(Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation)

Human Rights and Labor

  • Yaqoub Mehr-Nahad, journalist and civil-society activist, condemned to death. Mehr-Nahad was arrested after participating in a seminar called “Questioning Youth, Responsible Authorities” in Zahedan, the capital of the Sistan va Baluchestan province of Iran. His family reports that he bore “signs of severe torture” and believes the execution seeks to silence any revelations about torture in prisons of the Islamic Republic.
  • Amir Kabir Polytechnical University’s student journal says Ramin Fattahi, imprisoned Sufi religious leader, has died in Evin prison from kidney problems left untreated.
  • Kurdish schoolteacher Masoud Kordpoor convicted to internal exile in Iran after his participation in teacher’s strikes over failure to pay salaries.
  • Ayoub Ganji, 30-year-old cleric of the Masjed Qaba mosque in Sanandaj, reappears after a three week disappearance which followed a Friday prayer sermon critical of the state of religion and politics in the Islamic Republic. While the security agencies of the Islamic Republic deny any responsibility for his disappearance, there are signs of torture on his body, has lost his memory, bears signs of two injections in his feet, and repeats sentences in a panic: “Electric shock,” “they have come,” “don’t beat me,” and “no, no, no!”

Politics: General

  • Ahmadinejad speech for Revolution Day:
  • Nuclear issue “is over”
  • Attacks opponents who criticized his “steadfastness in the nuclear crisis”
  • Promises ”surgery upon the Iranian economy” to secure social justice.
  • Informs the public of “those who attempted their best to kill my government.”
  • Threatens “spies who sell secrets of the country to the enemy,” in reference to Rafsajani protégé and former nuclear negotiator Mousavian.
  • Says an Iranian-made satellite will be launched this summer
  • Says sanctions against Iran are nothing more than “juggling with some papers.”
  • Tehran mayor Qalibaf and former president Rafsanjani praise the self-sacrifice of ”political prisoners before the victory of the revolution.”
  • General Yahya Rahim Safavi explains why the Revolutionary Guards activities are not limited to the military sphere.
  • Hamid Ansari, in charge of publication of Khomeini’s speeches, has compiled a compendium of speeches in which Khomeini urges the armed forces to intervene in politics.
  • Hassan Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, delivers a speech against the spread of materialism in the Islamic Republic after the end of the Iran/Iraq War in 1988, a veiled criticism of former president Rafsanjani. Complete interview here.
  • In an unprecedented direct attack, Nowsazi news, close to the Ahmadinejad government, ridicules Hassan Khomeini: “When we know of his BMW, his steam bath and the fresh air he breathes in northern Tehran we also know why this Mr. Hassan Khomeini has red cheeks!”
  • But Tabnak, close to former IRCG-chief Mohsen Rezai, supports Hassan Khomeini.
  • Hayat reports of millions of Iranians rallying in a “mythical show of support to the Islamic Republic.”
  • An Iraqi journalist reports the “disappearance of 60,000 documents about Rouhollah Khomeini” which were gathered by Iraqi intelligence during Khomeini’s exile in Iraq in late 1960′s.
  • In a televised interview, former foreign minister Ebrahim Yazdi says the Shah’s longest serving prime minister, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, was not executed but assassinated while imprisoned by the revolutionaries.

Politics: March 2008 Elections

  • Ali-Reza Rahimi, who as a 14-year-old was a POW in Iraq, disqualified in his attempt to run for parliamentary elections.
  • Principalist Alliance presents the faction’s parliamentary candidates in Qom.
  • Ali Larijani, former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, declares his candidacy for the parliamentary elections.
  • Former president Khatami says the precondition for maximum popular participation is a competitive political atmosphere.
  • Former president Rafsanjani begs the system to prepare the background for presence of “different political groupings“ in the Islamic Republic.
  • Mousa-Poor, deputy elections inspections chief: “The fifth columnists of the enemy are trying to run for the parliament, but the awakened people of Iran will smell their treason!”
  • Ali Eshraghi, grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, says he has received a letter from the Council of Guardians in which he is urged to protest against his disqualification for candidacy in the parliamentary. Eshraghi says: “They know they have done wrong. They should apologize!”

Economy and Trade

  • Economic forecast of the Islamic Republic of Iran government for next year: “Inflation 15.3 percent, liquidity 30 percent, and economic growth 6.8 percent.”
  • Hojjat al-Eslam Hasani, Friday prayers leader of Urumiyeh and personal appointee of the Supreme Leader: “Tractors are not the only means of making the day’s bread, and more important than tractors one must think about the drops of rain, animal and human fertilizers, and finally the piety of human beings… At the time of the coming of the Lord of the Era there shall be no need for irrigation by drops, since rain will fall from above, and the only thing which is needed at that time is belief.”
  • Iranian and Polish authorities sign an LNG contract on development of Iran’s natural gas fields.
  • Iran may provide Najaf with electricity.
  • Persian Gulf banks shield Iran from US sanctions.

Photo of the Day

  • Revolution Day rally in Isfahan.