News from Iran? Good? Bad? Who knows?

[KRonn]

The Empire strikes back....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32023387/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/

Hard-line militia force extends grip over Iran
Revolutionary Guards control missile batteries, make cars, train clerics

CAIRO, Egypt - As Iran's political elite and clerical establishment splinter over the election crisis, the nation's most powerful economic, social and political institution — the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — has emerged as a driving force behind efforts to crush a still-defiant opposition movement. 

[citizen k]

Iran president defies supreme leader over deputy
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and LEE KEATH, Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed rare defiance of his strongest backer, Iran's supreme leader, by insisting on his choice for vice president Wednesday despite vehement opposition from hard-liners that has opened a deep rift in the conservative leadership.

The tussle over the appointment comes at a time when the clerical leadership is facing its strongest challenge in decades following last month's disputed presidential election.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top concern appears to be keeping the strong support of clerical hard-liners so he can withstand attempts by the more moderate, pro-reform opposition to erode his authority.

Conservative clerics and politicians have denounced Ahmadinejad's choice for the post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, because Mashai said last year that Iranians are friends with Israelis. There are also concerns because Mashai is a relative of Ahmadinejad — his daughter is married to the president's son.

Khamenei ordered Ahmadinejad to remove Mashai, semiofficial media reported Wednesday.

Arguing for a further chance to make his case, Ahmadinejad said, "there is a need for time and another opportunity to fully explain my real feelings and assessment about Mr. Mashai."

The president may be digging in because he fears an attempt by hard-liners to dictate the government he is due to form next month.

At the center of the dispute between the president and supreme leader is Mashai, a member of Ahmadinejad's personal inner circle. Iran has 12 vice presidents, and Mashai has been serving in one of the slots in charge of tourism and culture. Ahmadinejad said last week he was elevating Mashai to the first vice presidency. That is the most important of the 12 because it is in line to succeed the president if he dies, is incapacitated or removed. The first vice president also leads Cabinet meetings in the president's absence.

Ahmadinejad is a member of the hard-line camp, but throughout his first term he had disputes over policy and appointments with fellow conservatives, some of whom accused him of hoarding too much power for close associates rather than spreading it among factions.

Most surprising is Ahmadinejad's defiance of Khamenei's order for Mashai's removal. The supreme leader has been the president's top defender in the election dispute, dismissing opposition claims that Ahmadinejad's victory in the June 12 vote was fraudulent. The opposition says pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was the real winner and calls Ahmadinejad's government illegitimate.

Hard-line clerics on Wednesday demanded the president obey Khamenei.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said whether Mashai is immediately dismissed "will test Ahmadinejad's loyalty to the supreme leader."

"When the exalted supreme leader takes a position explicitly, his statement must be accepted by all means and implemented immediately," he said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Those who voted for Ahmadinejad because of his loyalty to the supreme leader expect the president to show his obedience ... in practice."

Ahmadinejad may believe Khamenei's rejection of Mashai is not written in stone and is testing whether he can keep his close associate.

Iran expert Suzanne Maloney pointed out that the supreme leader has not publicly spoken on the issue and reports of his order have been leaked by hard-liners through semiofficial media.

"If Khamenei comes out in Friday prayers calling for (Mashai's) removal, then it would be difficult to imagine Ahmadinejad would refuse that," said Maloney, with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Washington-based Brookings think tank.

Ahmadinejad is "not looking to open his second term by picking a fight with his most important ally in the system," she said.

Khamenei's order to remove Mashai is unusual extension of his powers — perhaps a sign he wants to strengthen his position as unquestioned leader in the face of the reformist threat.

As supreme leader, Khamenei has ultimate say in state affairs and stands at the peak of the unelected clerical leadership that under Iran's Islamic Republic can overrule the elected presidency and parliament.

Traditionally, the supreme leader has stayed out of a public role in government appointments. He is believed often to informally vet choices for senior positions behind the scenes, but he does not have a formal role in approving them or an official power to remove them. Even under Iran's 1997-2005 pro-reform government, with which Khamenei clashed, he never overtly ousted any of its officials.

Now Khamenei is facing tests to his authority on two fronts. One is from Ahmadinejad, the other is the open defiance from the reformist opposition, which has continued its campaign against Ahmadinejad despite the supreme leader's declarations that the election dispute is over.

