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

Iranian student activist arrested after speech against regime; Iran’s subsidy bill sent back to lawmakers; Iran’s Defense Minister pledges ‘all-out support’ to Palestinian, Lebanese ‘resistance’ groups; Syria, Iran stress enhancing bilateral defense cooperation; Iran’s Foreign Minister rejects IAEA’s plea to put on hold nuclear activities; Russia says Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran to come to operation next year 

Politics

• Extracts of student activist Majid Tavakkoli's Student Day speech: "Today we are here to shout our protest against all autocratic and oppressive leaders of the society with Mr. Khamenei at their helm..."

  • Tavakkoli was arrested by plainclothes agents just after finishing his speech in front of cheering crowds.

• The Guardian Council does not approve of the reform of the subsidies system and returns it to the parliament for review.

• Parliamentarian Aliasghar Yousefnezhad criticizes the government for not presenting next year's budget to the parliament.

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  Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, Judiciary Chief, urges to "not intervene in the course of justice" but "assist the Judiciary" to find "those public servants who have plundered public wealth."

   

  • Jomhouri-ye Eslami in a reference to the government's campaign against the Rafsanjani family criticizes Sadegh Larijani and asks why the Judiciary does not intervene to stop "false accusations against prominent individuals?"

  • The Justice Seeking Student Movement expresses support for Sadegh Larijani. So does Parliamentarian Mohsen Kouhkan.

• Zahra Sajjadi appointed director of the Presidency's Women and Family Affairs Center .

• Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Mohammadreza Bahonar: "If three sides of the triangle of politics, economics and military power are concentrated in one center it will create corruption which will make the entire country corrupt..."

Diplomacy

• Jomhouri-ye Eslami accuses Russia of treason and of betraying Iran.

Military and Security

• Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi addresses theological students and scholars in Qom and attacks Rafsanjani:

  • "The Guardian Jurist has, both during the reign of the blessed Imam [Khomeini] and now, dealt with discords of the kind of Bani-Sadr, the Monafeghin [MKO] the Montazeri discord and the like, but the most recent discord has its specific complications..."
  • "In soft warfare harm emanates from the elites and sons of the grandees..."
  • "Today the Supreme Leader has opened his arms for them and is showing them compassion but they, through the pressure they instigate, and the revolt they direct and through their children, are being ingrates..."
  • "Those who earlier thought they were immune [from prosecution] should know that the society no longer tolerates their immunity and that they no longer can slaughter the servants of the Intelligence Ministry to remain secure..."
  • "The latest demonstration only featured 1,200 protesters...in the latest social movement we see a network whose characteristics is secularism, anti-religious, regime toppling and which uses the literature of the Tudeh Party..."
  • "Travel of some individuals fourth and back to Britain during the past couple of weeks is suspicious, strange and shocking..."
  • "Mr. Hashemi [Rafsanjani] has in one of his claims said that in the country there are three million learned students who are not with the regime...Hashemi has also made the claim that as long as the people want the Guardian Jurist he must remain there and should the people not want him he must resign [at this point the theological students shout 'Death to the opponent of the Guardian Jurist' and 'Death to the Monafegh [hypocrite].']"

• Hojjat al-Eslam Kadkhodayi is appointed the Supreme Leader's Representative to the Basij.

• A Russian company to sell helicopters to Iran.

• [E] Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi in separate meetings with Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, stressed the need for all-out support for “resistance of Palestinian and Lebanese groups against the Zionist threats”.

• [E] Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi have underlined the need to bolster bilateral defense relations.

Economy

• According to the Central Bank, no money has been transferred to the Foreign Exchange Reserve since March 2009.

Religion, Society and Culture

• Parliamentarian Ali Mottahari protests against presence of unveiled women in Kish Island's martial arts championship.

Nuclear Issue

• [E] Iran’s Foreign Minister dismissed a demand by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to put on hold all nuclear activities at an under-construction enrichment plant outside Tehran, saying that the IAEA resolution has, to the contrary, raised Iran's determination to continue development of its peaceful nuclear program. "The illogical measure adopted by the countries which voted against Iran [at the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors] makes the Islamic Republic of Iran more steadfast in continuing the current path of developing peaceful nuclear technology," Mottaki said in separate letters to the foreign ministers of the IAEA Board of Governors' member states.

• [E] Sergei Kiriyenko, General-Director of Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom, declared that Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant will come on stream next year.

Photos of the Day

• Parliamentarian Hojjat al-Eslam Hamid Rasayi enjoying himself at a Christian cemetery in the Philippines