Iran: mortality

The daily Etemaad writes that a policeofficial said that there have been 50 "honor killings" in the last 7 months. He did not say whether this number is for the whole country.According to him, the number of this year’s honor killings is the same as last year.
Honor killing has been increasing in Iran in the past years, from smaller towns in the outskirts of the country increasingly also in the bigger cities.
According to human rights organizations are the laws included in the Iranian constitution after 1980s partly responsible for this increase.
The number of parents killing their children has increased also. Article 220 of Iranian penal law states that if a father or grandfather kill his child or grandchild, he will not be convicted and punished for murder.


In Bandar Abbas died 12 people this week after consuming poisoned home-made alcohol.
IRNA reported Saturday that 92 people were admitted for drinking with methanol poisoned alcohol.23 people were treated as out patients and were released. Out of the remaining 69 who were hospitalised, 12 died. Nine people are in coma, out of whom six are in critical condition and may die, two have been blinded.
According to the police 5 suspects are arrested, and although they destroyed the remaining home-made alcohol, the police were able to seize distilling equipment.
In Islamic Iran is the production and consumption of alcohol strictly prohibited, except for recognised Christian minorities.
Violations are punishable by jail or the lash.


Saturday a nationwide drill in Iran was held because of the possibility of a strong earthquake.The city of Tehran for instance is built on 3 major faults that could become active any time. An earthquake measuring 6 on Richterscale could make uninhabitable more than 80 percent of buildings.
The city has not been hit by a major earthquake since 1830, but it is 90 percent likely that another one will strike.
In Tehran live 12 million people, millions will be killed and injured and the city will be completely crippled for at least a decade.Reconstruction will not be possible.
North of the city is the Alborz mountain area where great seismic activity is measured.
Teaching people how to respond to a quake would definitely help reduce the number of victims.


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: movements

Three men convicted of a mosque bombing in Shiraz in April, are sentenced to death by a court in Tehran.
The daily Kayhan reported that Mohsen Eslamian, 21, Ali Asghar Pashtar, 20 and Rouzbeh Yahyazadeh, 32, are convicted of Mohareb(enemy of god) and Mofsed fil al-Arz (corrupt on earth).
When the verdict is confirmed by the Supreme Court they will be hanged in Shiraz.
Initially there were 15 suspects arrested, seven of them are charged with involvement in the attack, three of whom confessed to being brainwashed by a Western group.


Two independent United Nations experts on human rights issues voiced deep concern over the Iranian Government's increasingly severe crackdown on advocates of the rights of women in recent years. Men and women involved in the One Million Signatures Campaign have been particularly targeted.
Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and Yakin Ertürk, Special Rapporteur on violence against women,say they sent 18 communications to the Iranian authorities concerning violations committed against over 70 human rights defenders involved in the OneMillionSignatures campaign.

In their joint statement the Rapporteurs urged the Government to abide by its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, and respect the rights of women's rights activists to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and to freedom of opinion and expression.


Mahdieh Golroo, Sadiq Shojai, Saeed Feyzallahzadeh, and Majid Dari are 4 students who started a sit-in demonstration at Alameh Tabataba'i University and were arrested by security agents.
All four are detained in Evin prison.
In may 2007 , when elections for the Islamic Student Association took place , a total of eight students, including those detained, were suspended by the University’s Disciplinary Committee and thus prevented from continuing their education.
The suspended students formed the Right to Education Committee, and since then they seek admittance to the university.


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: standstill

Daily Kayhan reported Thursday that in the city of Boroujerd a man, Mohammad B. was hanged.
No further details were given.



According to a rapport of rooz online (fa) has the Supreme Couurt in Fars province approved the verdict of death by stoning for Afsaneh for adultry and murdering her husband.
A man, Reza is sentenced to 15 years in prison for assistance in the murder and 100 lashes for extramarital relationship with Afsaneh.



The National Council of Resistance in Iran wrote that a couple of hundred strikers from Kiyan-Tire tyrefactory in Tehran gathered in front of Cooperation Ministry to protest of not getting paid.
The last seven months have the strikers not been paid.Almost 7000 familymembers of the striking workers are in economic disaster with winter just around the corner in Iran.
The authorities in the Ministry called in the State Security Forces (SSF) to remove the strikers.
Together with the strike of the 5000 workers of Sugar Cane factory in Shoose, these are the longest strikes for unpaid salaries since last year.


