Sunday, July 21, 2019

NEWS))))))


A Kurdish woman named Maliheh Salehian was executed on Tuesday July 16 in the central prison of Mahabad-Iran. She is the 91st woman to be executed in Iran during Rouhani’s term in office since 2013. In the last two days, 13 people have been executed in different cities of Iran.
On Wednesday, July 17, 2019, another female prisoner, Zahra Safari Moghadam, 43, was hanged in the Prison of Nowshahr, in northern Iran. She was in prison since July 2016.
Less than a month ago, on June 19, another woman named Fatemeh Nassiri was hanged in Gohardasht (Rajaii-Shahr) Prison of Karaj. She was imprisoned for 11 years in Qarchak prison before her execution. She was said to have undertaken the crime committed by her son.

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Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe has been transferred to the psychiatric ward of “Imam Khomeini” hospital in Tehran-Iran from Evin Prison. She was handcuffed and shackled by the IRGC agents Islamic Revelutionary Gurard Corps when she was being transferred.
A statement from the Free Nazanin Campaign said Nazanin Zaghari’s father had visited the hospital on Tuesday, but was barred from seeing her daughter.
“This is unusual. She has now been kept isolated from family or legal contact under IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) control for over 36 hours,” the campaign group said, adding that it was not clear how long she would be held at the hospital or what kind of treatment she would receive there.
Nazanin Zaghari went on a two-week hunger strike on June 15, 2019, in protest to her unfair detention, demanding her unconditional release. Her husbnad Richard simultaneously went on hunger strike outside the Iranian Embassy in London. Nazanin was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport in April 2016 and has always maintained the visit was to introduce her daughter, Gabriella, to her relatives. The couple’s five-year-old daughter, Gabriella, is in Iran in the care of her grandparents since her mother’s arrest and she's not allowed to leave the country.

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On June 24, Gholami, head of provincial affairs of the morality and vice patrols headquarters in Khorasan Razavi regarding the crackdown on women , said “In the formation of the morality patrol divisions, the province will be divided into 60 regions, 50 percent of these areas will be in the center of the province. Which will act as scouting groups.” He added, “So far, 12 governorates have begun their work with more than 8,000 troops, and by the end of this year, the morality patrol divisions in all cities of the province.”
He said this year all the executive agencies are required to activate the council. (The state-run Young Journalists Club – June 24, 2019)
Yusef Tabatabai Nejad, Imam of Friday Prayer in Isfahan, also said that the Basij should engage in promoting virtue and prohibiting vice of women on the basis of improper veiling. “The city’s atmosphere should head toward hijab and chastity, we must stand against abnormalities with force,” he said, stressing the need to fight improper veiling. (The state-run Tasnim News Agency – July 12, 2019)
Previously, an IRGC commander in the northern province of Gilan announced the launch of a 2,000 strong Basij group to counter what the regime calls “improper hijab”.
Mohammad Abdollahpour, the commander of the Gilan Quds Force, announced last June that, “a new chapter of promoting virtue and prohibiting vice had started in the northern province and 2,000 Basij groups would give verbal notices and would also take action against what they deemed improper in the society. The issue of hijab and chastity is not an ordinary matter but rather a political and security matter for the country.” (The state-run Mehr News Agency – June 4, 2019)

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Mojgan Siyami, poet, journalist and writer from Ardabil, was arrested in April and is being held under uncertain conditions in prison. Mojgan Siyami, Managing Editor of Saray Magazine, was arrested by security forces in Tehran, last April, and subsequently transferred to the Central Prison of Ardabil, and has since been in the Ardabil Prison.
According to a report, “after four months of illegal arrest and the pressures by intelligence institutions on her, she was accused of charges such as blasphemy, insulting the Supreme Leader, and disturbing public opinion. But no ruling has been issued for her, and she is kept under uncertain conditions in the Central Prison of Ardabil while she is barred from visits and calls and is not allowed to see her child. Her weekly’s license has also been suspended.”

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Golrokh Iraee and Atena Daemi have received the new sentences because of a new case filed against them during their time in prison for expressing their protest to the executions of three Kurdish political prisoners. The trial of Golrokh Iraee and Atena Daemi had been held on June 18, 2019, at the 26th branch of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran-Iran, for just two hours which is barely enough for the defense to present their case in any trial.
They have been sentenced to 1.5 years in prison on the charge of “propaganda against the state” by sending open letters out of prison, and to 2 years and 1 month for “insulting the leader (Ali Khamenei).”
Other charges leveled against the two civil rights activists were causing disruption in the prison’s order by resisting an inspection and singing protest anthems on the day that the three Kurdish political prisoners were executed.
Political prisoner Golrokh Iraee had been just released on April 8, 2019, after serving her sentence. She had been imprisoned since October 24, 2016, for writing an unpublished book on the cruel punishment of stoning.
Atena Daemi, who is currently serving five years for her civil activities, was arrested on October 21, 2014. She began serving her sentence in December 2016 in Evin Prison.

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 On Wednesday, July 18, Delyar musical group was supposed to hold a charity concert at Omid Hospital in Urmia, northwest Iran, the revenues of which would have gone for cancer patients. The concert, however, was cancelled. The all-women Delyar musical group is headed by Neda Behzad, and its solo singers are Nazli Soltanzadeh and Atefeh Norouzi. The general director of Islamic culture and guidance in West Azerbaijan province told the official IRNA news agency, that the excuse for cancelling the concert was that they did not have written agreement of the State Security Force Command of West Azerbaijan. (The official IRNA news agency – July 17, 2019)
This is while Parisa Alilou, general director for women and family affairs in West Azerbaijan Province said the Delyar musical group with its female singers were scheduled to perform for women and the concert’s revenues would have gone to cancer patients.

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 Taghi Afarand, deputy for monitoring public places in Tehran’s Public Security Police, announced that mixed wedding ceremonies are against religious standards and it is totally banned. If any case is observed, it will be dealt with. He said women and men must be completely segregated. (The state-run BORNA news agency – July 18, 2019)




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 The plainclothes agents who had brutalized and arrested a 16 year old young woman for playing water guns with her friends in Iran's Tehranpars park, were praised by the Commander of Tehran’s State Security Force and granted awards and cash gifts.