News))))))
Agence France Press reported: Iran on Wednesday Oct. 18th announced that 20.9 percent of young people aged between 15 and 24 are unemployed, state-run television reported. The figure, based on a survey conducted from June 21 to September 21, was down 0.8 percent compared to same period last year, the head of the Iranian statistics organization, Mohammad Madad, was quoted as saying. According to Iranian labor law it is illegal to employ people under 15 and those aged between 15 and 18 have to be physically tested and certified by Iran's social insurance organization. Youth unemployment is seen as one of the major economic problems in Iran, where the majority of the population is under 30.
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The deputy prosecutor of the province of Sistan and Balouchistan, eastern Iran, said that during the past several months, more than 10 people had been executed in the province. The official news agency ISNA quoted him on October 14 and wrote that he had called for more executions. He considered that security was “more important than daily bread”. Separately, in Javanroud, in the western province of Kermanshah, the mullahs’ judiciary flogged two people in public.
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According to the spokesman of the State Security Forces in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province, south-west Iran, from August 23 to September 23, 1,442 people were arrested “in the context of the struggle against drugs and handed over to the judiciary”. The local newspaper Asr Karoun which carried the news on October 12 also reported that Colonel Matin-Rad, commander of the State Security Forces of the town of Abadan, a major city in the oil-rich province, had stated that with the implementation of a security plan his forces had been able to neutralize a network of satellite dish smugglers. They discovered 100 receivers, 200 satellite dishes, 120 LNBs and 167 relays. He added that they had also confiscated 250 antennas during police searches in homes. Khuzestan Province, which has a large Arab population, was the scene of violent popular uprisings due to serious discriminations against the population by the government. The repression was brutal, and public executions and crackdowns have escalated because the regime considers the Resistance’s satellite television channel, which enjoys a large audience in Iran, to be a major threat.
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Girls as young as nine are running away from their homes and living on the streets in Iran, according to a classified and recent report issued by the Ministry of Education.The report was made public by several Persian-language news websites run by former government officials.It notes that there are an exceptionally high number of run-away girls near Iran’s holy cities of Qom and Mashad.Iran has one of the highest records of runaway girls and women in the world.The state-run news agency ILNA reported in July that there were some 300,000 run-away young women and girls in Iran and that 86 percent of girls who ran away from their homes for the first time, were raped. The majority of such victims are rejected by their families if they choose to return after having been raped.
Young, beautiful run-away girls are sold in the neighboring and some European countries as sex salves. Iranian regime is one of the founders of this huge and money making industry.
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Agents of Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF) have killed three rebels in the east of the country, state media reported.The three men, referred to as “trouble-makers” by the state-media reports, were killed during a ground and air raid on their hideout in Khorassan Jonoubi Province.Among the items discovered at the site were a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, numerous heavy hand-weapons and one battle grenade, the reports said.Three military helicopters took part in the offensive against the rebels.The men, one of whom was identified as Baluch Zohi, operated in the towns of Saravan and Iran-Shahr, according to the reports. Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in Iran’s restive eastern provinces.
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Three Iranian men have mysteriously died in custody in Iran.Two of the prisoners were being held at a temporary detention centre in Tehran. The third individual died as he was being released from a prison in the northern town of Tonekabon.The hard-line daily Qods quoted Mohammad Tourang, a senior police commander in Tehran, as claiming that one of the individuals being held at the detention centre said that he was sick and was taken to a toilet where he “committed suicide” by hanging himself using a plastic bag he had with him.Another individual identified only as Mehdi was brought to a detention centre for interrogation but also managed to “commit suicide”, the police commander claimed.In Tonekabon, a prisoner identified only as Kourosh fell ill immediately after being released from prison. He was pronounced dead by doctors in Abbass-Abad Hospital.
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The head of a prison in the north-western town of Ahar announced on Oct. 24, that the small penal complex had been overcrowded to several times its full capacity.Prison warden Mohammad Zeinali told the government-run news agency Fars that the Ahar Penal Complex had a capacity of 50 prisoners but was currently housing 235 inmates.Ahar is situated in Iran’s Azeri-dominated East Azerbaijan Province.Earlier this month, the chief of Iran’s prisons Ali Akbar Yessaghi told the state-run news agency ISNA that a prison in the south-western city of Abadan with a maximum capacity of 70 people was housing some 500 prisoners.Yessaghi also said that some 600,000 Iranians were imprisoned every year.
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Reporters Without Borders on Oct. 23rd condemned the arrests of six journalists in the past week and called for the release of all journalists detained in Iran. “Any excuse will do in Iran to prevent journalists from expressing themselves,” the press freedom organization said. “Closely monitored by both the state security services and the clergy, news media that do not defend the government’s vision of the Islamic revolution are shut down and their journalists are arrested without warrants and without reason.” Reporters Without Borders added: “They may be released after paying exorbitant fines but they can be sent back to prison at any time and are not able to work in any acceptable fashion.”
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Iranian regime has injected uranium UF6 gas into a second batch of nuclear centrifuges, the state-run news agency ISNA quoted an unnamed official as announcing on Friday Oct. 27th. “Iran’s second cascade was installed two weeks ago. The injection of gas was carried out this week”, the official was quoted as saying.“Currently, we have obtained the product of the second cascade”, the official said.The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told the New York Times on Monday that Tehran had set up a second cascade of 164 centrifuges, the devices that spin at high speed and turn ordinary uranium into a fuel usable for nuclear power plants — or, at higher enrichment levels, nuclear weapons.The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 on July 31 demanding that Tehran suspend all its uranium enrichment activities by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions. Tehran missed that deadline.The council is currently deliberating a tougher resolution which would impose sanctions against Tehran.
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Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned on Wednesday the ambassadors of Belgium and Finland to protest a visit to Brussels by the head by the main Iranian opposition coalition, state-run news agencies reported.Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), arrived at the Belgian Senate in Brussels on Tuesday under heavy police escort where she was greeted by Senate President Anne-Marie Lizin along with Liberal Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven and Socialist Senator Pierre Galand.The government-owned news agency Mehr quoted Ibrahim Rahim-Pour, the director-general of Western European Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, as condemning the decision by the Belgian Senate to welcome Rajavi.The official news agency IRNA reported that Rahim-Pour expressed Tehran’s “strong condemnation” of the visit to the EU envoys. The state-run news agency ILNA quoted Rahim-Pour as describing the affair as an “unfriendly gesture by Belgium”.Finland currently holds the EU's rotating Presidency. Both envoys had previously been summoned by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday over the affair.The NCRI, a broad coalition of groups and personalities, seeks to oust Iran’s clerics from power with the aim of establishing a “democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran”. Among its member groups is the People’s Mojahedin (PMOI) which was listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union in mid-2002, in what the EU’s then-Spanish leadership called “a goodwill gesture to Tehran”.Belgium’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that Rajavi was representing the NCRI during her visit rather than any single group in the coalition. The NCRI is not on the EU’s blacklist, it said.“Last week, the EU belatedly announced that negotiations with the regime [over Tehran’s nuclear program] had been fruitless. ... Despite the failure of the policy of appeasement, the EU still lacks a principled and decisive policy against the mullahs’ regime”, Rajavi told Belgian Senators on Tuesday.She urged the EU to remove the terror tag from the PMOI and impose comprehensive diplomatic and trade sanctions and an oil embargo on Tehran.In April, the Belgian Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution urging the EU to re-examine the terror label placed on the PMOI. A similar resolution urging the government to re-evaluate the PMOI’s terror listing was unanimously adopted by the Belgian Senate in December 2005.
