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Roghayeh Azizi Mirmahaleh who was scheduled to be deported to Iran on Feb. 28, was freed on Wed. Feb. 22. and was granted a 2 year temporary residency. Azizi a PMOI sympathizer(People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran) spent 3 years in prison in Iran and her husband was executed during the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988. They were both arrested when their only daughter Sahar was a toddler for distributing pamphlets in Iran printed by the POMI. The Iranian resistance had issued a statement condemning Azizi's arrest and deportation order. Iranian activists, Canadian MPs and Ministers had protested and opposed Azizi's arrest and deportation order as well.


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A 32-year-old victim of rape named Nahid was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 99 lashes for illicit relations with a man who drugged, raped, filmed and blackmailed her in 2011 in Iran. Ironically, Nahid's 38-year-old husband, Hamid, who atrociously cut off the man's head, has been cleared of murder charges and is going to be freed on the grounds that the man who had raped his wife was punishable by death, anyway according to the state-run Rokna February 18.

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A young woman, 27, from the southeastern Sistan-o Baluchistan Province has been sentenced to death in Mashhad. The woman charged with drug-trafficking was married at age 15 and has six children. The woman has not been identified and the date of her arrest has not been mentioned in government sources.




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Dorsa Derakhshani, member of the Iranian Women's National Chess Team and the sixth world champion in under-18 games, got expelled from the national team for not covering her hair in the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival.
Head of Iranian regime's Chess Federation, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, said they will "seriously deal" with a sister and brother who played in the chess festival in Gibraltar because the girl did not observe the veil and the boy played with an Israeli player.
Pahlevanzadeh pointed out, "The first step in dealing with them would be to deprive them from every game that is played in Iran and in the name of Iran, and they will not have the chance to be on the national team."
Dorsa Derakhshani, 18, is presently studying in Spain and had participated in the Gibraltar games independently. Her brother, Borna, 15, had also registered in the games on his own. He played with Alexander Huzman, grand-master from Israel. (The state-run Fars news agency – February 18, 2017)

NEWS))))))

Following water, electricity and communications services facing shortages and cut-offs in Ahwaz and 11 other cities of Khuzistan Province south of Iran, due to dust storms since January 28, numerous cities continued to witness major power outages on Thursday and Friday. Some areas also experienced major water service disruptions, parallel to internet and communications networks going down. After years of exploitation of the province’s natural resources, the province which once was one of the most fertile areas in Iran has turned into a dessert. The people of Ahwaz one of the cities in Khuzistan province have come to the streets in the thousands since Monday to express their outrage. In Tehran people in an act of solidarity supported the demands of the peopole of Khuzistan but were attacked by the Intelligence forces and plainclothes agents in Tehran’s Vanak Square on Thursday, February 16, and arrested four women and confiscated people's cell phones.

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According to Examiner: Feb. 14, a group representing Iranian
dissidents on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, based on new information that appears to show an expansion of its terrorist training activities.
Last week, multiple news outlets reported that the Trump administration was considering an executive order that would designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. At a press conference in Washington, the National Council of Resistance of Iran said it believes that the IRGC’s stepped up efforts to train terrorists means the group deserves the designation. Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran-NCRI, presented information to reporters gathered by the social network of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, MEK, a dissident group located inside Iran. He said that information shows since 2012, the NCRI has seen an increase in the training of foreign nationals in its terrorist training camps, which threatens a wide scope of countries, not just those beset by conventional warfare. 'For operations in countries where there is no open warfare, including Persian Gulf countries such as Bahrain and Kuwait, terrorists’ cells are trained instead,' he said. That information also identified 14 of what are dozens of IRGC training centers, and said eight of them are terrorist training operations in and around Tehran. It 'exposed' the main training camp for terrorists, Imam Ali Garrison, and included satellite images of each of the training centers for foreign nationals.
Jafarzadeh said the IRGC is 'contributing to the rise of' the Islamic State, among other things, which is putting US forces and their allies in danger.
The ramped-up training operations are spearheaded by IRGC’s special operations unit, the Quds forces, which has already been labeled a terrorist group. But the NCRI contended that IRGC and Quds should not be dealt with separately, as the Iranian constitution and the budget do not deal with the Quds as a separate entity.
'The IRGC is actually the entity that runs the whole show when it comes to terrorism,' even though they are spearheaded by the Quds force, Jafarzadeh said. 'You cannot do the separation. You cannot have the Quds force designated as a terrorist entity, but not the IRGC.'
Jafarzadeh said there is bipartisan support in Congress for the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group, and suggested that with the new Trump administration, there is 'a better possibility for those measures to move forward.' The Feb. 14 conference was picked up by many media outlets in US, and Arab countries.

