NEWS))))))

IAEA says no progress in nuclear probe talks with Iran

According to Reuters, , June, 08, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said it had made no progress in talks with Iran on Friday to finalize a deal on resuming a long-stalled investigation into suspected nuclear weapons research by Tehran and it called the outcome “disappointing.” Herman Nackaerts, global head of inspections for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said after Friday’s meeting at IAEA headquarters in Vienna that no date for further talks on the matter had been set. The United States, European powers and Israel want to curb Iranian atomic activities they suspect are intended to produce nuclear bombs. Nackaerts said the U.N. agency had come to the meeting with a desire to seal the agreement and had presented a revised draft that addressed earlier stated concerns by Iran. “However, there has been no progress,” he told reporters. “And indeed Iran raised issues that we have already discussed and other new ones. This is disappointing.” He added: “A date for a follow-on meeting has yet to be fixed.” The IAEA had been pressing Iran for an agreement that would give its inspectors immediate access to the Parchin military complex, where it believes explosives tests relevant for the development of nuclear bombs have taken place. The talks conducted by world powers are aimed at defusing tension over Iran’s nuclear works that has led to increasingly tough Western sanctions on Iran, including an EU oil embargo from July 1, and stoked fears of another Middle East war.

Iran hang 3 Afghan prisoners

Freedom Messenger, June 5 reported that  according to local authorities in western Nimroz province the dead bodies of three Afghans who were hanged in Iran were handed over to their families.  The officials further added the individuals who were hanged in Iran were residents of north-eastern Takhar province. Officials also said the two individuals were around 25 years old while the third one was around 36 years old and were hanged in connection to drugs smuggle charges. The exact number of Afghans jailed in Iran is not known yet a number of the Afghans have been hanged over criminal and drugs smuggle charges in this country during the recent years. In the meantime there have been growing concerns regarding the trial of the Afghan prisoners in Iran. Rights observers are saying that the Afghan prisoners have limited access to judges and there is not transparency regarding the prisoners cases. Thousands of Afghan civilians last year demonstrated in various cities of Afghanistan, against the execution of the Afghan prisoners in Iran.

Christian Church Closed by the Iranian Authorities

According to Harana News website, the Security forces in Iran closed down an Iranian church in the “Jannat-Abad” region in Tehran, Tuesday. The measure is in line with rising pressures by the Iranian regime on the Iranian-Christian minority throughout the country. Iranian Christian sources say that the Jannat-Abad church was closed down following orders from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Intelligence. Iranian clerical rulers are facing growing number of young Iranians who convert to Christianity. This is despite the regime's spending of substantial amount of money on yearly basis to expand its version of Islamic rule throughout the Middle East region. Iranian Christian sources say the closing of the church may be a start for closing other churches in Iran. The church was operating under official license when the Pastor, Robert Gag-Tappe was ordered to stop operation. The church served the Iranian-Assyrian community in Tehran who are mostly Catholic. The Iranian regime is exerting more pressures on the Iranian Christians and specially those who have converted to Christianity from Islam considering the act to be an act of apostasy qualifying such a person to receive the death sentence. There are reports that people carrying bibles in Iran are harassed and arrested by authorities and their bibles are confiscated.  Many church goers in Iran are expressing concern about being watched by undercover agents during pray ceremonies in their churches. Church officials are under constant pressure by the authorities to prevent any Farsi speaking people from attending ceremonies. This is the second time the Jannat-abad church is being closed by the Iranian authorities.

Iranian regime publicly hangs five

Iranian regime publicly hanged five men convicted of alleged drug trafficking in the southern city of Shiraz, naming them as Abbas Z, Aref A, Abolqasem A, Farhang N and Ali Akbar M according to the governmental newspaper on Saturday. London-based Amnesty International said in its annual review of death sentences and executions worldwide published in March that Iran executed at least 360 people in 2011, three-quarters of them for drugs offences, up from at least 252 in 2010. Adultery, murder, rape, drug trafficking, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the Iran’s Islamic sharia law since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iranian Blogger on hunger strike is closer to death

According to Guardian, Human rights activists have raised serious concerns about the health of Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, an Iranian blogger on hunger strike in protest at his 15-year jail sentence and the authorities’ refusal to grant him prison leave despite severe medical conditions. Ronaghi Maleki, 27, was arrested in December 2009 following the unrest in the aftermath of Iran‘s disputed presidential elections. He was picked up from his father’s house in the city of Malekan in Iran’s province of East Azerbaijan and taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison where he spent 376 days in solitary confinement. Maleki who blogged under the nickname Babak Khorramdin (a reference to an ancient Persian freedom fighter from Azerbaijan) was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2010 on charges of “spreading propaganda against the regime”, “membership of the internet group Iran Proxy” and “insulting the Iranian supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and the president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]“. According to the Committee for Human Rights Reporters in Iran, Maleki’s expertise was in computer programming and setting up websites aimed at circumventing online censorship and establishing ways to access blocked addresses.

Iranian Role in Syria Transition Stirs Controversy at UN

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the suggested involvement of Iran in ending Syria’s political strife has pitted Russia against the U.S. as a United Nations peace plan unraveled with shots fired at observers of a UN-backed truce. With his cease-fire agreement in tatters, UN envoy Kofi Annan warned the General Assembly that more needs to be done to prevent Syria from sliding into civil war after two massacres less than two weeks apart. He joined Russia in wanting Iran, as a country with influence in Syria, to assist efforts to seek a possible successor to President Bashar al-Assad. The initiative was immediately rejected by U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and at the UN. “I think Iran is part of the problem,” U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters yesterday after a day of briefings on Syria. “There is no question that it is actively engaged in supporting the government in perpetuating violence on the ground.”

Mohammad Mehdi Zalieh a Kurdish political prisoner passed away after suffering two decades captivity

Mohammad Mehdi Zalieh a Kurdish political prisoner and a sportsman, almost 46, passed away after suffering two decades imprisonment and torture, in Gohardasht prison on June 4.
He was sentenced to life in prison. He spent his captivity in Mahabad, Oromieh and Gohardasht prisons. He suffered from lung disease, and his disease deteriorated due to horrific condition of Section 4 of Gohardasht prison but he faced more pressure and no medical care. He was the second political prisoner of section 4 of Gohardasht Prison, to die during two recent weeks.
On May21, Mansour Radpour, 44, a political prisoner and an activist of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), after five years of imprisonment and resisting under tortures, passed away in Gohardasht prison while his entire body was bruised.