News))))))))
A United Nations General Assembly committee accused Iran on Tuesday of continuing the practice of torture and punishments such as flogging, stoning and amputation of limbs.The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee approved the resolution by a vote of 70 in favour to 48 opposed, with 55 abstentions.The Third Committee expressed “serious concern” at the “continuing harassment, intimidation and persecution of human rights defenders, non-governmental organizations, political opponents, religious dissenters, political reformists, journalists, parliamentarians, students, clerics, academics, webloggers, union members and labour organizers, including through undue restrictions on the freedoms of assembly, conscience, opinion and expression, the threat and use of arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention, targeted at both individuals and their family members, the ongoing unjustified closure of newspapers and blocking of Internet sites and restrictions on the activities of unions and other non-governmental organizations, as well as the absence of many conditions necessary for free and fair elections”.The resolution also denounced the “continuing use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment such as flogging and amputations” in Iran and the “continuing of public executions, including multiple public executions, and, on a large scale, of other executions, in the absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards, and the issuing of sentences of stoning; and, in particular, deplores the execution of persons who were under the age of 18 at the time their offence was committed”. It censured the theocratic government for “violence and discrimination against women and girls in law and in practice”, and accused the hard-line Guardians Council of refusing to take steps to address systemic discrimination and arrests of and violent crackdowns on women exercising their right of assembly.
******
Tehran’s public prosecutor’s office is seeking the death penalty for seven individuals accused of producing and distributing pornographic CDs which are banned in Islamic Iran.The judiciary is currently examining three dossiers in which several individuals have been accused of producing and distributing “vulgar CDs”, Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad told reporters on Tuesday.Karimi-Rad, who is also the country’s Minister of Justice, said that 35 individuals had been arrested in relation to the cases and that the prosecutor’s office is seeking the death penalty for seven of them.“We hope to witness theses dossiers being dealt with as soon as possible so that those who try to spread corruption in society … do not feel safe”, he said.The government of ultra-Islamist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to enforce “the strict rules of Islam”. Before taking office as president, one of Ahmadinejad’s first decisions as mayor of Tehran was to separate men-only and women-only elevators in the city hall.
******
Five men have been hanged in public in Iran’s northern province of Golestan, a state-run daily reported on Monday.The men, identified as Khashayar J., Ismail B., Abolghasem H., Ruhollah T., and Hassan B., were hanged in public inside a stadium on Sunday, the daily Etemaad wrote.They were accused of rape and kidnapping.On Saturday, the French news agency AFP quoted a report in the state-run daily Etemaad Meli as saying that another five men, convicted of drug trafficking, had been hanged in prison in the north-eastern province of Khorasan Razavi on Friday.State media have reported at least 159 hangings in Iran since the start of 2006.
******
Religious fundamentalists in Iran are demanding separate university classes for men and women in a drive to impose puritanical Islamic values on the country's campuses.The call - backed by senior figures close to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - comes as new statistics show female students outnumbering their male counterparts in a sharp reversal of traditionally masculine-dominated trends.It is being spearheaded by Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mohamadian, a cleric heading the state body representing Mr Khamenei in the nation's universities. Mr Mohamadian warned in a speech that universities were descending into "fashion shows" and urged chancellors to punish students who breached Islamic rules on dress code and gender-mingling. He demanded segregated classes and the evaluation of faculty members on religious and moral grounds to transform the culture."At present the public environment of universities is free and the moral situation is offensive," Mr Mohamadian told a gathering of university administrators. "University chancellors are responsible not just for education and research, but for the religion, beliefs and ideas of students. If one or two out of the minority who deface universities are confronted and severely disciplined, the rest will be warned and change their ways."The demand is in line with a clampdown that has seen CCTV surveillance cameras installed on some campuses. Politically active students have been denied access to courses and large numbers of lecturers forced to retire. Two months ago, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanded a purge of liberal and secular lecturers.Iran's Islamic laws already require men and women to sit in different rows in classes and lecture halls. Campus libraries, reading rooms, refectories and halls of residences are also segregated.The higher education ministry is resisting further separation as impractical and unnecessary. However, the proposal has strong support from MPs on the influential parliamentary cultural committee."When the working environment is all-male or all-female, employees and students are liberated from certain distractions," Mousalreza Servati, a committee member, told the ILNA news agency. "In free environments, the possibility exists that when a lady passes, a gentleman likes her face or her behaviour and has it not happened quite often that this interest later results in the wife leaving the husband to marry another man."
******
Iran has been banned from international soccer games by the world soccer federation for government interference in the affairs of its national team.The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) said in a statement on Thursday that an emergency committee, composed of the FIFA President and one representative of each of the six football confederations, had on Wednesday decided to suspend the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation (IRIFF) from all international activity due to “government interference in football matters and violation of Article 17 of the FIFA Statutes”. “The FIFA Emergency Committee took this decision after determining that the IRIFF was not adhering to the principles of the FIFA Statutes regarding the independence of member associations, the independence of the decision-making process of the football governing body in each country and the way in which changes in the leadership of associations are brought about”, the statement said.In August 2006, FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) gave the IRIFF a deadline of 15 November to reinstate its elected president, Mohammed Dadgan, and to comply with the relevant provisions of the FIFA Statutes. “This deadline was not met by the IRIFF”.
