Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi issued a strong statement of support Saturday for the Tunisian revolution that ousted longtime strongman Zine el Abidine ben Ali and the ongoing uprising against Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak, linking the ongoing struggles for freedom in the Arab world to popular revolt against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

"The Middle East is bracing for big events likely to influence the fate of the region and its nations and even the world," he said in a Persian-language statement posted to his website Kalemeh.com. "What is underway is aimed at changing the tyrannical order gripping a large number of nations in the region and doubtlessly, whatever we are witnessing in the streets of Tunis, Sana, Cairo, Alexandria and Suez take their origins from the millions-strong protests in Tehran in June 2009."

The statement followed what many critics have described as mendacious and cynical attempts by Iran's hard-line Islamist rulers, including Ahmadinejad, to describe the upheavals throughout the Arab world as Islamic uprisings, contrary to the reality on the ground.

Though Iranian officials and their supporters in the West publicly claim that people in Tunis, Tunisia, and Cairo are clamoring for Islamic rule, they likely are attempting to spin the uprisings to their favor, analysts say. Even as Iran's Persian and English-language news outlets describe an Islamic upheaval, its Arabic language al-Alam channel makes no such claims, knowing well that viewers in the Arab world would dismiss such claims.

In his statement, Mousavi suggested that Iran's uprising after Ahmadinejad's reelection debacle inspired the Arab world.

"During those days, people thronged the streets with the slogan 'Where is my vote?' to peacefully follow up on the rights denied them," Mousavi said. "Today, the 'Where is my vote?' slogan developed by the people of Iran has resulted in the calls for the collapse of the regime in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria."

[Updated, Jan. 11, 2:09 a.m. PDT: The United States has now spoken out against the sentencing of human-rights lawyer Nasrine Sotoudeh to 11 years in prison. In a press statement. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley called the sentence "unjust and harsh" and called for her release. "Ms. Sotoudeh is a strong voice for rule of law and justice in Iran," the statement said. "Her conviction is part of a systematic attempt on the part of Iranian authorities to silence the defense of democracy and human rights in Iran."]

France on Monday joined a chorus of international condemnation over the sentencing of Iranian human-rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh to 11 years in prison.

She was also banned on Sunday from practicing law or traveling for 20 years.

A representative of France's foreign ministry said the punishment was "deeply shocking" and called for the release of Sotoudeh along with another activist, Shiva Nazar-Ahari, who was sentenced to four years in prison and 74 lashes.

"The only known fault of Nasrin Soutoudeh is of specializing in the defense of human rights, particularly those of women, minors and journalists," foriegn ministry spokesman Barnard Valero was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

Sotoudeh was convicted of acting against national security, propaganda against the regime and failing to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, in a videotaped message, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Sotoudeh's family. The campaign said that the mother of two, 46 or 47 years old, was tortured and in poor health when her family was finally allowed to see her, adding that her children burst into tears.

Ismail is 38, but with his cropped gray hair and deep wrinkles, he looks closer to 58. He is the busboy at a patisserie in a Turkish town, but he may be the only busboy there who can quote 17th century poets. Ismail is a political refugee from Iran.

He was working on Kurban Bayram, however, the Islamic holiday celebrating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (a holiday known in Arabic as Eid al-Adha and Persian as Eid Ghorban). In Turkey, and especially in the city of Afyon, the holiday is usually observed by families eating together and going to their grandparents' house.

So it is strange when someone is idling on the street, drinking tea alone with no family to be found.

“They're all in Tehran,” he said.

Forget the Boy Scouts. As of Monday, newborns and children up to the age of 7 can sign up for the paramilitary Basiji organization, according to the Mehr news agency (Persian link).

Parents are invited to register their bouncing little baby boys and girls at the Basiji office in Tehran, where they can receive their membership cards.

The Basijis operate as additional police and security forces under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and were a key element in the violent crackdown on peaceful protests after Iran's disputed 2009 presidential elections.

The organization recently won approval from parliament to increase its membership to 30 million, of which 1.5 million should be "active" members.

 -- Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Basiji forces display their might in an annual parade. Credit: Hamid Forootan / ISNA

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah appears to have acknowledged the credibility of WikiLeaks, breaking with the official stance of the group's patron, Iran, that the leaked diplomatic cables are part of some American and Israeli-backed conspiracy.

By supporting WikiLeaks, Nasrallah now finds himself in the same camp as an unlikely figure: Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who said in comments published Saturday that the documents expose Iran's "vulnerability."

In a speech late Friday night, the Hezbollah leader said the resistance would be targeted by conspiracies even greater than those already revealed in the leaked United States diplomatic cables, hinting mysteriously at more to come.

During the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the party and its supporters "faced serious threats and conspiracies" from many sides, Nasrallah said, adding: "This is what we see in WikiLeaks day after day, and which we will see on a greater [scale]" (Arabic link).