Powerful moderate clerics in the religious leadership under Khamenei have backed Mousavi or declined to recognize Ahmadinejad as the victor. Hundreds of thousands held mass protests in support of Mousavi in the weeks after the election, but were crushed in a heavy crackdown that killed at least 20 protesters and left more than 500 in prison. Still, the opposition has managed to hold two smaller protests since, and is demanding a referendum on Ahmadinejad's legitimacy.

The announcement outraged hard-liners, who have opposed Mashai since he said in 2008 that Iranians were "friends of all people in the world — even Israelis." Mashai also angered many top clerics in 2007 when he attended a ceremony in Turkey where women performed a traditional dance and in 2008 when he hosted a ceremony in which women played tambourines. Conservative interpretations of Islam oppose women dancing.

After days of controversy, Khamenei weighed in. The semiofficial Fars news agency reported Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had been notified of the leader's order to remove Mashai.

The deputy parliament speaker, Mohammad Hasan Aboutorabi-Fard, said late Tuesday that Mashai's dismissal was "a strategic decision" by the system of ruling clerics and he must be removed "without delay," according to the semiofficial ISNA news.

Later Wednesday, Ahmadinejad stuck by Mashai in a speech at Mashai's farewell ceremony from his lower vice presidential post.

"One of virtues and glories God has bestowed to me in life was to get acquainted with this great, honest and pious man," Ahmadinejad said, according to the state news agency IRNA. He said he has "a thousand reasons" to support Mashai and that there was "no convincing" reason for the attacks on his choice.


Dareini reported from Tehran; Keath from Cairo, Egypt.

[Barrister]

Agreed.  the scariest thing about these kinds of regimes is not so much what the leaders intend to do to the people, but rather what zealous or unprincipled underlings can get up to because the regime "needs" them to keep the people in line. Hell, societies like the US cannot seem to keep freelance psychopaths from enacting private hells (see: AG), and it isn't a US thing - see: Canadian Paratroopers.  Imagine what those kinds of people can get away with when they work for a regime like the Taliban or Iran's.

I don't really disagree with your overall message, but the Canadian Airborne Regiment is not a real good example.  It was pretty tame stuff that happened.

For a fairly neutral discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canadian_Airborne_Regiment

[Cerr]

Agreed.  the scariest thing about these kinds of regimes is not so much what the leaders intend to do to the people, but rather what zealous or unprincipled underlings can get up to because the regime "needs" them to keep the people in line. Hell, societies like the US cannot seem to keep freelance psychopaths from enacting private hells (see: AG), and it isn't a US thing - see: Canadian Paratroopers.  Imagine what those kinds of people can get away with when they work for a regime like the Taliban or Iran's.

I don't really disagree with your overall message, but the Canadian Airborne Regiment is not a real good example.  It was pretty tame stuff that happened.

For a fairly neutral discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canadian_Airborne_Regiment

This is the first time I've heard of it but looking at the photos and reading up on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia_Affair
I certainly wouldn't describe what happened as 'pretty tame stuff'.

[Neil]

Agreed.  the scariest thing about these kinds of regimes is not so much what the leaders intend to do to the people, but rather what zealous or unprincipled underlings can get up to because the regime "needs" them to keep the people in line. Hell, societies like the US cannot seem to keep freelance psychopaths from enacting private hells (see: AG), and it isn't a US thing - see: Canadian Paratroopers.  Imagine what those kinds of people can get away with when they work for a regime like the Taliban or Iran's.

I don't really disagree with your overall message, but the Canadian Airborne Regiment is not a real good example.  It was pretty tame stuff that happened.

For a fairly neutral discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canadian_Airborne_Regiment

You know, I had forgotten what they did, I just remember the media uproar around it.  Kinda hillarious how they overreacted to the killing of one pirate/terrorist.

[Sheilbh]

Ahmadinejad always has problems with his cabinet.  I believe his was the first cabinet that saw several rejections by the Majlis when he started his first term.  In a sign that the crisis, within the Iranian political system and within the elite isn't going away, Ahmadinejad was warned today by hard-line conservatives (!) that he 'could be deposed' like other Iranian leaders.  This is because he's made some cabinet mis-steps but also because he's accidentally hinted that Iranian prisons don't treat people as well as the regime likes to pretend and because he apparently wants to release filmed confessions by dissidents.  The Supreme Leader, apparently, thinks that's madness and will just provoke more anger.

