are expected to understand is the text prepared for him.

This is supposed to help the US?
Why would the CIA want the man in Video 2 to say that he has no experience in nuclear weapons research and that he works in the field of health physics? This would confirm what the man says in Video 1. And why would the CIA want him to say, 'I thank and express gratitude to the international community for its correct understanding and support for Iran's positive advances and its proud people's achievements,' when the statement sounds like an Ahmadinejad speech extolling Iran's advances in nuclear research?

Why would the CIA want him to say he is pursuing a doctorate in health physics when this can easily be verified by checking the limited number of institutions which offer doctorates in that field? And wouldn't every reasonably intelligent person wonder where and when he had obtained his student visa? I don't suppose everyone at the CIA is a genius, but I expect that they could have come up with a more convincing story that could not be debunked so easily. Not to speak of a better video that did not appear so fake.

And finally, a threat to the real Amiri?
'During the period I have been engaged in scientific and academic activities, I have really missed my dear wife Azar and my son Amir Hossein. I know that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will take care of and protect my family.' No comment.

Free goodies: It must be another regime event

2010-06-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

Arch-concervative newspaper Keyhan wrote yesterday that two million people would attend. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps announced that it could have brought in five million people, but that housing issues precluded busing in so many.

Whatever the number of participants at the ceremony for the 21st anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death held at his mausoleum on June 4, 2010 -- and we can almost be certain that Keyhan's figure of 2 million will be presented as fact in tomorrow's newspapers -- it wouldn't be a proper regime-organized, yet somehow 'spontaneous' show of popular support, if there were no handouts for the masses, particularly the ever-popular Sundis fruit juice. The term Sundis-khor (Sundis drinker) has entered the Iranian political lexicon as a term for those who support the regime out of interest.

Already yesterday, as a part of preparations for the event, Basij trucks loaded with crates of juice, fruit, and other goods could be seen around Tehran and the suburbs. The photo to the right shows a vehicle with the emblem of the Karaj chapter of the Basij.

Well today's event did not disappoint as videos posted to the Internet show.

The beginning of the first video shows what are referred to as istgaheh salavati or praise booths where gifts are handed out to participants. The second part shows people carrying away crates of fruit or other gifts. Incidentally, the voice heard over the loudspeakers is Leader Ali Khamenei delivering his long-awaited sermon:

The second video shows youngsters carrying away as many crates as they can, with whatever means at their disposal. Notice another mainstay of such events -- the buses in the background:

In the following videos, the masses converge on the handout booths with extreme vigor:

When abuse becomes ingrained in security forces: video shows police mistreating illegal Afghan immigrants

2010-06-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

Footage released by the Reporters and Human Rights Activists News Agency (RAHANA) on Thursday, June 3, 2010, shows the security forces of the Islamic Republic abusing captured illegal Afghan immigrants.

The Afghans were captured around Rafsanjan, Kerman province, and taken by truck to a police base outside the town about two weeks ago, according to RAHANA.

View Rafsanjan, Kerman province - Afghans are abused by islamic Republic security forces - 20 May 2010 in a larger map

The film shows a police officer ordering the captured Afghans to beat themselves, beat the person in front of them, or stand and sit repeatedly. 'One, two, three. One, two, three. Harder. Harder,' the police officer shouts, setting the pace for the prisoners to beat themselves on the head. A fellow security officer can be clearly heard laughing and snickering in the background.

'We won't come to Iran again,' says an Afghan. The sadistic police officer is inspired by this remark and asks everyone to repeat it in unison.

Khamenei delivers dire threat to opposition leaders

2010-06-04T03:28:00.000-07:00

Leader Ali Khamenei radically hardened his stance against opposition leaders during his sermon at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum in a ceremony marking the 21st anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic's founder.

Referring to Islamic history, Khamenei recounted how Imam Ali, the first imam of Shiites and Muhammed's son-in-law, led his forces from Medina against former allies who had strayed from the true path in the 7th century AD.

The two main opposition figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, were close companions of Khomeini and held important positions in the Islamic Republic. Mousavi was Khomeini's prime minister during the crucial war years in the 1980s. Karroubi was placed at the head of the powerful and extremely well-funded Martyrs Foundation at Khomeini's personal order in the same period. Karroubi later served as the Speaker of the Majlis.

In an allusion to the two men in particular, and dozens of senior leaders from opposition parties who also held important functions within the apparatus but have been imprisoned or otherwise silenced since the presidential election, Khamenei said that the true criteria for judging individuals is their current positions towards the regime, not their pasts.

Ghotbzadeh and Khomeini

Then Khamenei made a thinly-veiled and extraordinary threat. 'There were individuals who accompanied the Imam [Khomeini] on the plane to Tehran who were later executed [for treason],' he said. Khomeini, who had been residing in the french village of Neauphle le Château, flew triumphantly from Paris to Tehran on February 1, 1979. Only his closest aides accompanied him on that trip. Many were later arrested, exiled, or executed, including Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who sat next to Khomeini on the flight to Tehran. Ghotbzadeh served as the head of state radio-television and foreign minister before being arrested and executed in 1982. He was allegedly severely tortured to obtain his confession of plotting against the regime.

