iran unfiltered

Thankfully it appears that ETS, the company that administers the Toefl English exam, has resumed normal registration for the exam as it has found a bank willing to process payments in Iran.  New registration had been suspended in the past two weeks (see here) as ETS's then-bank stopped processing payments due to UN sanctions, which everyone can agree is an unintended consequence.   

Prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei has apparently gone into hiding in order to avoid arrest and detention by Iran's security forces.  In retaliation the government has imprisoned Mostafaei's wife and brother-in-law; as their lawyer explains, they have been taken 'hostage' so that Mostafaei will turn himself in.

The regime's desire to punish Mostafaei surely stems from his role as the defense lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman whose scheduled execution by stoning caused an international outcry and was ultimately postponed.

At the risk of placing himself in even greater peril than his current situation, imprisoned journalist Issa Saharkhiz has written an open letter to judiciary head Sadegh Larijani in which he specifically calls out by name none other than Leader Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he blames (along with the country's chief prosecutor Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei) for his inhumane treatment while in detention.

He has given the authorities one month to respond.  They won't of course, which is why he has come up with a preemptive threat: at the end of that month he will instruct his lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, to pursue his case in international bodies.  This is a clever threat because despite what it may say, the Iranian regime does not like to be embarrassed in the international arena.

A brave man

The European Union, Iran's largest trading partner, has imposed a set of sanctions on Iran that will likely have a more significant impact than the watered-down series of resolutions that the UN Security Council has passed.

[This is a weekly series that shares an interesting piece of programming on Iran. Please feel free to share any suggestions for videos by using the contact form in the sidebar.]

Saturday was the tenth anniversary of the death of renowned poet Ahmad Shamlou.  A simple commemoration gathering at his gravesite was shamefully interrupted by construction work conveniently being done at the exact same time as the ceremony:  

Here is Shamlou's beautiful recitation of his poem Dar In Bonbast ("In This Blind Alley", translated here by Tehran Bureau), a very apt poem for the times:

It seems that Turkey and Brazil didn't get the message when their proposed nuclear swap deal with Iran (see here) in late May was greeted by the international community with...immediate work on another round of sanctions, which was passed last month.  They met with Iranian officials today in a bid to restart the negotiation track. 

The Ahmadinejad government often makes noises about moving people/government/influence out of Tehran and to other cities, and to that end this week it issued a directive that puts a freeze on the creation of government positions in Tehran while encouraging current posts in the capital to be relocated elsewhere.  

The latter plan is likely to be unpopular and I'd be surprised if it is implemented in any meaningful way; despite Tehran's many flaws, there can't be too many people eager to leave and move to the provinces.

In a speech this week in which he discussed the regime's attack on the social sciences in universities, Mir Hossein Mousavi made an interesting comparison to a similar policy carried out by the Soviet Union:

In witnessing these attacks, I remember the very bitter and cautionary experience of the former Soviet Union and other totalitarian Eastern European governments. Beginning with Stalin, they saw the social sciences as products of capitalist and bourgeoisie societies and therefore banned teaching them except in some limited cases. The banning and limitations on these fields closed their eyes to the fast trend of changes in the world and their own society and damaged the flexibility of their system [to adapt] in the face of social changes in their own society and the world, and the lack of knowledgeable experts and theorists in the social sciences was one of the causes of the fall of these systems.

What was Mousavi saying, though, the first time universities were being cleansed in the first few years after the revolution?

The Washington Post has a feature on how major Western insurers have cut off insurance to Iranian shipping companies because of sanctions.  As an official at one affected shipper says: 

Iranian-flagged ships are facing problems all over the world as they currently have no insurance coverage because of the new sanctions.  Basically, most ports will refuse them entry if they are not covered for possible damages.

An Iranian film studio is planning to make a film about un-defected scientist Shahram Amiri.  Maybe the lead role can be played by actor Mohammad-Reza Sharifinia, if he's not too busy attending ceremonies for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

   A decent match, no?  

The concept of velayat-e faghih (the position of Supreme Leader) has no precedent prior to the establishment of the Islamic Republic and is a highly controversial concept to begin with in religious circles, but that doesn't stop the Iranian regime's hardliners from consistently pushing the boundaries further and talking up its importance.  The office holder himself, Ali Khamenei, seems to have raised this campaign to new heights with a religious order (in response to a question) that is being reported by local media:

Question: Please explain the "obligation to the Supreme Leadership."  In other words, how must we act so that we know we have complete belief in and are completely obliged to the successor of the Hidden Imam?

Answer: The Supreme Leadership means rule by a qualified cleric during the time of the absence [of the Hidden Imam] and is a branch of the rule of the [Shia Imams], which is the same as the rule of the Prophet.  If you obey the commands of the ruler of Muslims [Khamenei], it indicates complete [fulfillment of] the obligation.

It appears that unrest in the bazaar has come to an end for the time being, with an agreement reached to raise taxes on by 15%.  This rate is well below the government's proposed hike of 70% but many bazaaris are left unhappy - the usual yearly increase was only 7%, and this year's increase likely won't be easy to absorb for many whose businesses are not doing well to begin with.

As the article points out, the much bigger economic battle looming is over the proposed elimination of state subsidies.  

[This is a weekly series that shares an interesting piece of programming on Iran. Please feel free to share any suggestions for videos by using the contact form in the sidebar.]

A multimedia reporting site called Jadid Online has a very interesting short video on some of the earliest recordings of Persian music, made in London in the early 20th century by a group of prominent Iranian musicians of the day.

The video, in Farsi with English subtitles, is here.

Whenever the US rolls out sanctions against Iran, it emphasizes that the goal is to punish the Iranian government without harming the people.  Well, one of the first tangible effects of the latest round of sanctions shows just the opposite: the US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS), which runs the Test of English as a Foreign Language (Toefl), has been forced to suspend registration for its tests in Iran because it can no longer process payments there.  The Toefl is a widely taken test in Iran and an important part of the path for countless young Iranians to pursue educational opportunities abroad.

The US has acknowledged the issue and is "exploring whether there are alternative mechanisms" for ETS to continue its Iran operations.  Hopefully a solution can be found quickly.

US officials have put a dent in recently un-defected Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri's (already questionable) story that he was abducted by the US when they announced that he received $5 million from the CIA for the information he provided about Iran's nuclear program.  The bad news for Amiri is that now that he has returned to Iran, he can no longer access that money because of US sanctions. 

That's not the only bad news for Amiri - he has to gather up all his persuasive powers now to convince the Iranian government that he didn't defect in the first place and provide the US with intelligence.  Also working against him is the fact that it is probably in the regime's interest to treat him harshly in order to send a clear warning to other would-be defectors.