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Associated France Press reported: prosecutors formally charged Iran and the Shiite militia Hezbollah Wednesday in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities office in Argentina, which killed 85 people and injured 300. "We deem it proven that the decision to carry out an attack July 18, 1994 on the AMIA (Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, a Jewish charities association headquarters in Buenos Aires) was made by the highest authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran which directed Hezbollah to carry out the attack," Argentine chief prosecutor Alberto Nisman said. Prosecutors called for the arrest of top Iranian authorities at the time, including then-president Ali Rafsanjani. In Beirut, a Hezbollah source said she had not yet heard that the Shiite militia had been formally charged but that it came as no surprise. No one has been tried for the crime in more than a decade since Argentina's worst-ever terror attack. On September 2, 2004, an Argentine court acquitted 21 former police officers and a trafficker of stolen cars who were charged with aiding the attackers. The same court then ordered former top government officials investigated for botching the 10-year case. The court found that key evidence against the men had been "irregularly" obtained, and ordered an investigation of Judge Juan Jose Galeano, who presided over the case for nine years, as well as two prosecutors. Galeano was accused of having paid 400,000 dollars to a key witness to testify against four police officers accused of having provided logistical support in the plot. The court also sought an investigation of former Argentine president Carlos Menem's interior minister, Carlos Corach, and Hugo Anzorregui, former head of the state intelligence service. Argentina, with more than 300,000 Jews, has South America's largest Jewish community.
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In an interview with the satellite channel al-Jazeera, a member of the Iraqi Parliament from the National Dialogue Party stated that death squads in Iraq are in direct contact with the Iranian regime. Mohammad Daini said that there was a serious situation where by the paramilitary militias in a certain number of regions in Iraq are dedicated to the massacre of innocent people. These forces are linked to political movements which play a significant role in the Iraqi government. The paramilitary militias are in contact with death squads, and these death squads are themselves in contact with the Iranian regime. Mohammad Daini added: One million Iraqis have been killed, 300,000 Iraqis have been reported missing, 72,000 Iraqis are in jail and 6 million citizens have left the country. The war organized by the paramilitary militias is at its height.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
News)))))
Tehran, Iran, Oct. 21 – Girls as young as nine are running away from their homes and living on the streets in Iran, according to a classified report issued by the Ministry of Education.The report was made public by several Persian-language news websites run by former government officials. It notes that there is an exceptionally high number of run-away girls near Iran’s holy cities of Qom and Mashad. Iran has one of the highest record of runaway girls and women in the world. The state-run news agency ILNA reported in July that there were some 300,000 run-away women and girls in Iran and that 86 percent of girls who ran away from their homes for the first time were raped. The majority of such victims are rejected by their families if they choose to return after having been raped.
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Tehran, Iran, Oct. 16 – Registration of candidates for the December 15 municipal elections started on Monday.A statement by the Interior Ministry said that candidates had until October 22 to register to stand in the elections.Polling was last conducted in February 2003. This year the elections will coincide with the Assembly of Experts (AE) elections.The enrolment period for the AE polls has already expired. A total of 495 religious figures registered to stand in the polls. The 86-member assembly is an exclusively clerical body entrusted with the task of selecting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution. A few known candidates are :former President and current State Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Guardian Council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, former chief nuclear negotiator with the West Hassan Rowhani, and radical Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi.
The leader of the resistance movement though called for a complete boycott of the religious dictatorship in the sham Assembly of Experts election on December 15.
The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran on Oct. 11, stated: In an address to the people of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, called on the Iranian people to stay in their homes on December 15, boycotting the religious fascism in its entirety and bringing about a day of saying “no” to the mullahs’ illegitimate rule in order to show the world the Iranian people’s determination for freedom and hatred of the religious fascism. Mrs. Rajavi said: the Assembly of Experts election which is another theatre for the mullah’s factional feuding has nothing to do with the people of Iran and will be faced with an overwhelming boycott. The assembly which is comprised of criminal mullahs and does not even include a single woman is the most prominent display of the usurping of the Iranian people’s governance and the foremost representation of the mullahs’ gender apartheid.She added: While the elimination of the regime’s factions is indicative of its final phase, the ruling mullahs are deceitfully trying to portray their regime as stable and powerful by warmongering in Lebanon, increasing their terrorism in Iraq and erecting gallows inside Iran. However, Khamenei himself reiterates that any retreat at this juncture will carry with it an unending chain of pressures and further retreats. The regime’s president says that the slightest retreat is tantamount to loosing their existence.
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Reuters reported that tough U.N. sanctions on North Korea should help convince Iran to suspend its suspected nuclear weapons program, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday. "I hope the lesson they learn is that if they continue to do nuclear weapons they will face the same kind of isolation and friction" that North Korea now faces, Ambassador John Bolton told CNN's Late Edition.Rather than face that isolation, Bolton said Iran has an opportunity to accept "an unparalleled offer" from five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany that provides for a range of incentives on trade, finance and peaceful nuclear energy development if Tehran abandons uranium enrichment.World powers agreed earlier this month to discuss sanctions to punish Tehran for failing to halt uranium enrichment but said they are still open to negotiations. Iran says its nuclear program is to produce electricity but the West fears Tehran is intent on buildings bombs.Iran has shrugged off the threat of sanctions. Analysts say the world's fourth largest oil exporter, which is enjoying an oil revenue windfall, may feel it can cope with the modest penalties likely to be imposed initially.The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test in a resolution Pyongyang immediately rejected.
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Britain’s Foreign Office censured human rights violations by Iran’s theocratic regime in its 2006 annual human rights report.“The past 12 months have seen a continued deterioration in the human rights situation in Iran”, the Foreign Office said. “There have been repeated serious violations of freedom of expression and association. Officials who were implicated in internal repression in the 1980s and 1990s have been appointed as government ministers”, the report charged. “The future does not look positive. There appears to be a real reluctance on the part of the Iranian government to undertake the necessary human rights reforms. Talk of respect for human rights needs to be matched by a demonstrable commitment to improving the human rights situation”, it added. “The early part of 2006 has seen an alarming increase in the number of reported executions compared to the same period in 2005. In particular, we object to the Iranian authorities’ failure to respect even the most basic of minimum standards regarding the application of capital punishment. Many death sentences are carried out in public. “According to leading international human rights organisations, Iran was the only country to continue to execute children and juvenile offenders in 2005. The number of reported death sentences and executions of juvenile offenders in 2005 appears to have increased over preceding years”, it said. The Foreign Office maintained that Britain’s concerns about criminal punishment in Iran were not limited to the death penalty. “Draconian punishments, such as floggings, stonings and amputations, remain on the statute books”, it said.
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The head of coordination for organ transplants in Isfahan Province, central Iran, stated that in six months 1000 people in Isfahan had sold their kidneys in order to pay out their debts. In an interview with the state-run news agency Fars, Jafar Esfandiari acknowledged that sale of organs in Iran have become a common trade.
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National Council of Resistance in Iran said in a statement on Oct.13th that Some 200,000 Iranian workers have not received their salaries for months, the state-run news agency IRNA reported on October 11.
"Close to 200,000 workers from 500 factories, such as Poushineh-Baf, Naz-Nakh, and Semin-No, have not received their salaries for months and we have witnessed this issue brought up in Majlis frequently. … Some of these workers have not been paid for up to 50 months," said Alireza Mahjoub, a deputy of the regime's Majlis. He added, "Despite the fact that it has been seven months since the approval of regular amounts of 200,000 Tomans for senior citizens, the alimony recipients of the social security system have not yet been paid that amount."