Mousavi and Karroubi ran in the disputed June 12 election of last year after the Guardian Council validated their candidacies. Mohsen Rezai, the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps during the Iran-Iraq War, was the fourth candidate. All three men initially made accusations of fraud after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, although Rezai subsequently retracted his charges and tempered his critique of the government.

Rezai was present in the audience at today's sermon. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Expediency Council chief and Assembly of Experts president, was also there, sitting in the front row, a few places away from Ahmadinejad who has famously accused him and his family of corruption.

Ahmadinejad employed the same bellicose tone and themes in his speech which preceded Khamenei's. Stressing that the Islamic Republic has the most democratic government in the world and that he had really garnered 25 million votes, Ahmadinejad said it was strange that the opposition leaders claimed they were followers of Khomeini's path, when they were actually moving in line with 'monarchists [...] and world arrogance (NB The US or Western powers) who were the worst enemies of the Imam.'

'According to the Imam, preserving the regime is of the highest importance,' Ahmadinejad said. 'I am sorry to say that those who are tarnishing the reputation of the Islamic Republic cannot claim to be followers of the Imam.'

EU legislators greet regime's FM with cries of 'murderer' and photos of Neda

2010-06-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

Islamic Republic Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki received a less than enthusiastic reception from some EU parliamentarians as he made his way into the Foreign Affairs Committee in Brussels to make a speech on Tuesday, June 1, 2010.

British conservative legislator Struan Stevenson held up a photo of Neda Agha Soltan, who was killed by regime security forces during a protest in Tehran last year. He shouted 'murderer' at Mottaki as the Foreign Minister pushed his way into the committee hearing room.

Other legislators, particularly from Italy, Spain, and Estonia, joined the unusual protest, during which EU parliament security agents pushed back members of parliament, who were brandishing photos of Neda. 'We should never have invited him in the first place,' a British lawmaker can be heard saying on footage of the skirmish.

Satellite news channel Al Arabiya reported on the event and broadcast the same footage:

Meanwhile, protesters stood outside the European Union building in Brussels. One Iranian woman took a Belgian representative to task for organizing a luncheon with Mottaki as she explained that members of her family had been killed by the Islamic regime. She pointed to an older woman next to her and said that she had also lost dear ones, namely a son and a niece:

---

Further reading: The Wall Street Journal - 'Honoring Neda Soltan's Memory'

Close-Up: Students commemorate Kianoush Asa's death

2010-06-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

Kianoush Asa

Chemical engineering building

Students were asked to congregate in front of the chemical engineering school (number 1 on map below) of Elm-o-Sanat University at noon. Kianoush Asa was studying to become a petrochemical engineer before he was killed.

The following footage shows students amassed in front of the chemical engineering school as they shout, 'Students would rather die than accept humiliation':

The protesters then marched peacefully towards what has come to be called Martyr Kianoush Asa Park (number 2 on map), a green area between the men's cafeteria and the professor's cafeteria. Students have started calling the area Asa Park since a memorial service was held for Kianoush there last year.

Students chanted 'Honorable student, support, support.' They cover their faces as they go past a man who is filming them:

The same man can be seen in this footage trying to film the faces of the students:

'We are all Kianoush and Neda. We speak with one voice,' they said, referring to Asa and Neda Agha Soltan, perhaps the most famous protester killed by security forces:

'Woe on Science and Technology University if it accepts humiliation':

Students sang the protest anthem 'Yareh Dabestaniyeh Man' (My Schoolmate). For a subtitled clip of a new version of the song, please click here:

The protesters chanted the name of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. 'Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein':

On March 9, 2010, Students celebrated what would have been the birthday of Kianoush at Asa Park:

Greens stage mock ballot in Stockholm

2010-06-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

The Green Democracy group, based in Sweden, has staged another anti-Ahmadinejad event, part performance art, part demonstration. The participants organized a mock ballot in front of a banner proclaiming, 'Iran re-election 2010. Ahmadinejad is not Iran's president':

In March, to mark protests which took place around Iran during the chahar shanbeh souri fire festival, members of the group stationed themselves in public places in Stockholm and displayed videos documenting the post-election unrest on laptops:

Police stuff three suspects into car trunks

2010-05-31T04:41:00.000-07:00

Video posted to the Internet on Monday, May 31, 2010, allegedly shows Islamic Republic police officers placing three suspects in the trunks of two police cars in Kermanshah, the capital of Kermanshah province, in western Iran. The majority of the population in that area is Kurdish.

The automobiles bear what appear to be official markings of Islamic Republic Security Forces police cars and official black registration plates. The smaller print on the car doors are illegible, but are situated in the usual spot where the jurisdiction and unit of Islamic Republic police forces are placed.

I invite readers who manage to read the writing on the car doors or who can ascertain the make of the automobiles to leave a comment.

