Iran: campaign

Friday, Iran’s deputy judiciary chief told that Iran would execute at least 10 “trouble-makers” in the coming days to combat “insecurity” in society.
He said that the sentences of these individuals had already been upheld by the State Supreme Court.
He announced, that in order to root out insecurity once and for all, there must be an unrelenting campaign to combat this problem.
IRNA reported that his remarks were made at Friday prayers in Tehran.



Reports say Iran's Supreme National Security Council has warned journalists not to report on the problems caused by gas rationing that led to heavy protests.
Iranian and Western media report that the official warning came a day after the government announced the introduction of gas rationing.
In recent months, Iran's top security body has also put journalists under pressure not to criticize the country's nuclear policies.
Despite the warning reformist newspapers criticized the government's surprise move and said it disrupted people's life and created confusion.
Also various Iranian bloggers criticed the rationing in their blogs and/or showed pictures.


Research by the University of Shiraz shows that the poisoneous smoke, caused by setting fire to wastages in agricultural lands in vicinity of Persepolis in Iranian Fars province, will change into carbonic acid during night time, which damages the stones of this world heritage site.
During recent years farmers set fire to the remnants of last year’s agricultural products instead of plowing them out during the months of May and June.
Despite all promises been made so far by authorities of governor office of Fars province as well as governorship of Marvdasht region for stopping this harmful measure, this year the fires still continued.
Photo Chnpress.com

In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: storm

The arrested 23 sailors of 3 fishingboats which were intercepted and seized on June 25 near Abu Musa, are released.
The Indian ambassador got the announcement yesterday that the Indian crewmembers are no longer prisoners.

Iranian authorities will send the three vessels back to the UAE once the rough seas near Bandar Abbas subsided and it was safe to make the journey.



Cyclone Yemyin reached Iran yesterday evening in weakened form and caused severe weather in Sistan-e-Baluchestan province.
Roads were damaged and villages flooded. Relieforganizations evacuated about 10,000 people.
The provincial government's spokesman told that the weather was improving and Water is receding
This was the second big storm this season.



The PMOI remains on the European Union list of terrorist organizations.
On the list are 30 organizations in total, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
In December ruled the European Court of Justice in favor of the PMOI about freezing of its assets.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: speaker

Baztab News writes that at least 12 gas stations were torched in Tehran and some in other cities throughout the country in protest against fuel rationing.
Demonstrations were also in other Iranian cities like Karaj, Mashad, Tabriz, Bandar-Abbas, Ardabil and Kermanshah.
There were also unconfirmed reports that 2 or 3 people were killed in the ensuing chaotic scenes.
(Photo AP)
Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel told reporters in Tehran that the fuel rationing had many positive results for the nation, for instance less dependency of fuel import, the amount could be spent on more important needs of the country, less traffic and prevention of fuel smuggling.

Ahwaz city
Bandar Abbas

Video Teheran


Parnaz Azima has according to Associated Press in a telephone conversation with WOTP-Radio, urged the Bush administration to end its vocal campaign for democracy in Iran, saying it encouraged Iran's government to curtail its citizens' freedoms.
During this conversation, which she believed was being monitored. she said among other things that the Bush administration's $66 mln campaign to promote
change inside Iran through Persian-language news, entertainment and
music broadcasts has spurred President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government
to work to eliminate Iran's democracy movement.
A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Azima's statements, saying she had not heard them.



In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: illegal

Iran has arrested the crew on three UAE fishing boats.
According to the head of Hormozgan province fisheries, Musa Badiee, the boats were in Iranian waters near Abu Musa.
He told Farsnews that 17 Indians and 6 Emirati were arrested.

Abu Musa and the islands of Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb are part of a conflict between Iran and UAE. The conflict dates from 1971 after British forces left the Gulf region.


The start of fuel rationing triggered nationwide protests yesterday.
On many places in Tehran youth set fire to several petrol stations and chanted slogans.
According to statetelevision private cars using just petrol would be rationed to 100 litres of petrol a month while those using petrol and compressed natural gas (CNG) would only be allowed 30 litres.
Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh has to appear in parliament today to answer questions.

Here photo's .



Amnesty International has called Iran to stop executioning childoffenders.

According to a today published report is
the last executioner of children worldwide.

At the moment 71 children face death through execution.



