The Latest from Iran (20 September): Ahmadinejad's Warm-Up Act

See also Iran Feature: So What Would You Ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Iran Interview: Azerbaijani Activist Fakhteh Zamani Explains the Lake Urmia Protests

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Basij commander Mohammad-Reza Naqdi1730 GMT: The US Hikers (Ahmadinejad v. Judiciary Edition). Well, we may have a real fight on our hands....

President Ahmadinejad has used another American channel, ABC News, to put out a defiant message, even as the judiciary --- or someone higher up in Iran --- has told a judge to stay "on vacation" so he does not sign the bail order of $500,000 each for US citizens Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer.

Here's the exchange with George Stephanopoulos of ABC:

STEPHANOPOULOS: There seems to be from the outside a power struggle inside Iran. The members of the judiciary are determined to embarrass you and prevent the release of those hikers while you’re here in the United States.

AHMADINEJAD: Is it their release which is important for you? Or what’s going on in Iran? There is no problem. There is a judicial process that has to be completed and hopefully it will be, God willing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Guaranteed they will come to the United States?

AHMADINEJAD: Do I have to guarantee?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think a lot of Americans would like that guarantee.

AHMADINEJAD: Yes, whatever we say....

STEPHANOPOULOS: Can you not guarantee?

AHMADINEJAD: Yes, we act upon whatever we say. And if we don’t want to act, we won’t say it. We didn’t make this decision under pressure. It’s a humanitarian decision. Although, a lot of people are in jail or in prison in American prisons, inside the United States, in Europe, on ships unfortunately there are a lot of people without having had the opportunity of a fair trial. And there are some Iranians who are imprisoned in the United States and did not have the opportunity of a full judicial review. But when we said we will release them, we will release them, as a humanitarian gesture.

1720 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. So why did Iranian authorities arrest six filmmakers on the allegation that they worked for BBC Persian (see Monday's LiveBlog)? Here's a clue....

One of the six, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, was already being targeted: he was barred less than two weeks ago from travelling to the Toronto International Film Festival to screen the documentary This Is Not a Film, about a day in fellow Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s life. Mirtahmasb's offence was to work with Panahi, who has been sentenced to six years and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for supposed activities against the State, on the project.

BBC Persian has said that it has done no more than purchase the rights to documentaries and other projects of the six filmmakers and that it has never employed any of them.

1715 GMT: Elections Watch. Fathollah Jamiri, the head of the Imam Sadegh Army in Bushehr Province in southern Iran has explained that Basiji militia "who are not part of the organisation" can interfere in elections.

1710 GMT: Methuselah Watch. Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, the head of the Assembly of Experts, has told a university audience, "I am 80 years old and I am at your disposal for another 120."

1700 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. So President Ahmadinejad has defied his critics and taken his controversial Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai to the US --- how can those critics deal with such a rebuff?

Simple: they explain that the President whisked Rahim-Mashai to keep him from being arrested while Ahmadinejad was away.

MP Nourollah Heidari-Dastnaei adds this jibe: "While {Turkish President Recep Tayip] Erdogan sells Arab Spring as secular, Ahmadinejad remains quiet and cries only for his companion."

1400 GMT: The Kids Aren't Alright Alert. Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, chairman of the Imam Khomeini Research and Education Institute in Qom, said that the students in Iran need to spend less time on the internet and more time praying to God.

"If a young student surfs the Internet until late in the night and is not looking for 'scientific subjects,' or if he watches movies and forgets his morning praying, he cannot become a pious man," the ayatollah said.

Mesbah-Yazdi's comments follow warnings last week by another important cleric, who said he worried about a "tremor of non-religiosity in Iranian society. ... The only way to stay safe is relying on the holy book, the Koran."

1343 GMT: James Miller takes the blog, and apologizes for the scarcity of updates, as he's triple-tasking right now.

The big news is the lack of news on the hiker front. The judge who needs to sign the papers in order to release the two remaining US hikers on bail is ON VACATION and has not returned. The Lawyer for Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer explains:

"The judge was supposed to return today ... When I went to the court, I was told that the judge had not returned to the office yet," said Masoud Shafie.

"The judiciary officials told me to wait for their call ... but I do not think they will call any time soon."

James notes that on Saturday, CNN kept saying that "any minute now" the hikers would be released, which went against our own understanding of how Iran's system works. Scott Lucas writes this analysis from the road (not literally driving, for those who are concerned):

With news that judge has been told to enjoy his vacation until he gets word (from whom?) to return, I would play this up as elements in Iran's system making sure Ahmadinejad does not get his PR victory while he is in the US (for the UN General Assembly). That means the judiciary, headed by Sadegh Larijani, have blocked Ahmadinejad for now. And I don't think that happens without the support of the Supreme Leader's office.

