Iran: different

The newspaper Kargozaran reported that student activist Babak Zamanian is released from all charges and that the appeals court has sentenced him to a fine of $530.
Originally he was sentenced to a year in prison for "acting against national security".



Iranian authorities released a film on the internet as an answer to the Wilders-film Fitna. Fars newsagency writes that the film is called "Beyond Fitna" and the length is 18 minutes.
The film will be released on the sites www.ngoic.com, www.youtube.com, en www.videogoogle.com.
The film was was directed by a group of Iranian filmmakers and produced by the Islam and Christianity Non-Governmental Organization.
The NGO's spokesman told that the film honors all monotheistic religions and gives a response to the anti-Islam propaganda of Western extremists.
film


The pipeline for natural gas from Iran to Turkey has been repaired and the gasflow will be resumed May 30.
An explosion on May 26 near the town of Agri in eastern Turkey damaged the pipeline.
Russian Gazprom raised following the blast the amount of natural gas transferred to Turkey to 30 million cubic meters a day.


Iran is negotiating with Royal Dutch Shell and Spanish Repsom to swap their exploration blocs of the South Pars gas field.
The phases 13 and 14 are allocated to Shell and Repsol.
Instead of these two, they are examining giving them other phases. Phase 15, 16, 20 and 21.
According to Oil Minister Nozari there are similar talks with French Total.
Repsol said earlier this month that the two firms sought to exchange their participation in bloc 13 for a role in bloc 20 or 21 due to rising development costs.
Blocs 20 and 21 will take at least a decade before they become operational while bloc 13 is expected to be developed much sooner.
In January USA warned both Shell and Repsol that their participation with the project in Iran would probably infringe US law.

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: the power of the number

In the first two months of this Iranian calendaryear (March 20-April 20) Iran produced 27% less cars compared to the same period last year.
A total of 156000 cars were produced.
Surprisingly the deputy minister of industries and mines for industrial affairs said that statistics indicated an increase of production.


Mehr newsagency said that six members of the Revolutionary Guards were killed in clashes with PEJAK in the region of Sardasht, West Azerbaijan province.
Two borderguards were killed after stepping on mines.
The PEJAK operates from bases in northeastern Iraq and there are regularly fights with the Revolutionary Guards.
Turkey and Iran have been long fighting against the Kurdish PKK separatists of which PEJAK is the Iranian branch.
The PKK is considered an international terrorist organization.


The Supreme Leader ayatollah Khamenei has pardonned and commuted the sentences of 3510 prisoners convicted in civil and military courts.
The proposal to commute the sentences of the prisoners was made by Judiciary Chief ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi in a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei.
The pardoning came on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of Khorramshahr from Iraqi occupation.


At the Pakistan-Iran border have 15 people been arrested by Iranian borderguards and handed to the police in Taftan.
According to reports these people were crossing the border without any legal document and wanted to proceed to some European countries via Iran-and-Turkey for seeking employment there.


According to the head of the security and rehabilitation office of Prison Organization, the reincarceration rate is 20% lower for Iran than for other countries.
In Iran is the rate 19%, compared with 35-40 percent in most other countries.
The rate has fallen to a low, attributing the fall to the concerted efforts of the centers taking care of released prisoners.
These centers will take care of the released inmates and educate them to manage a normal life.

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: choice

In the prison from Bojnord, North Khorasan province, is May 28 a man hanged.
The unidentified man was convicted for drugstrafficking.



The former chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani is elected provisional speaker by the eight Islamitic parliament.
Wednesday he won 232 votes out of the total 263 ballots cast.
The members of the central committee of the Principlist bloc elected Larijani with 161 votes while 50 Principlist voted for former speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel.
The members of parliament also elected Mohammad Hassan Abutorabi-Fard and Mohammad-Reza Bahonar as the First and Second Vice-Speakers.
The provisional board will continue its work until letters of accreditation are issued for all MPs.


