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

Karrubi rejects Ahmadinejad vote as “illegitimate”; senior cleric says foreign powers behind Iran unrest; authorities continue curb on media; jailed Iranian reformists confess to acting against regime; leading reformist daily suspended; new accusations implicate Mousavi in recent unrest; Iranian paper claims Britain behind post-election riots in Iran; OIC condemns foreign interference in Iran’s internal affairs

Politics

• Karrubi rejects Ahmadinejad government as “illegitimate”. 
  • So does the Mojahedin of the Revolution Organization.
• Iran’s Interior Ministry calls election activities over, and points out that any election activity by the candidates’ campaign teams has no legal basis. 
• Alef News Agency's Mohammad-Mehdi Haji-Pour publishes two articles, claiming that a velvet revolution was in the making in Iran and refutes all allegations made against the health of the election. Also, here.  
• Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, the temporary Friday Prayer leader in Tehran and a member of the Assembly of Experts, in a meeting with the governor and local authorities of Lorestan Province, has claimed that those "directing the recent unrest" were "the same individuals directing the 1999 uprisings." Khatami stressed that "if someone says there has been widespread fraud in Iran’s elections, he is a liar and has committed a sin." He continued: "The statement that the election must be annulled is a counter revolutionary statement. Mr. Mousavi had 40,000 representatives at the constituencies, which is unprecedented in the history of the revolution...10 percent of the vote was recounted, which did not change anything. Even if 100 percent of the vote is recounted, no change will occur..." Commenting about Karrubi's latest open letter to the Guardian Council, Khatami said: "Some speak to the delight of America and Israel although they have not gained more than 330,000 votes. The number of invalid votes is more than the number of votes they received. Yet, they play with the nation..." Slamming Mousavi for calling into question the legitimacy of the elections, Khatami said: "40 millions votes were assets that strengthened the regime. But their actions caused riots in the country. And Obama, Sarkozy and Merkel, who were begging for negotiation with Iran prior to the elections, are now talking a great deal of nonsense...They [opposition candidates] have instigated revolt and they have set the country ablaze, because they did not get enough votes. Is this in line with the rules of Guardianship of the Jurist? Is this in conformity with the law? And of course, some do not want to believe that they did not get the vote..." 
• Hojjat al-Eslam Mohammad-Taghi Rahbar, a member Parliament’s Legal and Judicial Committee, says the committee has “for now” abstained from prosecuting Mousavi for complaints leveled against him by some parliamentarians.
• Chief Inspectorate Hojjat al-Eslam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi congratulates Ahmadinejad's victory. 

Media

• E'temad-e Melli is banned after publishing Karrubi's open letter calling Ahmadinejad’s government “illegitimate”. 
• Alef News Agency praises the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s performance until the latest elections, but criticizes its post-election coverage: "After the June 12, 2009 elections, we see a number of individuals – even if well-founded but all opposed to Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karrubi – are invited for biased interviews, where they condemn the opposition candidates. This approach and the filtering of pro-Mousavi websites have created the impression that the state-run media in the country is trying to suffocate voices of the opposition candidates. Such behavior is totally opposed to the viewpoint of the Leader of the Revolution..." 

Military and Security

• According to Jahan News Agency, Hojjat al-Eslam Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, former president Mohammad Khatami's vice president who is now imprisoned, in his "tearful" confessions has "revealed interesting points," including "provoking the people and the youth to engage in riots and instigating unrest in the media in order to increase tension in the political atmosphere of the country." According to Jahan News, Abtahi has even accepted to be dismissed from the clerical state. The report adds that Mohammad Qouchani, E'temad-e Melli’s chief editor and a supporter of Karrubi, has confessed to having passed "velvet revolution courses" in "one of the countries in the Persian Gulf with the support of his wife and his wife's mother," and has even admitted to "having tested such schemes in Semnan [province]." Also, unnamed central committee members of the Kargozaran, a technocratic faction supporting Rafsanjani, and Mosharekat [Participation] party, supporting Khatami, are said to have made similar confessions. The confessions are expected to be aired on the national television despite some efforts to stop the move.
  • E'temad claims Qouchani has never left Iran and even does not hold a passport. 
• According to Jahan News, a high-ranking Petroleum Ministry official is arrested in a "rioter cell house" on charges of attempting to instigate a strike in one of the refineries of Iran. 
• Jahan News claims at the election headquarter of one of Ahmadinejad's opponents the Law Enforcement Forces has discovered cameras and media labs making footage from the demonstrations to feed the international media. 
• In an article headlined, "Bloody Footsteps of England in Latest Riots of Iran," Jahan News's analyst claims that a pre-election warning by the British Foreign Office to British citizens that they should expect unrest in the wake of presidential elections in Iran and practice caution while staying in Iran is the very evidence of the British planning of the unrest in the Islamic Republic. Jahan News also accuses Arash Hejazi - an Iranian student studying in Britain - of having masterminded the killing of Neda Agha-Soltani. Jahan News also claims the British forces in Afghanistan have dispatched terrorist groups to Iran from the shared Iran/Afghanistan border to instigate unrest in Iran. 
  • More conspiracy theories about Arash Hejazi being the killer of Neda Agha-Soltan. 
• Iran claims the Foundation for Democracy in Iran has supported the Mousavi campaign with millions of dollars in order to instigate a velvet revolution in Iran. 
• Basij commanders convene to discuss the latest unrest in Iran without official presence of the Intelligence Ministry and cabinet ministers. 
• Center for Investigation of Organized Crime of the Revolutionary Guards is introduced to the public. 
• Legal proceedings against the Jundullah terrorist group continue. 

Religion, Society and Culture

• Ayatollah Jalal al-Din Taheri Esfahani accuses Ahmadinejad of usurping the rights of the people, considers the election illegitimate. 
• This Friday prayer in Tehran will be led by Ayatollah Jannati. 
• Alef News Agency reports a new wave of arrests of Shi'as in Saudi Arabia. 

Diplomacy

• Brigadier General Hassan, the chief of the Armed Forces Command Council and a member of the Supreme National Security Council, speaking at an armed forces strategy planning session: "The European Union is a defeated political and economic alliance, which has faced a lack of electoral confidence during the European referenda. The latest example of which is the 15 percent election participation in Italy. So low was the voter participation that the lection was annulled...Therefore, the European Union members of the 5+1 Group have lost their importance...Meddling of this group and its enmity against the Iranian nation has become obvious. And the Union’s foreign policy chief, who has never had a consistent stance and lacked the support of member countries, has today emerged as a supporter of rioters in Iran. He has totally lost any qualification to negotiate with Iran...We believe that they do not have the right to speak of negotiations until they apologize for their blatant mistakes of the past and demonstrate by their actions that they are repentant.
• Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani visiting Algeria says democracy is the very foundation of the Islamic Republic. 
• Ahmadinejad cancels his visit to Libya. 
• Mohammad-Mehdi Zahedi, the minister of Science, Research, Technology and Higher Education, speaking in Lorestan, likens the June 12, 2009 election with the revolution of 1979. He claims the United States was pressuring Iran from outside in the hope of changing it from within in the run-up to the elections.  
• Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) condemns "foreign interference in internal affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran." 
• Movafagh Al-Rabi'i, Iraq’s national security advisor, blames Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization for the post-election turmoil in Iran.  
• North Korea's number two leader congratulates Ahmadinejad. 
• Prime Minister of Malaysia congratulates Ahmadinejad. 

Photo of the day

• Javan features a caricature of Queen Elizabeth II burning Iran. 
• Soccer school in Ahwaz.