******
One person dies every two hours from drug addiction-related illnesses in Iran, according to new statistics released by the government.Official surveys show that drug smuggling and sales in Iran is approximately a 10-billion-dollar market each year.Previous estimates have put the total number of illegal-drug users in Iran at more than seven million.Iran’s government is under close scrutiny for the level of narcotics found in Iranian cities. Many experts fear that certain departments and officials within the Iranian regime are overseeing foreign narcotics imports.
******
Association France Press reported that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the world is "rapidly becoming Ahmadinejadised" and global leaders have started following in his footsteps, press reports said Tuesday. "I have travelled to all the continents except for one and I know what is going on out there. Everybody is eager to hear the Iranian people's message," the reformist Aftab-Yazd newspaper quoted the president as saying. "The world is rapidly becoming Ahmadinejadised." The austere hardliner said that Iran's "two big missions are constructing the country and introducing a model for humanity." World leaders, he added, had started copying his provincial trips, during which he pledges to create jobs and fight poverty. "When I telephone other leaders, I am told that they are on trips. Their trips are the same as the provincial tours that I have initiated," he said. So far, Ahmadinejad has gone on 21 provincial trips to look into local problems. "This government has risen from people's prayers," he said of his presidential electoral victory. "Someone even told me that he had vowed to say Salavats (a one-line formula to praise the Prophet Mohammed) as many times as my electoral votes count," Ahmadinejad said, referring to his June 2005 shock win by more than 17 million votes over pragmatist cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Since rising to power, the president has roused nationalist sentiments and pushed through a populist economic agenda. Ahmadinejad ran on a platform of distributing the country's oil riches, "spreading justice", combatting corruption and vowing a "new Islamic revolution".
Sunday, November 19, 2006
News )))))))
A homosexual Iranian man was hanged in public on Tuesday in the western city of Kermanshah on the charge of sodomy.Shahab Darvishi was charged with organizing a “corruption ring”, deliberate assault, and “lavat”, which means homosexual relationship between two men or sodomy, the official news agency IRNA reported.Darvishi was hanged in the evening in Kermanshah’s “Freedom Square” in front of hundreds of people, the report said. The Iranian regime gathers basijis in ordinary clothing to watch these horrendous acts.Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, homosexuality between consenting adults is a capital crime and official Iranian sources express hostility to homosexual practices. A state radio commentary on March 7, 2005 criticized gay marriages in Western countries. Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, an influential cleric, said in his Friday-prayer sermon in Qom that gay and lesbian marriages reflect a weakness of Western culture, state television reported on July 13, 2002. Ayatollah Ali Meshkini in his Friday-prayer sermon in Qom criticized the German Green Party for being pro-homosexual, state television reported on April 29, 2000.
******
An Iranian man was hanged in prison in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Thursday.The 36-year-old man, only identified by his initials M. M., was hanged at dawn on Wednesday inside Bandar Abbas’ central prison, the report said. He was accused of killing a Bangladeshi citizen in 1999.
******
Tehran's hardline Islamic regime is preparing to publicly hang 11 Iranian Arabs convicted of "enmity with God" for their alleged involvement in a bombing campaign in which over 20 were killed last year, after what rights activists say were summary, secret trials. The executions are due to take place by Monday, according to Iranian media reports. The intention apparently is to disperse the hangings in several cities with largely Arab populations in order to spread fear, activists say. Campaigners insist the men are innocent and paying the price for merely hailing from the disadvantaged Arab minority. Their heavily edited "confessions" were shown on television on Monday night after months of incarceration in which they were tortured and their families threatened, the British Ahwazi Friendship Society said. The sentences were imposed after swift trials behind closed doors which human-rights groups say did not meet international standards.
******
According to Reuters, a top Iranian prosecutor demanded an arrest warrant be issued for Argentinian judges and prosecutors, state radio said on Sunday after Argentina demanded the arrest of Iranian officials over the bombing of a Jewish centre.The United States called Iran and Hezbollah a "global nexus of terrorism" on Saturday and applauded the Argentinian court for seeking the arrest of the Iranian officials in connection with the 1994 bombing which killed 85 people. Iranian Prosecutor-General Qorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi wrote to Tehran’s prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi and asked him to issue arrest warrants for former Argentinian judge Juan Jose Galeano who was previously in charge of the case, the current prosecutor and other legal officials, the radio said."Despite Galeano being sentenced for taking money and creating a fake case against Iranian officials and after it became clear that Zionist circles paid him ... unfortunately the Argentinian prosecutor has made baseless claims against Iran," state radio quoted Dorri-Najafabadi as saying in his letter.Galeano was removed from the case in 2003 for corruption.Dorri-Najafabadi said he wanted Galeano and others involved in the case arrested because "making propaganda against Iran is a crime".Iran said on Saturday the Argentinian arrest warrant was part of a Zionist, U.S. plot against Iran.Argentinian federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral last Thursday ordered a warrant for the arrest of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others on charges of masterminding the July 18, 1994 attack.A truck laden with explosives levelled the seven-storey Argentinian Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) building, a symbol of the country's Jewish community -- Latin America's largest. Eighty-five people were killed and more than 200 wounded.
