Iran: threats

The General Prosecutor of Iran said that Iran will not allow threats against national security.
He told IRNA that no one is questioned or tried on the basis of having a different religion or belonging to a different sect, the only thing that the government will not allow is an activity that threatens national security.
If any group breaches the law, the judiciary system will oppose it and the government will not allow any country to interfere in the process.
About the seven Bahai' he said that although they have undertaken many illegal commercial activities, this group is going to be charged with threatening national security.
Earlier he said that members of Bahai'sect were respected as human beings but not as spies, or a political grouplet supported by Britain and Israel to create disturbances in Iran.


Human Rights Watch writes that Iran should immediately release 10 arrested students of Amir Kabir university.
At a protest against reburial of dead Iran-Iraq war soldiers on campus grounds, February 23, were 70 students arrested. Two remain in detention, but their names have not been released.

Also four students who were arrested at home, Nariman Mostafavi, Abbas Hakimzadeh, Mehdi Mashayekhi, and Ahmad Ghasaban, all belonging to the Islamic Student Organization (Anjoman-e Islami-yeh Daneshjooyan) or the National Organization for Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat) are still imprisoned.
Also Hossein Torkashvand, Majid Tavakoli, Korosh Daneshyar, and Esmail Salmanpour were arrested at the public ceremony in Tehran commemorating the first Prime Minister in Iran after the revolution of 1979.
All students are detained in Evin prison and are not allowed to contact their families or lawyers.


A Pakistani security official will Saturday hold talks with Iranian officials about the rise in terrorist activities by arms smugglers and Pakistan-based armed terrorist groups, such as Jundullah.
Last year Jundullah abducted 16 policemen and executed them on camera. Also an Iranian diplomat was abducted by unidentified gunmen.
The Iranian government asked Pakistan to increase its efforts to release the diplomat.


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: professions

Kaveh Rezaei, a human rights activist and member of the OneMillionSignatures Campaign is arrested six days ago by agents from the Ministry of Intelligence in the city of Hashtgerd and was transferred to Hamedan jail.

Azadna reports that the judge has set a bail bond of $10,000, but till now the family has not been able to fund the amount.

Ali-Akbar Pirhadi, a member of the management board in the Bus Drivers union,is arrested February 21 in the city of Karaj by agents of the intelligence forces.He was taken to an undisclosed location.
The reason for his detention remains unclear.



Radio Farda reported that last week a number of sportsjournalists were arrested.
Naser Ahmadpour, the managing editor of Sport News (Khabar Varzeshi), Mehdi Hazbari, executive manager of Ninety (Navad) paper,
Hamed Ghasemi, the sport writer for Alborz Sport (Alborz Varzeshi) and Ahad Alavi, reporter of the newspaper Gol, were arrested at work and after searching their homes, they were transferred to Evin prison.
Raja News website,which is in line with the government, published an article with the title of ” Detention of three meddling suspects using sport journalism as a tool”, which said these journalists have been monitored in recent months.


According to reports of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company Workers’ Syndicate, is Rahim Beshagh,a member of the board of directors of the Haft Tapeh Syndicate, arrested on February 22.
He had gone to the court in the city of Shoush for a private matter,and was ordered by the judge to go to the intelligent office for questions regarding the Syndicate and his opposition to the Islamic Labour Council, which is a pro-government/pro-employer association in the workplace to control labour activities.
Since no news about his situation is given.



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: true or not true

23 februari wrote the NRC-correspondent in an article that he was informed by lawyer Dadkhah of the Iranian human rights organization Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) that human rights activist and chairman of the ALO Abdullah Al Mansouri was not sentenced to 30 years in prison,but was sentenced to 11 years.
He was convicted of "propagation against the system". This accusation is not as heavily penalized as terrorism.
The son of Abdullah al Mansouri fights (pdf) this and other parts of the article.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed that the Dutch ambassador in Tehran was informed that the sentence for Al Mansouri is 30 years in prison.
The ALO, the organization of which Al Mansouri is chairman, is a resistance-organization in Ahwaz(Khuzestan province), which is, also due to the violent acts from some of the affiliated groups, not supported by the mostly ethnic Arabs and Persian population.
The Iranian government banned the organization on accusation of aiming at separatism.
IranVNC writes that Mehr Newsagency also reported that Abdullah Al Mansouri is sentenced to 30 years in prison for “terrorist activities”.