With a joint statement announced political and cultural activists and Arab students from the city of Ahwaz their support for the Arab journalist and researcher Yousef Azizi-Banitaraf.
The Islamic Revolutionary Court convicted Azizi to a prisonterm of 5 years.
He was arrested 3 months after he held a number of interviews and discussed possible reasons and motives behind the unrest which ocurred in april in Khuzestan province.
After his arrest he spent 64 days in solitary confinement.
He was charged with attempts against national security and fueling the unrest in Ahwaz.



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: blocked

A man is sentenced to blindness in both eyes.
The man, Mahid poured acid in the face of a girl who was denying to marry him.
As a result of the injuries she lost the sight on one eye and most of the sight on the other eye.
He is sentenced for retribution to lose the sight in his both eyes as well as economic compensation.



GlobalVoicesOnline writes that several Iranian news sites and blogs report that Iranian authorities closed an art-gallery for exposing “immoral” photos.
Here are some of these photos (scroll down) of photographer Peyman Hooshmanzadeh.


Various sites of the womans rightsmovement We Change and the One Million Signature Campaign were blocked by officials for the 17th time.
Sites of the Campaign operating from: Hamedan, Azarbaijan, Zahedan, Shiraz, Mashad, Zabol, Amol, Ilam, Kermanshah, Rasht, Arak, and Karaj along with the weblog of the men’s committee, the weblog of the working group on equal inheritance, and the photoblog of the Campaign were blocked.
The Campaign’s sites based outside of Iran, including the sites in California, Kuwait, Germany, Cyprus and Sweden have also been blocked.
Additionally women’s sites such as the Feminist School, the Women’s Solidarity Network, and weblogs addressing women’s issues, such as Parandeh Kharzar, Zananeha, Havva, and Free Keyboard were blocked through this mass effort at censorship.
Those outside Iran can still use www.we-change.org.
Inside Iran you can use: www.changeforequality.info.


November 15 is Delaram Ali sentenced by the Sixth Branch of the Tehran Appeals Court for the minor charge of disrupting public order to four months mandatory prison sentence and ten lashings which can be eliminated with the payment of a monetary fine.
She has once again objected to this sentence.
Also a video on YouTube wher Delaram Ali tells some things about herself.











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: communication

Fars newsagency reported that this morning 9 men and 1 woman were hanged.
They were all convicted for murder. Their names are not known.
The woman, Fatemeh Pajouh,37 was sentenced to death for murdering her husband after he raped her 15-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.


Safarali Hoeni, a activist for the rights of the Azerbaijani in Iran is sentenced to 6 years in prison.
He was editor-in-chief of the journal Shahriyar of Zanjan Free university.
He was arrested at the Day of the International Native Language and was mistreated during his arrest.



ILNA reported that masked men on motorcycles attacked Mohammad Khaleqinejad, in Takab. He is a journalist and was wounded with boxing cutters. He is now hospitalized.
Recently Khaleqinejad wrote an article about natural gas shortage and the problems with Takab’s natural gas delivery network.
The governor of the city Takab wrote a letter to newspapers and other media saying that Khaleqinejad is lacking manners and called on his daily to fire him.
His attackers threatened him saying that if he continued his job as a reporter he would face “tougher consequences”.



The Iranian minister of culture and Islamic guidance said that censorship on literature will be more stringent.
The censorship will move targets what the censor calls “pseudo-mysticism” and “pseudo-revolutionary” literature, which he calls nonsense.
According to him this nonsense comes from western pseudomystical and materialistic cornershops.


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: network

In the prison of the city Mashhad, Khorasan province, is November 24 a man hanged.
The daily Qods reported that the man was sentenced to death for murdering his wife two years ago in the village Torbate Heydariyeh.
According to the daily Kayhan are Monday in the city of Zahedan three men hanged.
The men, Hassan Nahtani, Abdollah Dahmardeh en Mohammad Barahoi were convicted for drugstrafficking.


The Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that in Iran a network of Israeli spies is arrested.
He said that complex and advanced communications systems are confiscated.
According to him the arrested members of the network confessed about special trainings and finance by Israel.
The commander also said that details would be revealed in the near future.


The manager of Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization said that Iran is completely independent from other countries for import of bloodunits for bloodtransfusions and no longer needs to import blood.
He says that yearly 1,000,800 bloodunits are produced in Iran and that 40% of this blood is donated.
Out of every 1000 individuals 25 donate blood, this is a high rate compared to other regional countries



President Ahmadinejad said that Iran needs also an economy independent from oilrevenues.
He was in Khuzestan where he inaugurated four industrial projects.
Monday he opened in Ahwaz a sponge iron factory with 120 direct and 1,200 indirect jobs,
The project is designed and built by Khuzestan Steel Company at a cost of $100 million.
The environment-friendly project will produce sponge iron based on international standards saving 25 percent in foreign currency if the item would have to be imported.


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: transport

According to PressTV Iran has warned that it could feel the need to use force to release the by Somali pirates hijacked ship.
The deputy Minister of Road and Transportation said that if it is necessary to launch a military operation, the international community has already given the military go-ahead.
At this moment more then 15 ships have been hijacked.


Iran believes that the OPEC should further slash the output of oil, based of falling oilprices.
In October OPEC decided to cut production by 1.5 million barrels a day, but this did not stop oil prices from falling.
The daily Resalat wrote that the OPEC envoy said that OPEC needs to further reduce production.
November 29 OPEC s scheduled to hold a meeting and speculations are that member nations will agree to cut output again in a bid stop dropping oil prices.


Abdullah Ghasem-Zadeh, Sahand-Ali Mohammadi en Bakhsh-Ali Mohammadi are transferred from Ahle Hagheprison in Oromieh to the prison in Yazd to spend their sentence from 2005 of a 13-year jail term combined with exile.
The list of charges included publishing insulting propaganda, publishing controversial beliefs that are considered heresy, insulting the leadership, refusing to follow orders by policemen, possession of illegal weapons, and waging war against the regime.
Other members of the group Mehdi Ghasem-Zadeh en Younes Aghayan are sentenced to death and are still in prison.



The human rights activists Verya Eskandari en Diako Ghobadi were arrested by security agents October 25th in the city of Kamyaran, Kurdistan province.
The city of Kamyaran has no revolutionary court and an individual named Zarei said he is a judge in Kamyaran’s General Court, and will review the political-related case for both detainees.
Since then he gave no further information and finally the information desk inside the Ministry of Intelligence in the city of Sanandaj, told family members that the detainees would not be allowed to have any visitors for the time being.


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: outspoken

The deathsentence of Hossein Toranj who was sentenced to death for an alleged murder when he was 17 years old is confirmed by a supreme court.
The daily Kargozaran reported that the lawyer of Hossein Toranj has said that the murder was an accident and self-defence.



In the trial of 3 men accused of bombing of the mosque in Shiraz, the prosecutor Saturday called for the geeist deathpenalty.
Mohsen Eslamian, 21, Ali Asghar Pashtar, 20 and Rouzbeh Yahyazadeh,32,are on trial in Tehran, for allegedly bombing a mosque, "belonging to a terrorist group," cooperating with hostile armed groups, seeking to overthrow the Islamic system and planning to launch other bomb attacks.
The security forces originally detained 15 suspects and will ask the deathpenalty for 7 of them. Iran also accuses USA and Great Britain of financing the attackers.



The Iranian Foreign Minister said that Iran is seeking to release the ship which Tuesday was kidnapped by Somalian pirates.
The Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship Delight and 25 crewmembers is kidnapped for the coast of Yemen.The ship carried 36,000tons of wheat to Iran.
Earlier this year the Iranian ship Iran Deynat was kidnapped and released in October after payment of ransome.


The Tabnak Internet site reports that a underground rapsinger is arrested.Rapsinger Amir Tatalo had appeared in a video clip by a singer residing in Los Angeles. He was arrested upon his return in Iran.
The site Baztab reported that considering the increasing influence of negative rap singers, impacting the works of positive groups active in this area, wide-spread attempts are being conducted to detain the leaders.


