The Latest from Iran (24 April): Noticing Syria

2300 GMT: Apologies for the suspension in service --- EA staff have been on a holiday break this evening with family and friends. We will be back from 0530 GMT with all the latest news.

1500 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Alireza Rajai of the Freedom Movement of Iran has been arrested for "security offences".

1150 GMT: Fashion Wars. Tehran Friday Prayer leader Ahmad Khatami has explained, ""Cultural education and work are not enough to eradicate bad Hijab --- blood must be spilled."

1130 GMT: A Proper Facebook. Tebyan.net, affiliated to the Islamic Propagation Organization of the regime, has announced that it will launch a "social networking" site.

1020 GMT: Economy Watch. Mehr reports that rents in Tehran have recently increased by 20%.

Earlier this week Iranian officials said food prices had gone up by 25% in the past year.

0945 GMT: Labour Front. Steel company workers have gathered in front of the Parliament to protest against unpaid wages.

0940 GMT: History Lesson. Ammariyon asks this question about controversial Presidential aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, "Is Mr M. Iran's Rasputin?"

0925 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Cultural activist Mehdi Zohouri has been released on bail after four days in detention.

0615 GMT: Hidden Imam Watch. Satirist Ebrahim Nabavi, noting recent events and controversies, brings a special message from the Hidden Imam: "Now that Seyed Khorasani (Ayatollah Khamenei) and Shoeyb (President Ahmadinejad) have a quarrel, I won't appear."

0605 GMT: House Arrests and "Soft War". Telling remarks about regime strategy by Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in an interview with Fars....

Jafari said he had been surprised by the protests after the 2009 President election, which were “foreseeable … but nobody predicted it to be in this form, shape and magnitude". 

Initially, Jafari said, "Our goal was to inform the people and to put the leaders of the sedition on trial, because they were doing their best to influence the opinions and beliefs of the people." However, Jafari continued, "Confronting them with firm judicial action would not have made their supporters, who had accepted them, to see the light and would instead have backfired.” 

So, if "firm judicial action" goes against the principles of fighting a "soft war", what to do? Jafari did not refer to the house arrests imposed on Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, but he pointed to the supposed outcome:

Perhaps in the beginning, a share of the people, who accepted the framework of the regime but were against certain policies and methods, supported them [Mousavi and Karroubi], but these did not constitute more than 10 to 15%; however, following the events of 1389 [21 March 2010-21 March 2011], this section of the population also ceased their support, and in reality, this was the outcome of good and appropriate measures.

0600 GMT: The Battle Within. Meanwhile on the domestic front, Shargh summarises the tensions within the principlist ranks over President Ahmadinejad's right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, and the 2012 Parliamentary elections.

0550 GMT: After weeks of silence, Iranian newspapers are noticing the uprising in Syria. 

The reformist paper Shargh wrote briefly yesterday about the "Great Friday" of protests against the Assad regime. Shargh continues that the Syrian state media did not publish news of the mass demonstrations but "English and Arabic sources" such as Al Jazeera reported between five and 40 deaths.

Asr-e Iran goes farther, reporting the list of 88 dead put out by Syrian activists and asking, "What is Going On in Syria?" In a lengthy article, it posts photographs put out both by Syrian state media and by the opposition.