NEWS))))))
The youth engaged with the suppressive State Security Forces (SSF) agents during a soccer match in Takhti Stadium of Tabriz (northwestern Iran). The regime’s forces used tear gas for suppressing this protesting move. During the engagement, one of the SSF agents was injured and the youths broke the windows of a section of the stadium. According to reports, a number of people were arrested during this engagement.
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More than 300 intercity drivers in Ilam province (western Iran) gathered and protested against reduction of fuel rations by the mullahs’ regime. The protesters said: “They have reduced our fuel rations from 800 liters to 700 liters per month, and have charged us 300,000 Tomans for installation of GPS instruments for controlling speed.
One man hanged in Isfahan and another sentenced to death
The Iranian regime hanged a prisoner in Central Isfahan Prison and released the death sentence for a youth in that city. The hanged prisoner was named Karim. He was 37 years old.The young man sentenced to execution is Faramarz and he is 25.
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Reuters reported on Dec. 24th that the Iranian police detained 28 young men and women wearing "inappropriate and repulsive" clothing and confiscated alcohol at a party in a northeastern city, an Iranian news agency reported on Monday.Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned in Iran, which has stepped up a campaign this year against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women flouting strict dress codes.Local police commander Farajollah Vafadar said 10 liters of alcohol, also illegal in the Islamic Republic, were seized in the raid in the city of Shahrud, the Fars News Agency said, without saying when it happened."The police officers arrested 18 girls and 10 boys with inappropriate and repulsive clothing in the house," he said."A file was opened for the arrested individuals and their case was referred to the Shahrud judiciary to take its legal procedure," Vafadar said.Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behavior".The authorities this month launched a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" such as short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies has become stricter since 2005, following eight years of reformist rule.
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Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a 17-year-old schoolboy yesterday over the murder of his younger friend. The teenager identified only by his first name Ali was originally sentenced to execution by a court in Tehran on 23 July 2007, the government-owned news agency Fars reported on Saturday. Ali faces imminent execution, following the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the death sentence. Under current Iranian law, girls above the age of nine and boys above the age of fifteen are considered as adults and could be executed for capital offences.
Fifth Day of Hunger Strike by Iranian Students in Isfahan University
On Dec. 28, Amir-Kabir, the Iranian students Website, reported that the student s of Isfahan University in protest to the suppressive regulations by the disciplinary committee of the university, staged a hunger strike. The reports indicate more than 40 students were summoned by the disciplinary committee.Other students in other universities, such as Mofatteh, have issued statements in supporting them in which they said: We fully support protests and hunger strikes by Isfahan University students and we hold university officials responsible for the life of the students.Since the beginning of the hunger strike, university officials have called the homes of students many times and have threatened their families.
240 Protesting moves against Iran’s suppressive regime in one month
Different walks of the Iranian people held more than 240 protesting moves against the suppressive and plundering policies of the mullahs’ regime during last month.While the executions and suppressive attacks by the Iranian regime is going on in different Iranian cities, the people have held more than 240 strikes, sit-ins, demonstrations and protesting gatherings against the mullahs’ regime.The students organized the highest number of anti-government demonstrations against anti-humane mullahs’ regime; the most significant ones were the widespread 'Students Day Demonstrations' on Dec. 7, 2007 which took place with the slogans of 'death to dictator', 'freedom is our certain right'.The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) announced: Following the call by the PMOI for holding a week-long anti-government demonstrations on the occasion of 'Students Day', these demonstrations were staged on Dec. 4, starting with protesting moves in the Universities of Tehran, Shiraz, Babol, Hamedan, Shahre-Kord, Shahroud, Tabriz, Najafabad, Isfahan, Zahedan and Ferdowsi of Mashhad and reached to its peak on Dec. 9 with the 3000-people demonstration in front of the Technical College of Tehran University. Also in this period, the Iranian workers held 40 strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations against the predatory policies of the mullahs’ regime. The political prisoners continued their resistance in the prisons by staging hunger strikes despite severe tortures by the regime’s executioners.
Monday, December 24, 2007
NEWS))))))
Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in Iran who do not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf, should die. "Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die," said Hassani, who leads Friday prayers in the city of Urumieh, in Iranian Azerbaijan. "I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive," he said. "These women and their husbands and their fathers must die," said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan. Hassani's statements came after two Kurdish feminists in Iran were accused of being members of an armed rebel group and of carrying out subversive activities threatening the security of the state. It is believed that his statements and the arrests could spark a fresh crackdown on women who do not repect the Islamic dress code in Iran. Thousands of women in Iran have already been warned this year for their "un-Islamic dress" such as wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves.
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President-elect of Iranian Resistance explained advances of “Third Option” in European Parliament HQ
The President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, in her trip to Belgium participated in a session in the main headquarters of the European Parliament in Brussels, with the participation of a number of representatives of this parliament. In this session, she delivered her speech concerning recent developments in Iran, the situation of the Iranian resistance and the advances of the “third option”.In this parliamentarian session chaired by Paulo Casaca, Portuguese member of the European Parliament and Co-Chair of Friends of a Free Iran, Lord Slynn of Hadley, the former Judge of the European Court of Justice, Professor Erik David, the professor of international law in Brussels University, Vitatas Landez, former president of Lithuania, Jean Schpats, former parliament speaker of Luxemburg, Brian Binley, member of British House of Commons, Struan Stevenson Vice President of the EPP-ED Group, and a number of MPs of the European Parliament were present and delivered their speeches. Mrs. Rajavi in her speech referred to the British Court’s Judgment regarding the annulment of the terrorist label against the PMOI and said, “ Due to its political and juridical importance, this judgment has shocked many people. The supporters of this Resistance in Iran, Iraq and all over the world are deeply happy, and the Iranian regime and its allies are very upset. The POAC court, rejecting British government’s applying for appeal, called the request of British Home Secretary a chicanery and reiterated that the Secretary “ has no chance for success in the appeal” . Mrs. Rajavi added: “ Today, the judiciary, parliamentarians and the people of Europe are standing with the Iranian people and Resistance. Therefore, we should ask the EU Council of Ministers and the British government “Why are you still standing with the religious fascism? “
EU President Condemned Extended Violation of Human Rights in Iran
In a statement issued by the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament condemned violation of human rights in Iran including extensive arrests of students the gruesome hanging of Makwan Mouloudzadeh for an alleged crime committed when he was 13. This statement, referring to arrest of 28 students for their participation in the student day on Dec. 8, 2007, reads: the European Parliament strongly supports the call for the immediate release of students and 'urges the Iranian authorities to swiftly provide adequate information to their families and lawyers about their case.The statement from Hans-Gert Poettering also condemned the gruesome hanging of Makwan Mouloudzadeh for an alleged crime committed when he was 13. This hanging was forbidden by the mullahs’ standards which consider males under 15 as minors and therefore not punishable by law. This is also against the international Civil and Political rights and the Convention of Children’s rights which Iran is a member of. This is also against all the commitments and guarantees that the Iranian authorities have given in recent months to the European Union’s institutions.
