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, e-mail [email protected].

(E) = Article in English

Politics

• Tehran Show Trials:
  • Shahab al-Din Tabatabayi, a member of the Central Committee and head of the Youth Organization of the Mosharekat [Participation] Party, has confessed that the allegation of fraud in the presidential election was a lie from the very beginning.
  • Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Khatami government’s spokesman, has confessed that the party he is a member of has engaged in illegal acts and that democracy without religious restrictions amounts to chaos. He added that the election was free from any irregularities.
  • Parliamentarian Said Zamanian demands trial of "the instigators of the unrest" and the elites who have betrayed the revolution.
  • Hassan Younesi, son of the former Intelligence Minister, condemns the trials.
  • Iran claims the role of Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani and Abdollah Jasbi as directors of the velvet revolution has been established in the Tuesday's Show Trial session. More details, here.
  • Kayhan editorializes: "Before the results of the tenth presidential election were announced, few people thought that Mousavi, the defeated rival of the election, could provide the path for war and lead people who desired to topple the regime. But the subsequent events, statements and postures made public, and support from the monarchists, the hypocrites [reference to Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization] and well-known enemies of the regime removed all curtains and unmasked the faces...The parties of Mosharekat [Participation] and Mojahedin of the Revolution, which both supported Mousavi, urged the BBC to support Mousavi indirectly, since they were aware that public opinion was against England...But they were defeated because of the wisdom of the Leadership of the regime and presence of the revolutionary and wise people...Today, the question in the minds of the people is why the Judiciary does not take steps to arrest and prosecute the main elements behind the unrest?"
  • Quds editorializes: "The theoretician of the Mosharekat [Participation] Party [Said Hajjarian] did not expand the confessions horizontally, but pointed at the peak of the radical, dependent and alien thoughts which during the recent years have proven costly for the regime. He said he was the strategist of the party, his analysis shaped the party’s policies, and that his ill-wishing analysis about the election was the very source of illegal acts committed by the sympathizers and followers of the party. In reality one can claim that the statements of the ideologue...mark the beginning their party’s collapse..."
  • Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi claims the confessions show that the enemy aimed at the Guardian Jurist during the post-election unrest.
  • [E] Former president Mohammad Khatami denounced the trials. ''Authorities should stop spreading immoralities and illegal moves, which will harm the Islamic establishment,'' Khatami is quoted by ILNA.  
• Ahmadinejad appoints Ali Said-Lou Head of the Physical Training Organization.
• Rafsanjani's office refutes Esfandiar Rahim-Mashayi's claims that Rafsanjani has always tried to weaken the authority of Supreme Leader Khamenei.

Diplomacy

• Senior Iraqi Shi’a leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who headed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), died in Tehran. 
  • Biography of al-Hakim.
• [E] Iran’s envoy to Bahrain underlines Iran’s strategy to enhance ties with the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC).
• [E] Foreign ministers of Canada and Iran call for expansion of bilateral ties.
• [E] The Iranian ambassador to Paris says the charges against Clotilde Reiss, who was detained in Iran after the elections, suggest that the French woman was involved in ‘nuclear espionage’.
• [E] Ahmadinejad to visit Turkmenistan in January.
• [E] Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived in Istanbul on Tuesday to attend the Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting.

  Military and Security

• Commander Abdollah Eraghi, the Chief of Greater Tehran Revolutionary Guards, at a ceremony appointing Colonel Hossein Assad-Allahi the deputy of Ansar al-Nabi Unit: "The enemies of the regime over the past four years had plotted for this discord…Had it not been for the forceful presence of the Basij and the Guards, the enemies would have reached close to their goal which was a color revolution...They had more than 300,000 trained forces that showed up in pyramid shape at assemblies...Many of the grandees and children of the regime have lost the path of the truth, but the Guards and the Basij–thanks to divine mercy and benevolence–were immune from this discord since they looked at the guiding light of the Guardian Jurist, and managed to preserve the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic...The opposition movement had planned its actions in different shapes such as the committee for safeguarding the vote, news agencies, and dens of espionage which they had started...Had it not been for the support of the principalists for the government, events could have developed differently. The enemies wanted the Islamic Republic regime to decline to a shallow skin. But the light of the leadership’s guidance defeated their schemes...After June 12, the brothers and sisters of the Basij entered the arena. Despite all the attacks, the Basij forces never used arms and were only present with self-defense equipment...Thanks God, in the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic there is no need for use of arms in the cities. The Basij and the Guards with their forceful presence in the arena do not need to use such equipment...When they attacked our base, our brothers were attacked for more than three hours by stones and hand grenades of the invaders, and we constantly asked to avoid clashes. But at some point, the base was collapsing. Unfortunately, an innocent mother and a daughter became martyrs. And expert reports show that the angle of the shooting was not from the side of our boys...The foreign media attempted to exploit that day’s events to their benefit, but the pictures show how mercilessly the base was attacked."
• Esmail Kowsari, the Deputy of Parliament’s National Security Committee, says Ahmadinejad's candidate for the Intelligence Ministry, Hojjat al-Eslam Moslehi, is a suitable candidate since he has worked in the counter-espionage bureau of the Revolutionary Guards.
• Commander Bagherzadeh, head of the Center for Publication and Preservation of the Works and Values of the Sacred Defense, defends Ahmad Vahidi's record and says "the accusations of the Zionists will not affect the vote of confidence to Commander Vahidi [as Defense Minister]."
• Brigadier General Hassan Firouz-Abadi, Armed Forces Command Council Chief, speaking at the Strategy Seminar of the Armed Forces called upon academics to study the confessions of the accused and the post-election unrest in order to find ways to "cure these cultural and societal ills."

Nuclear Issue

• Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Islamic Republic's Permanent Representative at the IAEA, says El-Baradei's last report on Iran will probably be released on Friday.
• Health
• Iran’s swine flu cases reach 285.

  Economy

• [E] Iran reports an increase in its crude oil production to 4.3 million barrels per day during the last Iranian year (March 2008-March 2009).
• [E] Iran’s PressTV claims that Tel Aviv has agreed with a “partial freeze on its illegal construction of settlements on Palestinian land” in return for “tougher sanctions against Tehran.” 
• [E] Iran's OPEC governor predicts an increase in oil demand in 2010. "It is expected that oil demand in this year will increase between 500,000 and 1 million bpd," Mohammad Ali Khatibi said.

  Photo of the Day

• Parliament of Iran.