The journalist and blogger Omid Habibinia writes an article on Worldpressblog about the lifting in recent weeks of the filter on social network sites like Facebook and Youtube.
Also various blogs can be reached again for Iranian bloggers. Iran has approximately 2.5 million blogs drawing some 5 million hits per day.
At the same time as the filter was lifted, a new and virulent wave of Internet attacks against many journalists and activists inside and outside of Iran has begun to emerge.
Habibinia discovered that he already existed on Facebook, and that his ID not only had added friends and collegues, but also his sister.
Fake ID holders have contacted other friends and asked some "strange questions."
His G-mail account was also accessed and sensible data was searched.
From Balatarin, the Persian version of Digg.com.were the owners'ID stolen and was tried to access their bankaccounts.
At the same time, Balatarin was ordered to reformat their servers, making it more difficult to discover the identities of the hackers.
Also of the video site Youtube a lot of videos showing demonstrations or protests were removed while in a two-day period, 200 reports are received asking for the removal of certain videos.
For bloggers as for journalists it is hard to know if the person you're contacting is really that person.

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: two worlds

President Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to parliament stating that if his bill to rearrange subsidies is not originally accepted, the Economy Reform Plan should be shelved.
The aim of the plan is to reduce dependencies on oil revenues and tackling the country's root economic problems, including a rising inflation.
Fars reported that the rapporteur of the Majlis Energy Commission said that the government had asked for 35 billion dollars while the parliament only approved of 8.5 billion dollars.


Out of 70 arrested students, the authorities released 40 detainees, but reportedly transferred the remaining 30 students to Tehran’s Evin Prison.
On 24 February, security agents attacked the homes of four Amir Kabir students, Ahmad Ghasaban, Nariman Mostafavi, Mehdi Mashayekhi, and Abbas Hakimzadeh and detained them.
The students are former and present members of the university’s Islamic Students Association.
Four other students Majid Tavakoli, Hossein Torkashvand, Esmaiel Salmanpour and Kourosh Daneshyar are since 5 February detained in Evinprison, after they and 20 others were arrested at a ceremony to honor the first Iranian prime minister after the revolution of 1979. This annual event had been announced publicly.
The students went on hungerstrike, protesting their treatment.

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: back

In Ahwaz, capital of Khuzestan province were February 18 three men hanged.
Their names are not known, all three were convicted of murder.


Ashraf Kalhori,who was in 2006 convicted to death by stoning for adultry is according to daily Etemad in imminent danger of execution.
Her lawyer told the newspaper that they halted the execution in 2006 and that they were hoping that she will be pardoned, but are informed that she will be among the first groups being executed in Tehran.


Iran Human Rights has published its annual report about the yearly executions in Iran.The actual number of the executions in Iran is much higher then the reported 282 executions.
Not always are executions announced. At this moment an additional 70 reports of execution are in the proces of being confirmed.
In case of confirming these cases, the actual number will exceed 350.
According to a recent report by Amnesty International, at least 346 people have been executed in 2008 in Iran.
All the news published by Iran Human Rights is based on the verified reports in official Iranian media. Only in rare cases they referred to sources that have proven to be very reliable.
A spokesman for Iran Human Rights network said that the increase in number of the executions is in line with a general deterioration in the human rights situation in Iran.
The complete report can be read here.


BBC reports that 70 students were arrested.
They protested among other things to the re-bury of war dead from the Iran-Iraq War in the grounds of the Amir Kabir university in Tehran.
A group of students carried banners, complaining that their campus was being turned into a cemetery. Others also said the Evin prison in Tehran was being turned into a university - because of the number of students being held there.
Witnesses said there were clashes between the protesting students, members of the security forces and other students loyal to the government.

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: numbers

Newsagency Shomal reported that Thursday in the city of Sari, not only Abdollah Farivar who was convicted of adultry was hanged, but also another person.
The name, sex or age was not revealed, but they were convicted of immoral relationship.

February 22 are in Evinprison in Tehran three men hanged.
The men, Mansour (34), Aziz (25) and Hasan (25) were according to daily Iran, convicted for murder.



According to Iranpressnews 16 convicts have been transferred to Evin prison for execution.
Hani Khandar, Aziz Mohseni and Hamid Mohammadi are among those to be executed.
All three are convicted of "corruption on earth".
The prisoners have all been tortured during arrest.



Iran urged Pakistan to secure its borders.
The Iranian Foreign Minister says that bandits and terrorist groups who strive to strain Tehran-Islamabad relations should be seriously cracked down.
The province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has witnessed a rise in terrorist activities by arms smugglers and Pakistani-based armed terrorist groups, such as Jundullah who murdered 16 policemen last year.
In recent months Iranian forces have tightened security and adopted new security measures along the country's borders. Close to 120 insurgents have been killed and many others arrested.
The Minister als asked Islamabad to to increase its efforts to ensure the release of in November 2008 abducted Iranian diplomat Heshmatollah Attarzadeh Niyaki.