4 people hanged in Iranian cities of Isfahan and Zahedan
The anti-human mullahs’ regime hanged four people in Isfahan and Zahedan prisons, and sentenced a young man to death in Tehran. The two persons who were hanged in Isfahan were brothers. The Iranian regime also hanged 4 prisoners including a woman at Evin Prison. These four prisoners were named Ali Akbar, Alireza, Qassem and the woman’s name was Zahra.
Hundreds of University Students in Tehran Demonstrated against Suppression
Hundreds of students of Rajaii University in Tehran demonstrated against suppression at Universities and the wave of arrests, chanting the slogans 'death to dictator' and 'Ahmadinejad Pinochet, Iran won’t become Chile', 'jailed student must be released', 'Students die but will not be humiliated' and' free thinking is our certain right' continued their demonstration. According to reports by students, the demonstration was held at a condition that the night before a number of students were called to the Security Guard Center and were threatened if they held demonstration they would have been dealt fiercely.
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London, Dec. 19 - The United Nations General Assembly accused Iran on Tuesday of continuing the practice of torture and punishments such as flogging, stoning and amputation of limbs.The UNGA adopted a Canadian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 73 in favour to 53 opposed, with 55 abstentions. The 192-member world body expressed "deep concern" at "ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" of the people of Iran.It sought the "elimination of amputations, flogging and other forms of torture and inhuman punishment" as well as an abolition of public executions.It called on Tehran to halt "stoning as a method of execution" and end "executions of persons who at the time of their offence were under the age of 18".The resolution also pointed out that there was "discrimination and violence against women and girls" in Iran. The UNGA called on Iran to put an end to the "harassment, intimidation and persecution of political opponents” and end “impunity for human rights violations”.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian court has jailed nine teachers for 91 days on charges of disturbing public opinion by encouraging colleagues to stage illegal protests, an Iranian daily reported on Monday.Seda-ye Edalat (The Voice of Justice) said the sentences were handed down in the western city of Hamedan. The teachers were arrested during the Iranian month starting in late March, when the newspaper said they spent nine days in solitary confinement.Some teachers have staged protests in Tehran and elsewhere over the past year demanding better pay and conditions. Many of them make the equivalent of a few hundred U.S. dollars per month and have seen their real wages eroded by double-digit inflation.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behaviour in the Islamic state, official media said on Sunday. The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women flouting strict dress codes and barber shops offering men Western hair styles. "Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour".Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned. The report did not make clear whether they were all Internet cafes, which have mushroomed in Iran over the past few years and are popular especially among young people. Police were not immediately available for comment. "Twenty-three people were detained," Sarkari said, adding 11 of them were women.Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities. The cafe crackdown coincides with a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" such as short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies has become stricter since 2005, following eight years of reformist rule.Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer, but usually for only a few weeks. This year the campaign has run into the winter.Women found dressing inappropriately may be warned and repeat offenders can be taken to a police station and fined. "Our people want their women to be able to go in the streets with respect and want their dignity to be protected," senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami told worshippers in Tehran on Friday. "Our people want the society to be morally clean." In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets. Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.
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London, Dec. 22 – A prominent international human rights organisation called for the immediate release of an Iranian trade union leader who was rushed to hospital after collapsing in prison.Amnesty International said that it had received reliable reports that Mahmoud Salehi, a spokesperson for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, was taken unconscious to Tohid hospital in Sanandaj on 11 December, after repeatedly collapsing in prison between 4-10 December as a result of his health problems. “Salehi has a long-term history of kidney and heart complaints. In May 2007, his doctor made a request asking for Salehi to receive specialist treatment. That request continues to be ignored” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday. “Amnesty International regards Salehi as a prisoner of conscience and has ongoing concerns for his well-being”, it said. “The case is the latest example of the Iranian authorities continual disregard for the health of prisoners”. “Mahmoud Salehi's life is at risk. He urgently needs proper and sustained treatment outside prison. The Iranian government must release him now”, said Shane Enright, Amnesty International UK's Trade Union Campaigns Manager. Salehi was arrested after a demonstration to celebrate May Day 2004.
Amnesty International Asked For Immediate Release of Detained Students
Amnesty International (AI), in a statement, asked for immediate release of detained students in Iran. The statement of this organization has expressed concern about the situation of the detained student. AI statement reads: between 20 to 30 students have been detained following demonstrations and gatherings on the occasion of Dec. 7, the Iranian Students Day, without explaining the charge, in Tehran and other cities. Most of the detainees are kept in Tehran, in Evin Prison’s wards 209 and 240, and some others are kept in a governmental intelligence unit named 'bureau of follow up'In its statement, Amnesty International has referred to the protesting gatherings by the detained students’ families in front of Evin Prison and in front of the Iranian regime’s Parliament on December12.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behaviour in the Islamic state, official media said on Sunday. The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women flouting strict dress codes and barber shops offering men Western hair styles. "Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour". Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned.The report did not make clear whether they were all Internet cafes, which have mushroomed in Iran over the past few years and are popular especially among young people. Police were not immediately available for comment."Twenty-three people were detained," Sarkari said, adding 11 of them were women.Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities.The cafe crackdown coincides with a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" such as short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies has become stricter since 2005, following eight years of reformist rule.Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer, but usually for only a few weeks. This year the campaign has run into the winter. Women found dressing inappropriately may be warned and repeat offenders can be taken to a police station and fined."Our people want their women to be able to go in the streets with respect and want their dignity to be protected," senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami told worshippers in Tehran on Friday. "Our people want the society to be morally clean." In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets. Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.
Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in Iran who do not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf, should die. "Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die," said Hassani, who leads Friday prayers in the city of Urumieh, in Iranian Azerbaijan. "I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive," he said. "These women and their husbands and their fathers must die," said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan. Hassani's statements came after two Kurdish feminists in Iran were accused of being members of an armed rebel group and of carrying out subversive activities threatening the security of the state. It is believed that his statements and the arrests could spark a fresh crackdown on women who do not repect the Islamic dress code in Iran. Thousands of women in Iran have already been warned this year for their "un-Islamic dress" such as wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves.
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President-elect of Iranian Resistance explained advances of “Third Option” in European Parliament HQ
The President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, in her trip to Belgium participated in a session in the main headquarters of the European Parliament in Brussels, with the participation of a number of representatives of this parliament. In this session, she delivered her speech concerning recent developments in Iran, the situation of the Iranian resistance and the advances of the “third option”.In this parliamentarian session chaired by Paulo Casaca, Portuguese member of the European Parliament and Co-Chair of Friends of a Free Iran, Lord Slynn of Hadley, the former Judge of the European Court of Justice, Professor Erik David, the professor of international law in Brussels University, Vitatas Landez, former president of Lithuania, Jean Schpats, former parliament speaker of Luxemburg, Brian Binley, member of British House of Commons, Struan Stevenson Vice President of the EPP-ED Group, and a number of MPs of the European Parliament were present and delivered their speeches. Mrs. Rajavi in her speech referred to the British Court’s Judgment regarding the annulment of the terrorist label against the PMOI and said, “ Due to its political and juridical importance, this judgment has shocked many people. The supporters of this Resistance in Iran, Iraq and all over the world are deeply happy, and the Iranian regime and its allies are very upset. The POAC court, rejecting British government’s applying for appeal, called the request of British Home Secretary a chicanery and reiterated that the Secretary “ has no chance for success in the appeal” . Mrs. Rajavi added: “ Today, the judiciary, parliamentarians and the people of Europe are standing with the Iranian people and Resistance. Therefore, we should ask the EU Council of Ministers and the British government “Why are you still standing with the religious fascism? “
EU President Condemned Extended Violation of Human Rights in Iran
In a statement issued by the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament condemned violation of human rights in Iran including extensive arrests of students the gruesome hanging of Makwan Mouloudzadeh for an alleged crime committed when he was 13. This statement, referring to arrest of 28 students for their participation in the student day on Dec. 8, 2007, reads: the European Parliament strongly supports the call for the immediate release of students and 'urges the Iranian authorities to swiftly provide adequate information to their families and lawyers about their case.The statement from Hans-Gert Poettering also condemned the gruesome hanging of Makwan Mouloudzadeh for an alleged crime committed when he was 13. This hanging was forbidden by the mullahs’ standards which consider males under 15 as minors and therefore not punishable by law. This is also against the international Civil and Political rights and the Convention of Children’s rights which Iran is a member of. This is also against all the commitments and guarantees that the Iranian authorities have given in recent months to the European Union’s institutions.
4 people hanged in Iranian cities of Isfahan and Zahedan
The anti-human mullahs’ regime hanged four people in Isfahan and Zahedan prisons, and sentenced a young man to death in Tehran. The two persons who were hanged in Isfahan were brothers. The Iranian regime also hanged 4 prisoners including a woman at Evin Prison. These four prisoners were named Ali Akbar, Alireza, Qassem and the woman’s name was Zahra.
Hundreds of University Students in Tehran Demonstrated against Suppression
Hundreds of students of Rajaii University in Tehran demonstrated against suppression at Universities and the wave of arrests, chanting the slogans 'death to dictator' and 'Ahmadinejad Pinochet, Iran won’t become Chile', 'jailed student must be released', 'Students die but will not be humiliated' and' free thinking is our certain right' continued their demonstration. According to reports by students, the demonstration was held at a condition that the night before a number of students were called to the Security Guard Center and were threatened if they held demonstration they would have been dealt fiercely.
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London, Dec. 19 - The United Nations General Assembly accused Iran on Tuesday of continuing the practice of torture and punishments such as flogging, stoning and amputation of limbs.The UNGA adopted a Canadian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 73 in favour to 53 opposed, with 55 abstentions. The 192-member world body expressed "deep concern" at "ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" of the people of Iran.It sought the "elimination of amputations, flogging and other forms of torture and inhuman punishment" as well as an abolition of public executions.It called on Tehran to halt "stoning as a method of execution" and end "executions of persons who at the time of their offence were under the age of 18".The resolution also pointed out that there was "discrimination and violence against women and girls" in Iran. The UNGA called on Iran to put an end to the "harassment, intimidation and persecution of political opponents” and end “impunity for human rights violations”.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian court has jailed nine teachers for 91 days on charges of disturbing public opinion by encouraging colleagues to stage illegal protests, an Iranian daily reported on Monday.Seda-ye Edalat (The Voice of Justice) said the sentences were handed down in the western city of Hamedan. The teachers were arrested during the Iranian month starting in late March, when the newspaper said they spent nine days in solitary confinement.Some teachers have staged protests in Tehran and elsewhere over the past year demanding better pay and conditions. Many of them make the equivalent of a few hundred U.S. dollars per month and have seen their real wages eroded by double-digit inflation.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behaviour in the Islamic state, official media said on Sunday. The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women flouting strict dress codes and barber shops offering men Western hair styles. "Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour".Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned. The report did not make clear whether they were all Internet cafes, which have mushroomed in Iran over the past few years and are popular especially among young people. Police were not immediately available for comment. "Twenty-three people were detained," Sarkari said, adding 11 of them were women.Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities. The cafe crackdown coincides with a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" such as short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies has become stricter since 2005, following eight years of reformist rule.Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer, but usually for only a few weeks. This year the campaign has run into the winter.Women found dressing inappropriately may be warned and repeat offenders can be taken to a police station and fined. "Our people want their women to be able to go in the streets with respect and want their dignity to be protected," senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami told worshippers in Tehran on Friday. "Our people want the society to be morally clean." In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets. Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.
