Iran: supportive

One of the students who took part in an anti-government demonstration last week at Tehran’s Allameh University has been arrested.
Ali Azizi, who is a member of studentsassociation Unity Consolidation Bureau, was arrested Sunday and since then no news was heard, his mother told.


Global Voices Online writes that in recent weeks, the Iranian government has stepped up the pressure against human rights and civil society activists.
Some of these activists are in jail and Iranian bloggers write about them.
The blog of the Student Committee for Human Rights Reporters (SCHRR)(farsi) writes that Sepideh PourAghai human rightsactivist and member of SCHRR is being held in isolation on ward 209 of Evinprison for 45 days now.
According to SCHRR 5 more political activists such as Mansour Saraji who were arrested at the same time and are still in prison.
Frontline and the blog FreeSohradRazzaghi report about the arrest of
Sohrab Razzaghi who was arrested October 25.






Inside and outside Iran a growing debate has started whether millions of dollars in U.S. pro-democracy aid to Iranian dissidents is helping to build the foundations of civil society or giving the regime in Tehran an excuse to crack down even harder on dissident students, journalists, and other activists.
The money, a part of which helps fund Radio Free Europe broadcasts to Iran, is not distributed directly to activists, it is channeled to them through third parties, such as European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that also support Iranian democrats.
Partly, that's done so that Iranian activists, in the eyes of the clerical regime, don't appear "tainted" by direct U.S. support, a perception that some say could not only endanger them personally, but discredit their cause inside Iran as well.
Last month in the United States several organizations signed a statement by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a group that represents the interests of Iranians in the United States that called for the U.S. aid to be cut off precisely because it "taints" dissidents.
About this a widespread discussion followed with important voices staking out diametrically opposed positions.



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