Amnesty International releases annual report

2010-05-28T04:09:00.000-07:00

Amnesty International released its annual report on the state of the world's human rights on Thursday, May 27, 2010. The document covers the period from January to December 2009.

In the introduction to the section addressing Iran, Amnesty states:

An intensified clampdown on political protest preceded and, particularly, followed the presidential election in June, whose outcome was widely disputed, deepening the long-standing patterns of repression. The security forces, notably the paramilitary Basij, used excessive force against demonstrators; dozens of people were killed or fatally injured. The authorities suppressed freedom of expression to an unprecedented level, blocking mobile and terrestrial phone networks and internet communications. Well over 5,000 people had been detained by the end of the year. Many were tortured, including some who were alleged to have been raped in detention, or otherwise ill-treated. Some died from their injuries. Dozens were then prosecuted in grossly unfair mass “show trials”. Most were sentenced to prison terms but at least six were sentenced to death. The election-related violations occurred against a background of severe repression, which persisted throughout 2009 and whose victims included members of ethnic and religious minorities, students, human rights defenders and advocates of political reform. Women continued to face severe discrimination under the law and in practice, and women’s rights campaigners were harassed, arrested and imprisoned. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained rife and at least 12 people died in custody. Detainees were systematically denied access to lawyers, medical care and their families, and many faced unfair trials. Iran remained one of the states with the highest rates of execution and one of very few still to execute juvenile offenders: at least 388 people were executed, including one by stoning and at least five juveniles.

The report provides an overview of human rights violations in the Islamic Republic over the 12-month period which ended in December 2009 and includes the following highlights:

Unlawful killings

The authorities said 43 died in the protests but opposition sources said the true total was likely to be over 100.

Arrests and detentions

Well over 5,000 people were detained after the election by the end of the year, including opposition politicians, journalists, academics, students, lawyers, human rights activists and army officers.

Rape and other torture

Compelling evidence emerged that a number of detainees, both women and men, had been raped and otherwise tortured in detention, but instead of investigating allegations thoroughly, the authorities were quick to deny them and then harassed the victims and closed the offices of a committee collecting victims’ testimonies.

Unfair trials

Mass “show trials” involving scores of detainees were staged in successive sessions beginning in August. [...] More than 80 were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of up to 15 years; at least six others were sentenced to death.

Human rights defenders

Human rights defenders, including minority and women’s rights activists, lawyers and trade unionists, continued to face arbitrary arrest, harassment, prosecution and unfair trials throughout the year.

Discrimination against women

Women’s rights campaigners, including those active in the “One Million Signatures” campaign to end legal discrimination, were harassed, detained, prosecuted and banned from travelling for collecting signatures in support of their petition.

Freedom of expression and association

The authorities blocked websites voicing criticism, notably those of Iranian bloggers, and periodically blocked those of foreign news media reporting on Iran. [...] They also shut down or maintained bans on tens of journals, magazines and other print media, targeted critical journalists and infiltrated and undermined independent civil society groups.

Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities

Members of Iran’s ethnic minorities continued to face discrimination along with harassment and imprisonment for advocating greater respect for social and cultural rights. [...] Among those targeted were Sunni Muslim clerics; Shi’a clerics advocating the separation of the state from religion; members of the Dervish and Ahl-e Haqq communities; members of a philosophical association called Al-e Yasin; Christians; and members of the Baha’i community, who remained unable to access higher education.

Torture and other ill-treatment

Methods reported included severe beatings; confinement in tiny spaces; deprivation of light, food and water; and systematic denial of medical treatment. At least 12 people were believed to have died in custody in 2009 apparently as a result of ill-treatment or lack of adequate medical care.

Death penalty

The rate of reported executions rose sharply during the unrest between the presidential election on 12 June and the inauguration on 5 August – 112 executions were recorded, an average of more than two a day.

To view and download the report in PDF format, please click on the links below:
A-Z Country Entries
The full report

The following video was released as an accompaniment to the 2010 Amnesty International report:

Tabriz soccer victory triggers protests

2010-05-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

Jubilation following the victory of a local soccer team led to demonstrations for minority rights in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province, on Tuesday, May 25, 2010.

The game between Tabriz City Hall (Shahrdari Tabriz) and Kaveh, a team from Tehran, ended with a goal by the home team in the final seconds of overtime, clinching a 2-1 victory and all but guaranteeing the ascension of Shahrdari from the second division to the premier league next season. Some of the over 20,000 cheering spectators at Takhti stadium, also known as Baghshomal, rushed onto the field after the game ended.

View Tabriz - Takhti (Baghshomal) Stadium - 25 May 2010 in a larger map

Demonstrator arrested

The celebrations seeped into the streets surrounding the stadium, northwest of Tabriz University, and the cries of joy soon gave way to chants demanding, among other things, the right to teach the Azeri language in local schools.

The following footage shows the street protest. Plainclothesmen can be seen arresting at least one protester at the tail end of the cortege (2:12 mark).