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London, Dec. 22 – A prominent international human rights organisation called for the immediate release of an Iranian trade union leader who was rushed to hospital after collapsing in prison.Amnesty International said that it had received reliable reports that Mahmoud Salehi, a spokesperson for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, was taken unconscious to Tohid hospital in Sanandaj on 11 December, after repeatedly collapsing in prison between 4-10 December as a result of his health problems. “Salehi has a long-term history of kidney and heart complaints. In May 2007, his doctor made a request asking for Salehi to receive specialist treatment. That request continues to be ignored” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday. “Amnesty International regards Salehi as a prisoner of conscience and has ongoing concerns for his well-being”, it said. “The case is the latest example of the Iranian authorities continual disregard for the health of prisoners”. “Mahmoud Salehi's life is at risk. He urgently needs proper and sustained treatment outside prison. The Iranian government must release him now”, said Shane Enright, Amnesty International UK's Trade Union Campaigns Manager. Salehi was arrested after a demonstration to celebrate May Day 2004.
Amnesty International Asked For Immediate Release of Detained Students
Amnesty International (AI), in a statement, asked for immediate release of detained students in Iran. The statement of this organization has expressed concern about the situation of the detained student. AI statement reads: between 20 to 30 students have been detained following demonstrations and gatherings on the occasion of Dec. 7, the Iranian Students Day, without explaining the charge, in Tehran and other cities. Most of the detainees are kept in Tehran, in Evin Prison’s wards 209 and 240, and some others are kept in a governmental intelligence unit named 'bureau of follow up'In its statement, Amnesty International has referred to the protesting gatherings by the detained students’ families in front of Evin Prison and in front of the Iranian regime’s Parliament on December12.
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behaviour in the Islamic state, official media said on Sunday. The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women flouting strict dress codes and barber shops offering men Western hair styles. "Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour". Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned.The report did not make clear whether they were all Internet cafes, which have mushroomed in Iran over the past few years and are popular especially among young people. Police were not immediately available for comment."Twenty-three people were detained," Sarkari said, adding 11 of them were women.Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities.The cafe crackdown coincides with a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" such as short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies has become stricter since 2005, following eight years of reformist rule.Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer, but usually for only a few weeks. This year the campaign has run into the winter. Women found dressing inappropriately may be warned and repeat offenders can be taken to a police station and fined."Our people want their women to be able to go in the streets with respect and want their dignity to be protected," senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami told worshippers in Tehran on Friday. "Our people want the society to be morally clean." In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets. Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
NEWS))))))
Dow Jones Newswires: A U.K. court Friday refused the government's appeal against the court's order to the home secretary to lift a six-year ban on an Iranian opposition group, taking the group one step closer to official legitimacy in the U.K., a lawyer assisting the legal team said. It's an important victory for the Iranian opposition, which is currently fighting a similar ban on the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran in the U.S. and the European Union. "They (the court) have refused the application made by the home secretary to get permission to appeal," Masoud Zabeti, who is also the chairman of the committee of Anglo-Iranian lawyers, told Dow Jones Newswires. "It's very significant because they didn't even allow a hearing to take place on the basis that the law says that there must be reasonable grounds for success," he added.At the end of November, the U.K.'s Proscribed Organization Appeal Commission ordered the U.K.'s home secretary to lift a ban on the PMOI, which is part of a broader coalition group that forms the main opposition to the current regime in Tehran. The PMOI campaigns for regime change in Tehran and a secular democracy based on respect for human rights. But in 2001 the U.K. government put the PMOI on the proscribed organization list that includes al-Qaida and the Kurdish PKK, citing the group's involvement in violence in Iran following the country's Islamic Revolution. However, the U.K. court found that the PMOI, which renounced the use of force years ago, had not conducted any military activity since 2001. The U.K. government has one last channel for appeal - it can make an application to the U.K. court of appeals, but the strong judgment from the commission in November makes that step less likely, Zabeti said.
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On Wednesday, Dec. 12, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi attended a meeting organized by the Committee for a Democratic Iran at the French Senate. The meeting was to mark gruesome violation of Human Rights in Iran and was headed by Senator Jean-Pierre Michel and a number of French Senators. The French news agency (AFP) reported this session and wrote: The President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, called on international community to adopt a “firm policy” against the “mullahs’ regime” ruling Iran. She added, 'The mullahs will never stop suppression in Iran, gulping Iraq or producing nuclear bomb because if they do then the regime will disappear completely. Therefore, the international community should adopt a firm policy against the regime.' AFP added: In the presence of Mrs. Daniel Mitterrand, former French First Lady, the President-elect of the NCRI called once again for removal of 'restrictions' against her movement. Mrs. Rajavi said, 'The unjust [terrorist] designation is a kind of human rights violation inflicting huge damages.'
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The National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement on Dec. 12 that amid the Iranian Student Week called by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), student continued to stage gatherings in various Iranian cities such as Mashhad, Kerman, Mazandaran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Najaf-Abad, Hamedan, Kermanshah, Orumieh, and Khorramshahr in which a number of students were arrested by the mullahs’ regime. Alireza Jamshidi, spokesman for the Iranian regime’s judiciary admitted to having arrested the students and said, 'Twenty to thirty persons' were detained, the state-run news agency ISNA reported on Monday. 'A number [of students] have been arrested and are held on a variety of charges such as civil disturbance, rioting and etc,' said Jamshidi. The mullahs’ regime in its faltering state is desperately attempting to contain the rising number of demonstrations and popular uprisings by arbitrary arrests. The Iranian Resistance draws the attention of all international human rights organizations and student unions to the suppressive measures imposed on students by the regime. The Iranian Resistance also calls for international support for the Iranian student movement for freedom.
