Students at Babol university protesting and singing Yare Dabestani.

On March 3rd students came out to protest at Elm Va Sanat University in Tehran.

Two weeks before a cherished Iranian holiday that’s celebrated by setting off fireworks and lighting bonfires, Tehran’s chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dowlatabadi delivered an ominous warning to those seeking to turn the celebration into a protest event.

“Police and judges will firmly confront those who intend to go on rampage by exploiting the Chaharshanbeh Souri occasion to create insecurity in the city,” state radio quoted him as saying Sunday. “Nobody is opposed to people’s celebration and recreation. But those who may damage people and public properties in a bid to vent their frustration will be legally dealt with.”

With roots in Iran’s pre-Islamic past, Chaharshanbeh Souri, or Red Wednesday — celebrated on the last Tuesday night before the March 20 end of the Persian calendar year — is an unruly, chaotic and downright dangerous night of edgy pyrotechnics and mayhem.

And that’s during a calm year.

The celebration had already taken on a distinctly political character, especially since the nation’s fundamentalist Muslim clergy have tried unsuccessfully to wipe out such pre-Islamic rituals. But in the wake of the unrest that followed Iran’s disputed presidential elections, opposition supporters have called for protests during the nocturnal celebration.

Jafari-Dowlatabadi warned that the prosecutor’s offices will be burning the midnight oil monitoring the situation during that night, March 16. He called on parents to keep their children from turning the celebration into one of “suffering and mourning.”

“People themselves will never allow anyone to disturb the climate,” he said, hinting that plainclothes pro-government Basiji militiamen will be out in full force.  The prosecutor also likened any opposition to the government as a threat to “national security” that would be dealt with harshly. “Whatever has happened in the past eight months since the election are all blatant cases of threats against national security,” he said. Go to LA Times.

Iran’s security forces will stop opposition supporters using the Iranian new year in March to stage more anti-government protests, a leading judicial official said.

Tehran prosecutor-general Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi was speaking after opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said on his website on February 28 that the legitimacy of clerical rule was waning due to its “repressive measures”.

“Even though some go on trying to agitate the atmosphere in society with statements… they’ve been given the answer by the people,” Dolatabadi said in comments on state news agency IRNA.

“We will not witness street demonstrations and we will not allow anyone to come to the streets to disrupt public security without proper permits.”

Hardliners have accused reformist opposition leaders of inciting unrest and called them enemies of God, a crime punishable by death under Iran’s Islamic law.

“Even though threats against the revolution will not come to an end, we will not succumb and certainly one day in the not so distant future despair will take them and they will surrender,” Dolatabadi said.

“The file on the election has been closed and law enforcement agencies have been asked to preserve security,” he said, referring to often rowdy large street celebrations involving fires and fireworks on the last Tuesday of the Iranian year, March 16.

The Iranian new year begins on March 21. Go to Radio Free Europe.

Forced confession of protester, where he states that he was protesting the coup government, but now laments that he had not done his due diligence on his news sources. The court is utilizing protest footage to accuse protesters.

Throwing up a challenge to to the increasingly violent tactics of Iran’s ruling elite, the country’s two leading opposition figures are urging protesters to defy the government and take to the streets in an anti-government rally on February 11.

The government announced on Tuesday that it would execute nine protesters in addition to the two who were hanged last week. The prosecutor also asked for the death sentence for a 24-year-old protester today, having charged him with Moharehbeh, or waging war against God, for “throwing rocks during protests,” the ISNA student news agency reported.

The statements by the two opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hussein Moussavi, appeared to reflect a unanimous decision among opposition leaders to stand fast in the face of the brutal treatment of protesters by the government.

The statement from Mr. Karoubi, posted Wednesday on his Web site, Sahamnews.org, called for free elections, release of political prisoners and an end to the police state created since the June 12 elections. He renewed his accusations that the results of the June 12 elections were “engineered,” and dismissed claims that he was seeking a compromise with the government.

“I will defend the legitimate and legal freedoms and rights of the people,” he said. “This is my unbreakable vow.”

