The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has abruptly fired his foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and replaced him with the current head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, state media reported 13 December. Mottaki was on an official trip to Senegal. The government says that its foreign and nuclear policies remain unchanged.
Rumours of Mottaki’s imminent departure have been heard for the past few years, according to CNN. He was seen as standing in the way of Ahmadinejad’s control of foreign policy and was backed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His replacement was Iran’s top envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is trying to bring Iran’s nuclear ambitions in line with its international committments.
Several Iranian diplomats have defected recently and publicly joined the growing Iranian opposition movement following disputed elections in June 2009, reports Le Temps.
Links to other sites: AFP, New York Times
Tsvangirai says the country should keep its distance
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ‘s visit to Harare, Zimbabwe met with a cheering Zanu-PF party welcome at the airport, while Morgan Tsvangirai’s shared government party, Movement for Democratic Change, has criticized the Iranian leader’s state visit. Ahmadinejad is officially opening the Zimbabwe International Agricultural Fair in Bulawayo. Iran has invested heavily in agriculture and textile projects in Zimbabwe. The two presidents this week signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint company to develop industry and energy projects in Zimbabwe.
Links to other sites: AllAfrica/the Herald (official newspaper), Independent, UK, Morning Star, UK
Government supporters are thronging to the central Azadi (Freedom) Square to hear an hour-long speech by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while opposition supporters have been prevented from rallying by the Baseej, the government militia, using pepper spray and tear gas, and in some cases bullets. Iranians are celebrating the 31st anniversary of the revolution that toppled the shah Thursday 11 February amid tensions between the government of Ahmadinejad and the opposition Green Movement, which disputes the legitimacy of the elections in June 2009 which Ahamdinejad won overwhelmingly.
Ahmadinejad announced that the country’s nuclear engineers had enriched the first batch of uranium from 3.5 percent to about 20 percent purity for medical research purposes, and said Iran was a “nuclear state”. He denied that Iran wanted to develop nuclear weapons. A majority of Iranians, including prominent members of the opposition, support the government’s bid to develop an independent nuclear capability, according to an analysis of Iranian opinion polls published by the University of Maryland’s Program of International Policy Attitudes.
Members of the press are escorted to Azadi Square and are limited in their ability to report on opposition meetings. The government has blocked text messaging and internet traffic is reportedly very slow, to deny the opposition the ability to organize.
Links to other sites: CNN, Daily Dish, New York Times, PIPA site, Reuters
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, told ABC television in the US that the American government forged and disseminated documents showing that Iran has planned to use uranium deuteride as a nuclear bomb trigger in a test. The report on the document, published 14 December by The Times, UK, is “fundamentally not true”, he told ABC interviewer Diane Sawyer.
Links to other sites: ABC interview with Ahmadinejad, US, BBC, Times, UK
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has died in his sleep, aged 87, in the holy city of Qom, Iran. His death has already sparked unrest in Tehran University, and the Iranian authorities are preparing for more protests during his funeral Monday 21 December.
Montazeri moved from being the designated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution against the Shah, to a fierce critic of the regime’s abuses of human rights. He critized the execution of up to 30,000 muhajedin opponents in the aftermath of the country’s war with Iraq in the 1980s. He was also opposed to Khomeini’s fatwa against the British author, Salman Rushdie.
Montazeri was placed under house arrest for five and a half years in 1997 for his open opposition to Ali Khameini, elected Supreme Leader after the death of Khomeini.
Although frequently called a reformist, Montazeri was an early and committed member of the opposition that toppled the Shah in 1979. It was his unsurpassed standing as a Shia cleric that gave him the moral authority to question Iran’s political leadership, including the outcome of Iran’s recent presidential election in favour of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Links to other sites: BBC, The Telegraph, Times Obituaries
Iran will build 10 new sites to enrich uranium, the government of Iran announced Sunday 29 November. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the facilities will produce 250-300 tonnes of enriched uranium a year. Construction is to begin on five of the new plants within two months, and when all 10 are completed will house 500,000 centrifuges.
The decision by Iran was taken after the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, IAEA, sharply rebuked Iran 27 November for not complying with five UN Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to cease its nuclear activities. The IAEA resolution had Russian and Chinese backing.
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is calling on world leaders to develop new tactics with Iran, to engage the country rather than isolating it. Lula da Silva and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in Brazil Monday 23 November and Lula, the rare leader to welcome Ahmadinejad, said in a joint press conference at the end that he supports Iran’s efforts to develop a peaceful nuclear energy programme. Lula’s background includes years as a union negotiator.
Thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran and Shiraz 4 November to voice their opposition to the government, as Iran celebrated the seizing of the US embassy and 52 embassy staff 30 years ago. The annual celebration to vilify the US became the occasion for many Iranians to shout “down with the dictator”, to protest the contested and controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi was under de facto house arrest Wednesday 4 November to prevent him from participating in the rallies.
Home-made video showed scenes of militia armed with batons storming into crowds of protesters, beating people. Many were arrested, and led off. The media in Iran is limited in its ability to report independently. BBC, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
Iran says it accuses the US, Great Britain and Pakistan of involvement in the deadly suicide-bomb attacks in its Sistan-Baluchistan province on Sunday 18 October which killed 42 people, including several senior military commanders of the Revolutionary Guards. Suspicions were aroused because of the detailed intelligence reportedly needed in order to reach their targets. The US and the UK have denied invlovement. Iran has vowed a “crushing” response.
Iran has accused Jundullah, a Sunni radical group, of carrying out the attack, and accuses Pakistan of harbouring the leader of the group. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called his Pakistani counterpart to ask for help in arresting the group’s leaders, who he says are based in Pakistan. The group has carried out attacks in Iran before, and claims to represent the rights of Sunni Muslims in mostly Shiite Iran. BBC, The Times
Iran’s new government contains one woman, Marzieh-Vahid Dastjerdi, as health minister, the first in the Islamic Republic’s history. The parliament approved most of the cabinet proposed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently re-elected president, although it rejected two other women.
The new defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is a hardliner and former chief of the elite Quds force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He is wanted by Interpol and the Argentine government for his alleged involvement in the 1994 explosion of the headquarters of Amia, a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. He received the most votes from parliament. CNN, Reuters, Clarin (Spa)
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini is expected to officially endorse President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner of the disputed 12 June presidential election, ahead of his swearing-in 5 August in front of parliament. Ahmadinejad has had difficulties forming his new government, reflecting a serious rift within the establishment. Various cabinet members have been rejected, have resigned or been fired. The massive demonstrations following the election resulted in an unknown number of deaths and many hundreds of detentions. The losing presidential candidates criticized the trials 1 and 2 August of hundreds of demonstrators held in government prisons, saying they were unconstitutional and alleging that their confessions were obtained using “medieval” torture methods. Popular discontent with the election results has been more subdued and subtle since. Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Reuters
Thousands of supporters of the losing candidate in 12 June’s Iranian presidential elections, Mir Hussein Moussavi, took to the streets of Teheran again 18 June in a peaceful protest against what they say was voter fraud and official violence against the protesters. Thirteen people have reportedly died since 14 June at the hands of the authorities. The election was won by the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but authorities have already said they would conduct a partial recount of the vote. Moussavi has asked for new elections.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini is to appear today, 19 June at the University of Teheran, for a much anticipated speech on the situation. The university has been the scene of much violence, where civilian militia, the Basij, have targeted students. Foreign news agencies have been prevented from covering the unrest, and the authorities have disrupted cell phone service sporadically. BBC, CNN, Tehran Times, NYT
Protests in Teheran and other Iranian cities this weekend were violently repressed by riot police and civilian militia on motorcycles after Iran’s presidential election Friday 12 June was controversially won by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His opponent, Mir Hussein Moussavi urged Iran’s Guardian Council for the election to be anulled, citing irregularities both before and during the vote. His supporters have called for a rally in Teheran, Monday 15 June in the afternoon. Reuters, BBC, CNN
In the most closely-watched presidential elections in Iran for years, polling stations expected a record turn-out from the 46.7 million voters. Incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to win easily just weeks ago, but now faces a serious challenge from Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister and the leading reformist candidate. The latest polls were too close to call.
Ahmadinejad will be judged on his management of the economy, which has dipped seriously under his adminsitration. The inflation rate is over 26 percent and unemployment is at 15 percent. There are 304 polling stations around the world, including 32 in the US. Teheran Times, CNN
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Speakers at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy Sunday 19 April expressed their shock and outrage at the presence of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Durban Review Conference 20-24 April. The summit, organized by a coalition of human rights, anti-racism and pro-democracy activists, refers to itself as a parallel event to the Durban conference of governments, which will evaluate progress in achieving goals set by the first world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.