The Iranian Resistance calls on all human rights organizations and labor organizations, in particular the International Labor Organization and international labor unions, to condemn the mullahs' regime and take urgent measures to defend the rights of Iranian workers. ******
Tehran, Iran, Oct. 18 – Road accidents in Iran are all too common. The real scale of the cataclysmic carnage is evident in a new report released by the country’s Medical-Law Organization which analyzed road deaths in Iran over the past five months of the Iranian calendar year. From mid April until August of this year, 12,509 people have been killed on Iranian highways and roads, the report said.The statistics showed that 10,209 of those killed were men and 2,500 were women. The report has found that most of the fatalities were of youths.Officials who prepared the report have estimated that the total number of road deaths in Iran at the end of the current year would be above 28,000.
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Tehran, Iran, Oct. 17 – Some 500 students in Tehran’s Amir-Kabir University held a protest on Monday against the takeover of universities by Islamist groups affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards. These include the paramilitary Bassij Daneshjui and Jihad Daneshgahi. They also demanded the release of a fellow student activist.“Political prisoners must be freed”, students chanted during the hour-long protest on campus.“The Bassij association [inside universities] must be shut down”, they chanted, as they criticized the atmosphere of repression on campus.
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Associated France Press reported: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes Iran will be victorious in its nuclear row with the West because he is "in relation with God," the Iranian media reported Monday. His friends mock him when he assures them that Iran will win the bitter dispute over its nuclear enrichment programme, Ahmadinejad was quoted by the media as saying. "(But) we say that we will be victorious," he insisted. "One day somebody asked me whether I was in relation with somebody when I say that we will be victorious. I answered: 'Yes, I am in relation with God'," he said. His comments come as Tehran faces being slapped with sanctions by the UN Security Council over its failure to halt uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be diverted to making a nuclear bomb. "In foreign politics, one should not be frightened or fear these people," Ahmadinejad said, referring to Western leaders. The president has repeatedly said Iran will not halt its enrichment programme "even for a day." Tehran insists that it has a right to master nuclear technology for peaceful ends under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear programme. The process can be used to make the fuel for civil reactors but in highly extended form can also produce the fissile core of an atom bomb. After four rounds of talks aimed at securing an enrichment suspension, the European Union is poised to acknowledge Tuesday that they have failed and support a return to the UN Security Council to prepare sanctions, according to a draft document seen Monday by AFP.
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State media named on Wednesday a senior police official in the Iranian capital as Tehran’s new chief of police.Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Radan, the current deputy commander of the State Security Forces (SSF) in Tehran, will be promoted to the post of commander of the force, the government-run news agency Mehr reported.Radan will replace Brigadier General Morteza Talai, who is leaving his command of the SSF in Greater Tehran in order to stand for office in the December 15 municipal elections.Radan, a veteran Revolutionary Guards commander from the days of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, previously headed the SSF in the north-eastern province of Khorassan Razavi.
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Tehran, Iran, Oct. 21 – Girls as young as nine are running away from their homes and living on the streets in Iran, according to a classified report issued by the Ministry of Education.The report was made public by several Persian-language news websites run by former government officials. It notes that there is an exceptionally high number of run-away girls near Iran’s holy cities of Qom and Mashad. Iran has one of the highest record of runaway girls and women in the world. The state-run news agency ILNA reported in July that there were some 300,000 run-away women and girls in Iran and that 86 percent of girls who ran away from their homes for the first time were raped. The majority of such victims are rejected by their families if they choose to return after having been raped.
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Tehran, Iran, Oct. 16 – Registration of candidates for the December 15 municipal elections started on Monday.A statement by the Interior Ministry said that candidates had until October 22 to register to stand in the elections.Polling was last conducted in February 2003. This year the elections will coincide with the Assembly of Experts (AE) elections.The enrolment period for the AE polls has already expired. A total of 495 religious figures registered to stand in the polls. The 86-member assembly is an exclusively clerical body entrusted with the task of selecting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution. A few known candidates are :former President and current State Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Guardian Council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, former chief nuclear negotiator with the West Hassan Rowhani, and radical Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi.
The leader of the resistance movement though called for a complete boycott of the religious dictatorship in the sham Assembly of Experts election on December 15.
The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran on Oct. 11, stated: In an address to the people of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, called on the Iranian people to stay in their homes on December 15, boycotting the religious fascism in its entirety and bringing about a day of saying “no” to the mullahs’ illegitimate rule in order to show the world the Iranian people’s determination for freedom and hatred of the religious fascism. Mrs. Rajavi said: the Assembly of Experts election which is another theatre for the mullah’s factional feuding has nothing to do with the people of Iran and will be faced with an overwhelming boycott. The assembly which is comprised of criminal mullahs and does not even include a single woman is the most prominent display of the usurping of the Iranian people’s governance and the foremost representation of the mullahs’ gender apartheid.She added: While the elimination of the regime’s factions is indicative of its final phase, the ruling mullahs are deceitfully trying to portray their regime as stable and powerful by warmongering in Lebanon, increasing their terrorism in Iraq and erecting gallows inside Iran. However, Khamenei himself reiterates that any retreat at this juncture will carry with it an unending chain of pressures and further retreats. The regime’s president says that the slightest retreat is tantamount to loosing their existence.
******
Reuters reported that tough U.N. sanctions on North Korea should help convince Iran to suspend its suspected nuclear weapons program, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday. "I hope the lesson they learn is that if they continue to do nuclear weapons they will face the same kind of isolation and friction" that North Korea now faces, Ambassador John Bolton told CNN's Late Edition.Rather than face that isolation, Bolton said Iran has an opportunity to accept "an unparalleled offer" from five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany that provides for a range of incentives on trade, finance and peaceful nuclear energy development if Tehran abandons uranium enrichment.World powers agreed earlier this month to discuss sanctions to punish Tehran for failing to halt uranium enrichment but said they are still open to negotiations. Iran says its nuclear program is to produce electricity but the West fears Tehran is intent on buildings bombs.Iran has shrugged off the threat of sanctions. Analysts say the world's fourth largest oil exporter, which is enjoying an oil revenue windfall, may feel it can cope with the modest penalties likely to be imposed initially.The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test in a resolution Pyongyang immediately rejected.
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Britain’s Foreign Office censured human rights violations by Iran’s theocratic regime in its 2006 annual human rights report.“The past 12 months have seen a continued deterioration in the human rights situation in Iran”, the Foreign Office said. “There have been repeated serious violations of freedom of expression and association. Officials who were implicated in internal repression in the 1980s and 1990s have been appointed as government ministers”, the report charged. “The future does not look positive. There appears to be a real reluctance on the part of the Iranian government to undertake the necessary human rights reforms. Talk of respect for human rights needs to be matched by a demonstrable commitment to improving the human rights situation”, it added. “The early part of 2006 has seen an alarming increase in the number of reported executions compared to the same period in 2005. In particular, we object to the Iranian authorities’ failure to respect even the most basic of minimum standards regarding the application of capital punishment. Many death sentences are carried out in public. “According to leading international human rights organisations, Iran was the only country to continue to execute children and juvenile offenders in 2005. The number of reported death sentences and executions of juvenile offenders in 2005 appears to have increased over preceding years”, it said. The Foreign Office maintained that Britain’s concerns about criminal punishment in Iran were not limited to the death penalty. “Draconian punishments, such as floggings, stonings and amputations, remain on the statute books”, it said.