A homosexual Iranian man was hanged in public on Tuesday in the western city of Kermanshah on the charge of sodomy.Shahab Darvishi was charged with organizing a “corruption ring”, deliberate assault, and “lavat”, which means homosexual relationship between two men or sodomy, the official news agency IRNA reported.Darvishi was hanged in the evening in Kermanshah’s “Freedom Square” in front of hundreds of people, the report said. The Iranian regime gathers basijis in ordinary clothing to watch these horrendous acts.Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, homosexuality between consenting adults is a capital crime and official Iranian sources express hostility to homosexual practices. A state radio commentary on March 7, 2005 criticized gay marriages in Western countries. Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, an influential cleric, said in his Friday-prayer sermon in Qom that gay and lesbian marriages reflect a weakness of Western culture, state television reported on July 13, 2002. Ayatollah Ali Meshkini in his Friday-prayer sermon in Qom criticized the German Green Party for being pro-homosexual, state television reported on April 29, 2000.
******
An Iranian man was hanged in prison in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Thursday.The 36-year-old man, only identified by his initials M. M., was hanged at dawn on Wednesday inside Bandar Abbas’ central prison, the report said. He was accused of killing a Bangladeshi citizen in 1999.
******
Tehran's hardline Islamic regime is preparing to publicly hang 11 Iranian Arabs convicted of "enmity with God" for their alleged involvement in a bombing campaign in which over 20 were killed last year, after what rights activists say were summary, secret trials. The executions are due to take place by Monday, according to Iranian media reports. The intention apparently is to disperse the hangings in several cities with largely Arab populations in order to spread fear, activists say. Campaigners insist the men are innocent and paying the price for merely hailing from the disadvantaged Arab minority. Their heavily edited "confessions" were shown on television on Monday night after months of incarceration in which they were tortured and their families threatened, the British Ahwazi Friendship Society said. The sentences were imposed after swift trials behind closed doors which human-rights groups say did not meet international standards.
******
According to Reuters, a top Iranian prosecutor demanded an arrest warrant be issued for Argentinian judges and prosecutors, state radio said on Sunday after Argentina demanded the arrest of Iranian officials over the bombing of a Jewish centre.The United States called Iran and Hezbollah a "global nexus of terrorism" on Saturday and applauded the Argentinian court for seeking the arrest of the Iranian officials in connection with the 1994 bombing which killed 85 people. Iranian Prosecutor-General Qorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi wrote to Tehran’s prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi and asked him to issue arrest warrants for former Argentinian judge Juan Jose Galeano who was previously in charge of the case, the current prosecutor and other legal officials, the radio said."Despite Galeano being sentenced for taking money and creating a fake case against Iranian officials and after it became clear that Zionist circles paid him ... unfortunately the Argentinian prosecutor has made baseless claims against Iran," state radio quoted Dorri-Najafabadi as saying in his letter.Galeano was removed from the case in 2003 for corruption.Dorri-Najafabadi said he wanted Galeano and others involved in the case arrested because "making propaganda against Iran is a crime".Iran said on Saturday the Argentinian arrest warrant was part of a Zionist, U.S. plot against Iran.Argentinian federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral last Thursday ordered a warrant for the arrest of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others on charges of masterminding the July 18, 1994 attack.A truck laden with explosives levelled the seven-storey Argentinian Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) building, a symbol of the country's Jewish community -- Latin America's largest. Eighty-five people were killed and more than 200 wounded.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
NEWS))))))))
Four men, one of whom is believed to be a teenager, were hanged in a prison in Tehran, a state-run daily reported on Thursday.The four men, identified only by their first names Mohammad-Reza, Farhad, Hashem, and Hamid, were hanged in prison on Wednesday, according to the daily “Iran”.The report described Mohammad-Reza as a “young boy” at the time of his alleged crime. He was charged with killing a man in the Iranian capital’s Nezam-Abad District in May 2004.
***********
The international media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its annual report ranked Iran as the worst violator of press freedoms in the Middle East.RSF ranked Iran at 162 out of 168 countries in its 2006 annual Press Freedom Index.The top media watchdog said that Iran had “no independent media, only organs that spout government propaganda”.“Self-censorship remains the best protection for journalists. Foreign journalists can only rarely get entry visas”, it said.“The rulers of [Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia] keep a tight grip on the news and have set many red lines, journalists must not cross”, the report said.The international press freedoms group frequently criticizes media censorship and violation of journalists’ rights in Iran.