Photos show Panahi gaunt, yet determined, just after his release

2010-05-26T02:44:00.000-07:00

Panahi, Montreal film festival, September 2009

Celebrated filmmaker Jafar Panahi posed for several photos in his Tehran home just after being released on bail from Evin Prison on Tuesday, May 25, 2010. The images show a gaunt, yet determined, Panahi. He had started a hunger strike last weekend to protest threats made against his family -- particularly to imprison his daughter and subject her to inhumane treatment in jail -- and to gain access to his family and lawyer.

Panahi had been arrested on March 1 on charges which have yet to be explained by the Islamic regime. He awaits trial at the Tehran Revolutionary Court.

Bail was set at 200 million toumans (about $200,000). The sum, significant in the West, is back-breakingly steep in the Islamic Republic. The regime uses such large bail amounts as a weapon to keep dissidents in check, even after they have been temporarily released from prison.

Panahi is said to have been preparing a film based on the post-election unrest when he was arrested. In September 2009, he was the president of the jury at the 33rd Montreal Film Festival and used the occasion to voice his support for the democracy movement in Iran. He was subsequently banned from traveling abroad.

The following footage shows Panahi at the Montreal festival, where he explained he was wearing a green scarf for 'the kids in Iran. For freedom. For the kids who are in prison. They don't allow us to make films now, but hundreds of thousands of kids with cameras have become filmmakers.'

In an unscripted and moving moment on the red carpet, Panahi called over a number of Iranian protesters and embraced them. 'Long live the children of Iran,' he said as he applauded the green-clad group.

Shouts of protest greet Ahmadinejad in Khorramshahr

2010-05-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

Despite efforts to carefully orchestrate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's official visits to avoid embarrassing situations and paint him as a popular national leader, live footage of the president's speech in Khorramshahr, Khuzestan province, was overwhelmed by the crowd's incessant shouts of 'unemployment, unemployment' on Monday, May 24, 2010.

View Khorramshahr - crowd shouts 'bikari, bikari' (unemployment, unemployment) during Ahmadinejad speech - 24 May 2010 in a larger map

Ahmadinejad wears green

Ahmadinejad was in Khorramshahr to celebrate the liberation of the city on May 24, 1982, considered a turning point in the Iran-Iraq War. The inauguration of a water pipeline was also announced with much pomp. But the restless crowd of people who greeted Ahmadinejad had little interest in celebrating Operation Beit ol-Moghaddas which took back the port city from Iraqi forces, a seminal event in the history of the Islamic Republic, or to revel in a waterworks project.

Poster says 'Yes we can'

Ahmadinejad attempted to shout over the cries of the population, but even his promises to stem unemployment in the southwestern province failed to trigger applause or to calm the people's loud refrain of 'bikari, bikari!' (unemployment, unemployment!) 'The government is at your service,' said the beleaguered Ahmadinejad. 'With broad projects, with the efforts of the dear youth of Khorramshahr and Khuzestan province, it will uproot unemployment from Khuzestan, god willing.'

A tale of two dungeons

2010-05-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

Bernard-Henri Lévy

The Cannes festival kicked off Wednesday and unlike the Oscars where the organizers frown upon anything to do with activism, this international gathering of film talent welcomes political controversy and strong opinions.

So it came as no surprise that French philosopher and celebrity intellectual figure Bernard-Henri Lévy decided to use the festival opening as a springboard for a petition denouncing the 'denial of the legal rights' of a filmmaker who has been kept in 'Kafkaesque isolation' and 'forbidden to see his comrades, his colleagues and, sometimes, his friends.'

Lévy managed to make a splash by getting a dozen directors whose films have been selected to compete at this year's Cannes festival -- including Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, Olivier Assayas... -- to sign a petition in support of the long-suffering director.

I refer of course to... Roman Polanski.

What!? Not Jafar Panahi?

Shortly after the Islamic regime arrested world-renowned director Jafar Panahi in early March because he was preparing to make a movie about the post-election unrest, Cannes festival president Gilles Jacob announced that he would invite Panahi to the festival as a special guest. Then on April 15, after unveiling his film selection, Jacob declared that Panahi had been chosen as a member of the festival jury presided by Tim Burton.

On Tuesday, festival director Thierry Frémaux had piqued the attention of the media by saying that a special gesture would be made to Panahi during the opening ceremony the next day. It was also announced that a short film showing the Iranian filmmaker describing a previous arrest and interrogation would be screened on Thursday afternoon, during the official opening of the 'Un Certain Regard' section of the festival. By then Panahi would have been in prison for over 70 days.

It was the eve of the festival's opening day and everything was in place to focus media attention on the plight of one Iranian filmmaker who would represent all the victims of human rights violations in the Islamic Republic.

And that's when Bernard-Henri Lévy decided to bring his petition on behalf of Polanski to the attention of the world. His act was all the more perplexing because he has been a friend of the democracy movement in Iran and has participated in protest marches against the Islamic Republic.

Roman Polanski has been under house arrest in his chalet in the skiing resort of Gstaad, awaiting the Swiss judiciary's decision on an American extradition request. This is the Kafkaesque isolation to which Lévy refers.

Polanski fled the US in 1978 just before being sentenced in a case involving sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl. His defenders proclaim that Polanski has been unfairly singled out and that he should not be extradited because, among various reasons, a statute of limitations should apply, the victim no longer wants Polanski to be prosecuted, and the filmmaker has already served his sentence because he spent 42 days confined to Chino state prison for psychiatric evaluation.

I do not want to argue whether the case put forward by Polanski's advocates has any merit. I am not a lawyer and I do not know the details of the case.

But I do know that Lévy is an adroit manipulator of the media, in a good way I should add, since he has often highlighted legitimate human rights abuses around the globe. He knew exactly what he was doing with his latest effort. His goal was to have people mention Panahi and Polanski as victims in the same breath.

Tim Burton and the festival organizers' decision to include an empty chair bearing Panahi's name on the stage next to the other jury members at the opening ceremony was a fantastic coup which has been reported around the world:

However, it was also noteworthy that a journalist at the jury's press conference asked Burton about his thoughts on Panahi AND Polanski. 'All of us are for freedom of expression. We fight for that every day and in our lives,' responded the jury president, as vaguely as he could.

This didn't sit well with Lévy, who griped to a radio station Friday morning, 'When you're the president [sic] of the Cannes festival, when you have the opportunity to tell a comrade, whom you know very well is not a pedophile, when you have the opportunity to express your support to him and you just say, "I'm for freedom of expression," it's pathetic.' Lévy went on to describe Burton as an 'immense filmmaker and a mediocre individual.'

Maybe Burton wasn't playing along, but others were. In a piece published by Le Monde and entitled 'Free Panahi and Polanski,' columnist Franck Nouchi wrote, 'In Iran and the United States, for reasons which are certainly different, cinema is gagged in this manner.' Nouchi then went on to stretch his intellectual gymnastic act to breaking point by stating, 'If the liberation of Panahi and Polanski is blocked to this extent today, it is because they are victims of who they are: huge artists.'

However much the facts are stretched, there is no equivalence between the case of a filmmaker who may or may not have committed statutory rape over 30 years ago and the case of a prisoner of conscience who has undeniably been arrested because of his opposition to the Islamic regime and his desire to exercise freedom of expression.

And however much Polanski's friends and defenders decry his situation, his solitude and pain in a chalet in the Swiss Alps cannot be compared to that of Panahi, for years prevented by the Islamic Republic from making a new film and now held in a true prison.

This is not a tale of two dungeons.

Bernard-Henri Lévy should have known better.

General strike in Kurdistan province

2010-05-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

Footage and photos posted to the Internet appear to indicate that a general stike called in Kurdistan procince today, May 13, 2010, to protest the execution of five political prisoners, Farzad Kamangar, Shirin Alam Hooli, Ali Heidari, Mehdi Eslamian, and Farhad Vakili on Sunday -- four of them Iranian Kurds -- has been successful.

Purportedly Sanandaj

Cars purportedly honking to celebrate success of general strike.

Purportedly Mahabad

Endless line of cars waiting for gas

2010-05-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

A video purporting to show an endless line of cars queuing for compressed natural gas in Tehran was posted on YouTube yesterday, but was allegedly filmed on May 9, 2010, around midnight.

In an effort to reduce gasoline consumption, the Islamic Republic has encouraged the production and sale of natural gas vehicles and bi-fuel vehicles which run on compressed natural gas (CNG). Consumers have bought such cars in order to overcome gasoline rationing and a significant hike in gasoline prices which is expected once the new subsidy law is implemented. It is also feared that new sanctions will severely restrict gasoline imports. Although Iran has some of the world's largest petroleum reserves, it depends on gasoline imports because of its failing refinery capacity. According to Deputy Oil Minister Azizollah Ramezani, there are about 1.5 million bi-fuel vehicles on the country's roads today.

Unfortunately for the owners of such vehicles, the Islamic Republic has not built enough CNG stations to service the automobiles. Only 900 such stations are currently operating in the country, according to Ramezani, who may be suspected of padding the figures. In an unusual show of candor, Fars News published a report, reprinted by the Iranian energy conservation association, in September 2009 about the long lines of cars outside CNG stations around the country. (As Fars News is close to the Revolutionary Guards, this report may have been part of a campaign by the IRGC to gain the national contract for building a chain of outlets. The Khatam ol-Anbia Reconstruction Base, the IRGC's main engineering company, and perhaps the largest such group in the country, is already involved in several massive oil and gas projects, including the South Pars Gas Fields.)

'Most owners of bi-fuel vehicles, which entered the market following the decision of the 9th government (NB Ahmadinejad's previous administration) to optimize and reduce energy consumption, continue to express dissatisfaction, mainly because they must waste a great deal of time in long lines in front of CNG stations,' wrote Fars News. The news agency's intrepid reporter wrote, 'Around 11 AM, we arrive at the CNG station in Kordestan Freeway and the first thing that attracts our attention is a long line of cars stretching for 500 to 600 meters.' Reza Somboli, the CNG station's manager, told Fars news that such numbers of vehicles can be witnessed around the clock and that it is only between 1AM and 5AM that the line grows a bit shorter. This particular station has 4 pumps with 8 nozzles, but only 4 nozzles are actually working. A motorist must wait 90 minutes on average to get from the end of the line to a gas pump, Somboli said.

