Iran: slide and shift

Saturday are three men hanged in the prison of Orumieh.
Arshad Mahmoudi, Saleh Malaki and Mohammad Ali Bimesal were convicted for drugs trafficking.



Shirin Ebadi of the Iranian Defenders of Human Rights Centre condemned Saturday the draft bill on Internet crime,warning that it could boost the executions.
The human rights organization opposes this law and says that if this bill is adopted, there will be further infringement of the freedom of expression, citizens' judicial security will be jeopardised and executions will increase.
The draft bill lists a range of crimes such as rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty already applies.
But it also includes "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy".
Those convicted "should be punished as 'mohareb' (enemy of God) and 'corrupt on the earth'," and under Iranian law they are punishable by death.


The Iranian bank Sarmayeh plans to establish a branch in the Netherlands.
The managing director told reporters that the bank will be registered in The Netherlands and operate under the Dutch banking and monetary laws.
The bank is established in 2005 and is one of six Iranian private banks.
Fars newsagency said that the total revenues in the last Iranian fiscal year was $144 million.
The profits for the last Iranian calendaryear were $53 million.



The Iranian oil Minister announced Saturday the discovery of a new oilfield of about 525 million barrels near the port city of Assaluyeh in Bushehr province.
He called the discovery unprecedented because most of the discoveries in the Assaluyeh region have been gas fields.
Iran's oil reserves are estimated at around 136 billion barrels.


Iran's former ambassador to Sweden, Hassan Qashqavi, is appointed spokesman of the Foreign Ministry.
He was also Iran's ambassador to Kazakhstan and a lawmaker prior to ambassador in Sweden, which he was since 2004.
Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, who was spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, is currently deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs.

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