In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: sum up

Shirin Ebadi said that criminals are treated better than political prisoners. The fact bail for an accused rapist was set 50 times lower than for a detained reporter reflected political interference in the judiciary.
Parnaz Azima a journalist of Radio Free Europe/Radio Farda is released, but is not allowed to leave the country.
In a letter to the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi, Ms Ebadi complained that a confessed rapist had been treated more leniently than Ms Azima, who has been accused of producing propaganda against the Islamic state.
Bail was set for the Radio Free Europe journalist at $500,000 50 times that of a rapist, and she had her passport confiscated.

She still has not been able to see her other client.the Iranian-American Haleh Esfandiari.




Also Mehrnoushe Solouki is still being hold in Iran for unknown reasons.
She wasreleased after payment of 80,000 euros in bail, and her French passport was returned to her after the French embassy intervened.
But the Iranian authorities are still holding on to all her notes and a portable hard drive.
Of course, the online petition can still be signed.



In Iran is a crackdown on dissent under way. Not only 4 American-Iranians are detained on charges of espionage, also students, teachers, woman's rightactivists, unionmembers, workers, human rights activists, members of ethnic or religious minorities and others are harassed or persecuted.
Also books which have been on the permitlist for years are forbidden.
Newspapers have a list of banned topics, including the rise in gasoline prices or other economic woes like possible new international sanctions, negotiations with the United States over the future of Iraq, civil society movements and the Iranian-American arrests.
At least 3 prominent NGO's on broader legal rights or civil society have been shuttered outright and hundreds of others have been forced underground.
Professors have been warned attending overseas conferences or having any contact with foreign governments.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: basis

Thursday, a man named Ghaffar is been hanged in the prison of the city of Kalaj.
The daily Iran reported that he was accused of drugstrafficking.




After years of silence, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi spoke of his concern that the increasing poverty is threatening the basis of the Islamic republic.
In a speech he complained that the country was becoming immune to pictures of impoverished minors and statistics that he said showed that 20 percent of Tehran children were homeless.
He noted that Article 43 of Iran's constitution said that it must aim to provide all the basic needs and food to its people.


Rescue teams pulled 13 Iranian construction workers to safety after the men were trapped when a tunnel they were digging near Tabriz, this Sunday collapsed.
The governor general of East Azerbaijan province said that they are all safe and with their families.
Also he said that 13 people had been caught in the collapse, not 25 as reported earlier.
The tunnel is part of a highway being built between the northern city of Tabriz and the capital Tehran.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: leader

The Iranian State Television reported that military and security forces found the hiding place of the group Jondallah in Sistan-e-Baluchestan and during fights killed and wounded members of the group.
Also the groupleader Abdolmalek Rigi is supposed to be injured.
Jondallah is an extremely violent Sunni muslim group which is previously linked to al Qaeda.
The previous years they took responsability for various roadside attacks which took the lives of many people.



Shirin Ebadi is once again been elected as chairwoman of the Iranian Human Rights Defenders Association, following the organization's internal elections.

The association also reelected its vice-chairperson and spokesperson



President Ahmadinejad, , himself being the son of a blacksmith, says he gets much economic information by talking to his butcher.
According to the daily Sharq he told at a meeting with worker unions there are hardworking shopkeepers in his neighbourhood where he gets important economical information because they are living among the people.
For example he told about his butcher who is aware of all the problems of the people and he gets also important economic information from him.
It is not the first time Ahmadinejad has pointed to his local shopkeepers when addressing Iranian economic issues.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: feelings

Human Rights Watch called on Iran to immediate release of the eight students who were detained between May 3 and June 6 for allegedly defaming Islam in student publications.
In May various Islam defaming texts appeared in studentpublications and although the editors immediately denounced this act and stated that the editions were forgeries, they were arrested.
They are in solitary confinement in section 209 of Tehran's Evin Prison and have been denied any access to their families or lawyers.
The names are:
Ahmad Ghassaban editor of Sahar, member of the students association;
Pouyan Mahmoudian, editor of Rivar;
Majid Sheikhpour, editor of Sar Khat;
Majid Tavakoli, member-elect of the central committee of students association;
Ehsan Mansouri,
Abbas Hakim, and
Ali Saberi, former members of the central committee of students association.


An high-level Iranian cleric said Friday that the religious edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie cannot be revoked, and he warned Britain was defying the Islamic world by granting the author knighthood.
During a sermon at Tehran University, aired live on state radio, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami reminded worshippers of the 1989 fatwa.He did not directly call for the fatwa to be carried out.
In 1989,the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa over Rushdie because his book 'The Satanic Verses'.
In 1998 the Iranian government declared that it would not support the fatwa but that it could not be rescinded.