Mr. Karoubi’s statement followed by a day some of Mr. Moussavi’s harshest remarks to date against the country’s rulers and the regime, which he called “dictatorial.”

However, Mr. Karroubi urged protesters to stay calm, warning that their enemies wished to provoke them into acts of violence so as to justify even more brutal measures to suppress them.

“The opposition movement today includes groups with diverse demands,” he said. “We might agree or oppose some of the ideas but we all agree over free elections, free press, unconditional release of political prisoners and a reformed way of political governance.

“Without any doubt, increasing these demands can lead to more violent suppression of the movement.”

CNN: Karrubi, whose statement appeared on Moussavi’s Web site, denounced “tyranny, arrests and imprisonment of journalists, students and political activists, show trials, executions, and heavy-handed sentencing of those who are unjustly and wrongly accused as well as a greatly increased military environment.”

Go to NY Times.

Leaders of Iran’s opposition movement and the country’s hard-line establishment sharpened their months-long confrontation Saturday, with opponents calling on demonstrators to take to the streets on a highly charged anniversary next week and the judiciary putting 16 alleged protesters on trial.

Opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi voiced deep sorrow over the “hasty” executions of two Iranians hanged last week in a move widely interpreted as an attempt at intimidation ahead of anticipated confrontations Feb. 11, the 31st anniversary of the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic.

Their “invitation” for supporters to take to the streets showed fresh daring. Neither had explicitly called for protests on the Dec. 27 Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashura, the last round of confrontations between security forces and demonstrators.

It came as top officials warned of consequences for anyone who tries to take part in anything but official rallies on the anniversary, traditionally an occasion for anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli slogans and imagery.

“Anyone breaking ranks with the Iranian people will be considered an agent of foreigners,” Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani, the Tehran Revolutionary Guard commander, told SepahNews, the website of the elite military branch. “Any voice or color other than the voice of the Islamic Revolution will be pushed aside, and if a minority makes such an attempt, it will be firmly confronted.”

Another Revolutionary Guard officer, Gen. Ali-Mohammad Naini, told the Fars news agency that authorities planned to double the number of government supporters at this year’s rally, presumably by busing them in from the provinces and providing them with pay and food.

Meanwhile, 16 alleged opposition supporters, two of them women, were brought to trial Saturday on charges of plotting against the Islamic government and being in cahoots with foreign enemies of Iran.

According to prosecutors, all 16 had confessed to espionage and taking part in “counter-revolutionary” gatherings with the aim of carrying out bombings and assassinations, distributing leaflets, burning property and writing graffiti.

Many considered the televised trial an attempt to cow potential protesters into staying home Feb. 11. But months of similar trials and a continuous stream of dire warnings against the opposition have failed to subdue a grass-roots movement unlike any Iran has experienced. Go to LA Times.

Iran’s national police chief issued a stark warning to the country’s opposition on Friday, saying that the era of “mercy” was over and that the authorities would begin cracking down more harshly not only on street protests but also on anyone who used cellphones and e-mail messages to publicize them.

The police chief, Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, said at a news conference on Friday that those who used e-mail and cellphones to organize protests would be punished even more severely than the protesters themselves.

“After all the evidence we saw on Ashura, our tolerance has come to an end, and both the police force and the judiciary will be confronting them with full force,” Mr. Ahmadi Moghaddam said, according to Iran’s semiofficial news service ILNA. Go to NY Times.

Iran’s police chief on Friday warned opposition supporters not to use cell phones and e-mail messages to organize protest rallies against the government, saying those who do so will be prosecuted and punished.

Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said spreading the word of the opposition through Internet or cell phone SMS is a crime that deserves severe punishment and that the authorities would continue monitoring those systems.

The remarks are the latest reflecting the government’s frustration at various imaginative ways the opposition has sought to rally supporters following the disputed June presidential election.