Wednesday singer Chris de Burgh has arrived in Iran.
He plans to discuss a possible joint concert later this year with Iranian pop band Arian.
On arrival he told Reuters that he has no political reason, but that visiting Iran had been a dream of him since he was a little boy . He said also that he just wants to sing and play for people.
Photo: Reuters


The first foreign bank has opened in Tehran.
The Iran based Iran-Europe Commercial Bank (ICB) will provide on the spot euro-based foreign exchange. The ICB has been operating on Kish Island.
The Iranian Bank of Industry and Mine (San'at va Ma'dan) is a major shareholder of the Iran-Europe Commercial Bank.
It is the first bank out of six foreign banks who are allowed to open branches in Iran.


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: connection

In Mazandaran province is May 27 a man hanged.
The daily Qods writes that the man Ramezan is executed for the murder on his two brothers and a sister-in-law because of a land conflict in 2004.
In the prison of the city of Qom is May 27 a man, Reza hanged.
He was convicted of abducting a husband and wife on a roadway and abusing the woman in front of her husband whose hands were tied.
Another man, Amir, 26 was sentenced to 99 lashes and 3 years of prison for assisting.



According to Etemaad newspaper, the juvenile offender Mohammad Fadaei (21) will be executed June 11.
He is sentenced to death for the killing of Saeed(21) during a fight in a billiardclub in 2004.
At that time he was 17 years old.
His execution was scheduled to take place in April but his execution was postponed.

At least three other minors: Behnam Zare, Behnood Shojaee and Saeed Jazee are in imminent danger to be executed.



The judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said that the deathsentence for Kurdish teacher Farzad Kamangar is confirmed.
He also said that Kamangar is found guilty of 'Moharebeh' (being an enemy of god) and the membership of a "terrorist" group.
Ali Heidarian and Farhad Vakili, are also sentenced to death on the same charges.
All three have appealed the sentence.


A car exploded in Tehran Monday afternoon, shattering the windows of nearby buildings. Iranian security forces arrested one suspect in connection with the explosion after the blast.
The Minister of Information said that this assault, nor any other recent blast has a connection with the arrest of Abdolmalik Rigi's brother. Abdelmalik Rigi is the leader of Jundullah.


In Khuzestan province are 592 illegal immigrants arrested.
Four Pakistanis, two Iraqis and 586 Afghans have been arrested.
The action to round up foreign nationals without valid papers will continue for five days and they will be transferred to Mollasani Camp in Ahwaz.
Since 2006, over 7,255 illegal immigrants from Afghanistan and 639 from Pakistan have been arrested in Khuzestan province.


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: rock it

Today at 10.48 local time, an moderately strong earthquake with a magnitude from 5.3 on the Richter scale, rocked the city of Zanjan.
The quake, which was also felt in Rasht, the capital city of Gilan province, caused panic among the people.
No information is known about damages.



According to Fars newsagency Iranian security forces have killed nine armed drug traffickers In Kerman province.
The clash took place in a desert area, but when this happened was not revealed.
Also a large amount of weapons was destroyed.
South-East Iran is an important route for trafficking drugs from Pakistan and Afghanistan.


The corrupt businessman Shahram Jazayeri is Monday by an appeal court sentenced to 11 years in jail and a fine of $145 million.
In 2002 he was sentenced to 27 years in jail, which was later reduced to 14 years.
In Februar 2007 he escaped from prison, but was arrested again four weeks later.
Four senior judiciary officials were dismissed after the incident.



There is still nothing heard of the six Bahaíleaders who were arrested May 14.
Also nothing is heard about their whereabouts.
Till now they were not allowed to contact their relatives or a lawyer.
The representative of the Baha’i International Community to the UN says that although there are reports indicating they are in Evinprison, no one knows where they are and they are extremely concerned.



The new album of the Iranian band Arian with on it a song together with singer Chris De Burgh is released.
The album is named With or without you and contains 4 videos and 14 songs.
Chris De Burgh plans to hold an open-air concert with the Arian band in Tehran this summer.

The song is called A Light into Eternity.




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: violent

In the city of Ardebil is an unnamed man hanged.
He was sentenced to death fur murdering his wife in 2005.
Reports say that the woman's parents have hanged the man in prison.



Global Voices Online says that blogger Jamshidi wrote (fa) a blog with pictures about people demonstrating at the embassy of the UAE.
They protested against renaming of the Persain Gulf by several Arab states.
He got surprised when security forces repressed a peaceful demonstration.