Hundreds of followers of the Prophet Zoroaster are meeting in the cave of Chik Chik to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the Islamic invasion of Iran.
Zoroastrians commemorate every year the anniversary, which marks the end of their faith as the predominant religion in the country.
Only 50,000 Zoroastrians have remained today in Iran out of the half a million who practised the religion before the 1979 Islamic revolution


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: wave

The website of state-run television IRIB reported on Thursday that in Khorramabad a man publicly is hanged.
The report did not identify the man.
He was accused of murder and robbery.


Mission Network News, a christian newsagency providing worldwide evangelisation news, reports a new "wave of persecution" of Iranian believers.
Many christians in several different parts of the country have been detained by police, interrogated and released.
According to MNN Iran ranks third on the list of the world's worst persecutors of Christians
Even though Christians belong to one of the recognized religious minorities who are guaranteed religious freedom, they have reported imprisonment, harassment and discrimination because of their faith.


The revenues from import duties on cellphone handsets increased by 600 percent in the year to March 2007 compared to figure for the preceding year.
This follows the government’s decision to increase import tariffs to stimulate domestic production and upgrading technical knowledge.
The director of Iran Telecommunication Manufacturing Company (ITMC) said that domestically-made mobile phone handsets would enter the market in a few days.
Initially, the first domestically-made cellphone handsets would enter the market in June but this was delayed due to bureaucracy and high tariffs on SKD (semi-knockdown) devices.
The cellphone handset has been designed in a way to compete with leading handsets.
Once production has started, about 300,000 cellphone handsets will be produced within six months and around one million annually.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: suspended

Wednesday is in the city of Shiraz, Fars province, a man hanged in public.
The daily Etemaad wrote that the man, Nasrollah, 40, was accused of drug trafficking



The stoning of Makroumeh Ebrahimi and the father of her 11 year old illegitimate child was suspended in the last minute by written order of the Head of Judiciary in Tehran.
Worldwide protests were risen following the announcement of the stoning.
Already in 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi issued a directive suspending the practice of stoning.

However, after this date at least two cases of practicing stoning are known.
At the moment there are at least seven other men and women who are sentenced to stoning for having committed adultery.
One of them, Kobra Najjar, who had been forced to prostitution by her husband, a drug addict, is also facing stoning to death after her appeal to the Judiciary Commission for Amnesty and Clemency was rejected for the third time last week.




Iranian State television reported Wednesday, that during armed clashes with drugstraffickers in Sistan-e-Baluchestan province, 26 drugssmugglers were arrested and 5 tons of narcotics has been confiscated.
The area is near the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan and is a mayor drug route to Europe.



The deputy director of IRIB told Wednesday, that the in April announced English language broadcasts from PressTV worldwide will start July 2nd .
Press TV plans to present news every half hour, round-the-clock.
The network will mainly focus on developments in the Middle East and the United States and analysis of current events throughout the world.
Press TV currently has 26 professional correspondents, and there are plans to hire more reporters.

In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: aftershock

Here in Farsi and here in English is a call for action because of the fact that Thursdaymorning a stoning will take place in Takistan, Qazvin province, of a man and a woman in front of the towns graveyard. The pits are dug and prepared.
The stoning will be public and the judge will be present and throw the first stone.
A list with addresses, faxes and telephonenumbers of Iranian authorities and Embassy's is here.
Makroumeh Ebrahimi , 43 has spent the last 11 years in prison, together with the man of whom she has a child.This child is also 11 years old.
The man is sentenced to be stoned with her.They are accused of adultery.
This is never legally proven to be true.

Mehrnoushe Solouki, 38, a French-Iranian filmmaker, who lives in Canada, has been under virtual house arrest for several months in Tehran despite not being charged with a crime.
Unconfirmed reports say she is now staying at the French Embassy.
In February Solouki was arrested and transported to Evinprison. In March she was released but her passport was confiscated, so she could not leave the country.
A friend who has intermittent e-mailcontacts with her, tries through an online petition to release her.



Yesterday Central-Iran was jolted by an aftershock with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale.
The epicenter was also near Kahak, Qom province.
There are no reports of casualties or damages.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: damages

Monday, a moderate earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 on the Richter scale has jolted Qom province in Iran.
The tremor was felt in the cities of Tehran, Karaj, Qom, Garmsar, Varamin and Kashan.
The epicenter of the eartquake has been located near Kahak, a small town near the city of Qom.
There were no reports of of casualties or severe damages.