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Human rights advocate and activist mother, Shahnaz Akmali, was temporarily freed from jail on Saturday, February 18, after 24 days of arrest in Evin prison on a 100-million-touman bail ($30,800) until her trial convenes. She was arrested in the morning of January 25, following an Intelligence Ministry raid on her home. Shahnaz Akmali's son, Mostafa Karimbeigi, was shot killed by security forces during Iranian's 2009 uprising.

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Political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared wrote to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances and urged them to probe the case of her siblings massacred by the Iranian regime in 1988. In her February 17 letter Ms. Akbari asked the UN experts to hold the regime accountable for the execution of her brother, Abdulreza, and her sister, Roqieh Akbari Monfared, in the summer of 1988. The first time she went public with her demand for justice was October 15, 2016. Then on December 22 of the same year, she wrote a letter to international organizations and urged the UN to convene a fair trial for the prosecution of the perpetrators and masterminds of this massacre. Ms. Akbari has lost three brothers and a sister in the 1980s when they were executed by the Iranian regime for supporting the PMOI People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran or MEK. Maryam was arrested for her sibling's activism.

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The Iranian regime's Supreme Court turned down the appeal for re-examination of the case of Zeinab Sekaanvand on February 16, 2016. The woman in Orumiyeh Prison is sentenced to death. With the rejection of the Supreme Court, she is now one step away from death. Amnesty International issued a press release on January 11, in an effort to stop the imminent execution of Zeinab Sekaanvand. It pointed out that 80,000 people had signed its petition urging the Iranian authorities to halt her execution and throw out her death sentence. Zeinab Sekaanvand was 17 at the time of alleged crime. She has denied the charges against her.

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Security forces raided the residence of civil activist, Noura Najafi, on Tuesday morning, February 14. They intimidated the residents and threatened to break into the house and arrested Ms. Najafi and subsequently thoroughly searched the house. Ms. Najafi is a student and supporter of Erfan-e Halgheh, a school of cosmic mysticism. In another news Mrs. Massoumeh Sadeghi was arrested in a raid on her class by security forces in Isfahan on February 12. Security forces subsequently attacked Sadeghi's home, searching and confiscating her identification cards, computer and cellphone. Ms. Sadeghi is an instructor in a class of Erfan-e Halgheh, Cosmic Mysticism.  


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Shadi Khaliani, 14, committed suicide on Wednesday, February 15, due to restrictions she faced. This horrifying incident happened in the city of Naghadeh in West Azerbaijan Province. In another news on Saturday, February 11, a young woman from Mahabad hanged herself and died. Pariya Mohammad Shiekheh, 22, was a student of accounting at the Free University of Mahabad. The Iranian women's situation is so dire that they end up killing themselves or turn into drugs.

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A number of retired teachers including a remarkable number of women staged a protest in front of Iranian regime's Budget and Planning Organization on February 14, in Tehran. The protesters demanded their 30-year rewards and complained about the organization's putting off payment of their rewards for over a year.

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Sisters of Evin political prisoner Atena Daemi were exonerated from the charges leveled against them by the Revolutionary Guards Corps. Ensieh and Hanieh Daemi charged with alleged "insulting of the leader, as well as deliberate insulting and beating of government agents" were relieved from prosecution.
The trial to examine the charges against Atena Daemi's family were convened in Evin on January 23. Earlier, Atena Daemi had published an open letter in which she had responded to the unfounded IRGC allegations and protested their filing of spurious complaints and illegal behavior during making arrests.

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Prison authorities have prevented hospitalization of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe despite deterioration of her illness. The British-Iranian prisoner held at Evin Prison needs to be dispatched to hospital to be treated under supervision of neurologists. She is suffering from pain in her neck, shoulder and backbone among others and her illness has aggravated in prison. Nazanin Zaghari was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she was going to fly back home to UK. Authorities confiscated hers and her 2-year-old daughter's passport and imprisoned her.