******
Reuters reported that an Iranian exile group accused Tehran on Tuesday of pursuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, dismissing as incomplete a U.S. intelligence report that Iran's nuclear arms program was frozen in 2003. Sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a study published on December 3 that Iran had stopped activities aimed at making nuclear weapons in 2003, though it continues to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which first exposed Iran's nuclear fuel program in 2002, said it published information three years ago alleging that Tehran had restarted weapons-related work after a short break. NCRI officials said they checked back with sources inside Iran after the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was released, and those informants reported that work on nuclear weapons was still being pursued at three sites. "The clerical regime is continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," Mohammad Mohaddessin of the France-based group, listed as a terror organization in the United States, told a news conference in Brussels. The NIE report concluded that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007. The halt applied to work on explosive device components and to uranium conversion activities, it said. That conclusion contradicted earlier assertions by the Bush administration that Tehran was determined to develop the bomb. Analysts say it could complicate the U.S. drive for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran. Tehran welcomed the report as proof Bush wanted to deceive the world about a nuclear arms agenda it has denied pursuing. But major powers said their policy remained one of seeking negotiations with Tehran over inducements to suspend uranium enrichment, while threatening it with sanctions. Mohaddessin said the NCRI agreed with the NIE assessment that activities were suspended in 2003, and specified that in March 2003 Iran closed down a weaponization site in Lavisan, northeast Tehran, fearing it might be detected. But it transferred the weapons activities to a new site in Lavisan and later to two additional sites, information the NCRI had made public from November 2004 onwards, he said. In a second briefing in Washington on Tuesday, former NCRI spokesman Alireza Jafarzadeh presented photographs and lists of sites around Tehran, including Imam Hossein University, that he said played major ongoing roles in nuclear arms development. The Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps initiated and led Iran's nuclear program, said Jafarzadeh, who identified 21 senior nuclear physicists at Imam Hossein University as "commanders and cadres of the IRGC." "Anytime you have the military involved with the nuclear program, we are talking about the bomb," he told reporters. Asked how Washington's entire intelligence community and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, could have missed evidence of this, Mohaddessin said: "Exactly as they missed Natanz (Iran's uranium enrichment plant) and (the original) Lavisan." Mohaddessin said the new Lavisan site hosted research on laser enrichment of uranium, while two whole-body counters -- used for detecting radiation -- were in use at a university in the central city of Isfahan and a hospital outside Tehran. He said Iran continued research after 2003 on a bomb initiator and on other technologies that could be used in a nuclear bomb. Mohaddessin acknowledged that some of those technologies had civilian uses but concluded: "It is very obvious that the clerical regime resumed its military activities in 2004." NCRI officials said their sources included people with contacts with high-ranking Iranian officials, military officers and the Revolutionary Guard, as well as individuals working inside the new Lavisan facility. The NCRI's armed wing, the People's Mujahideen organization of Iran (PMOI), is banned in the United States and the EU.
******
Four people were hanged on Tuesday in the province of Khorrasan Shomali, north-eastern Iran, state television reported. One of the men was shown hanging in public in the city of Bojnourd. The three others were shown hanging inside a prison there. All four were accused of drug trafficking. Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug smuggling.
******
Four Kurdish students, who called for human rights for their ethnic group at a university protest, have been arrested in Iran. Mohammad Saleh Abuman, Farshad Doostipour, Javad Alizadeh and Sohrab Karimi, spoke in support of human rights for ethnic Kurds during a protest that drew 1500 young people at the University of Tehran on Sunday. They also called for the immediate release of four jailed journalists, three students and one female Kurd, and the suspension of the death penalty imposed on Adnan Hassanpour. Hassanpour, a journalist from the weekly newspaper Asu (The Wave) was sentenced to death on 17 July by an Islamic court for being an "enemy of Allah". Hassanpour and another Kurdish journalist, Hiwa Boutimar, received the City of Siena -Isf award for freedom of the press on 30 November.
******
A 48-year-old man with two children faces death by stoning in Iran after he was accused of having had extra-marital sex. Iran's Supreme Court has sentenced Abdollah Farivar Moghaddam to death by stoning in the city of Sari, in the north of the country. Abdollah was accused of adultery and the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that was passed by the judges in the tribunal in Sari. In March, another man was stoned in the city of Ghazvin, which is about 100 kilometres from the capital Tehran. Iran is believed to have executed at least 210 people in 2007, according to human rights groups. The Islamic republic has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, second only to China.Capital punishment is applied in Iran in cases of murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery.
******
Associated France Press reported on Monday that Germany on Monday deported to Iran an alleged Iranian secret agent who was jailed for life in 1997 for murdering four Kurdish dissidents in Berlin, officials in the German capital said. Kazem Darabi's Lebanese accomplice, Abbas Rhayel, has also been freed after serving 15 years in jail and was deported last week, prosecuting authorities told AFP. Darabi, 48, and Rhayel, a suspected member of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia movement, were jailed for life for the 1992 murder of four Kurdish dissidents in a Greek restaurant in Berlin called "Mykonos". Their trial set off a diplomatic crisis between Europe and Iran because the German judges found that the restaurant killings had been carried out at the orders of Tehran. Relations with Iran plunged to freezing point over the verdict because Tehran was furious for being fingered for sponsoring terror. Ambassadors from both sides were recalled for several months.
Dow Jones Newswires: A U.K. court Friday refused the government's appeal against the court's order to the home secretary to lift a six-year ban on an Iranian opposition group, taking the group one step closer to official legitimacy in the U.K., a lawyer assisting the legal team said. It's an important victory for the Iranian opposition, which is currently fighting a similar ban on the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran in the U.S. and the European Union. "They (the court) have refused the application made by the home secretary to get permission to appeal," Masoud Zabeti, who is also the chairman of the committee of Anglo-Iranian lawyers, told Dow Jones Newswires. "It's very significant because they didn't even allow a hearing to take place on the basis that the law says that there must be reasonable grounds for success," he added.At the end of November, the U.K.'s Proscribed Organization Appeal Commission ordered the U.K.'s home secretary to lift a ban on the PMOI, which is part of a broader coalition group that forms the main opposition to the current regime in Tehran. The PMOI campaigns for regime change in Tehran and a secular democracy based on respect for human rights. But in 2001 the U.K. government put the PMOI on the proscribed organization list that includes al-Qaida and the Kurdish PKK, citing the group's involvement in violence in Iran following the country's Islamic Revolution. However, the U.K. court found that the PMOI, which renounced the use of force years ago, had not conducted any military activity since 2001. The U.K. government has one last channel for appeal - it can make an application to the U.K. court of appeals, but the strong judgment from the commission in November makes that step less likely, Zabeti said.
