Iran: suspicious

Ex-president Khatami told Saturday the residents of the city of Tabriz that arbitrarily banning candidates was against Iran's constitution and Islam.
Khatami, who voiced similar criticism earlier this month, was referring to threats made by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, Iran's constitutional watchdog.
Jannati, said in early December that any candidate determined by the Guardian Council to be disloyal to the principles of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution would be barred from parliamentary elections in March.
Reformists are trying to form a grand coalition with independent groups in the hope of winning the upcoming elections. However, disqualification of prominent reformists could dash their hopes of retaking control of the parliament.

The wife of Robert Levinson said Saturday that she has been unable to find out what happened to her husband despite visiting Kish island where he was last seen. She retraced his steps and met with airport officials and members of the hotel staff where he stayed before he disappeared.
Gouvernment spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters Saturday that the Iranian government had no information proving that Levinson had gone missing while visiting Kish.


Seven students who were returning from pilgrimage to the city of Qom have been killed in a passenger bus crash.
Two passenger buses collided on the road to the city of Damghan . Twenty-nine people were also injured in the deadly crash, three of whom are reportedly in critical condition.
Officials have confirmed that driver fatigue was suspected to be the main cause of the accident.





Ehsan Mansouri, Majid Tavakoli and Ahmad Ghassaban were still in jail on Saturday after failing to raise bail from 85,000 dollars each.
They are in prison since May for insulting Islam by publishing anti-Islamic images in four student reformist newspapers and were sentenced to three years in jail.
For this they were acquitted in appeal, but the court uphold the only outstanding charge against them, which is insulting the leader.


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