An official of the Iranian Health Ministry said that 350,000 people were in danger of parasitic and intestinal epidemics in the area which was affected by the Cyclone Gonu.
Due to the lack of access to clean water and the still blocked roads, there is a great risk of outbreak of diseases.
There also is a shortage of helicopters and other aerial aid, meaning most of the emergency goods were being transported to the area on heavy vehicles.
People in the provinces Sistan-e-Baluchestan, Hormozgan and Kerman are specifically in danger of contracting malaria because of standing water that remains in areas throughout the region.


Amnesty International has called for urgent action for
Ayatollah Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi (m), Shi'a cleric,
Sayed Mahdi Kazemeyni Boroujerdi (m), his son
Massoud Samavatiyan (m)
Alireza Montazer Sa’eb (m)
Ali Shahrabi Farahani (m)
Habib Qouti (m)
Ahmad Karimiyan (m)
Majid Alasti (m)

There are unconfirmed reports that Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi was
sentenced to death in Branch 3 of the Special Court for the Clergy (SCC) on 10
June, after an unfair and closed trial, and that six of his followers, named
above, were sentenced to death on 13 June.
The unconfirmed reports say Ayatollah Boroujerdi was found guilty of at least
30 charges, including "waging war against god" (Mohareb); acts against national security; publicly calling political leadership by the clergy (Velayat-e Faqih) unlawful;
having links with anti-revolutionaries and spies; and using the term "religious dictatorship"
instead of "Islamic Republic" in public discourse and radio interviews.
A further 62 of the Ayatollah's followers are reportedly due to be tried on 17
June.
It is feared some or all may also face the death penalty.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl

Iran: names

The number of children facing execution in Iran is this year DOUBLED to 68.
According to a recent report submitted to Iran's Parliament 41 children are sentenced to death in Iran.
Comparing the published names with the list of the Stop Child Executions Campaign, the number of children is 68.
The youngest child facing execution is Ahmad Norouzi who was sentenced to death 2 years ago for alleged drug dealing at the age of 12 . Ahmad is now 15 years old.

Details of the list can be found here(Farsi).
The names:

Ali Nour-Mohammadi (16)
Rasoul Soghra (17)
Amir Chale-Chale (17)
Bahador Khaelghi (17)
Ali Mahin-Torabi (16)
Naser Ghasemi (15)
Rasoul Aboutondi (17)
Reza Ali-Nejad (17)
Nabovat Babai (17)
Delara Darabi-Haghihi (17)f
Soghra Najaf-Pour (13) f
Mohammd-Reza Tork
Rasoul Nooryani
Iman Nabavi
Mehdi Ghandali
Nazbibi Atashbejan (16)f
Siavash Shir-Nejad
Mahiar Anvari
Mohammd Mavari
Abdolkhalegh Rakhshani
Saiid Arab
Hani Momeni-Yasaghi
Salman Akbari
Mohammad Pejman
Rahman Shahidi
Hasan Mozafari
Sadegh Ahmad-Pour
Ahmad Jaberi
Akoo Hoseini
Feyzollah Soltani
Gholamnabi Barahooti
Omroldin Alkoozei
Mostafa Saiidi
Zolfali Hamzeh
Khodamorad Shadmazahi
Omid Sarani
Ahmad Norouzehi
Naim Kabeali
Habib Afshar
Alireza Mosali-Roudi
Ali Moradzadeh-Zagheh

Following names who are on the Stop Child Executions List were not mentioned in the report. It is feared that the reason some of the names on the SCE Campaign list were not mentioned in the report to parliament is that few may have already been executed. (Sina Paymard is confirmed to be alive):
Sina Paymard (16)
Masoud (17)
Shahram PourMansouri (17)
Hedayat Niroumand (15)
Hamid (17)
Abbas Hossein
Rasoul Mohamadi
Hamid-Reza (14)
Nemat
Vahid
Hamed
Beniamin Rasouli (m), 17
Hossein Toranj (m), 17
Hossein Haghi (m), 17
Morteza Feizi (m), 16
Sa’eed Jazee (m), 17
Milad Bakhtiari (m), 16
Farshad Sa’eedi (m), 17
Mahmoud (m), 17
Saber (m)
Sajjad (m), 17
Farzad (m), 15
Hossein Gharabaghloo (m), 16
Asghar (m), 16
Hamzeh S (m), 17

First names of the following two are the same on the two lists however due to lack of information it is not possible to confirm if they are the same individuals :
Iman (m), 17
Mostafa (m), 16

The petition still can be signed.



In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl