Iran: diversity

Journalist Parnaz Azima has been in absence convicted by an Iranian court of spreading anti-state propaganda and sentenced to one year in prison.
This announced her employer, Radio Free Europe on Monday.
Three other charges against Azima had been dropped: acting against Iran's national interests, earning illegitimate income and owning a satellite receiver.


Babak Zamanian, a student of Amir Kabir university, has been sentenced to one year in prison for acting against national security.
He was arrested in April 2007 and released on a 53,000 dollars bail.
His lawyer will appeal the sentence.
Ahmad Ghassaban, Ehsan Mansouri and Majid Tavakoli were sentenced to prisonterms up to 3 year, for publishing anti-Islamic images in four reformist student newspapers.
Despite expectations they would be released on bail, they are still being held..


Women rights activist Marzie Mortazi Langaroodi received Friday a suspended sentence of six months of prison and 10 slashes of flogging.
She had been charged with congregating last year with a group of women on the day that the ‎Revolutionary Court in Tehran was scheduled to start the trial of 5 women activists.
33 people got arrested.
Those arrested were charged with illegal assembly.
Last week the court went into session , which ended in a sentence for Mortazi.


The Iranian government might block private access to the Internet on its election day, March 14.
Two Iranian newspapers reported this, each with differences on the rationale.
Daily Etemad Melli says that Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister, said that shutting down the Internet service will depend on security plans and on the Ministry of Telecommunication.
At the same time, Mohammad Javad Mahmoudi, senior election official said to ISNA that a shutdown would help ensure that the government had unimpeded Internet service for the elections.




A judge in Iran has sentenced a man to buy his wife 124,000 roses as a dowry.
She filed a complaint against her husband that he is to "stingy" to pay her dowry.
Under Iranian law a woman can claim her dowry , which is a gift pledged by the man at the time of marriage, at any time during married life or when getting a divorce.
The court seized the appartment worth 64,000 dollars until he has bought her the entire 124,000 roses.
A long stemmed red rose costs 20,000 rials (about two dollars) in 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