Pakistan is said willing to turnover the last weeks arrested six members of the violent Jundullahgroup. The group is active in the regio Baluchestan.
Iran claims they are spies, paid by the CIA.
The CIA denies this, but American officials have said that officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran.
Mehrnewsagency reported that Pakistan would soon extradite the men to Iran, where they would likely be put on trial as spies and face execution.
It is said that the group’s leader, Abdelmalik Rigi, was not among those arrested.


A fire in a pharmaceutical plant in the Kimia Gostaran plant in the industrial town of Babaie-Shahr in Arak has killed 30 people and seriously wounded 38.
IRNA reported that a container, holding 60.000 liters of inflammable products exploded during welding work nearby. The fire fire quickly spread to other parts of the plant.
There was extensive damage within 500 metres of the explosion, with many vehicles destroyed and the roofs of buildings collapsing.

At least 23 people Sunday got killed when a bus crashed into a truck.
This happened on the road from Hamedan to Tehran.
On Friday, at least 21 people were killed when a bus collided with an oncoming truck.


The flow of Iranian natural gas to Turkey was halted today after an explosion hit a gas pipeline 13 kilometres inside Turkish territory.
Reports say that the first result of the investigations show damage to a 30 metre piece of the pipeline which will need to be replaced.
An official of the Turkish oil ministry, who declined to be named, said the blast can have been caused by sabotage by the PKK.

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: system

The kidnappers of Satoshi Nakamura, 23, want to release him, in return of the release of a relative on death row.
Nakamura was abducted in October 2007 in the border area with Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The chief of police in Kerman said to the newspaper Tehran Emrouz that the kidnappers had also seized a local Friday prayers leader in the town of Fahraj.
He said that the system will not give in to their extortion and of course prices have to be paid in order to have authority over society.
They think Nakamura is now being held outside Iran in the border zone.
Early April the foreign ministry said Iran was making every effort to secure his release.


According to Iran's chief prosecutor the bombers of Shiraz confessed to have links to Israel and the United States.
ISNA also reported that they admitted carrying out "one or two minor operations", but gave no further details except that the group launched military operations a year ago.
Earlier Friday, senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said the same group had also plotted attacks in Qom, and at a book fair held in the capital.
Bomb attacks have been rare in Iran in recent years, but the blast in Shiraz was the first in decades in Iran's Persian heartland.
At the blast at a mosque in Shiraz were 13 people killed and more then 200 wounded.


Iran plans to raise domestic natural gas prices this summer.
A senior government official said this on the third Ravand Institute conference.
Natural gas sells for only two US cents per cubic metre in Iran, compared with 30 cents in neighbouring countries, the difference represents a subsidy of around 40 billion dollars a year.
The plan is to lift the price for industrial use with 15 cents, but the figure for individual customers was not given.
An official from Iran's gas sector said the country needed to economise in order to export, and that it is consuming too much.
The country has a 20-year plan to lift production to 1.45 billion cubic metres a day, with 642 million for domestic consumption, 259 million for injection in oil production wells and 550 million for export.
But these projects needs massive investments,which are hindered by a US economic boycott.


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: believe

Police in Shiraz arrested 10 people (fa), known Muslim converts to Christianity.
The arrests began on 11 May, when two couples were taken into custody and were interrogated for hours about their faith and house church activities.
Their names are Homayon Shokohie Gholamzadeh, 48, and his wife Fariba Nazemiyan Pur, 40, Amir Hussein Bab Anari, 25, and his wife Fatemeh Shenasa, 25.
The two women were released that same day, but Anari was detained till May 14 and Gholamzadeh is still in jail.
That same day Hamid Allaedin Hussein, 58, and his three adult children, Fatemah, 28, Muhammed Ali, 27, and Mojtaba, 21 were arrested.
Hussein, his daughter and one son were released, but Mojtaba is still in jail.
Two days later Mahmood Matin and Arash were arrested.


Wednesday night the Iranian army have killed nine Kurdish rebels, five of them women, in clashes in West Azarbaijan province near the border with Turkey.
Jomhuri Eslami said that seven of the nine rebels killed were Turkish nationals and two Iranian.
The clashes took place in the village of Gonbad, near the city of Orumieh.
The newspaper also said that the 10th member of the group escaped across the border to Turkey.


