Iran: spreading

Iran increased gasrations for private cars for the next four months from 100 liter monthly till 120 liters monthly.
The average daily consumption over six months was showing a 22 percent fall in comparison with the same period in the previous year.
A liter of petrol costs 11 cents in Iran, which is less than the cost of a liter mineral watef.



Saturday, Tehran's police held a crackdown on suppliers of illegal DVD movies and other videos .
At least 60 people got arrested. According to Tehrans police chief Ahmad Reza Radan the confiscated material included discs containing decadent and immoral videos as well as movies that are currently being screened.
The lack of an enforceable copyright law in Iran has made it easy for illegal distributors of movies to sell them on DVDs before they are even shown in the cinemas.
Tehran police chief for public security said that more than 300,000 discs containing illegal materials have been confiscated.



On the website Roozonlineis an interview from the parents of Ali Azizi who was arrested November 4.
Ali Azizi is a student at Amir Kabir university and member of the leadership of Iran’s largest student organization, Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat.
After his arrest he was transferred to Evin prison ward 209 where he spent weeks in solitary confinement.
December 17 his parents were allowed to visit him.
He told his father that he was not tortured and that he had been transferred from solitary confinement to the general ward of the prison, and that his interrogation phase had ended .


Human Rights Watch published a statement in which they call for the immediate release of Jelve Javaheri and Maryam Hosseinkhah , who were arrested on charges related to their writings in support of women and the OneMillionSignatures Campaign and Hana Abdi and Ronak Safarzadeh,who were arrested in Kurdestan province, on charges of endangering national security.

The newspaper Etemad Melli reported that Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has protested at the high bail sums demanded for Jelve Javaheri($57.000) and Maryam Hosseinkhah($107.000), by the court on December 18 and 19.
She said that despite the fact that they have not committed a crime, the bail sums are too high.
The trial against Javaheri over her March protests was hold on Sunday in the absence of Ebadi.


The same newspaper also reported that journalist Mohammad Javad Rooh has been sentenced to 35 lashes for "insults and spreading lies" over an article about a court verdict against a writer in 2003.
His lawyer Abdolfatah Soltani says that in this article, Rooh criticises the views of a political camp which supports cultural control and censorship, but the judge who gave the verdict claims he was insulted. The lawyer goes in appeal.


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