**********
Iranian authorities hanged a political prisoner in public on Sunday in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan for his alleged role in the killing of two of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bodyguards. Mohammad Askani was hanged in public in the town of Iran-Shahr, the official news agency IRNA reported. He was charged with taking part in the killing of the two presidential guards.On December 15, 2005, rebels attacked the presidential motorcade near the city of Zabol during a visit by Ahmadinejad to the impoverished province.Separately, another man called Najibollah Qayoumi was hanged in public on Sunday, IRNA reported, bringing the total number of officially-announced executions in the province to 11 during the past week. Qayoumi was accused of drug trafficking. A man identified as Mohebali Gholamian Moqaddam was hanged in Zabol, IRNA reported on Thursday.
************
Rebels in south-eastern Iran have killed three agents of the paramilitary Bassij force, affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to a report on Tuesday on a government-owned Persian-language website.The report said that the Bassij agents were killed on Sunday during clashes at a security checkpoint.It described the individuals that took part in the shootout as “drug traffickers” and said that they were eventually arrested by police.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.The Bassij are Islamist vigilantes loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In 2005, following hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rise to the presidency, they were given powers to act as the country’s back-up police force.
************
Iran focus- London, Nov. 8 – When Iran is angry, it shows. You can tell by the way senior officials and clerics renew their tirades against the West, and cloned articles appear simultaneously in two dozen state-run newspapers and news agencies denouncing a new ploy against the Islamic Republic.The target of Tehran’s diplomatic fulmination this time is not U.S. President George W. Bush, just off the long campaign trail in the midterm elections that gave Iran’s rulers a breathing space as Iraq monopolized America’s headlines and debates.Nor are the Iranian clerics venting their wrath at Security Council diplomats huddling right now in New York to hammer out an agreement on the text of another Iran resolution. The ayatollahs are not too perturbed by the prospects of fickle sanctions that may survive in the text after repeated Russian and Chinese objections and amendments.The radicals occupying the seat of power in Tehran are directing their fury at the serene and peaceful nation of Norway, an unlikely adversary for Iran’s Islamic theocracy. But Norway has aroused the ayatollahs’ wrath, because lawmakers in the oil-rich Scandinavian nation have invited an Iranian opposition leader, Maryam Rajavi, to Oslo for talks on Iran.Rajavi heads a coalition of dissident groups that Tehran regards as its bete noir, and hosting her, in the ayatollahs’ books, is the closest thing in diplomatic gestures to cardinal sin.The Norwegian ambassador was immediately summoned to the Foreign Ministry to hear an angry harangue, while the Iranian envoy in Oslo took the unusual step of issuing threats against Norway at a meeting with Olav Akselsen, who chairs the parliament’s foreign affairs committee. Inviting Rajavi, the ambassador warned a startled Akselsen, would lead to “a serious deterioration of relations” between Tehran and Oslo. The Norwegian parliamentarian took no comfort in hearing these words from the mouth of a man representing what the United States calls “the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism”. When words of the meeting reached the media, the Norwegian government felt obliged to react.“No embassy has the right to interfere in the meetings planned by Parliament or any other body; this is unacceptable”, Norway’s Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Raymond Johansen, told reporters, adding that such “threats” would “lead to nothing”.Johansen ridiculed Tehran’s threat by saying that there wasn’t much Tehran could retaliate against. “We do not have particularly cordial ties [with Tehran]. They have an ambassador here and we have one there”, he said.For Rajavi, Tehran’s frantic efforts to have the visit called off might have been a blessing in disguise. Her visit, which began on Monday, has drawn unusual media coverage, with Norway’s state-run television channel reporting her arrival at the top of its evening news bulletin.The Norwegian news agency NTB quoted Rajavi as telling members of the foreign affairs committee in Norway’s parliament on Tuesday, “The mullahs and their regime are not just a threat to the Iranian people, but a threat to all humanity”. In Tehran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was visibly dismayed. He told a visiting French politician on Tuesday that Rajavi’s group was “attempting to undermine relations between Iran and France”, the official Iranian news agency reported.Asking Paris to crack down further on Rajavi, Iran’s top diplomat voiced alarm that “some EU member states have hosted meetings” with the opposition leader.The Foreign Minister’s concern was echoed by an array of other Iranian officials, including the Speaker of parliament, the Minister of Justice, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spokesman.The angry statements came in the wake of another diplomatic incident that broke out between Tehran and Brussels last month, when Rajavi was hosted by the Belgian Senate.Tehran is clearly feeling the heat. Last month, Kazem Jalali, a senior deputy in Iran’s Majlis, announced that the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee had completed a review of the Islamic Republic’s policies on the People’s Mojahedin, the principal group in Rajavi’s coalition.“We have studied the group’s activities and Iran’s policies towards it, and we studied the arrangements and measures that Iran can adopt to enhance the country’s security against these counter-revolutionary moves”, Jalali told reporters after committee members held a long meeting with the chief of Iran’s secret service and his deputies.On another front, Iran has been pressing its allies in the Iraqi government to expel several thousand members of the People’s Mojahedin who are under U.S. guard in a camp in eastern Iraq.Iran’s anxiety is real, and justified. Contrary to the image of strength that Iranian leaders strive to cultivate, the clerical regime stands on shaky grounds. The faltering economy has failed to alleviate the daily suffering of the average Iranian, despite all-time record oil revenues. Discontent, spurred by government incompetence and stifling repression, is on the rise. On the international scene, Tehran has never found itself in such isolation since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. The last thing Iran’s rulers can afford is to see their charismatic foe under the limelight.Norway is not a major European power, and not a member state of the European Union. But in refusing to give in to Tehran’s diplomatic bullying this week, Oslo set a refreshing example for other Western governments.
