Sunday, July 24, 2016

NEWS))))))

According to Reporters without Borders, in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index, Iran under the rule of Mullahs sits on 169 rank out of 180 countries in the world. RWB says that Iran is one of the world’s most oppressive countries as it regards freedom of information. Newspapers and journalists continue to fall victim to the power struggles among the regime’s various factions. The 1986 media law (amended in 2000 and in 2009 to include online publications) allows the authorities to ensure that news and information providers do not “endanger the Islamic Republic,” “offend the Supreme Leader” or “disseminate false information.” It's worth noting that Journalists in Iran face imprisonment, intimidation, persecutions and even death for reporting the truth.

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Suicide bombers hit a large demonstration by members of Afghanistan’s Hazara in Kabul on Saturday July 23, left more than 80 people dead and 207 wounded according to officials. The demonstrators were protesting the route of a planned multi million dollar power line. ISIS has claimed responsibilities for the terrorist attack. The Farsi-speaking Hazara, a mainly Shiite group estimated to make up about 9 percent of the population in Afghanistan, but they have long suffered discrimination. Thousands were killed under Taliban rule.

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The Iranian Resistance on July 21st called on all international human rights organizations, especially the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner and Special Rapporteurs on Torture and Right to Life to take urgent action for the unconditional release of political prisoners who are in critical condition due to their hunger strike or suffering from chronic illnesses.
Political prisoner Rasoul Hardani, suffering from MS, is in critical condition after  20 days of hunger strike but the warden of Gohardasht Prison is preventing his transfer to a hospital. Hardani is on hunger strike protesting the authorities preventing his release. Hardani was only 17 years old when arrested back in 2000. His prison sentence came to an end on August 21, 2015,
 Maryam (Nasim) Naghash Zargaran is a Christian convert imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Her physical conditions became very dire on her 17th day of hunger strike. She is protesting the unjustified jail sentencing and demanding her unconditional release. Ms. Naghash Zargaran had previously undergone heart surgery and is currently suffering from pains, chronic numbness in her spinal cord and joints, headaches, dizziness and various other illnesses.

The physical conditions of political prisoner Alireza Golipour, suffering from lymphoid and lung cancer, heart and breathing difficulties, is very dire.
Golipour is continuously under pressure by the MOIS to repent and take part in TV interviews. On July 10th, following his support for the Iranian Resistance grand gathering in Paris, he was summoned once again and placed under pressure to repent. The regime’s kangaroo courts condemned Golipour on charges of insulting the regime’s supreme leader, supporting the PMOI/MEK and the bogus charge of espionage. He has been sentenced to 39 years and 9 months in prison.
Authorities have on July 12th transferred political prisoners Massoud Arab Choubdar, already suffering from intestinal cancer, epilepsy as a result of torture and currently in chronic conditions, to ward 1 of Gohardasht Prison. This is a ward used for ordinary prisoners.
“Anyone who writes a letter in support of the PMOI/MEK must be transferred here, the ward of ‘eye for an eye’ convicts. We will do this until we make you feel ‘better,’” Choubdar was told by a representative of Tehran’s public prosecutor’s office. Choubdar was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to 3 years behind bars.

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Iranian political prisoner Arzhang Davoodi who has gone on hunger strike since July 17, has stopped taking his medications in protest to the deplorable situation of fellow inmates.
Mr. Davoodi is incarcerated in the notorious Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran.
'I will not stop my hunger strike unless the prisoners' condition improves. The prisoners' condition must come under the spotlight by the international human rights bodies. The special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council must insist on being allowed to visit the prisons in Iran and to inquire about the abnormal and inhuman conditions. The mullahs' fabrications and accusations, the lawsuits and the spread of corruption, addiction and other serious issues such as incurable illnesses must be revealed.” wrote Davoodi.
Mr. Davoodi was arrested in 2003 and held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods during which he was tortured and denied access to a lawyer and his family.
He was sentenced, in March 20, 2005, to 25 years’ imprisonment, reduced to 10 years on appeal, on charges of “spreading propaganda against the system” and “establishing and directing an organization opposed to the government” for his peaceful activities, including directing a cultural education center, according to Amnesty International. In May 2014, he was sentenced to an additional two years’ prison term, on the charge of “insulting the Supreme Leader.”
Arzhang Davoodi was also sentenced to death for his political opinions and peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression.
He is believed to have been accused of having ties with the PMOI merely because in prison he insisted on calling PMOI by its official name, Mojahedin, rather than by the term used by the Iranian authorities, Monafeghin (hypocrites), according to a 2014 urgent action appeal by Amnesty International.

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The temperature in Mitribah, Kuwait, surged Thursday July 21 to a blistering 129.2 degrees F or 54 degree Celsius. On Friday, July 22 in Basra, Iraq, the mercury soared to 129.0 degrees (53.9 Celsius). If confirmed, these incredible measurements would represent the two hottest temperatures ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters and weather historian Christopher Burt, who broke the news.
The torrid conditions observed in the Middle East over the last two summers may be a harbinger of even more extreme heat in the future. A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in October cautioned that by the end of the century, due to climate change, temperatures may become too hot for human survival. [Persian Gulf may be too hot for human survival by 2090.]
In March, the National Academy of Sciences published a report that stated worsening heat waves are among the weather events that can be most easily connected to human-caused climate change.