The wife of Robert Levinson offers a reward of $5000 for information on her husband.
Robert Levinson was last seen on March 8, 2007 on Kish Island, Iran.
Since then nothing is seen or heard of him.
His wife said said her husband has diabetes and high blood pressure, and it's possible he has had a medical checkup in Iran. She hopes that by offering the reward people will come forward to give information.
She has asked for permission to travel to Iran again in July to get an update from the Iranian government.



The Etemad newspaper said that Friday a truck and a bus collided between the towns of Hamedan and Malayer.
Twenty-one people were killed and 11 injured at the accident.
The bus had been speeding at the time of the collision and the truck had been overtaking illegally.


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: criticism

A top customsofficer in Iran called for a ban on imported ties.
Fars newsagency reported that the deputy head of state customs bureau said that imports of some apparel are not banned but serious action should be taken to stop the import of ties, because they contradict the nature of Iranian culture.
He also is the head of head of a state plan for the "development of culture, chastity and the veil."
Since the islamitic revolution of 1979 is the wearing of ties banned in government offices as a sign of Westernisation.


The strike of the workers of Sugar Cane Factory of Haft Tappeh is gone into the third week.
4000 strikers with their families and children marched along the main shopping center in Shoosh, southwest Iran, following a gathering outside the governor's office on May 18.
They chanted slogans as "Good living conditions are our inalienable right," "Monthly salary is our inalienable right," and "Workers die but do not accept humiliation.”
State Security Forces (SSF) tried to stop the workers who wanted to block Shoosh-Dezful highway, but the workers succeeded eventually.
During the clashes several workers got hurt and at least six representatives of the workers are arrested.



Footballplayer Ali Karimi is expelled from the trainingscamp from Iranian national footballteam.
In a recent interview he criticized Iranian Football Federation (IFF).
In the interview he said that things like mismanagement and lack of plans have become something normal in Iranian football. In the 10 years he has been part of the national team, things have never been so bad. He hopes that these problems are solved soon, but the officials need to know that they cannot solve these problems by just talking.
Karimi is one of the biggest names in Iranian football and the decision to suspend him is controversial.


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: intent

The daily Etemaad reported that a man, Reza, 35 is hanged in the prison of Isfahan.
The man was sentenced to death for killing two years ago a woman at her workplace.




The order for the execution of Saeed Jazee is authorized by the head of judiciary Hashemi Shahroudi, which means he is in imminent danger of execution.
Amnesty International calls for urgent action. He is sentenced to death for the murder on a 22-year-old, which he committed in 2003 when he was 17 years of age.
This happened during a fight in a shop and the shopemployees as Jazee said always that the killing was unintentional.


The EU also spoke of her concern about the arrest of six Bahaíleaders in Iran.
The European Union called on Iran to uphold fully the right to adopt and practice a religion of choice, to end the persecution of the Baha'i community, and to release the six members of the Baha'i faith.
The Bahaí International Community stated that the allegations by Iran that six Bahá’ís were arrested last week “for security reasons and not for their faith” are utterly baseless and without documentation.
According to them the accusations are not new and the Iranian government knows well that they are untrue.
The charges made by Iran, linking the Bahá’ís to Zionism are a distortion of history. The Bahá’í Faith has its world headquarters in Israel because the founder of the religion was, in the mid-1800s, banned there by two Islamic countries: Ottoman Turkey and Iran.
Furthermore the statement says among other things that the Iranian government cannot tolerate that people are less responsive to the government’s propaganda, because they see the reality.
Bahaís, who love their country to its well-being, are peace-loving, and are law-abiding, and that this stem from their beliefs.
Consequence is that there is growing sympathy for the Bahá’ís.


Iranian police discovered 200,000 liters of smuggled diesel in a foreign ship.
Coastguards of Abadan stopped the ship near the mouth of the Arvand River where it joins the Persian Gulf.
According to Mehr Newsagency they bought diesel from Iranian launches and sold it to oceangoing ships.
The report said the captain is Iraqi national and its 10 crew members are from Bangladesh, India and Iraq.


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