Meanwhile Mousavi seems to be ramping up the rhetoric again:

"How can it be that the leaders of our country do not cry out and shed tears about these tragedies?" Mr. Moussavi said, in comments to a teachers' association that were posted on his Web site. "Can they not see it, feel it? These things are blackening our country, blackening all our hearts. If we remain silent, it will destroy us all and take us to hell."

And shortly there could be more protests because it's 40 days after the death of Neda.  I don't know if it's a Muslim thing or an Indo-Persian one but for whatever reason 40 days is the set period of mourning.  So that another potential issue for the regime.

All in all things are still simmering away.

[garbon]

I think it is a shiite thing. It's like the 3rd, 7th, and 40th days are the big mourning days.

[Sheilbh]

I think it is a shiite thing. It's like the 3rd, 7th, and 40th days are the big mourning days.

I'm not so sure.  I mentioned Indo-Persian because it's the same in many Pakistani and Indian Muslim communities, both of which are generally Sunni.

[garbon]

I'm not so sure.  I mentioned Indo-Persian because it's the same in many Pakistani and Indian Muslim communities, both of which are generally Sunni.

Are you saying that major media sources would lie to me?

From some casual research I found that the 40 day period is often linked with Shiites, although it seems that it may have some root in the Koran and thus be applicable to all muslims.

[KRonn]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32214416/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

[size]Witnesses: Cops detain mourners at Tehran site
Gathering intended to commemorate victims of Iran post-election violence

TEHRAN - Iranian police arrested mourners who gathered at a Tehran cemetery to commemorate victims of the unrest that followed the country's disputed June presidential election, witnesses said.

"Hundreds have gathered around Neda Agha-Soltan's grave to mourn her death and other victims' deaths. ... Police arrested some of them. ... Dozens of riot police also arrived and are trying to disperse the crowd," a witness told Reuters.

Earlier, opposition leaders said they would attend the ceremony, defying a threat by Revolutionary Guards to break up the gathering.

"(Defeated candidates) Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi will go to Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery today to commemorate Neda Agha-Soltan and other victims of the unrest," said Ghalamnews, Mousavi's Web site.

Mousavi arrived at the cemetery to join the ceremony, the witness said. Mourners at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery clung to his car, chanting "Mousavi we support you," the witness said.

Defying the clerical establishment's ban on any such ceremony, Mousavi and Karoubi had accepted the invitation of Neda's mother to mark the 40th day since her death and remember other victims of the unrest at Neda's grave.

Neda, a 26-year-old music student, was shot on June 20, when supporters of Mousavi clashed with riot police and Basij militiamen in Tehran. Footage of her death has been watched by thousands on the Internet.

Authorities have said Neda was not shot by a bullet used by Iranian security forces, suggesting the incident was staged to blacken the image of the clerical establishment.

Iranian media have reported the deaths of several other protesters following the vote. Rights groups say hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers, have been detained since the election.

The head of Tehran's Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Abdollah Araghi, had warned against any gathering.

"We are not joking. We will confront those who want to fight against the clerical establishment," said Araghi, according to the semi-official Fars news agency on Wednesday.

Divisions
Iranian authorities had turned down a request by opposition leaders to hold a memorial ceremony for the unrest victims on Thursday at Tehran's Grand Mosala, a prayer location where tens of thousands can gather.

The presidential vote plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution and exposed deepening divisions in its ruling elite.

Mousavi and Karoubi say the June 12 vote was rigged in favor of re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Some hardline clerics support Ahmadinejad, but other senior Shiite figures, including Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, have attacked the way the authorities have handled the poll and its aftermath.

"I am warning the authorities again to act before the current crisis deepens," Montazeri said in a statement published by the Etemad-e Melli Web site. Montazeri has called for national mourning for those killed in the unrest.

Ahmadinejad is under pressure from his hardline supporters over his initial choice of vice president and his decision to dismiss a hardline intelligence minister who criticized the president for defying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei endorsed the election result and sided openly with Ahmadinejad, but ordered Ahmadinejad to drop his nomination of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie as his deputy. Mashaie had said Iran had no quarrel with Israelis, only their government.

For a week Ahmadinejad ignored Khamenei's order. The disarray in the hardline camp is likely to complicate Ahmadinejad's job of forming a new cabinet.

The hardline Ya Lesarat weekly made an unusually blunt comment on the affair, directed at Ahmadinejad.

"Your adopted measures in recent weeks have surprised your supporters," it said. "If such moves continue, we will strongly urge you to give back our votes."

