Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.  To subscribe to this daily newsletter, please visit this page, fill out the "New Subscribers" section, and check "Iran News Round Up" listed under "Projects." 
 
(E) = Article in English

Politics

• Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati at Tehran Friday prayer:
  • "I tell them [Mousavi and Karrubi] 'your life has come to an end.'"
  • "I must announce that they have already been executed, they have collapsed in society and they no longer have any honor in society..."
  • "Connectivity of the heads of sedition with the people must be cut, the doors of their house must be shut and their freedom of movement must be limited. Their phone and Internet must be cut and they must be imprisoned in their homes..."
    • The audience chanted "Mousavi and Karrubi must be executed," "Death to Mousavi," 'Death to Karrubi," and "Death to Hashemi [Rafsanjani]."
• The final communiqué of Tehran Friday prayer:
  • "Menial political workers of the United States and the regime occupying Quds [Jerusalem] - which considers sedition the key to its continued survival - have tried to prove their being servants of and being dependent [on foreigners] by urging a gang of hypocrites and sorry remains of Monarchists and counter revolutionary hooligans to demonstrate on February 15, 2011, to please the foreigners and in order to giving hope to the enemies of the faith and the nation and in order to secure propaganda fuel for foreign media and Zionist and American media...[Mir-Hossein] Mousavi and [Mehdi] Karrubi are spreaders of corruption upon earth and must pay for their deeds."
• Effigies of Mousavi, Karrubi and Mohammad Khatami were hung at the Sa'at Square in Tabriz.
• According to Fars News Agency, the people of Kermanshah chanted "death to Mousavi" and "death to Karrubi," following Friday prayer.
• Fars News Agency refutes reports on arrest of Mousavi and Karrubi.

Diplomacy

• Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati at Tehran Friday prayer:
  • "There are some who are deaf and don't hear, and they are blind and don't see that Iran, 32 years after [the revolution] experiences tens of millions pouring into the streets chanting 'Death to America,' 'Death to Israel,' 'Death to the enemy of the Guardian Jurist,' and 'Death to the counter revolutionary.' These slogans sent the message to the United States that it has no base in this country... We are the supporters of all the oppressed people in the entire world. The people announced to the people of Gaza and the Hezbollah of Lebanon: 'We still defend you and we are the enemies of your enemies and in this path we will not abstain from providing any help.'... Presence of the people at the February 11, 2011 rallies sent the message to Islamic countries to make Iran their role model because the blessed Imam [Khomeini] said: 'Our revolution has been exported and will be exported.'"  

Military and Security

• Hojjat al-Eslam Mojtaba Zolnour, deputy representative of the Supreme Leader to the Revolutionary Guards, was interviewed by the press at Tehran Friday prayer:
  • "The seditionists passed the red lines during last year's sedition following the tenth presidential election and attempted to topple the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but were defeated..."
  • "During last year's sedition and the latest sedition there were some elites who with their destructive silence attempted to plant the seed of hypocrite. With their meaningful silence they became parts of a puzzle prepared for them by the agents of world imperialism, but the Muslim Iranian nation opposed such sedition through its close ranks..."
  • "Until now, the heads of the sedition have been allowed to show their evil nature and to unmask themselves and show their face of hypocrisy, but now the patience of the people has come to an end and the Iranian nation demands capital Islamic punishment for the heads of the sedition..."
  • "The elites of our country can be categorized in different classes. The first class are those who cooperated with the heads of sedition, but gradually distanced themselves from the seditionists and joined the ranks of the Iranian nation..."
  • "The second class are those who are unhappy with the authorities of the regime and the executive branch, and either consciously or unconsciously have strengthened the front of the enemies of the Iranian nation by their silence..."
  • "The third class of the people without insight are those who consider their personal greed, or the interests of the family and what is expedient for the family, and their love for their children more important than the ideals of the revolution and have in effect distanced themselves from the Islamic revolution through their presence at various tribunes..."

Photos of the Day

Friday prayer in Tehran.