Four men, one of whom is believed to be a teenager, were hanged in a prison in Tehran, a state-run daily reported on Thursday.The four men, identified only by their first names Mohammad-Reza, Farhad, Hashem, and Hamid, were hanged in prison on Wednesday, according to the daily “Iran”.The report described Mohammad-Reza as a “young boy” at the time of his alleged crime. He was charged with killing a man in the Iranian capital’s Nezam-Abad District in May 2004.
***********
The international media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its annual report ranked Iran as the worst violator of press freedoms in the Middle East.RSF ranked Iran at 162 out of 168 countries in its 2006 annual Press Freedom Index.The top media watchdog said that Iran had “no independent media, only organs that spout government propaganda”.“Self-censorship remains the best protection for journalists. Foreign journalists can only rarely get entry visas”, it said.“The rulers of [Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia] keep a tight grip on the news and have set many red lines, journalists must not cross”, the report said.The international press freedoms group frequently criticizes media censorship and violation of journalists’ rights in Iran.
**********
Iranian authorities hanged a political prisoner in public on Sunday in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan for his alleged role in the killing of two of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bodyguards. Mohammad Askani was hanged in public in the town of Iran-Shahr, the official news agency IRNA reported. He was charged with taking part in the killing of the two presidential guards.On December 15, 2005, rebels attacked the presidential motorcade near the city of Zabol during a visit by Ahmadinejad to the impoverished province.Separately, another man called Najibollah Qayoumi was hanged in public on Sunday, IRNA reported, bringing the total number of officially-announced executions in the province to 11 during the past week. Qayoumi was accused of drug trafficking. A man identified as Mohebali Gholamian Moqaddam was hanged in Zabol, IRNA reported on Thursday.
************
Rebels in south-eastern Iran have killed three agents of the paramilitary Bassij force, affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to a report on Tuesday on a government-owned Persian-language website.The report said that the Bassij agents were killed on Sunday during clashes at a security checkpoint.It described the individuals that took part in the shootout as “drug traffickers” and said that they were eventually arrested by police.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.The Bassij are Islamist vigilantes loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In 2005, following hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rise to the presidency, they were given powers to act as the country’s back-up police force.
************
Iran focus- London, Nov. 8 – When Iran is angry, it shows. You can tell by the way senior officials and clerics renew their tirades against the West, and cloned articles appear simultaneously in two dozen state-run newspapers and news agencies denouncing a new ploy against the Islamic Republic.The target of Tehran’s diplomatic fulmination this time is not U.S. President George W. Bush, just off the long campaign trail in the midterm elections that gave Iran’s rulers a breathing space as Iraq monopolized America’s headlines and debates.Nor are the Iranian clerics venting their wrath at Security Council diplomats huddling right now in New York to hammer out an agreement on the text of another Iran resolution. The ayatollahs are not too perturbed by the prospects of fickle sanctions that may survive in the text after repeated Russian and Chinese objections and amendments.The radicals occupying the seat of power in Tehran are directing their fury at the serene and peaceful nation of Norway, an unlikely adversary for Iran’s Islamic theocracy. But Norway has aroused the ayatollahs’ wrath, because lawmakers in the oil-rich Scandinavian nation have invited an Iranian opposition leader, Maryam Rajavi, to Oslo for talks on Iran.Rajavi heads a coalition of dissident groups that Tehran regards as its bete noir, and hosting her, in the ayatollahs’ books, is the closest thing in diplomatic gestures to cardinal sin.The Norwegian ambassador was immediately summoned to the Foreign Ministry to hear an angry harangue, while the Iranian envoy in Oslo took the unusual step of issuing threats against Norway at a meeting with Olav Akselsen, who chairs the parliament’s foreign affairs committee. Inviting Rajavi, the ambassador warned a startled Akselsen, would lead to “a serious deterioration of relations” between Tehran and Oslo. The Norwegian parliamentarian took no comfort in hearing these words from the mouth of a man representing what the United States calls “the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism”. When words of the meeting reached the media, the Norwegian government felt obliged to react.“No embassy has the right to interfere in the meetings planned by Parliament or any other body; this is unacceptable”, Norway’s Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Raymond Johansen, told reporters, adding that such “threats” would “lead to nothing”.Johansen ridiculed Tehran’s threat by saying that there wasn’t much Tehran could retaliate against. “We do not have particularly cordial ties [with Tehran]. They have an ambassador here and we have one there”, he said.For Rajavi, Tehran’s frantic efforts to have the visit called off might have been a blessing in disguise. Her visit, which began on Monday, has drawn unusual media coverage, with Norway’s state-run television channel reporting her arrival at the top of its evening news bulletin.The Norwegian news agency NTB quoted Rajavi as telling members of the foreign affairs committee in Norway’s parliament on Tuesday, “The mullahs and their regime are not just