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The Iranian regime executed 10 prisoners Qom and Zabol on February 13. The Iranian regime has executed 88 people in one month alone under the so called Moderate Rouhani presidency.
Yesterday in Ottawa the Iranian-Canadians gathered in front of the Parliament Hill and called for the freedom of all political prisoners such as Arash Sadeghi who was on hunger strike for more that 70 days for arresting his wife Golrokh Ibrahimi Iraee, Ali Moezi who is in solitary confinement with no visitation, Narges Mohammai mother of 2 and Maryam Akbari Monfared. They called for justice for the 30,000 executed political prisoners in the summer of 1988 as well.

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Kurdish political prisoner, Qadrieh Qaderi, is denied treatment despite acute ear infection, severe headache and numbness of her hand. Ms. Qaderi's family have declared they are ready to pay her medical expenses, but prison authorities have obstructed Ms. Qaderi's dispatch to hospital. Qadrieh Qaderi was arrested in spring 2011 in Orumiyeh on the charge of collaborating with a Kurdish party. She was sentenced to 7 years in prison and was banished to the Prison of Yasouj, in the southwestern province of Kohgilouyeh and Boyer-Ahmad.

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An elderly woman, Saharnaz Moussavi, was beaten up by Dastgerd Prison guards on the morning of Saturday, February 11, 2017, and subsequently abandoned on the street. Mrs. Moussavi referred to Dastgerd Prison of Isfahan to inquire about her imprisoned son, Qanbar Ali Safai. Her pleas went unheeded, so she started crying out to compel prison officials to respond. Security forces, however, attacked the elderly woman, dragging her out of the prison and abandoning her in the street.
The families of prisoners who were witness to this scene, took Mrs. Moussavi to hospital. Her son, Qanbar Ali Safari has been confined in solitary cells of Dastgerd Prison in an undecided status since 2009 and is presently on hunger strike. Under great pressure and torture, Mr. Safari attempted suicide in December 2016.

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According to Tasnim news agency affiliated with terrorist Qoads force Feb. 12 only 18 per cent of women who are heads of their household have jobs and employment. Ebrahim Ghaffari, General Director of Golestan's Welfare Organization announced on February 12, that according to the survey of 2011, of the total 21 million households in the country 2.557.700 are female-headed. He predicted that the figure will reach 3.5 million by the end of this (Persian) year in March 2017. He also added that only 18 per cent of these women have employment and the others are grappling with unemployment and poverty.

NEWS))))))

In a press briefing note regarding Iran, the office of the UN human rights High Commissioner said it remains concerned regarding a juvenile, Hamid Ahmadi, who was 17 years old when he was sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing in 2008 of a young man during a fight. The court relied on confessions allegedly obtained under torture while Mr Ahmadi was at a police station and denied access to a lawyer and his family, in violation of international guarantees of fair trial and due process.
Mr. Ahmadi’s execution had been set for this Saturday 11 February but we now have reports that it has been delayed for 10 days.  This is the latest occasion that Mr Ahmadi’s sentence has been postponed. A group of Special Rapporteurs and the Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child earlier this month appealed to Iran to halt his execution, then scheduled for 4 February.
We renew our call for Iran to halt the application of the death penalty to people who committed crimes when they were children. The High Commissioner will be contacting the Iranian authorities regarding Mr Ahmadi, who reportedly remains in solitary confinement.
We also once again urge Iran to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty, amid serious concerns about the high number of executions since the beginning of the year.

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The Guards are the main force behind Iran’s nuclear program, lethal meddling across the Middle East, ballistic missile drive and domestic crackdown. Heshmat Alavi wrote on "The Clarion Project.org" wrote on Feb. 11, that Iran has been dubbed a “de facto Islamic Caliphate” due to increasing domestic crackdown and lethal meddling across the region, especially through the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Acting as Iran’s main armed force and sidelining the classic army, the IRGC has earned its reputation as an “Iranian expeditionary force for invading strategic Arab spaces.” According to reports the Trumps administration is looking into listing IRGC Islamic Revolutionary Guards corps as terrorist organization. It has the support of republican senators as well.