[jimmy olsen]

Shocking 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article6789295.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2270657

Iran admits election demonstrators were tortured

Senior police commander says head of Tehran prison dismissed after evidence of abuse but denies anyone died

The Iranian chief analyst of the British embassy in Tehran, Hossein Rassam.

The Iranian chief analyst of the British embassy in Tehran, Hossein Rassam, during a trial of opposition protesters. Photograph: EPA

Iran's police chief admitted yesterday that protesters who were arrested after June's disputed presidential election had been tortured while in custody in a prison in south-west Tehran. But he denied that any of the detainees had died as a result.

General Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said the head of the Kahrizak detention centre had been dismissed and jailed. "Three policemen who beat detainees have been jailed as well," the official IRNA news agency quoted Moghaddam as saying.

Human rights groups had previously identified at least three detainees they said had died after torture at Kahrizak, which was closed last month on the orders of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Moghaddam denied that the abuses were responsible for any fatalities there, claiming that an unspecified "viral illness" had caused the deaths.

His admission marked the second occasion in as many days that a senior official had accepted that some criticisms levelled at the regime were well-founded, suggesting growing doubts and uncertainty within the embattled regime.

On Saturday, Qorbanali Dori-Najafabadi, Iran's prosecutor-general, conceded that "mistakes" had led to "painful accidents which cannot be defended, and those who were involved should be punished". He said the mistakes included "the Kahrizak incident", an apparent reference to the deaths.

Dori-Najafabadi indicated that the judiciary had taken overall charge of the detainees and their trials away from the militia and revolutionary guards. He said about 200 people were still being held and urged people not to be afraid to come forward. "Maybe there were cases of torture in the early days after the election, but we are willing to follow up any complaints or irregularities that have taken place," he was quoted as saying.

One of those to die after being detained in Kahrizak was the son of a top adviser to the defeated conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaie. After Mohsen Ruholamini's death, Iran's most senior judge, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, ordered officials to inspect all prisons and detention centres. A parliamentary investigation into Kahrizak is also under way.

There have been widespread opposition claims of torture and abuse of the hundreds of anti-government demonstrators, politicians, journalists and academics arrested since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the June election.

The result, swiftly endorsed by Khamenei, led to large-scale demonstrations and violent clashes in Tehran and other cities, resulting in dozens, possibly hundreds of deaths and mass arrests. Sporadic protests were continuing despite a harsh security crackdown.Until now, officials had rejected the torture claims.

The website of one of the defeated presidential candidates, Mehdi Karoubi, said yesterday that some of those detained had been raped in detention.

"Some senior officials told me that ... really shameful issues ... Some young male detainees were raped ... also some young female detainees were raped in a way that have caused serious injuries," the website quoted a 10-day-old letter from Karoubi as saying .

Despite Dori-Najafabadi's assurances, Iranian websites reported that relatives and supporters who gathered outside a court in Tehran during the latest trial on Saturday were attacked by riot police when they began chanting slogans.

Saturday's proceedings, condemned as a "show trial" by opposition factions, involved more than 100 people accused of trying to overthrow the Islamic republic. Among those in the dock was Clotilde Reiss, a French researcher working at Isfahan University, who was alleged to have passed information about the protests to the French embassy in Tehran.

Also among the accused was an Iranian citizen, Hossein Rassam, who is employed as a political analyst at the British embassy and who helped to monitor the elections. Both Reiss and Rassam expressed "regret" at their actions, according to the official Fars news agency, and asked for a pardon. Britain and France expressed outrage at the proceedings.

[Neil]

Why would the prison commander be dismissed?  Torture is an accepted way of doing things in Iran.

[Razgovory]

We prefer the term "Enhanced interrogation"

[Tonitrus]

It doesn't matter.  Iran has settled back down to maybe being just above the "Free Tibet" level.

[Josquius]

Iran president defies supreme leader over deputy
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and LEE KEATH, Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed rare defiance of his strongest backer, Iran's supreme leader, by insisting on his choice for vice president Wednesday despite vehement opposition from hard-liners that has opened a deep rift in the conservative leadership.
Dareini reported from Tehran; Keath from Cairo, Egypt.

Interesting...
The main thing keeping Ahmajthingy where he is is that the leader was fine with his rigging the election/helped do it/did it himself (what is the most common theory now anyway?). That he would rock the boat like this...