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The head of coordination for organ transplants in Isfahan Province, central Iran, stated that in six months 1000 people in Isfahan had sold their kidneys in order to pay out their debts. In an interview with the state-run news agency Fars, Jafar Esfandiari acknowledged that sale of organs in Iran have become a common trade.
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National Council of Resistance in Iran said in a statement on Oct.13th that Some 200,000 Iranian workers have not received their salaries for months, the state-run news agency IRNA reported on October 11.
"Close to 200,000 workers from 500 factories, such as Poushineh-Baf, Naz-Nakh, and Semin-No, have not received their salaries for months and we have witnessed this issue brought up in Majlis frequently. … Some of these workers have not been paid for up to 50 months," said Alireza Mahjoub, a deputy of the regime's Majlis. He added, "Despite the fact that it has been seven months since the approval of regular amounts of 200,000 Tomans for senior citizens, the alimony recipients of the social security system have not yet been paid that amount."
The Iranian Resistance calls on all human rights organizations and labor organizations, in particular the International Labor Organization and international labor unions, to condemn the mullahs' regime and take urgent measures to defend the rights of Iranian workers. ******
Tehran, Iran, Oct. 18 – Road accidents in Iran are all too common. The real scale of the cataclysmic carnage is evident in a new report released by the country’s Medical-Law Organization which analyzed road deaths in Iran over the past five months of the Iranian calendar year. From mid April until August of this year, 12,509 people have been killed on Iranian highways and roads, the report said.The statistics showed that 10,209 of those killed were men and 2,500 were women. The report has found that most of the fatalities were of youths.Officials who prepared the report have estimated that the total number of road deaths in Iran at the end of the current year would be above 28,000.
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Tehran, Iran, Oct. 17 – Some 500 students in Tehran’s Amir-Kabir University held a protest on Monday against the takeover of universities by Islamist groups affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards. These include the paramilitary Bassij Daneshjui and Jihad Daneshgahi. They also demanded the release of a fellow student activist.“Political prisoners must be freed”, students chanted during the hour-long protest on campus.“The Bassij association [inside universities] must be shut down”, they chanted, as they criticized the atmosphere of repression on campus.
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Associated France Press reported: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes Iran will be victorious in its nuclear row with the West because he is "in relation with God," the Iranian media reported Monday. His friends mock him when he assures them that Iran will win the bitter dispute over its nuclear enrichment programme, Ahmadinejad was quoted by the media as saying. "(But) we say that we will be victorious," he insisted. "One day somebody asked me whether I was in relation with somebody when I say that we will be victorious. I answered: 'Yes, I am in relation with God'," he said. His comments come as Tehran faces being slapped with sanctions by the UN Security Council over its failure to halt uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be diverted to making a nuclear bomb. "In foreign politics, one should not be frightened or fear these people," Ahmadinejad said, referring to Western leaders. The president has repeatedly said Iran will not halt its enrichment programme "even for a day." Tehran insists that it has a right to master nuclear technology for peaceful ends under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear programme. The process can be used to make the fuel for civil reactors but in highly extended form can also produce the fissile core of an atom bomb. After four rounds of talks aimed at securing an enrichment suspension, the European Union is poised to acknowledge Tuesday that they have failed and support a return to the UN Security Council to prepare sanctions, according to a draft document seen Monday by AFP.
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State media named on Wednesday a senior police official in the Iranian capital as Tehran’s new chief of police.Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Radan, the current deputy commander of the State Security Forces (SSF) in Tehran, will be promoted to the post of commander of the force, the government-run news agency Mehr reported.Radan will replace Brigadier General Morteza Talai, who is leaving his command of the SSF in Greater Tehran in order to stand for office in the December 15 municipal elections.Radan, a veteran Revolutionary Guards commander from the days of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, previously headed the SSF in the north-eastern province of Khorassan Razavi.
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Friday, October 13, 2006
News)))))
On Oct. 12, The U.S. Department of State and Iran’s principal opposition movement condemned a visit by Iran’s Interior Minister to a United Nations body in Geneva.“The regime’s decision to send Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a notorious human rights violator, as its representative to the Tripartite Commission of Iran, Afghanistan, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva on October 9-10, 2006 underscores the Ahmadinejad Government’s open embrace of repressive policies and those responsible for carrying them out”, the State Department said in an official release on Wednesday.It charged that since he was appointed Interior Minister by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August 2005, Pour-Mohammadi had helped “orchestrate a campaign to further restrict the limited rights of the Iranian people”. “Pour-Mohammadi’s history of human rights abuses in Iran includes his reported leading role in the 1988 mass execution of several thousand political prisoners at Tehran’s infamous Evin prison, and his involvement, as Deputy Intelligence Minister, in the 1998 murders of writers and dissidents throughout Iran. “Choosing Pour-Mohammadi to represent Iran in international deliberations on humanitarian issues demonstrates the regime’s continued disrespect for the international community and for the basic rights of its citizens”, it added.A day earlier, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the main coalition of groups opposed to Iran’s theocratic regime, issued a statement calling on Swiss authorities to arrest the radical Shiite cleric.The statement said: “The Iranian Resistance believes that inviting one of the most dreaded criminals of modern times to international organizations in Switzerland to be a betrayal of human rights and the sacred right of asylum and as such strongly condemns it”.“Mullah Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi was among the perpetrators of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988”, the opposition coalition said. “Pour-Mohammadi was among the principals in the ‘chain murders’ in the 1990s, in which at least 120 dissidents, writers and intellectuals were abducted and brutally murdered”, it said. It accused him of committing “crimes against humanity” and described his entry to the headquarters of the UNHCR as “shameful”.“The Iranian Resistance calls for Pour-Mohammadi’s expulsion from international organizations and arrest by the Swiss government so that he may be prosecuted in an international tribunal for crimes against humanity”, it said.
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Tehran’s chief of police is stepping down from his post, state media reported on Tuesday.Brigadier General Morteza Talai is leaving his command of the State Security Forces in Greater Tehran in order to stand for office in the December 15 municipal elections. He headed the SSF for seven years during which time he gained notoriety for his role in cracking down on numerous student-led anti-government protests and enforcing plans to root out dissent in society.
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Iran’s Ministry of Education on Oct. 10th issued a nationwide ban on schools teaching books that are not part of the national curriculum Only books that have been vetted by the ministry and given a seal of approval can been taught in schools.The decree effectively prevents private schools from being able to teach students using their own educational resources.It threatens headmasters with the sack if they fail to enforce the new regulations and warns that private schools may have their operating permits withdrawn if violations are discovered.The Ministry of Education vets all academic books to ensure that all literature deemed to be “un-Islamic” or “against national security” is filtered.
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A prominent Iraqi politician was gunned down along with 10 of his aides on Thursday in a television station in eastern Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms.Gunmen raided the offices of Shaabiya satellite channel at 7 am local time and killed Abdul-Rahim Nasrallah, the leader of the National Justice and Progress Party (NJPP) and head of the channel’s board of directors, Hassan Kamil, Shaabiya’s executive director said.Recently-established Shaabiya, which is owned by the NJPP, had in recent weeks begun test broadcasts.Kamil said that the masked gunmen in police uniforms arrived at Shaabiya’s headquarters in Baghdad’s Zayouna District in seven vehicles and killed security guards and staff most of whom, were asleep in their beds.Two of the victims are believed to have survived the attack though one has been severely wounded. The NJPP is a secular party which has been very vocal against Iranian meddling in Iraq.