A harsh government crackdown has left the opposition with little means to make its voice heard. Almost all pro-reform newspapers have been closed since the June 12 vote in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. Those still in circulation have been openly threatened against publishing opposition statements. Iranian state media, controlled by hard-liners, regularly ignore the opposition. Go to Washington Post.

Zahra is a nurse working at the Beheshti Hospital in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. Both Zahra and her husband, Arash, a physiotherapist, work hard, with a lot of overtime, to provide for their two children.

They complain about their relatively low income. Zahra, for example, earns 550,000 tumans a month, about $600, and says the abolition of government subsidies, as planned by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, would further reduce their real income.

But the main reason why both Zahra and Arash voted for Mir Hossein Musavi, Ahmadinejad’s main contender in the presidential election seven months ago, was not their economic situation, Zahra says.

“Financially, we are surviving, somehow. But we want to live in a moderate and free society with better perspectives for our kids,” she says. “The election proved that our votes don’t count and everyday there are new restrictions and hostilities…. It’s as though we were constantly at war with ourselves and the world.”

But Zahra is afraid of losing her job and of pressure on her husband and school-age kids. That is why she ignored the opposition’s call for mass demonstrations on Ashura, the Shi’ite holy day, on December 27.

Nobody can predict the course of developments in Iran in the next year or two. Writing for RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, Akbar Ganji, a prominent opposition figure, points to two important factors, among others, that guarantee the ultimate success of the democracy movement: remaining peaceful in spite of regime provocations to draw the protesters into violent actions, and expanding the number of its active supporters in spite of persecution and threats. Those two factors complement one another.

Zahra and millions like her won’t stop supporting freedom and calling for an open, moderate country with an accountable government. What is crucial is to keep them engaged and active by reducing their fears (IND:  Hence the need for the free world led by the Obama administration to publicize the regime’s human rights abuses), and to further increase the number of those who dare to show the flag. Looking back at the mass demonstrations during the last years of the shah’s regime, Ganji notes, “It is not easy to massacre peaceful mass demonstrations.” Go to Radio Free Europe.

A Swedish diplomat in Iran was arrested and accused of participating in Iranian protests during observances surrounding the Muslim holy day of Ashura, two semi-official news agencies reported Sunday, citing members of Iran’s parliament.

Sweden denies that the diplomat was involved in the protests.

Swedish officials and the Mehr news agency reported that the diplomat was subsequently released.

“Based on the law and international norms, diplomats cannot be detained or arrested,” Alaedin Boroujerdi, a member of the Iranian parliamentary National Security Committee, told Mehr. “But since this person was among those who were disturbing the peace, he was initially arrested but then he was released when it was determined he was a diplomat.” Go to CNN.

One of Iran’s most respected television presenters is resisting official pressure to deny claims her son was deliberately run over by security forces during an opposition protest.

Shahin Mahinfar, 61, who has been introducing programmes since the days of the Shah, was banned from state television premises after her 25-year-old son Amir Tajmir, a TV technician, was killed on December 27.

Witnesses said he was run over twice by a police armoured personnel carrier in Tehran’s Vali Asr square during anti-government demonstrations marking the Ashura holy festival. Mobile phone footage appeared to support the allegations.

According to opposition websites, Mahinfar has refused to return to the screen to issue a denial. News of her son’s death sent a wave of rage through Tehran. The footage of the alleged killing was downloaded by tens of thousands of Iranians.

On Friday Iranian secret police arrested two of the main witnesses.

One, a young woman calling herself “Sadaf” was interviewed by the Voice of America Farsi service and described what happened in front of her. Go to Times UK.

This great documentary starts from the presidential debates before the election and covers all of the major protests and events in the past 7 months.  Click Here to see all 3 parts. See More.

IND:  It’s curious that Khamenei, himself, would need to repeat such a demand – when so many of his subortinates have been demanding a harsher crackdown for weeks.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told the security forces to take firm action against antigovernment protesters.

“The officials of the three forces saw for themselves what the nation is asking for, therefore, they must perform their duties well toward the corrupt and the rioters,” Khamenei told visitors from the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom south of Tehran today. Go to Radio Free Europe.