******
On Wednesday, Dec. 12, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi attended a meeting organized by the Committee for a Democratic Iran at the French Senate. The meeting was to mark gruesome violation of Human Rights in Iran and was headed by Senator Jean-Pierre Michel and a number of French Senators. The French news agency (AFP) reported this session and wrote: The President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, called on international community to adopt a “firm policy” against the “mullahs’ regime” ruling Iran. She added, 'The mullahs will never stop suppression in Iran, gulping Iraq or producing nuclear bomb because if they do then the regime will disappear completely. Therefore, the international community should adopt a firm policy against the regime.' AFP added: In the presence of Mrs. Daniel Mitterrand, former French First Lady, the President-elect of the NCRI called once again for removal of 'restrictions' against her movement. Mrs. Rajavi said, 'The unjust [terrorist] designation is a kind of human rights violation inflicting huge damages.'
******
The National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement on Dec. 12 that amid the Iranian Student Week called by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), student continued to stage gatherings in various Iranian cities such as Mashhad, Kerman, Mazandaran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Najaf-Abad, Hamedan, Kermanshah, Orumieh, and Khorramshahr in which a number of students were arrested by the mullahs’ regime. Alireza Jamshidi, spokesman for the Iranian regime’s judiciary admitted to having arrested the students and said, 'Twenty to thirty persons' were detained, the state-run news agency ISNA reported on Monday. 'A number [of students] have been arrested and are held on a variety of charges such as civil disturbance, rioting and etc,' said Jamshidi. The mullahs’ regime in its faltering state is desperately attempting to contain the rising number of demonstrations and popular uprisings by arbitrary arrests. The Iranian Resistance draws the attention of all international human rights organizations and student unions to the suppressive measures imposed on students by the regime. The Iranian Resistance also calls for international support for the Iranian student movement for freedom.
******
Reuters reported that an Iranian exile group accused Tehran on Tuesday of pursuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, dismissing as incomplete a U.S. intelligence report that Iran's nuclear arms program was frozen in 2003. Sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a study published on December 3 that Iran had stopped activities aimed at making nuclear weapons in 2003, though it continues to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which first exposed Iran's nuclear fuel program in 2002, said it published information three years ago alleging that Tehran had restarted weapons-related work after a short break. NCRI officials said they checked back with sources inside Iran after the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was released, and those informants reported that work on nuclear weapons was still being pursued at three sites. "The clerical regime is continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," Mohammad Mohaddessin of the France-based group, listed as a terror organization in the United States, told a news conference in Brussels. The NIE report concluded that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007. The halt applied to work on explosive device components and to uranium conversion activities, it said. That conclusion contradicted earlier assertions by the Bush administration that Tehran was determined to develop the bomb. Analysts say it could complicate the U.S. drive for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran. Tehran welcomed the report as proof Bush wanted to deceive the world about a nuclear arms agenda it has denied pursuing. But major powers said their policy remained one of seeking negotiations with Tehran over inducements to suspend uranium enrichment, while threatening it with sanctions. Mohaddessin said the NCRI agreed with the NIE assessment that activities were suspended in 2003, and specified that in March 2003 Iran closed down a weaponization site in Lavisan, northeast Tehran, fearing it might be detected. But it transferred the weapons activities to a new site in Lavisan and later to two additional sites, information the NCRI had made public from November 2004 onwards, he said. In a second briefing in Washington on Tuesday, former NCRI spokesman Alireza Jafarzadeh presented photographs and lists of sites around Tehran, including Imam Hossein University, that he said played major ongoing roles in nuclear arms development. The Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps initiated and led Iran's nuclear program, said Jafarzadeh, who identified 21 senior nuclear physicists at Imam Hossein University as "commanders and cadres of the IRGC." "Anytime you have the military involved with the nuclear program, we are talking about the bomb," he told reporters. Asked how Washington's entire intelligence community and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, could have missed evidence of this, Mohaddessin said: "Exactly as they missed Natanz (Iran's uranium enrichment plant) and (the original) Lavisan." Mohaddessin said the new Lavisan site hosted research on laser enrichment of uranium, while two whole-body counters -- used for detecting radiation -- were in use at a university in the central city of Isfahan and a hospital outside Tehran. He said Iran continued research after 2003 on a bomb initiator and on other technologies that could be used in a nuclear bomb. Mohaddessin acknowledged that some of those technologies had civilian uses but concluded: "It is very obvious that the clerical regime resumed its military activities in 2004." NCRI officials said their sources included people with contacts with high-ranking Iranian officials, military officers and the Revolutionary Guard, as well as individuals working inside the new Lavisan facility. The NCRI's armed wing, the People's Mujahideen organization of Iran (PMOI), is banned in the United States and the EU.
******
Four people were hanged on Tuesday in the province of Khorrasan Shomali, north-eastern Iran, state television reported. One of the men was shown hanging in public in the city of Bojnourd. The three others were shown hanging inside a prison there. All four were accused of drug trafficking. Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug smuggling.
******
Four Kurdish students, who called for human rights for their ethnic group at a university protest, have been arrested in Iran. Mohammad Saleh Abuman, Farshad Doostipour, Javad Alizadeh and Sohrab Karimi, spoke in support of human rights for ethnic Kurds during a protest that drew 1500 young people at the University of Tehran on Sunday. They also called for the immediate release of four jailed journalists, three students and one female Kurd, and the suspension of the death penalty imposed on Adnan Hassanpour. Hassanpour, a journalist from the weekly newspaper Asu (The Wave) was sentenced to death on 17 July by an Islamic court for being an "enemy of Allah". Hassanpour and another Kurdish journalist, Hiwa Boutimar, received the City of Siena -Isf award for freedom of the press on 30 November.
******
A 48-year-old man with two children faces death by stoning in Iran after he was accused of having had extra-marital sex. Iran's Supreme Court has sentenced Abdollah Farivar Moghaddam to death by stoning in the city of Sari, in the north of the country. Abdollah was accused of adultery and the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that was passed by the judges in the tribunal in Sari. In March, another man was stoned in the city of Ghazvin, which is about 100 kilometres from the capital Tehran. Iran is believed to have executed at least 210 people in 2007, according to human rights groups. The Islamic republic has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, second only to China.Capital punishment is applied in Iran in cases of murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery.