a threat to the Iranian people, but a threat to all humanity”. In Tehran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was visibly dismayed. He told a visiting French politician on Tuesday that Rajavi’s group was “attempting to undermine relations between Iran and France”, the official Iranian news agency reported.Asking Paris to crack down further on Rajavi, Iran’s top diplomat voiced alarm that “some EU member states have hosted meetings” with the opposition leader.The Foreign Minister’s concern was echoed by an array of other Iranian officials, including the Speaker of parliament, the Minister of Justice, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spokesman.The angry statements came in the wake of another diplomatic incident that broke out between Tehran and Brussels last month, when Rajavi was hosted by the Belgian Senate.Tehran is clearly feeling the heat. Last month, Kazem Jalali, a senior deputy in Iran’s Majlis, announced that the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee had completed a review of the Islamic Republic’s policies on the People’s Mojahedin, the principal group in Rajavi’s coalition.“We have studied the group’s activities and Iran’s policies towards it, and we studied the arrangements and measures that Iran can adopt to enhance the country’s security against these counter-revolutionary moves”, Jalali told reporters after committee members held a long meeting with the chief of Iran’s secret service and his deputies.On another front, Iran has been pressing its allies in the Iraqi government to expel several thousand members of the People’s Mojahedin who are under U.S. guard in a camp in eastern Iraq.Iran’s anxiety is real, and justified. Contrary to the image of strength that Iranian leaders strive to cultivate, the clerical regime stands on shaky grounds. The faltering economy has failed to alleviate the daily suffering of the average Iranian, despite all-time record oil revenues. Discontent, spurred by government incompetence and stifling repression, is on the rise. On the international scene, Tehran has never found itself in such isolation since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. The last thing Iran’s rulers can afford is to see their charismatic foe under the limelight.Norway is not a major European power, and not a member state of the European Union. But in refusing to give in to Tehran’s diplomatic bullying this week, Oslo set a refreshing example for other Western governments.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
News)))))))
More than half a dozen people have been hanged in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, were anti-government sentiment is high, since the start of the week.The semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Thursday that two “troublemakers” accused of being Mofsed-o-fel-Arz (meaning corruptors of society, whose blood can be spilled) were hanged in the provincial capital Zahedan.The two men, identified as Hadi Daryakesh Naroui and Azizollah Najjarian, were hanged in public on Wednesday. On Wednesday, the hard-line daily reported that six men were hanged in public in Zahedan for “instigating trouble”.The report stated that three “trouble-makers” were hanged in front of a crowd of several thousand people Monday morning. The men, identified as Mohsen Sargolzaee, Nader Kaharzehi, and Maijd Kaharzehi, were charged with kidnapping, shooting, and spreading fear in society and declared to be Mofsed-o-fel-Arz.The same report said that another three men, identified as Behzad Naroui, Mohammad Amin Hormozi, and Abdollah Sheikh Hassani, were hanged in public in Zahedan Monday afternoon.They were accused of being “mohareb”, a religious term that describes someone who wages war on God. An Islamic court found them guilty of killing three agents of Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF), the paramilitary police, attacking security outposts, and carrying out a bombing in Zahedan.The three men were also accused of membership in an armed Baluchi group calling itself Jondollah.In March, the group claimed responsibility for an armed attack on a convoy of government officials in Sistan-va-Baluchestan, which left twenty-two government and provincial officials dead and at least seven, including the governor of Zahedan, critically wounded. Since last year, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.
******
Iranian regime test-fired a long-range Shahab 3 missile on Thursday at the start of 10-day-long military exercises by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, state television reported.The IRGC war-games, code-named the “Great Prophet 2”, are taking place in 14 of the country's 30 provinces.Several dozen long-range and short-range missiles, including the Shahab 2, Shahab 3, Fateh-110, and Zolfaqar-103 missiles, were test-fired during the first stage of the drills, the report said, adding that a Shahab 3 missile armed with a cluster warhead, ranging 2,000 kilometres (1,242 miles), was test-fired.“The warheads of the Shahab missiles launched in the exercises were transformed into cluster warheads that held thousands of small bombs inside them. The projectile slant of the Shahab missiles was also upgraded”, the report added. Iran’s Shahab 3 missile is capable of reaching Israel and United States forces in the Middle East. Iranian regime has a dual military system with a regular Armed Forces as well as the IRGC. Both have their own Army, Navy, and Air Force and report directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.in another news, United States-led forces have been carrying out naval war-games in the Persian Gulf this week in what analysts have said are meant to serve as a warning to Tehran.Twenty five nations, including Britain, France, Italy, and Bahrain, have taken part in the naval exercises as part of the U.S. Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The goal of the exercises is to practice blocking transports of weapons of mass destruction.