0700 GMT: Oil Watch. The Norwegian oil company Statoilhydro is the latest to cease activities in Iran.

Statoilhydro and Russia's largest oil company Lukoil had discovered important oil reserves in Anaran on the border with Iraq, and it participated in the development of the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf, the world's largest natural gas field.

0650 GMT: Nuclear Front. The mystery over Iran's nuclear programme, with the assassination of its scientists, continues....

In July, there was confusion over the killing in Tehran of a physicist in his 30s, Dariush Rezaeinejad. Some Iranian officials initially said he was a prominent university professor, connected to nuclear research and development, but later claimed that he was 2a postgraduate student in electronic engineering.

Now an International Atomic Energy Agency document, leaked to the Associated Press, says Rezaeinejad worked with a colleague, Mojtaba Dadashnejad to develop high-voltage switches which could set off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead.

The document claims that Dadashnejad, plays “a key role at the center of the Iranian nuclear project". It then contends that he is being investigated by Iranian security forces for leaking information to "unreliable elements" that led to the killing of Rezaeinejad.

Asked to comment, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief representative to the IAEA, said, “This is the first time I have heard of any such thing.”

0640 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau has more on this week's criticism by Davood Ahmadinejad of his brother's inner circle: "We have separated our ways from those who have deviated from the path of Velaayat-e Faqih [clerical supremacy], even if it is our brother." Speaking to Basij militia, Davood Ahmadinejad said, "If our revolution has reached the current point, it is due to our nation knowing what its duties are. If some people, due to their arrogance and pride do what the Khavaarej [a group of supporters of Shia's first Imam, Imam Ali] did, they are no longer with us."

The hardline Kayhan has claimed that Ahmadinejad's allies have been involved in selling Iranian antiquities abroad. Kayhan named Azadeh Kiani, a tutor to Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, as the main suspect. Another hardline site, Neda-ye Enghelab asserted that Kiani has been arrested and "made some confessions".

MP Mohammad Dehghani has declared, "We have never had so much corruption in the executive branch," saying the Ahmadinejad administration is corrupted both culturally and politically.

0630 GMT: Remembering the Dead. The mother of Behnoud Ramazani, a 19-year-old man killed by the security forces during the Fire Festival celebrations in March, has given an impassioned at his grave on his birthday:

0625 GMT: Sanctions Watch. An unexpected step in the sanctions regime led by the US --- Elsevier, the Dutch-based publisher of academic books and journals, has cut off access to its publications by the Shahid Beheshti and Malek-e Ashtar Universities in Tehran. Malek-e Ahstar is allegedly linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, while academics at Shahid Behesthi are said to be involved in Iran's nuclear programme.

0620 GMT: Corruption Watch. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has maintained the pressure on the Government over an alleged $2.6 billion banking fraud, saying on TV that the embezzlement was not committed by low-level officials. At the same time, He declared that investigation of the case and eventual prosecutions have nothing to do with March's Parliamentary elections, preventing Ahmadinejad's supporters from winning.

Parliament held closed-session hearings on Sunday, listening to testimony from Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, head of the National Organization for Inspection, and Mahmoud Bahmani, Governor of the Central Bank.

0600 GMT: Completely Legitimate Elections Watch. Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar has said that Iran is preparing to hold computerised elections in at least 10% of polling stations.

Najjar said the software required for a computerised vote has been tested for next March's Parliamentary elections, with satisfactory results, but a final decision has not been made on implementation.

Najjar, in Press TV's summary, made no reference to the disputed 2009 Presidential election, in which voting was by signature on paper ballots. Iranian officials said a computerised system was used to bring the results from the provinces to Tehran, producing the quick declaration of a victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

0530 GMT: With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad en route to the US --- in a sign of Tehran's attention to Africa, the President stopped over in Mauritania on Monday --- the best lines were left to another Iranian official yesterday.

Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, the commander of the Basij militia, started his routine with an impersonation of Karl Marx/Vladimir Lenin/Josef Stalin/Nikita Khrushchev: "Capitalism is on its death bed and will soon experience complete demise." (Iran's economic approach, under the six years of President Ahmadinejad, has been distinguished by the privatisation of State companies, often purchased by consortia including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.)

Naqdi opened his lines on America: “Human rights, democracy and freedom were some of the fundamental values of the West, of which nothing remains today due to the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib scandals as well as the US coups against the elected [leaders] of nations.”

Not sure if that got a laugh, but this may have brought a chuckle: “The US President has lost face to the extent that he is forced to covertly travel to various places for fear of public protests.”

And then there was this big finish, delivered without a hint of irony, “All the tools used by the arrogant to suppress nations are being used against it today… to the point that [the arrogant power] has been forced to block social networking …websites.”