Was Nasrallah's ominious prediction a rhetorical flourish, or does he have knowledge of sensitive cables on Lebanon that have yet to be published?

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's closest aide and confidante is back it again. 

Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the president's chief of staff, is stirring up trouble by challenging the clergy's attitudes toward art and music in unusually harsh and abrasive terms. 

“Some do not feel and understand music, so they declare it haram," or sinful under Islam, the Persian-language Atynews reported him as saying this week.

Mashaei was speaking  to a group of artists at the Four Seasons Museum in the central city of Arak.

He told those assembled that he knew the clergy might accuse him of heresy for his remarks, but he didn't care.

"Some pray so much that they forgot God," he was quoted as saying. "They are submerged in mysticism at the end of which there is no God, but delusion. Then they claim that they have seen the light."

Four journalists working at the country’s foremost liberal daily newspaper have been arrested and charged with security crimes, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jaffari-Dowlatabadi announced Wednesday.

The four were arrested earlier this week at the offices of Sharq, a prominent daily newspaper associated with the country’s reformist faction, which is under severe pressure from hardliners who have gained the upper hand in the country's political establishment.

Those arrested were among the leaders of the newspaper. They included Ali Khodabakhsh, Sharq’s managing director and co-owner; Ahmad Qolami, the editor-in-chief; Kayvan Mehrgan, head of Sharq’s political desk; and Farzaneh Rostai, head of the international desk.

Defying a severe crackdown against the opposition and widespread political repression, Iranian students on Tuesday staged small anti-government protests throughout the country on the anniversary of Students Day.

Amateur video footage taken during illegal protests on campuses throughout the country showed students chanting slogans from last year's huge demonstrations against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose widely disputed reelection last year spurred months of unrest. 

"Mahmoud, you traitor," they chanted on the grounds of Tehran's Sharif University. "Death to you!"

Video footage showed student gatherings in the cities of Ghazvin while unconfirmed reports trickled in of protests in other cities. "Students would rather die than give in to tyranny," they chanted at a campus in the Caspian Sea city of Gilan, according to video footage.

U.S. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to celebrate his 55th birthday by releasing detained Americans Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer and sending them home in a posting to the micro-blogging site Twitter.

"What a gift that would be," he wrote. 

Crowley also urged Ahmadinejad to open Iran to a "different relationship with the world." 

There has been no response so far from Tehran, but his comments probably won't be taken well by Iranians.

Crowley was the same guy earlier this month who admitted sanctions on Iran were hurting ordinary people and not just the government, and that the U.S. was pretty much alright with that.

"We believe sanctions are increasing," he told reporters. "In the private sector, company by company are refusing to do business with Iran. It is having an impact on the ground and it is contrary to the best interests of the Iranian people who definitely want to have a different kind of relationship with the rest of the world."

He added, "To the extent that we can, we are directing our efforts at entities that we think support the government and its policies. I don't think that we can deny that there are ripple effects and that there are impacts that go beyond that."

-- Los Angeles Times

Image: PJ Crowley's Twitter page. Credit: Twitter

No one has any word on the health of jailed Iranian human rights attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh, who began a hunger strike four weeks ago.

She's now been held in solitary confinement for more than 45 days, ever since her Sept. 4 arrest, and is said to be on hunger strike, according to her husband, Reza Khandan.

Khandan said the last time he spoke to his wife was in a brief phone conversation over two weeks ago. She told him she had begun a hunger strike 11 days earlier, on Sept. 25.

"It lasted three seconds, because as soon as she mentioned the words 'hunger strike' and 'threat' her phone was cut off," he said.

When an Iranian court sentenced "blogfather" Hossein Derakhshan to nearly 20 years in jail, many observers assumed the punishment was exceptional and intended to make an example of the former democracy activist.

If so, it appears the government is looking to make a few more examples.

Mehdi Khazali, an opthamologist, blogger and the son of a well-known hardline cleric, was arrested in Iran on Oct. 13, local press reported. Khazali had been especially vocal in his criticism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since the disputed 2009 presidential election and already had spent several short stints in jail.

As the Middle East braces for the controversial visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Lebanon this week, censors in Beirut are trying to make sure his visit goes smoothly.

They have put a halt to screenings of a documentary film about opposition protests in Iran that were due to coincide with Ahmadinejad's visit, according to a source, apparently in deference to Ahmadinejad and his entourage.

The movie, titled "Green Days" and directed by 22-year-old Iranian filmmaker Hana Makhmalbaf, was reportedly scheduled to be shown at the annual Beirut International Film Festival in the Lebanese capital on Wednesday, the first day of Ahmadinejad's two-day visit to Lebanon.

Bassem Hajj, press spokesman for the film festival, told Babylon & Beyond that censors from Lebanon's General Security contacted the festival over the weekend and requested that the movie be postponed.