On Oct. 12, The U.S. Department of State and Iran’s principal opposition movement condemned a visit by Iran’s Interior Minister to a United Nations body in Geneva.“The regime’s decision to send Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a notorious human rights violator, as its representative to the Tripartite Commission of Iran, Afghanistan, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva on October 9-10, 2006 underscores the Ahmadinejad Government’s open embrace of repressive policies and those responsible for carrying them out”, the State Department said in an official release on Wednesday.It charged that since he was appointed Interior Minister by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August 2005, Pour-Mohammadi had helped “orchestrate a campaign to further restrict the limited rights of the Iranian people”. “Pour-Mohammadi’s history of human rights abuses in Iran includes his reported leading role in the 1988 mass execution of several thousand political prisoners at Tehran’s infamous Evin prison, and his involvement, as Deputy Intelligence Minister, in the 1998 murders of writers and dissidents throughout Iran. “Choosing Pour-Mohammadi to represent Iran in international deliberations on humanitarian issues demonstrates the regime’s continued disrespect for the international community and for the basic rights of its citizens”, it added.A day earlier, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the main coalition of groups opposed to Iran’s theocratic regime, issued a statement calling on Swiss authorities to arrest the radical Shiite cleric.The statement said: “The Iranian Resistance believes that inviting one of the most dreaded criminals of modern times to international organizations in Switzerland to be a betrayal of human rights and the sacred right of asylum and as such strongly condemns it”.“Mullah Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi was among the perpetrators of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988”, the opposition coalition said. “Pour-Mohammadi was among the principals in the ‘chain murders’ in the 1990s, in which at least 120 dissidents, writers and intellectuals were abducted and brutally murdered”, it said. It accused him of committing “crimes against humanity” and described his entry to the headquarters of the UNHCR as “shameful”.“The Iranian Resistance calls for Pour-Mohammadi’s expulsion from international organizations and arrest by the Swiss government so that he may be prosecuted in an international tribunal for crimes against humanity”, it said.
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Tehran’s chief of police is stepping down from his post, state media reported on Tuesday.Brigadier General Morteza Talai is leaving his command of the State Security Forces in Greater Tehran in order to stand for office in the December 15 municipal elections. He headed the SSF for seven years during which time he gained notoriety for his role in cracking down on numerous student-led anti-government protests and enforcing plans to root out dissent in society.
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Iran’s Ministry of Education on Oct. 10th issued a nationwide ban on schools teaching books that are not part of the national curriculum Only books that have been vetted by the ministry and given a seal of approval can been taught in schools.The decree effectively prevents private schools from being able to teach students using their own educational resources.It threatens headmasters with the sack if they fail to enforce the new regulations and warns that private schools may have their operating permits withdrawn if violations are discovered.The Ministry of Education vets all academic books to ensure that all literature deemed to be “un-Islamic” or “against national security” is filtered.
******
A prominent Iraqi politician was gunned down along with 10 of his aides on Thursday in a television station in eastern Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms.Gunmen raided the offices of Shaabiya satellite channel at 7 am local time and killed Abdul-Rahim Nasrallah, the leader of the National Justice and Progress Party (NJPP) and head of the channel’s board of directors, Hassan Kamil, Shaabiya’s executive director said.Recently-established Shaabiya, which is owned by the NJPP, had in recent weeks begun test broadcasts.Kamil said that the masked gunmen in police uniforms arrived at Shaabiya’s headquarters in Baghdad’s Zayouna District in seven vehicles and killed security guards and staff most of whom, were asleep in their beds.Two of the victims are believed to have survived the attack though one has been severely wounded. The NJPP is a secular party which has been very vocal against Iranian meddling in Iraq.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Happy Mehregan
There are many accounts as to the beginning of Mehregan. A few, different versions are listed below:
-Mehregan is a day of victory when angels helped Fereydoon and Kaveh become victorious over Zahak. They imprisoned him in the Damavand Mountain where he died from his wounds.
-Mehregan is the day God gave light to the world, that had previously been dark.
-On this day Mashya and Mashyaneh (a concept of Semitic Adam and Eve) were created.
-On this day the sun was created.
Among all Iranian festivities, the two most important feasts were considered to be Norouz (Iranian New Year) and Mehregan.
During the time when the Avestan calendar was used, the year began at the cold season. The Christian year also starting in the cold season, follows the same concept as the Avestan calendar.
Some scholars believe that the month of Mehr was the beginning month of the calendar year during the Achaemenian era. The Mehregan feast celebrated the beginning of a new year. Later, Mehregan was especially important for the people of southern Iran who considered it still to be their Norouz.
In some form or another, the feast day of Mehregan has always been honored for hundreds of years in Iran. Mehr is also the time of harvest.
Mehr in Avestan is "Miora" and in ancient Farsi and in Sanskrit is "Mitra" and in Pahlavi "Mitr". In modern Farsi, it has become Mehr. Although it can be slightly confusing, it should be remembered the word "Mehr" has been used for a God, an angel, a symbol of the sun, as well as the seventh month of the Iranian calendar.
When the Indo-Europeans lived together, Mehr was considered one of the great Gods of that time.
During the Achaemenian period, the name of the God Mehr was mentioned many times on the stone carvings. The Achaemenian army always came behind a flag, depicting Mehr as the sun shining. Mehregan was celebrated in an extravagant style at Persepolis. Not only was it the time for harvest, but it was also the time when the taxes were collected. Visitors from different parts of the empire brought gifts for the king all contributing to a lively festival.
The ancient Iranians thought Mehr was responsible for love and friendship, contracts and covenants, and a representation for light. Later, Mehr was also considered as a symbol of the sun. There again, Mehr was considered to be a God of heroism and warfare. The Iranian soldiers were strong believers and had songs for Mehr. With expansion of Achaemenian Empire, the worship of Mehr was taken to other countries.
By the first century A.D., Mitraism was a familiar religion in Rome and gradually spread throughout Western Europe as far as the shores of the Black Sea and the North Sea. Many people converted to this Iranian belief, since it was religion of ethics, hope, courage and generosity. Archeological excavations throughout Europe and Iran's neighboring countries have uncovered the buried remains of many Mehr temples. Quite a number of the very old churches of Europe were built in the style of these temples.
Quite a number of Roman Emperors converted to Mitraism. One emperor, Julianus, became a devoted follower of Mitra, and decided to go to Iran to visit the country of his God. On route he was murdered. As he lay dying, he threw his blood towards the sun and said "this is my gift to you".
There are still many rituals, traditions, beliefs and prayers of Mitra that have survived the popularity of Christianity. Some of these can be found in the Christian religion, such as the holy day, Sunday. This is a day that was named after the sun i.e. Mehr. Some other Christmas traditions are described in the section on the celebration of Yalda.
In ancient Iran, after Zaroaster introduced his new religion, the high standing of Mehr diminished. Zaroaster made great changes to old Iranian beliefs. Among other changes, he banned animal sacrifices and abolished the worship of many Gods. Although Mehr was reduced in stature from a God to an angel, some of the rituals and traditions remained and were incorporated into services for Ahura Mazda.
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Long ago, Mehregan was celebrated with the same magnificence and pageantry as Norouz(Iranian New Year). It was customary for people to send or give their king, and each other gifts. It was common for people to give presents that they personally liked themselves! Rich people usually gave gold and silver coins, heroes and warriors gave horses while others gave gifts according to their ability, even an apple. Those fortunate enough, will help the poor with gifts.
