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Authorities executed a 40-year-old man in public in southern Iran, state media reported on Wednesday. The execution was carried in public in the city of Shiraz, the state-run newspaper Etemaad wrote. The man, identified only by his first name Nasrollah, was accused of drug trafficking.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug smuggling.
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Associated France Press reported that an Iranian-French journalism student is being prevented from leaving Iran after spending a month in jail for interviewing opposition members, Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday. Mehrnoushe Solouki has been under house arrest in Tehran since March when she was freed from Tehran's Evin prison where she was interrogated and confined to a cell with a permanently-lit neon light, the group said. Solouki, a doctoral student in Montreal- Canada, had obtained permission from Iranian authorities to produce a documentary film on the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, said Ajar Smouni, a spokeswoman for Reporters Without Borders. But she was arrested on February 17 after interviewing family members of the opposition People's Mujahedeen who said they had been victims of repression, Smouni said. Solouki, 38, who holds Iranian and French citizenship, was freed on March 19 after posting bail of 80,000 euros (107,000 dollars) and has since been under house arrest in Tehran. Iranian authorities confiscated her notes and film footage and have since called her in for questioning, according to her lawyer in France, William Bourdon, who said they have threatened to jail her again unless she cooperates. The lawyer said Solouki had been given her French passport back, but that authorities were refusing to let her leave. "This is a very worrying situation," said Bourdon, who has raised her plight with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. The foreign ministry said it was in contact with Tehran about Solouki's case, with spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei saying that "we obviously hope that the situation can be resolved and that she will be able to have full freedom of movement."
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Coalition forces uncovered half a dozen Iranian-made rockets in a Baghdad schoolyard earlier this week, the U.S.-led military said on Monday.Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers and aviation assets discovered the six rockets in a schoolyard in the Iraqi capital’s Rashid District on June 17, the Multi-National Corps – Iraq (MNC-I) said in a statement.
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Forouz Raja'ee-Far, secretary general of the Headquarters for Honoring the Martyrs of Islam World Movement, said the former $100,000 prize for carrying out the execution ordered by Imam Khomeini in 1989 has now been increased to $150,000, the Fars News Agency reported Monday. After writing “The Satanic Verses” Khomeini ruled Salman Rushdie’s death by a Fatwa. "According to Imam Khomeini's verdict, it is an obligation for all Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie even if he repents from the bottom of his heart and becomes the pious man of the time," Raja'ee-Far said. "Also according to Imam's verdict, if a non-Muslim person can find and execute Rushdie sooner than Muslims, it will be an obligation for Muslims to provide such a person with whatever he wants as his payment or prize," he said.