The Fars News reporter witnessed the same problem at the Shahid Hakim CNG station (3 pumps) a bit farther away. The footage posted on YouTube purportedly shows the Shahid Hakim CNG station:

View Tehran - Hakim Compressed Natural Gas station, Hakim Freeway - 9 May 2010 in a larger map

A translation of the cameraman's comments follows the video:

Cameraman:
Hello, hello. So today was May 9, 2010. We were driving by, around midnight, and we saw a very interesting thing and we thought you should see it too. This car which you see parked sideways in a traffic circle is waiting in a nice line. Now this is where the queue starts.

Passenger:
What could this line be for?

[...]

Cameraman:
Please drive a bit faster, because at this rate we won't make it home.

What a nice line. I'm Parsa Kamranian and am one of your dear countrymen visiting from Dubai. I saw this scene and it was really fascinating for me.

[...]

What a line. Unbelievable.

Passenger:
Maybe Julia Roberts is at the end.

[...]

Cameraman:
Let me give a hint to our smart fellow citizens. We're near Kordestan [Freeway in Tehran]. Stop, stop the car. (They stop next to a motorist) Sir, what are you queuing for?

Motorist:
This line is for gas, my dear.

Cameraman:
Gas! So that's what it is.

[...]

(Another motorist confirms the line is for gas.)

And here we are. The Shahid Hakim CNG station.

Inflation down... but so are prospects

2010-05-06T15:17:00.000-07:00

I was perusing the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook, released in April 2010, when a statistic jumped out at me. The rate of inflation in the Islamic Republic had fallen to 10.3% in 2009, from 25.4% the previous year.

What was going on? Had the Ahmadinejad administration shown more economic know-how than has been generally recognized? Most economists have faulted the government for runaway expenditure, low currency reserves, a moribund manufacturing base, a skewed balance of trade (especially if oil exports are taken out of the equation), rising unemployment...

I sought the opinion of two Iranian economists who wish to remain anonymous. They had, of course, already seen the figures and were not particularly surprised.

Falling inflation in a booming environment is a sign of good stewardship, but it can also be the by-product of an economic slowdown. In other words, less activity translates into less purchasing power which puts pressure on the prices of goods. In the case of the Islamic Republic, the rate of inflation is also subject to the massive import of cheap goods (a policy of the Ahmadinejad government, by the way), especially from China. While the price of meat may have risen drastically to 12,000 to 13,000 toumans a kilo, milk to 350 toumans a liter, potatoes to 1,000 toumans a kilo (and the list goes on), the basket of goods and services which is used to calculate the rate of inflation also includes cheaper shoes, cheaper cars, cheaper textiles, cheaper television sets, and so on, from China. This may push down the rate of inflation, but it also has a devastating effect on the manufacturing sector, which will lead to a greater economic downturn in the future. The appearance of imported fruit and vegetables in Iranian markets also paints a gloomy forecast for the country's agriculture.

Emerging countries in the region saw a similar fall in average inflation -- 13.5% to 6.6% -- in 2008 and 2009. However, the Islamic Republic's rate -- 25.4% down to 10.3% -- was still much higher than the average, while some countries even showed deflationary tendencies. The price of a basket of some 350 goods and services had actually fallen (a negative rate of inflation) by 2.8% in Iraq and 4.9% in Qatar over the same period.

A look at the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) in the Islamic Republic provides part of the explanation. In 2008, the economy grew an unimpressive 2.3%, which is still better than last year's disastrous 1.8%. In comparison, the average growth for the region's emerging countries during those two years was 5.1% and 2.4%. Iraq's growth rate was 9.5% and 4.2%, while Qatar's economy surged 15.8% and 9% in the same period. Kuwait had a 6.4% increase in GDP in 2008, but its economy actually contracted by -2.7% last year. However, no one is exactly weeping for Kuwait because it is one of the richest countries in the world when it comes to GDP per capita (estimated by the IMF at over $31,482 per Kuwaiti citizen last year. The Islamic Republic's GDP per capita is estimated to have been $4,460 last year).

Economic growth also has an effect on employment, or to be more precise unemployment in the case of the Islamic Republic. 800,000 new workers enter the country's labor force every year, which means that more than 800,000 jobs must be created annually to chip away at the unemployment rate. This rate is pretty much a mystery. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly advanced a figure of about 11%, whether economic growth has been high or low, which suggests some creative accounting. Most economists estimate the rate is closer to 25% of the labor force, and as high as 34% when it comes to young people. Reza Rahimi Nassab, Majlis representative and member of the legislature's social committee, recently said that the unemployment rate in Lorestan province had reached 40%.