Gifts over ten thousand gold coins given to the royal court were registered. At a later time, if the gift-giver needed money, the court would then return twice the gift amount. Kings gave two audiences a year; one audience at Norouz and other at Mehregan. During the Mehregan celebrations, the king wore a fur robe and gave away all his summer clothes.
Many times, even today when a child is born on Mehregan, the parents will name the child with a name starting with "Mehr" such as MehrDokht or MehrDad or MehrBanu.
After the Mongul invasion, the feast celebration of Mehregan lost its popularity. Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman continued to celebrate Mehregan in an extravagant way.
Celebrating Mehregan
For this celebration, the participants wear new clothes and set a decorative, colorful table. The sides of the tablecloth are decorated with dry wild marjoram. The holy book Avesta, a mirror and Sormeh Dan (antimony cellar) are placed on the table together with rose water, sweets, flowers, vegetables and fruits, especially pomegranates and apples. A few silver coins and senjed seeds (fruit of the lotus tree) are placed in a dish of pleasant smelling wild marjoram water. Almonds and pistachio are also used.
A burner is also part of the table setting for kondor (frankincense) and espand (rue seeds) to be thrown on the flames.
At lunch time when the ceremony begins, everyone in the family stands in front of the mirror to pray. Sherbet is drunk and then as a good omen, antimony is rubbed around their eyes. Handfuls of wild marjoram, senjed seeds and noghl (sugar plum) are thrown over each others heads while they embrace one another.
In some of the villages in Yazd, Zoroastrians still sacrifice sheep for Mehr. These sacrifices are done on the day of Mehregan and for three days afterwards. The sacrifice should be done during the hours of sunlight. The sheep is placed on three stones in the furnace, representing the good words, good deeds and good thoughts, and barbecued. After this special ritual, the sheep, including the skin and fat is taken to the fire temple'. The fat is thrown on the fire to make the flames burn fiercely and then the participants pray. This celebration continues for the next five days.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
News)))))
A man was hanged in the restive city of Ahwaz, south-west Iran, state-media reported. The man identified as 32-year-old Abbas A. was hanged after he was convicted of armed robbery of livestock, the government-run news agency Fars reported on Monday.Two other men identified as 45-year-old Hamid Kh. and 37-year-old Ali S. were also sentenced to death for taking part in the thefts.The report said that their sentences would soon be carried out in public.Ahwaz, the Arab-dominated provincial capital of oil-rich Khuzestan Province, has been the scene of unremitting anti-government protests since early 2005.
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The European Union expressed “grave concern” on Thursday over the lack of press freedoms in Iran. “The European Union expresses its grave concern about the worsening situation with regard to the freedom of the press in Iran”, a statement by the 25-nation block’s Finnish Presidency said.It highlighted the banning of four dailies in Iran on September 11, including the state-controlled Sharq.The decision to ban the dailies was “especially alarming given the already limited freedom of the press in Iran”, it said, adding, “The European Union finds the continued harassment of journalists, such as threats of prosecution, extremely worrying”.The EU called on the Iranian authorities to comply with their obligations to respect the freedom of the press and to allow Iranian journalists to practice their profession without harassment or intimidation.
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Agents of Iran’s dreaded Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested the daughter of a Christian priest whose high-profile murder 12 years ago was met with international condemnation, a Christian news agency reported last Friday.Fereshteh Dibaj, 28-year, daughter of Reverend Mehdi Dibaj, was arrested on Tuesday with her husband Reza Montazami, 35, in their home in the north-eastern city of Mashad, the news agency Compass Direct News reported.The report said that secret agents raided their apartment at 7 am and transferred the couple to a local intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Their six-year-old daughter was reportedly in the apartment at the time.The couple led an independent house church in Mashad, where the government executed a convert Christian pastor in 1990, it said.In July 1994, Mehdi Dibaj, a minister of the Assemblies of God, who had converted from Islam, was murdered in a gruesome manner along with two Christian bishops. Prior to his murder, Rev. Dibaj had spent more than nine years in prison, on the charge of "apostasy". Tehran initially blamed the 1994 murders on the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) and brought several agents of the regime posed as the former members of the group on television to testify that they were responsible for the killings.But in the aftermath of the 1997 “chain murders” of dissidents and intellectuals in Iran, which for the first time lifted the lid on numerous killings by the Intelligence Ministry, journalist Akbar Ganji shed light on the murders, revealing that it had been an “inside-job” sanctioned on the orders of Deputy Intelligence Minister Saeed Emami and carried out by a team under the command of Mahmoud Saeedi.Officials in the Khatami administration later acknowledged that the murders of Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Bishop Tateos Michaelian, and Reverend Mehdi Dibaj were politically-motivated killings by the MOIS to tarnish the image of the Iranian opposition group.
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United Press International According to a report by United Press International dated Sep 30th a newly disclosed letter from Ayatollah Khomeini written in 1988 says that Iran would need nuclear weapons to win the war with Iraq. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani released the letter as part of a feud with a military commander over responsibility for the 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq, the BBC reports. In the letter, Khomeini, who died in 1989, quotes the country's leading military commander of the day on the weaponry, Iran would need to continue fighting. The letter also reveals that Iran's economy had been almost destroyed by the eight-year war and that the supply of military volunteers was drying up. The letter strikes a nerve because the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has denied that Iran plans to develop nuclear weapons. He has said that such weapons would violate Islamic principles. But the letter suggests that Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, had no such qualms.
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More than 4,000 birds have mysteriously died near a city in the north-western Iranian province of West Azerbaijan, a state-run daily reported yesterday. The 4,000 deaths took place over the past two weeks close to a dam on the Aras River, near the city of Maku, the daily Aftab-e Yazd wrote in its Thursday edition.The report ruled out Bird Flu as the possible cause of the deaths.It said that specimens of the dead birds were sent to laboratories in Britain to investigate the cause. The Iranian regime has denied cases of bird flu in Iran since the news of the bird flu broke internationally.
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A man was hanged in the restive city of Ahwaz, south-west Iran, state-media reported. The man identified as 32-year-old Abbas A. was hanged after he was convicted of armed robbery of livestock, the government-run news agency Fars reported on Monday.Two other men identified as 45-year-old Hamid Kh. and 37-year-old Ali S. were also sentenced to death for taking part in the thefts.The report said that their sentences would soon be carried out in public.Ahwaz, the Arab-dominated provincial capital of oil-rich Khuzestan Province, has been the scene of unremitting anti-government protests since early 2005.
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The European Union expressed “grave concern” on Thursday over the lack of press freedoms in Iran. “The European Union expresses its grave concern about the worsening situation with regard to the freedom of the press in Iran”, a statement by the 25-nation block’s Finnish Presidency said.It highlighted the banning of four dailies in Iran on September 11, including the state-controlled Sharq.The decision to ban the dailies was “especially alarming given the already limited freedom of the press in Iran”, it said, adding, “The European Union finds the continued harassment of journalists, such as threats of prosecution, extremely worrying”.The EU called on the Iranian authorities to comply with their obligations to respect the freedom of the press and to allow Iranian journalists to practice their profession without harassment or intimidation.