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: policies

In the Bandprison of the city Bandar Abbas is november 20 a man hanged.
The newsagency ISCAnews reported that the man, Majid J., was convicted for drugstrafficking.
Fars newsagency reports that last Monday Ali Ashtari, 45 is hanged.
Ashtari was convicted for espionage for Israel.
After his arrest in 2007 he admitted having had contacts with agents of Israelian Mossad and receiving $50,000 to buy internet cables and satellite phones. He was found guilty on June 30th and sentenced to death.


USA asks Iran again to cooperate in finding Robert Levinson, the American who disappeared from Kish Island last year.
There still is no information about what happened to him after his arrival. He was last seen checking out of the hotel Maryam.



The Iranian minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mohammad Jahromi has announced that he will run in the presidential elections.
He has played a role in laying out the government's economic policy during the Ahmadinejad legislation.
Recently he made critically comments over the non-implementation of a number of economic directives, especially the government's monetary, stock market and employment policies.
Former interior minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, has also announced his candidacy for the 2009 presidential elections.


The daily Kargozaran writes that the Iranian Minister of Energy confirmed that the drinking water of the city of Tehran is contaminated with the dangerous element nitrate.
He could not say how the drinkingwater got contaminated.
Dams supply 70 percent of Tehran’s water consumption, while the remaining 30% is pumped from wells, a number of which are in the capital.
It is possible at times that the water from wells may be mixed with sewage.


Reporters without Borders condemns the arrest of Shahnaz Gholami, an onlinejournalist who was arrested November 9th.There are no official reasons given for her arrest.
September 20th, she was sentenced to six months in prison for "publicity against the Islamic Republic,” on the blog Azar Zan (fa),but she was free pending the outcome of her 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

Iran: blogfather

Wellknown Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan (Hoder) is arrested in Tehran.
After having lived in Canada and London he came to Tehran to live in Iran again.
His last blog is dated October 6.
Reports say he is arrested on charges of espionage.
GlobalVoicesOnline wrote in an update that IRNA reported (fa) November 17th, that Derakhshan has said in a statement that many of the people who fled Iran are living in the worst conditions, are addicted to tranquilizers and some tried to commit suicide.
He also said that people were paid to write on anti-Iranian websites.
Blogger Nart Villeneuve asks if you believe in freedom of expression and human rights — even if you disagree with Hossein’s opinions — support calls for his release.
Derakhshan is a fighter for freedom of expression and is seen as the blogfather of Iran, but in the last year he was strongly criticised because of his concern over western efforts to demonize Iran. He believes the reform debate should continue, but internally. He is an outspoken opponent of military action against Iran and supports Iranian nuclear weapons for defensive purposes.


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: wield the axe

Sahand-Ali Mohammadi, Bakhsh-Ali Mohammadi, Abadullah Ghasemzadeh, Mehdi Ghasemzadeh en Yunis Aghayan, all from Ahle Haghprison in Oromieh, ended after 54 days their hungerstrike based on a request by their leader. Their fysical condition is bad. None of their demands were meet.
They started the hungerstrike to achieve better conditions in Ahle Haghprison.

Hashem Barzegar (Yashar Gonili), an Azeri activist and a law student in the Pyam Noor University in Tehran,was arrested November 9 by agents from the Ministry of Intelligence.
Since then he only was allowed after 3 days to contact his family once.
His whereabouts are unknown but his familymembers think that he is in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin Prison.

GlobalVoicesOnline writes that the daily Etemaad reported (fa) that two-centuries-old mulberry trees in Gilan province, Iran are cut down under the pretext of fighting local superstitions. Authorities claim the trees are cut down for constructionworks.
Some people are placing candles and ribbons under them as part of an ancient ritual, dating from the Zoroastrians.
Also "green" bloggers write down their astonishment of such destruction.
Mohmmad Darvish, an environmentalist writes (fa) among other things that "Iran is a low forest cover and that it is better instead of cutting down innocent trees, to fight against the roots of superstition".
Blogger Earth Soldier writes (fa) that "superstition is created by people and the trees are innocent".
(Photo blog Mohmmad Darvish).

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