The government's optimistic 4th economic plan called for the creation of 1.2 million jobs last year and it is highly unlikely that figure has been reached. The same plan was supposed to bring about an 8% rise in GDP (actual figure: 1.8%) and reduce unemployment to 8%. The Majlis is currently debating whether the 4th economic plan should continue to be implemented, or whether the country should embark on the 5th economic plan in the middle of this Iranian calendar year.

Economists believe that the Islamic Republic must maintain economic growth of 7% to 8% in order to stabilize the unemployment rate, and that its GDP must increase by 9% to 10% to begin to put a significant dent in the unemployment figures. Unfortunately for the legions of young people entering the market, the IMF predicts that the Islamic Republic's economy will grow by no more than 3% annually over the next three years.

As a futile exercise in going down memory lane, I took a look at GDP per capita in Iran and several other countries in 1978, at the time of the revolution, and 30 years later. I present the stark figures below (These are World Bank statistics, not adjusted for inflation, and converted to US dollars applying market exchange rates, which explains the difference with the IMF's numbers). Conclude what you will...

Iran          $1,997     $4,027 (2007)
Malaysia   $1,238                 $8,209
Hungary $1,552                 $15,408
Mexico      $1,595                 $10,231
Oman        $2,566                 $15,272 (2007)
France      $9,193                 $44,507
UK            $5,785                 $43,541
Saudi Arabia $9,373            $19,021
Spain         $4,239                $35,214

Ahmadinejad the veteran?

2010-04-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

My previous post concerning a photo of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi in the early 1980s provoked an exchange in the comments section between Mark Pyruz, who has a much better knowledge of Islamic Republic military issues than I, and a reader who remained anonymous:

Mark Pyruz: homy, have you seen this photo purportedly of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a soldier during Jange Tahmili (the Imposed War)?
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7725/208901210017l600.jpg
It would be interesting to know the dates of your student Ahmadinejad and this soldier Ahmadinejad, for purposes of authentication. (He's definitely older in the later.)

Anonymous: To Mark Pyruz,
It is not A.N. on that picture taken during the war. The man standing on the right side of the picture is colonel Sayyad Shirazi, perhaps the most famous army commander during the Iran Iraq war.

I won't get into Ali Sayyad Shirazi's military career, which did indeed include senior commands during the Iran-Iraq War. He was assassinated outside his Tehran home in 1999 by members of the MKO who had disguised themselves as garbage collectors. He was at that time a brigadier general, I believe. (If I'm mistaken, I'm sure I will be corrected on this by Mark or another reader). Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mohammad Khatami attended his funeral.

The issue of Ahmadinejad's military career is a much murkier affair. The official web site of the presidency states, 'During the war imposed on Iran, Dr. Ahmadi Nejad was actively present as a member of the volunteer forces (Basij) in different parts and divisions of the battlefronts particularly in the war engineering division until the end of the war.' Rumors have circulated for years that Ahmadinejad has exaggerated his war record, but the dissenting voices have grown louder since the disputed election of June 12.

Towards the end of July 2009, conservative Tehran Mayor (and Ahmadinejad rival) Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf uttered some extremely harsh words about Ahmadinejad's management and policies: 'I don't consider Ahmadinejad a revolutionary or a member of the party of God or a follower of the Leader or a manager or honest. Mr. Ahmadinejad, with all his being, fools himself and then fools everyone else.' But more relevant to the issue of Ahmadinejad's military career, Ghalibaf, who fought in the Iran-Iraq War from an early age and was the commander of the Panj Nasr division by the time he was 22, said, 'Ahmadinejad does not have even one day's experience prior to the revolution, he did not receive even one slap for the cause of the revolution. If he did something, he should come and tell us where. Ahmadinejad did not see the war or the front. If he had been on the front for only one day, he would have boasted about it for a thousand days.'

More recently, on February 28, 2009, Mehdi Khazali, a medical doctor who owns a publishing house, wrote a scathing piece on his blog entitled 'Ahmadinejad's mischief in his biography.' Before getting to the blog post, a few words on Khazali and, perhaps more importantly, his father.

Mehdi Khazali is the son of Ayatollah Abolghassem Khazali, member of the Assembly of Experts since its inception, one of the authors of the final draft of the Islamic Republic's constitution (he claims that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did not want women to become president, which could be true), the head of the Ghadir Foundation (he famously called for the Muslim celebration of Ghadir to replace Now Rouz as the Iranian new year's day) and one of the most mealy-mouthed, blubbering, and Messianic supporters of Ahmadinejad to roam the land of Iran. Sorry to have lost my journalistic objectivity there for a second, but Ayatollah Khazali actually said that Ahmadinejad's election to his first term was supported by the Hidden Imam, or Messiah, of Shiites. In short, not exactly an unbiased observer when it comes to Ahmadinejad. The ayatollah's son, however, begs to differ.

