Sunday, December 15, 2019

NEWS))))))

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) released the names of 19 others who were killed by the Iranian regime during Iran uprising, bringing to 476 the number of dead identified so far. The number of those killed during the nationwide uprising far exceeds 1,000, among them dozens of women, four mothers and teenagers under 15 years of age. 12,000 people have been arrested. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for the transition period, called on the United Nations Secretary General to condemn this major crime and demanded the urgent dispatch of a fact-finding mission to Iran to visit the detention centers and those arrested.  She also called for the convening of a Security Council session to address this horrific crime and to hold to account the leaders of the religious fascism ruling Iran. Mrs. Rajavi underscored that the international community’s inaction vis-à-vis this massacre, one of the most heinous atrocities in the 21st century, has scarred the conscience of contemporary humanity and will be construed by the regime as a green light to continue and intensify its crimes.

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Soha Mortezaii with heart condition has been under tremendous pressure since she was arrested on November 17, 2019, outside Tehran University’s dormitory. The intelligence Department of Tehran University had previously threatened Soha and her family that if she did not stop her sit-in they would transfer her to a mental hospital where she would be given electric shocks to bring her back to her senses.
Soha Mortezaii was in Tehran University’s Fatemiyeh Dormitory on Sunday, November 17, when she received a text message to go to the front gate. There, she was brutalized and abducted along with two other students and taken away. She was previously arrested during the December 2017-January 2018 uprising and later sentenced to six years in prison. Soha Mortezaii has a masters of political sciences. She won admission to the doctorate level as the 10th ranking student, but the Intelligence Ministry and the university’s intelligence department prevented her from continuing her education, something that provoked her to hold a solo sit-in outside Tehran University’s library for 21 days.
Having failed to stop Soha from holding her strike, Tehran University’s intelligence department summoned her family to the university and told them to sign a paper indicating their consent to transfer Soha Mortezaii to a mental hospital where she could receive “electric shock treatment” to come to her senses, otherwise they would add 2.5 years to her 6-year prison term.
The Mortezaii family did not sign any papers.

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Between 3,000-5,000 addicted babies are born in Sistan and Baluchistan Province in Iran, every year from addicted mothers. Fariba Bornaii, general director of the office of women and family affairs in the Governorate of Sistan and Baluchistan Province, explained this tragedy: “Considering that 5 percent of the pregnant women in this province are addicted, and considering that there are between 70 to 100 thousand births every year, therefore, between 3,000-5,000 addicted babies are born in this province.” Bornaii added, “Every baby has to remain in the quarantine for between 10 to 15 days to break their drug addiction. So, we would need between 100 to 170 beds every day for this purpose, while there are only 10 beds. So, addicted babies are released from hospital due to shortage of beds. As a result, addicted babies find their way to the streets.” (The official IRNA news agency – December 4, 2019)
In Tehran, too, the Chief of Anti-Narcotics Police estimates that there are between 1,500 to 2,000 addicted women in the capital while there are no suitable caretaking places or rehabilitation centers for them. The situation of these women is very disturbing; some of them sleep on cardboard boxes on the streets. (The state-run ISNA news agency – December 9, 2019)
3,000-5,000 addicted babies born in Sistan and Baluchistan every year
The above figures for the Iranian capital are grossly underestimated.
The commander of the State Security Force of Gachsaran in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad Province, SW Iran, had admitted last year that a growing number of women get addicted in Iran. He said, “We must know that more than 55 percent of divorces are due to addiction. More than 25 percent of murders are due to addiction. And we must accept that there are more than 750,000 addicted women in the country.” (The state-run ILNA news agency – August 17, 2018)
Addicted women are rejected by their families, and since they do not have enough income to pay for drugs, they are easily taken advantage of and sexually abused.
Sistan and Blouchestan province is among Iran's poorest provinces. The Iranian regime has left the people of this province to fend for themselves and the only things they recieve from the regime is suppression.

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Nahid Shaqaqi, Akram Nasirian, Maryam Mohammadi, and Esrin Derkaleh, members of the Voice of Iran Women’s Association have each been sentenced to 4 years and 2 months in prison. The lawyers of the four women’s rights activists were informed of their sentences on Wednesday, December 11. Their charges included disseminating propaganda against the state, removing the veil, and conspiring against national security.
Ms. Mohammadi is a former political prisoner of the 1980s. She was imprisoned in 1981 at the age of 14, and remained incarcerated until 1989. She has two daughters 16 and 26 years of age.
Esrin Derkaleh is 58 years old and has an 18-year-old child.
Ms. Akram Nassirian has been active in the literacy movement and in sending relief to flood victims.
Nahid Shaqaqi was arrested in May and detained in the Intelligence Ministry Ward 209 for several weeks before being released on bail.
At the same time, the 36th Branch of Tehran’s Revision Court issued a sentence of 4 years and five months for civil activist Rezvaneh Ahmad Khanbeigi who has been imprisoned since November 17 in Ward 2A of Evin Prison.

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Zohreh Sayyadi, was arrested at her home in Andisheh Township of Tehran, on Tuesday, December 10. Her activities concerned children without birth certificates, teaching child laborers, helping women heads of household and conservation of environment.


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Ms. Monireh Arabshahi was prevented from going to an outside hospital from Evin prison to receive her needed special treatment despite prescription of doctors, because she refused to wear the prison garb, the handcuffs and shackles in order to be transferred to hospital.


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Maryam, 32, was hanged along with her husband, Mehdi R. in the
Central Prison of Mashhad on Sunday, December 8. The executions were reported by several state-run media. (The state-run ROKNA news agency – December 11, 2019) Maryam is the 99th woman to be executed during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as the Iranian regime’s President since 2013.
The clerical regime deploys the death penalty as a tool for maintaining its grab on power and this is why it cannot step back from executions and general repression even when people’s fury against the regime exploded in the form of a nationwide uprising. Two women have been executed in a week. Somayyeh Shahbazi Jahrouii was executed on December 4, 2019, in the Sepidar Prison of Ahvaz, and the 99th woman was executed in the Central Prison of Mashhad.
This is while there is unconfirmed news about the hangings of another two women on December 4, 2019, in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj.
The Iranian regime is the world’s top executioner of women. Since the beginning of 2019, it has executed at least 12 women which is an escalation in the number of executions of women compared to the 9 women executed during the entire year 2016, ten women in 2017, and 6 women in 2018.
The Iranian regime is the world’s top record holder of per capita executions. At least 4,000 persons have been executed during Rouhani’s terms in office. The actual number of executions are much higher because the majority of executions in Iran are carried out secretly, away from the public eye where only the masterminds and perpetrators are witness to them. The Iranian Resistance calls for end to the practice of the death penalty in Iran.