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Officials of the Women's Prison in Yasouj-Iran have been imposing various restrictions on prisoners since October 2016. Recent reports indicate that they have closed down the ward's kitchen, the quality of food is very bad, the prisoners do not have telephone contact with their families, and there is no heating or sanitary facilities in the ward. One informed source has said, "Prison officials have restricted the prisoners' telephone contacts with their families. They can presently call their families for only a few minutes every week under close control of the Prison's protection sector." Yasouj is the capital of the southwestern Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province in Iran.

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Civil rights activist Shima Babaii has been summoned by telephone to present her last defense to the Third Branch of Evin's Prosecutor's Office. She has already been summoned and interrogated several times by the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). She is accused of "disseminating anti-government propaganda" and "association and collaboration against national security".
Shima is a student of Construction Engineering. She participated in several peaceful gatherings in Tehran in front of the Dena Tire Company and Evin Prison calling for the freedom of political prisoners.

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The Iranian judiciary extended the detention verdict of civil rights activist Massoumeh Zia for another month on February 8, 2017. Ms. Zia has been held in Ward 209 of notorious Evin Prison since January 6, when she was arrested by MOIS agents -Ministry of Intelligence- at Tehran's airport upon arrival from a family visit abroad.


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Vice patrols called to help bring down the number of mal-veiled women in Iran. Majid Souri, Commander of the Revolutionary Guards of Boroujerd, told a gathering on February 7, "We call on those who enjoin good and forbid from evil, to take action in the framework of local guidance patrols to bring down the number of mal-veiled women." He stressed, "By activating the guidance patrols in every neighborhood in Boroujerd, we can first identify the problems in every neighborhood and in the next stage, we would form a council to decide on who should give the warning."
Boroujerd is one of the major cities of Lorestan Province in western Iran.

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Mona Mo'afi, a social activist and employee of the Psychology Organization, was arrested on January 25, 2017, at her work place by agents of the Intelligence Ministry (MOIS). Her family have no news of her. A close confidant said, "Mona's father has been told that their only daughter has been taken to the station of the Security Police to answer some questions and you can deposit a bail bond to have her released. After 11 days, however, no authority is accountable on this situation."

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Women top the list of those deprived of education in the southwestern province of Khuzistan in Iran. Khuzistan's Provincial Governor, Gholamreza Shariati, told a gathering on February 6, 2017, "We still have children in Khuzistan who are deprived of education. The largest number of those deprived of education belongs to women." (The state-run Mehr news agency – February 6, 2017) Earlier, in September 2016, head of the Department of Education in the 4th District of Ahwaz, Fazel Khamisi, announced, "In some parts of Ahwaz, one out of every four girls can earn a high school diploma."
At the same time, Leili Nazarpour, expert in charge of women's affairs in the Department of Education, said, "The number of girls deprived of education doubles the number of deprived boys." (The state-run Mehr news agency – September 17, 2016)

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The latest official statistics show that one woman is addicted in Iran for every 9 male addicts. The figure was announced on February 5, 2017, by Hamidreza Fat'hi, head of the Department for Prevention of Drug Addiction in the Ministry of Health. Fat'hi said there are 1.325.000 people addicted to drugs, while "women's share of drug addiction is rapidly on the rise." (The state-run IRNA news agency, February 5, 2017)The figure must be considered tremendously understated since drug addiction is a prevalent problem under the repressive conditions in Iran where people are desperate in earning their living and the country's economic foundations are crumbling adding more and more people to the army of unemployed.
In the meantime, the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the main sponsor of drug trafficking in the country as a great source of revenue, providing cheap drugs which are easily available to anyone.

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A young woman was stabbed to death by her husband on Thursday, February 2, 2017. Her body was dumped into a well.
The 25-year-old man, called Hessam, said the only reason for killing his wife was that he was suspicious of some of her behavior.
A considerable number of honor killings take place in Iran but there are no accurate figures available on them. In 2015, there were at least 94 headlines which dealt with honor killings.

NEWS))))))

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The Iranian regime has sentenced a man and a woman to stoning in Lorestan Province. The man has been identified as kh-A and the woman as S-M. Stoning has been carried in Iran many times before.





