The Latest from Iran (25 April): Supporting the Workers

May Day Poster of Detained Labour Activists1900 GMT: The Battle Within. Another important snippet from the press conference of Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei (see 1448 GMT)....

Mohseni-Ejei said the managing director of the State news agency, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, had been summoned to court, and he stressed that the Ministry of Intelligence belongs to the "nezam" (system).

That is a sharp slap-down for the Ahmadinejad camp. Javanfekr was a Presidential advisor before taking over IRNA, and the news agency had backed Ahmadinejad's office over the forced resignation of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi.

Iran Video Special: Claimed Footage of Ahwaz Protests
The Latest from Iran (24 April): Noticing Syria

1455 GMT: The Battle Within. Hojatoleslam Jafar Shojouni, the Secretary of the conservative Society of Combatant Clergy, has warned that the fate of Iran's first President, Abolhassan Bani Sadr, awaits President Ahmadinejad.

Just to make the allusion clear: Bani Sadr fell out of favour with Ayatollah Khomeini and fled the country before his impeachment in 1981. Before leaving Iran, he survived two helicopter crashes which may have been assassination attempts. After his impeachement, several of his close allies were executed.

Shojouni specifically complained about the parallel organisation, "Velayat Clerics Association", claiming it was driven by greed and paid by domestic & foreign traitors. Critics have linked the organisation to the President's office.

1448 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. An addition to the news below about the threatened prosecution of Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani....

The news came from Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei in a brief response to a question --- likely planted --- in his press conference. He said he had interviewed Faezeh Hashemi after seeing the contents of her interview with "Western media". Mohseni-Ejei said he then "contacted the Tehran Prosecutor, and he also said they have seen the issue and will take action".

1442 GMT: Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, will be prosecuted for her interview in which she said that the country was "run by thugs." 

This is a significant development, as Faezeh has been a political football, an outspoken critic of the government with a very powerful father. Her father is no longer the head of the Assembly of Experts, and this move is yet another sign that Rafsanvani's power is in decline.

1426 GMT: James Miller reports for duty to find several interesting updates.

Reuters reports that Iran and Iraq have signed a prisoner extradition accord, a move which is concerning to many political opponents to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim, however, this accord will be limited to criminals, not political, and not the members of exiled militants like members of the PMOI in Camp Ashraf.

1225 GMT: Energy Watch. Aftab reports an explosion in a gas pipeline from Asalouyeh to the refinery in Jam in southern Iran.

Earlier this month three pipelines near Qom in central Iran were damaged by explosions. The cause was never officially determined.

1050 GMT: Questions of Day. So why didn't President Ahmadinejad attend Sunday's Cabinet meeting? Could his sudden absence have anything to do with the dispute over the resignation/non-resignation of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi?

1030 GMT: CyberWars. Gholamreza Jalali, Iran's commander of "Passive Defence", said today that the country has been targeted by a second computer virus, called "Stars".

Jalali assured, "Fortunately, our young experts have been able to discover this virus and the Stars virus is now in the laboratory for more investigations."

Jalali warned that the Stuxnet worm, discovered in computers at Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor last year, still posed a potential risk.

0920 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has highlighted the case of prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Seifzadeh, confirmed to have been taken back into detention after he was missing for more than two weeks.

The ICHRI claims Seifzadeh, a co-founder of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights has been denied access to his attorney and that he "is being prosecuted because of his adherence to professional ethical standards, and his praiseworthy defense of those denied their human rights".

Seifzadeh was sentenced last October to nine years in prison and a 10-year ban on legal practice for "collusion and assembly with the intent to disrupt internal security", "propagation activities against the regime", and "establishing the Center for Human Rights Defenders".

0800 GMT: Labour Front. More than 800 Kian Tire Company workers reportedly gathered outside the office of President Ahmadinejad to protest the closure of their factory.

0650 GMT: The US Hikers. Masoud Shafiee, the lawyer for detained American hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, says their trial should proceed even if their freed companion Sarah Shourd does not return for the proceedings.

Shafiee said an Iranian court told him the next hearing would be held on 11 May.

The three American were arrested in July 2009 while walking along the Iran-Iraq border. Shourd was released on $500,000 bail last September and did not come back for the first hearing in the case, held in February.

0555 GMT: With May Day approaching, the opposition Coordination Council of the Green Path of Hope has expressed support for Iranian workers while expressing concern over the regime's treatment of the workers’ rights to organise, mobilise, and protest and declaring, "Without resolving the flaws in the country’s political system, it is not possible to speak of any economic revival.”

The Council asserted, “instead of privatising, the government has been carrying out a monopolisation [of the economy], and has been giving away firms and businesses to quasi-governmental and quasi-military bodies for trifling sums. Thus through the concentration of power and wealth in their own hands, they persist in their monocracy.”

The Council urged "all media and social networks to reflect the heart rendering tragedies which have made life more difficult for the various groups in people". While stressing the indisputable rights of workers to voice their demands and fully supporting [the right to hold] demonstrations and assemblies, in accordance with annual custom, the Council calls on all the supporters and activists of this pervasive popular movement not to hesitate in supporting the demands of this land’s brave workers as well as sympathising with and aiding them.”

The Council concluded:

The reality is that the militarisation of the economy and politics in recent years has crippled the Iran’s economy. Tens of thousands of workers across the country have not received their wages in months. Their basic rights such as the right to carry out union activity, the right to protest against working conditions, the demand for a wage increase that matches the increase in inflation, the ability to earn a living through working for a single shift per day and the right to influence their destiny are being neglected through [the government’s] resort to all types of cunning measures. Iranians see their greatest asset; the hope for a better future, shattered and their greatest God-given gift, their human dignity, trampled upon.