******
Associated France Press reported on Monday that Germany on Monday deported to Iran an alleged Iranian secret agent who was jailed for life in 1997 for murdering four Kurdish dissidents in Berlin, officials in the German capital said. Kazem Darabi's Lebanese accomplice, Abbas Rhayel, has also been freed after serving 15 years in jail and was deported last week, prosecuting authorities told AFP. Darabi, 48, and Rhayel, a suspected member of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia movement, were jailed for life for the 1992 murder of four Kurdish dissidents in a Greek restaurant in Berlin called "Mykonos". Their trial set off a diplomatic crisis between Europe and Iran because the German judges found that the restaurant killings had been carried out at the orders of Tehran. Relations with Iran plunged to freezing point over the verdict because Tehran was furious for being fingered for sponsoring terror. Ambassadors from both sides were recalled for several months.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
NEWS))))))
Hundreds of Iranian students expressed their anger over a government crackdown on activists in a protest Sunday at Tehran University, the second such demonstration in less than a week, witnesses and state radio said. Students chanted against policies by Ahmadinejad's administration, which is imposing pressures on the universities and detaining activists. They were chanting “Down with Dictator”, “Student’s activists must be freed” etc. Students from other universities joined in the protest and broke one of the university's gates. Tehran state-run radio in a news brief confirmed that students held a protest at the university, saying the students chanted slogans against officials. It also said a group of non-students entered the university after breaking one of the gates but provided no other details. The media was not allowed to enter the campus. The protests were held to mark the National Day of Students, which has been celebrated since 1953 when three Iranian students were shot to death by police during a protest of a visit by then-Vice President Richard Nixon. State TV also announced Sunday that Iran's Intelligence Ministry had detained a group of activists it described as hecklers who planned to stage an illegal gathering at Tehran University. Quoting a statement by the ministry, the TV report said the activists, who came from various cities, entered the university using fake identification cards before they were detained. The report said intelligence officers confiscated concussion grenades, illegal books, pamphlets and alcoholic beverages from the detainees. In recent months, dissenters have witnessed an increasing crackdown, and hundreds have been rounded up. Numerous newspapers have been shut down and those that remain have been muted in their criticism fearing closure.
******
According to Associated France Press, the top United Nations human rights official on Friday voiced her "grave concern" at the execution of a young Iranian man convicted of rape amid reports a judge had ordered a stay of execution. Makwan Moloudzadeh, 20, was hanged on December 5th in a prison in Kermanshah Province for the alleged rape of three boys seven years ago, when he was 13. A local Iranian newspaper cited his lawyer as saying the execution was carried out in defiance of an order by the judiciary chief to stay the verdict, as well as claims his alleged victims had withdrawn their allegations. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in a statement that Iran is a signatory to international conventions which forbid the execution of people who were under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the crimes. Arbour urged Iranian regime to "respect its international legal obligations and the strong international consensus against the execution of minors." The latest execution brings to at least 280 the number of people hanged in Iran this year, according to an AFP count compiled from local press reports. Many are hanged in public. Iran executed at least 177 people in 2006, according to Amnesty International. The Islamic republic is the most prolific applier of the death penalty in the world after China.
******
Associated France Press reported that Iranian regime plans to set up police stations run by women officers in the capital to deal only with offences committed by women, the Tehran Emrouz newspaper reported on Thursday. Fariba Shayegan, commander of the capital's women police academy of Kowsar, was quoted as saying that the authorities plan "probably to set up special police stations for women in Tehran." Two such police stations have already been launched in the religious, North eastern, city of Mashad, she said. Women police officers, who previously had been seen mostly in administrative departments, have been increasingly involved over the past few years in enforcement of observing Islamic rules in the treatment of female criminals. The most considerable presence of police women has been highlighted in the country's continuing crackdown on those flouting the Islamic dress code. Thousands of women have been warned this year, by joint crews of male and female officers, for wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves.
Hundreds of Iranian students expressed their anger over a government crackdown on activists in a protest Sunday at Tehran University, the second such demonstration in less than a week, witnesses and state radio said. Students chanted against policies by Ahmadinejad's administration, which is imposing pressures on the universities and detaining activists. They were chanting “Down with Dictator”, “Student’s activists must be freed” etc. Students from other universities joined in the protest and broke one of the university's gates. Tehran state-run radio in a news brief confirmed that students held a protest at the university, saying the students chanted slogans against officials. It also said a group of non-students entered the university after breaking one of the gates but provided no other details. The media was not allowed to enter the campus. The protests were held to mark the National Day of Students, which has been celebrated since 1953 when three Iranian students were shot to death by police during a protest of a visit by then-Vice President Richard Nixon. State TV also announced Sunday that Iran's Intelligence Ministry had detained a group of activists it described as hecklers who planned to stage an illegal gathering at Tehran University. Quoting a statement by the ministry, the TV report said the activists, who came from various cities, entered the university using fake identification cards before they were detained. The report said intelligence officers confiscated concussion grenades, illegal books, pamphlets and alcoholic beverages from the detainees. In recent months, dissenters have witnessed an increasing crackdown, and hundreds have been rounded up. Numerous newspapers have been shut down and those that remain have been muted in their criticism fearing closure.
******
According to Associated France Press, the top United Nations human rights official on Friday voiced her "grave concern" at the execution of a young Iranian man convicted of rape amid reports a judge had ordered a stay of execution. Makwan Moloudzadeh, 20, was hanged on December 5th in a prison in Kermanshah Province for the alleged rape of three boys seven years ago, when he was 13. A local Iranian newspaper cited his lawyer as saying the execution was carried out in defiance of an order by the judiciary chief to stay the verdict, as well as claims his alleged victims had withdrawn their allegations. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in a statement that Iran is a signatory to international conventions which forbid the execution of people who were under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the crimes. Arbour urged Iranian regime to "respect its international legal obligations and the strong international consensus against the execution of minors." The latest execution brings to at least 280 the number of people hanged in Iran this year, according to an AFP count compiled from local press reports. Many are hanged in public. Iran executed at least 177 people in 2006, according to Amnesty International. The Islamic republic is the most prolific applier of the death penalty in the world after China.