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The US Treasury Department on Friday issued sanctions against 25 organizations and individuals aiding Iranian regime's ballistic missile program, as well as for acting for or on behalf of, or providing support to, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF). According to Reuters, 13 individuals and 12 entities based in the Gulf, Lebanon and China come under the new US sanctions. The new sanctions against Iranian regime came after Iran in violations of the UN Security council article 2231, launched ballistic missile. The 2015 Article 2231 wants Iran to avoid ballistic missile activities and such capable of carrying warheads for 8 years.

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Amnesty International, January 30 warned that Hamid Ahmadi, an Iranian man arrested as a juvenile, is at imminent risk of execution. He has been transferred to solitary confinement in Lakan prison in Rasht, northern Iran, in preparation for his execution on 4 February. He was 17 years old when he was arrested for the fatal stabbing of a young man during a fight between him and four others in 2008. Hamid Ahmadi, is now 26 years old. The Iranian resistance on Sat. called on all international human rights organizations, especially the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights and Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, to take urgent and effective action to stop the execution of Hamid Ahmadi. The National Council of Resistance of Iran in its Feb. 4 statement said: according to a report issued by former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, “As of March 2016, at least 160 juvenile offenders were reportedly on death row,” A large number of the 88 individuals executed in Iran in January were under the age of 18 when arrested.

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The Iranian regime hanged four young men, aged 22 to 26, in Mashhad and Bandar Abbas (northeast and southern Iran respectively) on Sunday, January 29. The two hanged in Mashhad had been charged with Moharebeh, or “waging war on God.” The total number of executions since the start of year stands at 87, two-and-a-half times the figure for December. The victims, mostly young, included two women and two adolescents. Seven were hanged in public.

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Ms. Raheleh Rahemipour was sentenced to two years in jail on the charge of acting against national security.  Raheleh pursues the fate of her niece, Golrou Rahemipour, who was born in prison in 1983. Golrou was separated from her mother when she was only 14 days old. In response to her parents' inquiry, prison guards told them that Golrou was dead.


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In a meeting on Tuesday, January 31, Maryam Kian Erssi, lawyer, revealed, "According to the surveys done by the Ministry of Interior in 2004, some 66 per cent of Iranian women are battered at least once during their marriage. At the same time 56 per cent of battered children are girls, 44 per cent of whom have been abused by their fathers."
Kian Erssi said, "Based on these figures, girls comprise 70 per cent of subjects of sexual harassment. Half of such harassment is done by family members." (The state-run Tasnim news agency – January 31, 2017)
It's said that the figures published by the Iranian regime with 13 year delay should not be considered as accurate. Rather, they are an attempt to play down the severity of the situation of women and girls in Iran who are badly abused at home and enjoy no government support. A considerable number of Iranian women are forced by their husbands and fathers into prostitution, drug-trafficking, panhandling, etc. due to the horrible economic conditions as well as the violent male-dominated culture promoted by the regime. The phrase of "battered at least once during their marriage" is a bitter joke piercing through the hearts of the oppressed women of Iran.  

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Parvaneh Hossein Panahi, elder sister of human rights activist Amjad Hossein Panahi, was arrested at home by plainclothes agents of the Department of Intelligence in Dehgolan in Iran Kurdistan Province on January 30.
The intelligence agents arrested Parvaneh in front of her family. Subsequently, her husband was also arrested when he referred to the Intelligence Department to follow up on her case.

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The temporary arrest warrant for Ms. Tahereh Riyahi was extended by the Iranian regime judiciary on January 29. Tahereh, a journalist, was arrested on December 26, 2016, on the charge of disseminating anti-government propaganda and having contacts with dissident networks.
Tahereh Riyahi suffers from Asthma. She is held in a solitary cell and has run out of medications. Interrogators have refused to provide her new medicines.
Ms. Riyahi's mother has been hospitalized due to the pressure she has felt because of her daughter's arrest and is in a critical condition.

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The lawyer representing prisoner of conscience Massoumeh Zia was not allowed to study her files when he referred to the Prosecutor's Office for Culture and Media on January 28. Ms. Zia is held in Ward 209 of Evin Prison with an undecided status. She was arrested on January 6, at the airport, when she returned home from a family visit abroad.