******
The United States-led coalition in Iraq said in a statement on Thursday that an Iraqi security patrol had intercepted six “heavily loaded donkeys” carrying dozens of land-mines near the Iran-Iraq border.“Upon investigation, the patrol discovered six donkeys carrying 53 anti-tank landmines and one anti-tank projectile”, the statement said, adding that two men in the area fled the scene and evaded capture.The mines were found in “good condition” and determined to be Soviet (TM 62) and Italian (IT VS 2.2) made models. One of the mines was pre-rigged to be used as an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), it said.“This action by an alert Iraqi border patrol prevented dozens of very lethal munitions from being employed by terrorists,” said Col. Gary Patton, Task Force Lightning chief of staff. The donkeys were later released unharmed into the local area.
******
United Press International reported: Argentina formally charged Thursday the Iranian government and Lebanon's Hezbollah were involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. Prosecutors also called for the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, La Nacion reported online. Since the July 18, 1994, attack on the Argentine Mutual Association, no one person or group has been convicted of the blast that killed 85 people. Both Hezbollah and the Iranian government deny their involvement in the attack.
******
United Press International said on Oct.30 that Sponsors circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Iran Friday evening, calling on Tehran to immediately suspend uranium enrichment activities. The six-page measure distributed by Britain, France and Germany called for compliance with the council resolution from earlier this year calling for compliance by Aug. 31. The draft says Iran must "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development" and to "without delay implement in full" provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol, with transparency measures. It calls for supply, travel and technology transfer bans and freezing of assets on individuals and entities related to nuclear and ballistic missile research. But there are some exceptions, including one involving a nuclear plant at Bushehr the Russians are helping Iran build. Unique to the current draft is a paragraph calling for the prohibition of "specialized or training of Iranian nationals, within their territories or by their nationals, of disciplines which would contribute to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs." The purpose of such a resolution is spelled out in paragraphs 17-18, which say that should Iran comply with U.N. nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, it would "contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution that guarantees Iran's nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes." Discussions on the draft, currently being held at the level of the veto-bearing permanent five members of the council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are expected to begin with the full panel of 15 Monday.
******
According to Associated Press, More than 90,000 surveyors began the largest census of the Iranian population in decades, state-run radio reported Saturday.The final results are due in May 2007, Mohammad Madad, head of Iran's Statistics Center told the radio. "It will help decision-makers to apply more convenient policies".The census came as the Islamic Republic's hardline government faced a population boom along with double digit unemployment and inflation rates.Iran's population grew by an estimated 10 million people since 1996, when the last census counted 60 million people in this vast, central Asian country. More than half of the population is under 30 years old, and the youth, along with women's groups and Iran's many ethnic minorities have grown increasingly restive in recent years, asking for more social and political freedom.The census would cost more than US$ 40 million (31.5 million euro), the radio said. The first official census was held in Iran in 1956 under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since then Iran has held nationwide censuses every ten years.
******
Iranian regime is offering money to travel agents who can lure certain types of tourists to Iran, and the rate is double for bringing European and American travelers.“Iran’s Tourism Department will pay $20 for every American or European tourist that travel agents can bring,” Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh, deputy director of the Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization, said Tuesday in a statement reported by the news agency IRNA. The statement also specified a $10 payment for luring Asian tourists.
More than half a dozen people have been hanged in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, were anti-government sentiment is high, since the start of the week.The semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Thursday that two “troublemakers” accused of being Mofsed-o-fel-Arz (meaning corruptors of society, whose blood can be spilled) were hanged in the provincial capital Zahedan.The two men, identified as Hadi Daryakesh Naroui and Azizollah Najjarian, were hanged in public on Wednesday. On Wednesday, the hard-line daily reported that six men were hanged in public in Zahedan for “instigating trouble”.The report stated that three “trouble-makers” were hanged in front of a crowd of several thousand people Monday morning. The men, identified as Mohsen Sargolzaee, Nader Kaharzehi, and Maijd Kaharzehi, were charged with kidnapping, shooting, and spreading fear in society and declared to be Mofsed-o-fel-Arz.The same report said that another three men, identified as Behzad Naroui, Mohammad Amin Hormozi, and Abdollah Sheikh Hassani, were hanged in public in Zahedan Monday afternoon.They were accused of being “mohareb”, a religious term that describes someone who wages war on God. An Islamic court found them guilty of killing three agents of Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF), the paramilitary police, attacking security outposts, and carrying out a bombing in Zahedan.The three men were also accused of membership in an armed Baluchi group calling itself Jondollah.In March, the group claimed responsibility for an armed attack on a convoy of government officials in Sistan-va-Baluchestan, which left twenty-two government and provincial officials dead and at least seven, including the governor of Zahedan, critically wounded. Since last year, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.