******
Associated France Press reported that Iranian regime plans to set up police stations run by women officers in the capital to deal only with offences committed by women, the Tehran Emrouz newspaper reported on Thursday. Fariba Shayegan, commander of the capital's women police academy of Kowsar, was quoted as saying that the authorities plan "probably to set up special police stations for women in Tehran." Two such police stations have already been launched in the religious, North eastern, city of Mashad, she said. Women police officers, who previously had been seen mostly in administrative departments, have been increasingly involved over the past few years in enforcement of observing Islamic rules in the treatment of female criminals. The most considerable presence of police women has been highlighted in the country's continuing crackdown on those flouting the Islamic dress code. Thousands of women have been warned this year, by joint crews of male and female officers, for wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
NEWS))))))
The Secretariat of National Council of Resistance of Iran, announced in a statement on Nov. 29th that Ali Reza Jamshidi, mullahs' judiciary spokesman announced that Ms. Zahra Kazemi [the slain Iranian-Canadian photojournalist] murder case will soon be reopened by the regime's Supreme Court, the official news agency IRNA reported this afternoon. "The case has been brought to the attention of a branch of Supreme Court. However, the sitting judges in the branch have some reservations as to the way the case was presented and the credibly of the [lower] court...The judges have referred the case to the related body for review," said Jamshidi.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance described the measure by the Iranian regime as a stage-managed show and said: the officials of the regime's judiciary are responsible for Zahra Kazemi's murder. They have slaughtered thousands of innocent women in their dungeons. A recent case was Zahra Baniyaqob, a young physician. Forty-eight hours after her arrest by the State Security Forces (SSF) in the western city of Hamedan, she was accused by the judicial authorities of so-called "evident crime." However, there are credible reports indicating that Ms. Baniyaqob was tortured and murdered while in the SSF custody.
Mrs. Rajavi said that the only solution to the case would be to haul Ms. Kazemi's murderers such as Saied Mortazavi, Tehran Prosecutor General, before an international tribunal. She added that it would be appropriate for Canadian government to take the lead in this matter.
******
The Iranian regime rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for more inspections of its nuclear installations. Gholamreza Aqazadeh, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization told the state News agency ISNA: Speaking of more inspections can take place later. Speaking of the matter of Iran’s adherence to the Additional Protocol is also too soon for Iran. If we want to speak about adherence to the Additional Protocol, it is certainly not today. It should be reminded that IAEA had asked Iran at the end of its 2-day meeting in Vienna on Friday, Nov. 23, to let the IAEA inspectors to inspect more that regime’s nuclear installations.
******
A German news agency reported on Friday that a man has been arrested in Germany for exporting military or nuclear items to Iran, federal prosecutors in the southern justice capital of Karlsruhe said Thursday. Deustche press-agentur added: Mohsen V, aged 48, described as having dual German and Iranian nationality, was detained Tuesday by customs agents on the basis of a judicial order issued last week. He was remanded in custody Wednesday. He was accused of arranging deals in breach of German export control laws. The charges involved items 'subject to international or German trade restrictions on account of their utility for military or nuclear purposes.' Prosecutors did not say what the items were. A statement said his Frankfurt office had been searched along with the premises of a German trading company in the western city of Ludwigshafen. Germany, which is leading efforts to bring Iranian nuclear research under international inspection, has instituted strict rules against exports to Iran of any items that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.
******
British Court rules to the annulment of the terrorist label against PMOI
The British Court ruled to the annulment of the terrorist label against the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin of Iran) on Friday and ordered the Home Ministry to report the British Parliament the removal of the PMOI from the list of proscribed organizations. Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) in its judgment underlined the invalidity of the terrorist designation and ordered the British government to implement removing proscription from the PMOI. The court’s ruling which is codified in 144 pages and 362 articles was communicated by the court to the PMOI’s complainants and lawyers and the British government.
The Secretariat of National Council of Resistance of Iran, announced in a statement on Nov. 29th that Ali Reza Jamshidi, mullahs' judiciary spokesman announced that Ms. Zahra Kazemi [the slain Iranian-Canadian photojournalist] murder case will soon be reopened by the regime's Supreme Court, the official news agency IRNA reported this afternoon. "The case has been brought to the attention of a branch of Supreme Court. However, the sitting judges in the branch have some reservations as to the way the case was presented and the credibly of the [lower] court...The judges have referred the case to the related body for review," said Jamshidi.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance described the measure by the Iranian regime as a stage-managed show and said: the officials of the regime's judiciary are responsible for Zahra Kazemi's murder. They have slaughtered thousands of innocent women in their dungeons. A recent case was Zahra Baniyaqob, a young physician. Forty-eight hours after her arrest by the State Security Forces (SSF) in the western city of Hamedan, she was accused by the judicial authorities of so-called "evident crime." However, there are credible reports indicating that Ms. Baniyaqob was tortured and murdered while in the SSF custody.
Mrs. Rajavi said that the only solution to the case would be to haul Ms. Kazemi's murderers such as Saied Mortazavi, Tehran Prosecutor General, before an international tribunal. She added that it would be appropriate for Canadian government to take the lead in this matter.
******
The Iranian regime rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for more inspections of its nuclear installations. Gholamreza Aqazadeh, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization told the state News agency ISNA: Speaking of more inspections can take place later. Speaking of the matter of Iran’s adherence to the Additional Protocol is also too soon for Iran. If we want to speak about adherence to the Additional Protocol, it is certainly not today. It should be reminded that IAEA had asked Iran at the end of its 2-day meeting in Vienna on Friday, Nov. 23, to let the IAEA inspectors to inspect more that regime’s nuclear installations.
******
A German news agency reported on Friday that a man has been arrested in Germany for exporting military or nuclear items to Iran, federal prosecutors in the southern justice capital of Karlsruhe said Thursday. Deustche press-agentur added: Mohsen V, aged 48, described as having dual German and Iranian nationality, was detained Tuesday by customs agents on the basis of a judicial order issued last week. He was remanded in custody Wednesday. He was accused of arranging deals in breach of German export control laws. The charges involved items 'subject to international or German trade restrictions on account of their utility for military or nuclear purposes.' Prosecutors did not say what the items were. A statement said his Frankfurt office had been searched along with the premises of a German trading company in the western city of Ludwigshafen. Germany, which is leading efforts to bring Iranian nuclear research under international inspection, has instituted strict rules against exports to Iran of any items that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.
******
British Court rules to the annulment of the terrorist label against PMOI
The British Court ruled to the annulment of the terrorist label against the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin of Iran) on Friday and ordered the Home Ministry to report the British Parliament the removal of the PMOI from the list of proscribed organizations. Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) in its judgment underlined the invalidity of the terrorist designation and ordered the British government to implement removing proscription from the PMOI. The court’s ruling which is codified in 144 pages and 362 articles was communicated by the court to the PMOI’s complainants and lawyers and the British government.
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