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Agents of Iran’s dreaded Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested the daughter of a Christian priest whose high-profile murder 12 years ago was met with international condemnation, a Christian news agency reported last Friday.Fereshteh Dibaj, 28-year, daughter of Reverend Mehdi Dibaj, was arrested on Tuesday with her husband Reza Montazami, 35, in their home in the north-eastern city of Mashad, the news agency Compass Direct News reported.The report said that secret agents raided their apartment at 7 am and transferred the couple to a local intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Their six-year-old daughter was reportedly in the apartment at the time.The couple led an independent house church in Mashad, where the government executed a convert Christian pastor in 1990, it said.In July 1994, Mehdi Dibaj, a minister of the Assemblies of God, who had converted from Islam, was murdered in a gruesome manner along with two Christian bishops. Prior to his murder, Rev. Dibaj had spent more than nine years in prison, on the charge of "apostasy". Tehran initially blamed the 1994 murders on the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) and brought several agents of the regime posed as the former members of the group on television to testify that they were responsible for the killings.But in the aftermath of the 1997 “chain murders” of dissidents and intellectuals in Iran, which for the first time lifted the lid on numerous killings by the Intelligence Ministry, journalist Akbar Ganji shed light on the murders, revealing that it had been an “inside-job” sanctioned on the orders of Deputy Intelligence Minister Saeed Emami and carried out by a team under the command of Mahmoud Saeedi.Officials in the Khatami administration later acknowledged that the murders of Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Bishop Tateos Michaelian, and Reverend Mehdi Dibaj were politically-motivated killings by the MOIS to tarnish the image of the Iranian opposition group.
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United Press International According to a report by United Press International dated Sep 30th a newly disclosed letter from Ayatollah Khomeini written in 1988 says that Iran would need nuclear weapons to win the war with Iraq. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani released the letter as part of a feud with a military commander over responsibility for the 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq, the BBC reports. In the letter, Khomeini, who died in 1989, quotes the country's leading military commander of the day on the weaponry, Iran would need to continue fighting. The letter also reveals that Iran's economy had been almost destroyed by the eight-year war and that the supply of military volunteers was drying up. The letter strikes a nerve because the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has denied that Iran plans to develop nuclear weapons. He has said that such weapons would violate Islamic principles. But the letter suggests that Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, had no such qualms.
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More than 4,000 birds have mysteriously died near a city in the north-western Iranian province of West Azerbaijan, a state-run daily reported yesterday. The 4,000 deaths took place over the past two weeks close to a dam on the Aras River, near the city of Maku, the daily Aftab-e Yazd wrote in its Thursday edition.The report ruled out Bird Flu as the possible cause of the deaths.It said that specimens of the dead birds were sent to laboratories in Britain to investigate the cause. The Iranian regime has denied cases of bird flu in Iran since the news of the bird flu broke internationally.
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Monday, October 02, 2006
News))))))
All Iranian schools will have compulsory prayer times starting from the new academic year, on the orders of the Education Ministry.All students will now have to take part in the daily ritual in communal halls, state-run media reported on Saturday which marked the first day of the Iranian school calendar.Under the new system, a call to prayers will be broadcast in loudspeakers on campuses.
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Iranian authorities have hanged three prisoners in the south-eastern city of Zahedan, the semi-official Jomhouri Islami reported on Tuesday.The three men, identified as Ali Karimi, Gholam Koohkan, and Khodamorad Lashkarzadeh, were accused of drug trafficking, the report said.They were hanged in prison on Sunday.Four other men, identified as Shah Mohammad, Nader Reigi, Abdol-Ali Baluch, and Mohammad Shakib, were hanged on Saturday in Zahedan Prison.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.Zahedan is the provincial capital of Sistan-va-Baluchestan which has been a hotbed of anti-government activities.The Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in this restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.
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The international human rights group Amnesty International is "greatly concerned" by a continuing crackdown by Iranian authorities against rights activists, according to a statement released by the group on Monday."Amnesty International is greatly concerned by new arrests and detentions in Iran targeting human rights activists, minority community activists and others peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association", the group said. The statement said that in recent days at least 10 people were detained for seeking to demonstrate against the imminent execution of four women. More than 15 Iranian Azeris had been detained for advocating a school's boycott at the start of the new academic year, it added. "On 24 September at least 10 people were detained while demonstrating peacefully outside the United Nations office in Tehran. They were protesting against the expected imminent execution of several women, including Kobra Rahmanpour, Fatemeh Haghighat-pajouh, Nazanin Fatehi and Shahla Jahed". "Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities immediately to cease arrests and harassment of those peacefully exercising their rights, including human rights defenders, and to ensure that all persons in detention are protected from torture or other ill-treatment", it said.
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State Security Forces (SSF) in the western city of Hamedan have announced that they would crack down on people eating in public during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Flyers distributed across the city by the SSF and the Ministry of Justice state that anyone spotted to be eating food in public would be arrested and handed over for prosecution.According to some report, residents had been threatened by agents of the SSF that they would be forced to dig graves as punishment for eating in public.The punishment is meant to force those arrested to consider the prospect of death and the afterlife in order to refrain from breaching Islamic regulations. Ramadan, which started on Monday in Iran, will last for one month. In this period Muslims are required to fast during daylight. In previous years, people caught eating in public in Iran during the month of Ramadan, have been flogged in public or sentenced to jail time.
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Iranian authorities have hanged four men in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, according to a state-run daily.The four men, identified as Shah Mohammad, Nader Reigi, Abdol-Ali Baluch, and Mohammad Shakib, were hanged on Saturday in Zahedan Prison, the hard-line daily Khorassan wrote on Sunday.Iran’s judiciary in Zahedan also sentenced two women and one man to execution.Also in the north-eastern city of Mashad, the judiciary sentenced a man, identified only by his first name Hossein, to execution.
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A prisoner was hanged in the troubled province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, south-eastern Iran, the state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday.The man, identified only as Mohammad Sh., was hanged inside a prison in the city of Zahedan on Friday, the report said.It added that the man was charged with drug trafficking.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.
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London, Sep. 28 – Agents of Iran’s State Security Forces went up rooftops in western Tehran removing satellite dishes which are banned in Iran.“At around 10 am on Tuesday, uniformed agents began climbing rooftops and they started to remove satellite dishes”. Dozens of dishes were brought down and confiscated by security agents in the police operation which occurred in Tehran’s Kaj District (formerly Peykan-Shahr). Last month the chief of the great Tehran said: People’s roof top is not a private property.
The Islamic Republic banned satellite dishes in 1995. The crackdown on satellite dishes was prompted by broadcasts from Iranian opposition groups whose television programs reportedly have a large audience in Iran.
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Dozens of unpaid workers held a protest on Thursday outside the governorate of oil-rich Khuzestan Province, southwest Iran, demanding the government put pressure on their employers to pay their overdue wages.Some 50 workers from the Jangineh Brick Baking Factory took part in the rally outside the governorate in Ahwaz, the provincial capital of Khuzestan. The protestors claimed that they had not received their wages for the past 12 months.“We are forced to work but are not being paid. If we quit now then we will have no hope of getting our back-wages for the past year. What choice do we have?” said one disgruntled worker. “We have not even been given our annual bonuses for the past two years”, he complained.Another worker who was visibly distraught said that he had been forced to get a night job to be able to support his wife and children.“Is this justice? We have rights too”, he chanted before breaking down in tears. “I don’t even have enough money to replace my son’s torn shoes”.Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had run in the presidential campaign on a platform of purging corruption, mismanagement, and poverty in society but Iran experts say that workers in the country have since become in a greater state of financial flux.
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An Iranian court in the north-eastern city of Mashad sentenced a man to have one of his eye’s gouged out as punishment for blinding another man during a scuffle, state-run press reported.The defendant, identified only by his first name Amir, was sentenced by the court to have his left eye gouged out, the hard-line daily Quds wrote in its Tuesday edition. It added that Amir was found guilty of blinding a man identified as Mehdi in one eye during a scuffle they had in the open.Amir, who is currently languishing in jail, was also sentenced to 74 lashes and prison time.The phrase “An eye for an eye” is very stringently adhered to in Iran’s Islamic law.
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All Iranian schools will have compulsory prayer times starting from the new academic year, on the orders of the Education Ministry.All students will now have to take part in the daily ritual in communal halls, state-run media reported on Saturday which marked the first day of the Iranian school calendar.Under the new system, a call to prayers will be broadcast in loudspeakers on campuses.
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Iranian authorities have hanged three prisoners in the south-eastern city of Zahedan, the semi-official Jomhouri Islami reported on Tuesday.The three men, identified as Ali Karimi, Gholam Koohkan, and Khodamorad Lashkarzadeh, were accused of drug trafficking, the report said.They were hanged in prison on Sunday.Four other men, identified as Shah Mohammad, Nader Reigi, Abdol-Ali Baluch, and Mohammad Shakib, were hanged on Saturday in Zahedan Prison.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.Zahedan is the provincial capital of Sistan-va-Baluchestan which has been a hotbed of anti-government activities.The Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in this restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.
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The international human rights group Amnesty International is "greatly concerned" by a continuing crackdown by Iranian authorities against rights activists, according to a statement released by the group on Monday."Amnesty International is greatly concerned by new arrests and detentions in Iran targeting human rights activists, minority community activists and others peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association", the group said. The statement said that in recent days at least 10 people were detained for seeking to demonstrate against the imminent execution of four women. More than 15 Iranian Azeris had been detained for advocating a school's boycott at the start of the new academic year, it added. "On 24 September at least 10 people were detained while demonstrating peacefully outside the United Nations office in Tehran. They were protesting against the expected imminent execution of several women, including Kobra Rahmanpour, Fatemeh Haghighat-pajouh, Nazanin Fatehi and Shahla Jahed". "Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities immediately to cease arrests and harassment of those peacefully exercising their rights, including human rights defenders, and to ensure that all persons in detention are protected from torture or other ill-treatment", it said.
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State Security Forces (SSF) in the western city of Hamedan have announced that they would crack down on people eating in public during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Flyers distributed across the city by the SSF and the Ministry of Justice state that anyone spotted to be eating food in public would be arrested and handed over for prosecution.According to some report, residents had been threatened by agents of the SSF that they would be forced to dig graves as punishment for eating in public.The punishment is meant to force those arrested to consider the prospect of death and the afterlife in order to refrain from breaching Islamic regulations. Ramadan, which started on Monday in Iran, will last for one month. In this period Muslims are required to fast during daylight. In previous years, people caught eating in public in Iran during the month of Ramadan, have been flogged in public or sentenced to jail time.
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Iranian authorities have hanged four men in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, according to a state-run daily.The four men, identified as Shah Mohammad, Nader Reigi, Abdol-Ali Baluch, and Mohammad Shakib, were hanged on Saturday in Zahedan Prison, the hard-line daily Khorassan wrote on Sunday.Iran’s judiciary in Zahedan also sentenced two women and one man to execution.Also in the north-eastern city of Mashad, the judiciary sentenced a man, identified only by his first name Hossein, to execution.
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A prisoner was hanged in the troubled province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, south-eastern Iran, the state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday.The man, identified only as Mohammad Sh., was hanged inside a prison in the city of Zahedan on Friday, the report said.It added that the man was charged with drug trafficking.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.
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London, Sep. 28 – Agents of Iran’s State Security Forces went up rooftops in western Tehran removing satellite dishes which are banned in Iran.“At around 10 am on Tuesday, uniformed agents began climbing rooftops and they started to remove satellite dishes”. Dozens of dishes were brought down and confiscated by security agents in the police operation which occurred in Tehran’s Kaj District (formerly Peykan-Shahr). Last month the chief of the great Tehran said: People’s roof top is not a private property.
The Islamic Republic banned satellite dishes in 1995. The crackdown on satellite dishes was prompted by broadcasts from Iranian opposition groups whose television programs reportedly have a large audience in Iran.
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Dozens of unpaid workers held a protest on Thursday outside the governorate of oil-rich Khuzestan Province, southwest Iran, demanding the government put pressure on their employers to pay their overdue wages.Some 50 workers from the Jangineh Brick Baking Factory took part in the rally outside the governorate in Ahwaz, the provincial capital of Khuzestan. The protestors claimed that they had not received their wages for the past 12 months.“We are forced to work but are not being paid. If we quit now then we will have no hope of getting our back-wages for the past year. What choice do we have?” said one disgruntled worker. “We have not even been given our annual bonuses for the past two years”, he complained.Another worker who was visibly distraught said that he had been forced to get a night job to be able to support his wife and children.“Is this justice? We have rights too”, he chanted before breaking down in tears. “I don’t even have enough money to replace my son’s torn shoes”.Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had run in the presidential campaign on a platform of purging corruption, mismanagement, and poverty in society but Iran experts say that workers in the country have since become in a greater state of financial flux.
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An Iranian court in the north-eastern city of Mashad sentenced a man to have one of his eye’s gouged out as punishment for blinding another man during a scuffle, state-run press reported.The defendant, identified only by his first name Amir, was sentenced by the court to have his left eye gouged out, the hard-line daily Quds wrote in its Tuesday edition. It added that Amir was found guilty of blinding a man identified as Mehdi in one eye during a scuffle they had in the open.Amir, who is currently languishing in jail, was also sentenced to 74 lashes and prison time.The phrase “An eye for an eye” is very stringently adhered to in Iran’s Islamic law.
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London, Sep. 30 – Agents of Iran’s dreaded Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested the daughter of a Christian priest whose high-profile murder 12 years ago was met with international condemnation, a Christian news agency reported on Friday.Fereshteh Dibaj, 28-year-old daughter of Reverend Mehdi Dibaj, was arrested on Tuesday with her husband Reza Montazami, 35, in their home in the north-eastern city of Mashad, the news agency Compass Direct News reported.The report said that secret agents raided their apartment at 7 am and transferred the couple to a local intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Their six-year-old daughter was reportedly in the apartment at the time.The couple lead an independent house church in Mashad, where the government executed a convert Christian pastor in 1990, it said.In July 1994, Mehdi Dibaj, a minister of the Assemblies of God who had converted from Islam, was murdered in a gruesome manner along with two Christian bishops. Prior to his murder, Rev. Dibaj had spent more than nine years in prison, on the charge of "apostasy". Tehran initially blamed the 1994 murders on the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) and brought several former members of the group on television to testify that they were responsible for the killings.But in the aftermath of the 1997 “serial murders” of dissidents and intellectuals in Iran, which for the first time lifted the lid on numerous killings by the Intelligence Ministry, journalist Akbar Ganji shed light on the murders, revealing that it had been an “inside-job” sanctioned on the orders of Deputy Intelligence Minister Saeed Emami and carried out by a team under the command of Mahmoud Saeedi.Officials in the Khatami administration later acknowledged that the murders of Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Bishop Tateos Michaelian, and Reverend Mehdi Dibaj were politically-motivated killings by the MOIS to tarnish the image of the Iranian opposition group.
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