******
Iranian regime test-fired a long-range Shahab 3 missile on Thursday at the start of 10-day-long military exercises by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, state television reported.The IRGC war-games, code-named the “Great Prophet 2”, are taking place in 14 of the country's 30 provinces.Several dozen long-range and short-range missiles, including the Shahab 2, Shahab 3, Fateh-110, and Zolfaqar-103 missiles, were test-fired during the first stage of the drills, the report said, adding that a Shahab 3 missile armed with a cluster warhead, ranging 2,000 kilometres (1,242 miles), was test-fired.“The warheads of the Shahab missiles launched in the exercises were transformed into cluster warheads that held thousands of small bombs inside them. The projectile slant of the Shahab missiles was also upgraded”, the report added. Iran’s Shahab 3 missile is capable of reaching Israel and United States forces in the Middle East. Iranian regime has a dual military system with a regular Armed Forces as well as the IRGC. Both have their own Army, Navy, and Air Force and report directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.in another news, United States-led forces have been carrying out naval war-games in the Persian Gulf this week in what analysts have said are meant to serve as a warning to Tehran.Twenty five nations, including Britain, France, Italy, and Bahrain, have taken part in the naval exercises as part of the U.S. Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The goal of the exercises is to practice blocking transports of weapons of mass destruction.
******
The United States-led coalition in Iraq said in a statement on Thursday that an Iraqi security patrol had intercepted six “heavily loaded donkeys” carrying dozens of land-mines near the Iran-Iraq border.“Upon investigation, the patrol discovered six donkeys carrying 53 anti-tank landmines and one anti-tank projectile”, the statement said, adding that two men in the area fled the scene and evaded capture.The mines were found in “good condition” and determined to be Soviet (TM 62) and Italian (IT VS 2.2) made models. One of the mines was pre-rigged to be used as an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), it said.“This action by an alert Iraqi border patrol prevented dozens of very lethal munitions from being employed by terrorists,” said Col. Gary Patton, Task Force Lightning chief of staff. The donkeys were later released unharmed into the local area.
******
United Press International reported: Argentina formally charged Thursday the Iranian government and Lebanon's Hezbollah were involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. Prosecutors also called for the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, La Nacion reported online. Since the July 18, 1994, attack on the Argentine Mutual Association, no one person or group has been convicted of the blast that killed 85 people. Both Hezbollah and the Iranian government deny their involvement in the attack.
******
United Press International said on Oct.30 that Sponsors circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Iran Friday evening, calling on Tehran to immediately suspend uranium enrichment activities. The six-page measure distributed by Britain, France and Germany called for compliance with the council resolution from earlier this year calling for compliance by Aug. 31. The draft says Iran must "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development" and to "without delay implement in full" provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol, with transparency measures. It calls for supply, travel and technology transfer bans and freezing of assets on individuals and entities related to nuclear and ballistic missile research. But there are some exceptions, including one involving a nuclear plant at Bushehr the Russians are helping Iran build. Unique to the current draft is a paragraph calling for the prohibition of "specialized or training of Iranian nationals, within their territories or by their nationals, of disciplines which would contribute to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs." The purpose of such a resolution is spelled out in paragraphs 17-18, which say that should Iran comply with U.N. nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, it would "contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution that guarantees Iran's nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes." Discussions on the draft, currently being held at the level of the veto-bearing permanent five members of the council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are expected to begin with the full panel of 15 Monday.
******
According to Associated Press, More than 90,000 surveyors began the largest census of the Iranian population in decades, state-run radio reported Saturday.The final results are due in May 2007, Mohammad Madad, head of Iran's Statistics Center told the radio. "It will help decision-makers to apply more convenient policies".The census came as the Islamic Republic's hardline government faced a population boom along with double digit unemployment and inflation rates.Iran's population grew by an estimated 10 million people since 1996, when the last census counted 60 million people in this vast, central Asian country. More than half of the population is under 30 years old, and the youth, along with women's groups and Iran's many ethnic minorities have grown increasingly restive in recent years, asking for more social and political freedom.The census would cost more than US$ 40 million (31.5 million euro), the radio said. The first official census was held in Iran in 1956 under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since then Iran has held nationwide censuses every ten years.
******
Iranian regime is offering money to travel agents who can lure certain types of tourists to Iran, and the rate is double for bringing European and American travelers.“Iran’s Tourism Department will pay $20 for every American or European tourist that travel agents can bring,” Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh, deputy director of the Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization, said Tuesday in a statement reported by the news agency IRNA. The statement also specified a $10 payment for luring Asian tourists.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)