Iran's hardline daily newspaper Jamhouri Eslami made a rare attack on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making espionage accusations against a former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, and saying that influential politicians were using their power to have him cleared. Mousavian was an aide to former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "Lately defaming political rivals has become common in the country and has replaced lawful behaviour," the newspaper wrote in an editorial. "We want to reject this kind of behavior as immoral, illegal, illogical and un-Islamic and remind wise figures that such a trend is dangerous for the country."

A statement by the Organization for Women's Liberation—Iran, Nov 8:

We condemn the war against people in Iran!
The risk of a military attack against people in Iran is imminent. The US administration is adamant about an attack against Iran. The US government is trying to gain support of other states and the public opinion in the US for the attack. The French foreign minister has defended military attack against Iran. They claim war is inevitable if Islamic regime is to be prevented from producing nuclear weapons. On the other hand the Islamic regime is flaring up the fire of war. Both sides have escalated their war propaganda. Economic sanctions against Iran too are adding to the prospect of death and devastation.

An open letter to the world human rights community and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from PetitionOnline:

Delaram Ali is a woman’s activist who has been given a custodial sentence for 28 months with 10 lashes for taking part in a protest meeting in June 2006 in Iran. In an interview with the official newspapers she expressed her anger at the fact that the security guards were not penalized for beating and maltreating her. Delaram’s imprisonment has led to a mass protest action in Iran. Despite all the protests and the efforts of her solicitor, Mrs Shirin Ebadi, the Islamic regime condemned her to jail sentence.

An appellate court in Tehran confirmed a five-year sentence against imprisoned union leader Mansur Osanlu Oct. 30. The court also upheld a two-year prison sentence against another senior member of Osanlu's union, Ebrahim Madadi, for acting against Iran's national security. Osanlu, head of the Syndicate Workers of the Tehran Bus Company, has been incarcerated at Tehran's Evin prison since July, when he pulled from a bus, beaten, and abducted. Madadi was detained along with four other union members in August after they visited Osanlu's home.

Despite the ignorant blather of his brainless liberal apologists that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "not a 'Holocaust denier'" but merely calls for more research into whether it happened (gee, thanks for raising this subtle distinction), BBC Monitoring notes an Oct. 5 radio address by His Excellency, delivered in Tehran during Friday prayers—part of a series of state-sponsored rallies for "Al-Quds Day"—in which he shows his hand pretty blatantly:

A very important story by Kimia Sanati from InterPress Service, Oct. 3:

Islamist, Socialist Revolutions Don't Mix
An attempt to rope in the son and daughter of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara to forge a parallel between Iran's Islamist revolution and the socialist revolution in Latin America through a four-day conference has ended in fiasco.

A Sept. 29 AP story given prominent placement in the New York Times, "Nervous Gulf Hears Calmer Tones on Iran," notes that CentCom chief Adm. William Fallon, on a tour of the Persian Gulf states, is reassuring regional leaders that a war with Iran is not in the offing. "This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful," Fallon said in Sept. 23 interview with Al-Jazeera TV. "I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try and to do our utmost to create different conditions." The Times quoted some talking heads from the "pragmatist" wing of the power elite who were encouraged by Fallon's statement. "It's all about trying to contain Iran without turning this into a war," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington.

A commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards died after an ambush on Sept. 20 by Ahwazi militants. Mehdi Bayat was killed near the Revolutionary Guards base in Hamidiyah, near Ahwaz City in western Khuzestan province, where Iran's Ahwazi Arab minority have launched a struggle for autonomy or independence. Bayat was a commanding officer responsible for training members of the Bassij militia in Khaffajiyah. The town of Khaffajiyah has witnessed a number of disturbances by Ahwazi Arab groups which have been brutally put down by the Revolutionary Guards' elite Ashura Brigades.