The Latest from Iran (24 September): The Imprisonment of the Filmmakers

Mojtaba Mirtahmasb1635 GMT: Press Release of the Day. And, as it's slow, let's give some airtime to General Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military advisor to the Supreme Leader: “The US and Zionists are desperately seeking to rein in, restrict, replace...or take control of some of these revolutions” in the Middle East and North Africa.

Rahim Safavi, whose brother has told Western diplomats of the "political coup" of the 2009 Presidential election from the Supreme Leader's office, said the "West" started a “division of labour” system with France tasked to help bring Western-supported individuals to power through the National Transitional Council. He declared the US was seeking to infiltrate Egypt's Parliamentary Presidential balllots and interfere in the proposed changes to Egypt's Constitution.

Safavi urged Libyans and Egyptians to prevent this foreign interference, adding that the US was about to lose its political position in the region and said Israel was also facing a difficult situation.

Moving to Central Asia, Safavi said that terrorist groups in Afghanistan were linked to "Western hegemony", but the US would suffer the same fate as the former Soviet Union and finally leave the country after a humiliating defeat.

1630 GMT: The Ahmadinejad Road Show. On a very slow day for Iran news, let's pay another --- possibly last --- visit to the Ahmadinejad display in the US.

Press TV, quoting the President's official website, reports that he put out his talking points to Associated Press editors, such as, “Iran's nuclear program, which is a legal issue, has been turned into a political one by certain Western countries."

And there was another reference to the 9/11 attacks, with Ahmadinejad expressing his regret that Iran had proposed the establishment of a fact-finding committee to investigate different aspects of the event, only for the US government to refuse the proposal and threaten Iran.

0930 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mohammad Saber Malek Raisi, who became one of Iran's youngest prisoners when he was arrested after the age of 15, has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Raisi, from Baluchistan in southeast Iran, was arrested in late 2009. His brother was accused of being a member of the insurgent organisation Jundullah, and Iranian officials had indicated that Raisi might face the death penalty for alleged activities.

0910 GMT: Corruption Watch. Iran's Inspector General Mostafa Pourmohammadi has given assurances that there will be a full, "serious" investigation of the $2.6 billion bank fraud that has shaken the Iranian system. Pourmohammadi warned that the case should not be used to assist the "psychological warfare of the "enemy".

0620 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. The President held yet another press conference yesterday in New York. It may be a sign of after-the-party fatigue that it has left scarcely a ripple in the US press; the impact elsewhere has yet to be seen.

Press TV summarises the rhetoric: "If the United States, Britain, and NATO withdraw their forces from the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, the Islamic Republic of Iran, along with other regional countries, will 'guarantee' the security of the region....Iran has always respected other nations' rights, noting that such rights cannot be realized through NATO bombs or interference by foreign states."

Ahmadinejad denounced NATO's presence in Afghanistan and, covering an omission in his UN speech on Thursday, said that the Palestinian people have the inalienable right to an independent state. He responded to a question by an Egyptian reporter that Tehran is waiting for the establishment of a government based on Egyptians' votes and then will continue its efforts to normalise ties.

0600 GMT: We start this morning with the story of the six filmmakers --- directors Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Nasser Saffarian, Hadi Afariden and Shahnama Bazdar, producer Katayoun Shahabi and documentary filmmaker Mohsen Shahnazdar --- seized this week by security forces.

Charges have yet to be filed against the six, but the regime's general line is that they were working for BBC Persian, presumably on subversive programming designed to undermine the State. That, however, appears to be a pretext. BBC Persian has denied that it employed any of the detainees or commissioned their productions, and in Mirtahmasb's case, his "crime" appears to be co-directing a film with Jafar Panahi, who was sentenced in December to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking.

Other reports are speculating that the detentions are designed to intimidate and punish BBC Persian after it broadcast this documentary on the Supreme Leader: