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Prisoners set fire to their blankets and clashed with guards in a protest in Evin prison
In a protesting move against the anti-human measure by the Iranian regime agents in Evin Prison, who had turned off heating facilities of wards, political and ordinary prisoners set fire to their blankets and clashed with jailor. According to reports from Evin Prison, despite the cold weather, the prison officials are using this severe cold to torture the prisoners, especially the political prisoners, and have turned off the prison’s heating installation. According to some prisoners, the weather is so cold that the bodies of some prisoners including Ayatollah Kazemaini Boroujerdi have been numbed, and they are unable to move.
200 Sunni students in northwestern Iran demonstrated against religious discrimination
More than 200 Sunni students of Pardis University in Orumiyeh (northwest of Iran) staged a demonstration to protest against the religious discrimination by the clerical regime. The protesting students said that the Iranian regime’s agents have omitted the Sunni students by cheating in the university’s internal examination’s results.
US clamps down on Iran
The Associated Press, Washington, reported on November 7th that: The Bush administration moved Thursday to clamp down on Iran by barring financial institutions from routing certain money transfers through the United States on behalf of Iranian banks, Iran’s government and others in the country. Specifically, the Treasury Department announced that it is revoking Iran’s so-called 'U-turn' license that until now has allowed for such money transfers under certain conditions. 'This regulatory action will close the last general entry point for Iran to the U.S. financial system,' the department said in a release.Prior to Thursday’s action, U.S. financial institutions were allowed to process certain money transfers for Iranian banks and other Iranian customers as long as the payments were initiated offshore by a bank that was not neither Iranian nor American and only passed through the U.S. financial system en route to another offshore bank that was neither Iranian nor American. 'Given Iran’s conduct, it is necessary to close even this indirect access,' said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. The action comes as the Bush administration has repeatedly warned U.S. banks that Iran is using an array of deceptive practices to hide its alleged involvement in nuclear proliferation and terrorist activities. The United States says Iran is resorting to such alleged practices to evade detection and skirt financial sanctions.Levey said that at one point 'U-turn' licenses were widely used to process trade transactions. However, over the last two years there have been fewer 'U-turn' transactions reflecting less willingness on the part of U.S. banks to handle them given the United States’ ongoing financial crackdown on Iran, Levey told reporters at a briefing on the matter.Still, Iran has used the 'U-turn' transactions 'as a hook to solicit foreign banks to process transactions through the United States on its behalf, sometimes with requests to substitute another bank or code word for the Iranian institution,' Levey said.The action doesn’t affect otherwise permissible payments such as for shipments of food and medicine, family remittances and the export of informational materials to Iran, Levey said.Thursday’s step marks the latest effort to tighten the financial noose on Iran, which the United States accuses of bankrolling terrorism and seeking a nuclear bomb. The United States has already imposed sanctions on several state-run Iranian banks and businesses along with elements of its defence ministry and Revolutionary Guard Corps.Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has pressed the administration to impose financial sanctions on Iran’s central bank. The department has warned U.S. banks that Bank Markazi, Iran’s central bank, is involved in deceptive practices to hide involvement in nuclear proliferation and terrorist activities.
British MPs condemn death of Iranian prisoner
Middle East times, London, November 6, 2008: British lawmakers Thursday called on the government to lobby for sweeping sanctions against Iran for human-rights abuses and the death of a political prisoner. Abdolreza Rajabi, a member of the dissident People’s Mujahedin of Iran, died Oct. 30 while in detention at the Gohardasht prison near the Iranian capital, Tehran. Human Rights Watch, in a 2007 report, called on Tehran to investigate prisoners who had died 'under suspicious circumstances' at Gohardasht. The PMOI, along with several other Iranian opposition groups, said Rajabi died from torture at the hands of Iranian authorities while in custody. Lawmakers with the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom Thursday issued a statement condemning the news, saying it was indicative of Iran’s continued human-rights violations. 'The torture committed by the mullahs is a crime against humanity,' said Labour MP Peter Kingsley Archer, a former British solicitor general. The British lawmakers also called on U.S. forces to maintain their security around the PMOI stronghold in Ashraf City, Iraq, rather than handing authority over the enclave to the Iraqis. The PMOI is considered a terrorist organization by several nations, including the United States, though it has been actively lobbying against that listing, saying it has ceased all violent activity in opposition of the current Iranian regime. The British Court of Appeals in May said London erred in its decision to continue to list the PMOI as a terrorist organization.
