According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran
statement #200, On Friday, August 3rd, various cities in Iran, including
Tehran, Karaj, Eshtehard, Isfahan, Ghahdariijan, Andimeshk, Mashhad, Shiraz,
Hamedan, Kermanshah, etc. were host to the demonstration and expression of
anger and disgust of the Iranian regime. NCRI added that the protests, which
began at dusk, continued in many cities until midnight, and turned into
conflicts with mercenaries and repressive forces. People of Eshtehard in Alborz
province attacked a regime Seminary and broke its glasses and damaged the
inside. The top ranking Mullahs within the regime are saying that the PMOI/MEK
is leading the protesters.
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The Women’s committee of the National Council of
Resistance (NCRI) reported that Rohieh Nariman, a Baha’i woman from Shiraz was
sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year prison term by the Revision sharia Court of
Shiraz-Iran. Ms. Nariman was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’
(IRGC) Intelligence on October 3, 2016, and tried along with her husband by the
same Sharia court. She was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Another year
was added to her sentence because she taught her own child and other pre-school
Baha’i children at home.
The couple’s request to serve consecutive terms so that
one of them could look after their child, was rejected and they were ordered to
serve their sentences, simultaneously.
In another news Baha’i woman Samira Behin Ayeen, a
construction engineer in Shiraz, was dismissed from her job because of her
faith. Baha’i women in Iran are always subjected to threats and dismissals from
their schools and jobs. Azita Rafizadeh has been imprisoned in Evin
Prison because of her faith and because she taught Baha’i students who had been
expelled from school. She has a 7-year-old son and her husband is also imprisoned
in Gohardasht Prison.
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Girls under 10 years of age got married in the southwestern
Iranian province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad over the past Iranian
year. Ali Mohammad Taghavi, general director of the National Statistics
Registration Office in this province, announced that nine girls under 10 years
of age had gotten married in the Iranian year 1396 (March 2017- March 2018) in
the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province.
Taghavi added, “Another 12 girls got married under 11
years of age; 25 were married under 12; 63 were married under 13; 124 girl
children were married under 14; 225 girls got married under 15; 258 were
married under 16; 312 girls were married under 17 years of age, and 384 girls
got married under 18 years of age.” (The state-run ISNA news agency, July 29,
2018, and salamtnews.com, July 31, 2018)
This amounts to a total of 1,412 marriages which took
place under 18 years of age in just one year in this rather small province,
alone.
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The mother of political prisoner Soheil Arabi issued an
urgent call to international human rights organizations seeking help to save
her son’s life. She said on July 28, that her son was under tremendous pressure
in Greater Tehran Prison, also known as Fashafouyeh. He is constantly being
harassed and mistreated by prison guards at the behest of the Judiciary. They
intend to force him into taking deranging medications so that they could
transfer him as a mental patient to Aminabad mental hospital. Soheil Arabi is presently deprived of
talking to anyone in person or on the phone. Ms. Mazloumi has been informed of
this by one of her son's cellmates. Soheil was arrested at his home in 2013 for
"insulting the Supreme Leader" and "propaganda against the state"
in his postings on Facebook. In late Sept. 2015 his sentence was commuted to
“Reading 13 religious books and studying theology for 2 years. His wife was also
summoned to Sharia court as well.
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The compulsory veil in Iran is the subject of a report
recently published by the research center of the Iranian regime’s parliament
(Majlis). The report entitled, “Effective elements in the implementation of the
policies on (women’s) Hijab (veiling) and the available solutions,” has been
recently published by the Office of Cultural Studies of the Research Center of
Majlis. According to this report, only 35 percent of Iranian women value the
Sharia veil (Chador), and nearly 70 percent of women either do not believe in
it or are among “the improperly veiled” and protest the compulsory veil in
Iran. The law on the compulsory veil in Iran was adopted by the Iranian
regime’s parliament in 1983 and ratified punishments for women who do not
observe the compulsory dress code in public places.