Mehdi Khazali has been such a regular critic of the government that the Guardian Council disqualified him from running in the last legislative elections and he was prevented from being a candidate in the national medical organization's board elections. On June 29, 2009, Mehdi was arrested for participating in street protests and for slandering the president by claiming on his blog that Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots and that he was compensating by being zealously Muslim and anti-Israel. Mehdi was inexplicably tried by the Special Court of the Clergy and was released on bail a month later. In the mean time, his father had disowned him in a highly publicized statement.

Mehdi Khazali's short prison stay did not calm his ardor and he has been writing on his blog on an almost daily basis. Which brings us to his February 28 post.

'In the half-finished biography on his personal web site, Ahmadinejad has craftily mixed himself up with the warriors [of the Iran-Iraq War],' Mehdi Khazali began. 'I knew he had never been to the front, but out of caution, I asked the commander of the Revolutionary Guards during the Imposed War, brother Mohsen Rezai (NB One of the four presidential candidates on June 12 and not a great admirer of Ahmadinejad). He also confirmed the absence of the aforementioned on the battlefronts. Of course, the heads of the other two branches of government (NB Speaker Ali Larijani and his brother judiciary chief Sadegh Larijani) never saw the front either, but at least they do not make any pretenses about war and being warriors.'

He continued in his post, 'I remember the good old days, when I told my interrogator that the heads of the three branches had never been to the front, and that when we were fighting in the war, many others were jockeying for appointments and consolidating their positions. The interrogator responded, That's not a criteria! I told him, If the Iraqis had made it to Tehran and your honor had been in their hands, you would have understood whether its a criteria or not.'

Khazali later quoted from Ahmadinejad's personal web site, 'Read this paragraph from the biography of Mr. Ahmadinejad: At the beginning of the war, I was 25 years old. My mother and my wife, and all the mothers and wives whose children and husbands were defending their country on the fronts, were patiently raising a resistant, brave, and pious generation.' Khazali accuses Ahmadinejad of equivocation in this sentence in order to pretend that he was also fighting on the front.

Khazali then wrote in his deliciously irreverent style, 'Dear Haj Mahmoud, stop grandstanding. When were you on the front? Which division, which battalion, which area, which operation? No dear one, in those days you were again behind the lines, jockeying for position. Even afterwards, you ran Hashemi Rafsanjani's campaign in your neighborhood so you could get a job in Hashemi's government. You kissed the hands of the gentlemen so they would pat you on the back and... Come on, be yourself. Don't run after halos and battlefronts (NB The halo refers to Ahmadinejad's claim that a halo formed around his head as he was addressing the UN General Assembly in 2005.'

I've posted the photo purportedly showing Ahlmadinejad during the Iran-Iraq War and referred to by Mark Pyruz below. It should be pointed out that even if the person in the photo is Ahmadinejad, it does not clarify the question of whether he ever saw any combat or whether he spent the war years behind the lines:

Here are several shots of Ali Sayyad Shirazi, which my anonymous reader says is the person in the photograph above:

I'd be interested to know what the readers think and invite you contribute any additional information you may have on this issue.

The way they were: Ahmadinejad and Samareh Hashemi in the early 1980s

2010-04-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

The following photo shows a group of university students in their mid-twenties relaxing in a dormitory room at Tehran's Elm-o-Sanat (Science and Technology) University, circa early 1980s.

On the extreme left of the photo you can see Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an engineering student, leaning back with a smirk on his face and sporting a chin-curtain beard. Fifth from the left is the bearded Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, currently his senior adviser and a key figure in his political life.

It is hard not to think of what was going through those young minds back then. Could the young Ahmadinejad imagine that such university dorm rooms would be devastated by armed goons and security forces, the students beaten to a pulp, a few decades later during his presidency?

Samareh Hashemi is considered to be a very influential political figure in the Islamic Republic due to the patronage of arch-conservative cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, his ties to the Basij and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, his family affiliations (he is the nephew of the late Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the current Deputy Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar) and his symbiotic relationship with his childhood friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Newsweek called him an Iranian Karl Rove in its May 23, 2009 issue, referring to the architect of George Bush's ascension to the presidency. Last year, he resigned from his post as senior presidential adviser to become the head of Ahmadinejad's re-election campaign. He is believed to have been behind Ahmadinejad's letters to President George Bush and Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ahmadinejad's recent letter to President Barack Obama coincidentally was sent after Samareh Hashemi's reinstatement within the president's inner circle a few months ago.

Here is a more recent photo of Samareh Hashemi and Ahmadinejad.

And to complete this walk down memory lane, here's the reaction of students at Ahmadinejad and Samareh Hashemi's alma mater, Tehran's Elm-o-Sanat University which has become a hotbed of dissent, on April 13, 2010, when Samareh Hashemi tried to give a speech on the nuclear issue. The students walked out and began singing the protest anthem 'Yareh Dabestaniyeh Man':

---

As an addendum to this post and to continue the debate launched in the comments below, I'm posting the photo referred to by Mark Pyruz, purportedly of Ahmadinejad during the Iran-Iraq War, and some photos of Ali Sayyad Shirazi in a separate post, which you can go to by clicking here.