Leaving Iran While Looking Over Your Shoulder: A Reporter’s Diary

Two days before leaving Tehran and three weeks after Iranian Intelligence had come around looking for me, I was taking no chances. The notes, essays and photos on the protests I had been regularly sending back for publication would have to be sent to the States separately…with my grandma. She had a flight to the U.S.

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Iran reportedly frees 140 jailed election protesters

The Iranian government has released 140 people arrested in the aftermath of the Islamic republic’s disputed presidential election, a semi-official news agency reported Tuesday. Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, said the detainees posted bail and were freed from northern Tehran’s Evin Prison during an inspection of the prison by a task force made up of commission members, the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reported.

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Report: Moussavi’s brother-in-law detained

The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi spoke publicly about her brother’s detention for the first time Thursday, accusing the Islamic government of fueling false allegations about him, according to media report. Zahra Rahnavard told the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency that her brother, Shahpour Kazemi, 62, was arrested a month ago

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Black boxes ‘damaged’ in Iran air disaster

A day after an Iranian passenger plane crashed in flames killing all 168 people on board, aviation officials were Thursday examining the aircraft’s damaged flight data recorders to try to determine the cause of the disaster. Caspian Airlines flight 7908 — a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M — plunged to the ground and disintegrated minutes into its flight from Tehran to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, officials said. Flight data recorders were recovered Wednesday from the crash site — a smoldering crater strewn with charred plane pieces and tattered passports –but Iranian media reported the so-called “black boxes” had been badly damaged

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Rafsanjani set to deliver pivotal sermon

The brother of powerful Iranian cleric Ali Akbar Hasehemi Rafsanjani hailed the latter’s upcoming Friday sermon as one that Iranians have highly anticipated and said that a "great turnout" is expected. Rafsanjani, a former president and normally a frequent speaker at the prayer service on Islam’s holy day, has not appeared at the weekly sermon since the disputed June 12 presidential vote, according to the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency.

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