Tehran warned Pakistan about the "silent massmurder" by Taliban in the pakistan border town of Parachinar.
Members of Shia faith are being killed by Sunni Taliban.
Although there was few attention for it in (western)media , there were in recent months in Kurram Agency of which Parachinar is the capital, killings of 25 to 30 people a day, or,like other reports mention, a total of 1,300 people.
An Iranian parlementarian said that except for Shia countries, like Iraq and Iran, nor human rights organizations, nor media has published about this "clear genocide".
Past 19 months the 550,000 residents have been suffering shortages of vital supplies, as all roads connecting the region to Pakistan have come under Taliban control.
Most reliefconvoys did not reach the town,while they came under attack by militants, who generally kill the drivers and confiscate the cargoes of food and medicine.



Some 90 kilometers of the Karkheh River in Khuzestan province is polluted by oil of the Dehloran-Ahvaz pipeline.
Water supplies of the cities near the river were cut to prevent issues of water contamination.
There has been no report on the damage of the contamination.
The Persian Gulf Oil leakage at Iran's Abouzar rig has contaminated the waters of Kharg island.
Emergency workers have been dispatched to the area to prevent the spread of the contamination to the coast of Bushehr province.


The Dutch ambassador in Tehran has got confirmation that Abdullah Al Mansouri is sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Al Mansouri lives in The Netherlands since 1988 and is Dutch citizen.
In The Netherlands he was involved at Amnesty International and the independence of Ahwaz(Khuzestan province).
The Dutch Foreign Minister said that the Netherlands will continue to lobby on his behalf.


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: filter

The execution of the childoffender Amir Khaleghi that was scheduled to take place today, has been postponed for two months.
In a meeting with the Iranian chargé d’affaires, he Norwegian ministry of foreign affairs expressed serious concerns about the scheduled execution.


GlobalVoicesOnline writes that pro-Khatami blogs Jaari News(fa) and Yaari (fa) are filtered by Iranian authorities.


Press-TV writes that misrepresented imported goods from abroad are not allowed by the Customs Import Bureau of Iran to be imported in Iran.
Clause 12 of the Customs Affairs Act says that importing goods, which bear on itself or on its wrappings the name or address of a corporation, or any specification which may lead to the deception of the purchaser and consumer with respect to the original manufacturer, specifications or qualities thereof, is not allowed.
Customhouses have been instructed not to allow:
Goods bearing the standard emblem of Iran,
Goods bearing an Iranian trademark and Farsi language script on its packaging.
If Iranian goods, for any reason, have been manufactured abroad and this has been an ongoing business,these can be released upon the agreement of the Ministry of Industries and Mines.


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: gatherings

The appeals court in the city of Sanandaj confirmed 17 february the sentencing of Habibullah Latifi.
Latifa was sentenced to death in a courtsession behind closed doors.
His lawyer reports that Latifi, a student activist on Ilam Independent University was tortured while he was held in the Ministry of Intelligence detention center.


The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that two female labouractivists Sussan Razani and Shiva Kheirabadi were flogged for their participation in May Day celebrations on May 1 2008.
Originally both women were sentenced to respectively 9 months suspended jail and 70 lashes and 4 months suspended jail and 40 lashes.
The appeals court reinstated the lower court’s sentence for Razani but reduced Kheirabadi’s sentence from 40 lashes to 15 lashes.
The sentence was carried out Februar 118 in the prison of Sanandaj.
The court also sentenced two other labor activists, Abdullah Khani and Syed Ghalib Husseini, for participating in the same event to prison terms and flogging.
Also last year were in February labouractivists sentenced to fines and lashes for participating in the May Day 2007 celebration.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran calls on the government of Iran to honor Article 22 of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of which Iran is a signatory. This article recognizes workers’ fundamental rights to freedom of association and to form unions to protect their interests.
(Photo Labourstart)


One day after the demolition of the Sufi worshiphouse in Isfahan several dervishes are injured and some 30 are arrested.
This happened when they gathered next to the tomb of dervish poet Naser Ali where their house of worship was located.
The Gonabaddervishes have announced they will gather on February 21 in front of the Iranian parliament in Tehran to protest.


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: possibility

February 19 in the prison of Sari Abdollah Farivar Moghadam has been hanged.
Originally Moghadam was sentenced to death by stoning for adultry, but this verdict was changed in death by hanging.
Shadi Sadr, lawyer of the Stop Stoning Campaign, told that this was the first time that someone sentenced to death by stoning has been hanged.


Reports say that Amir Khaleghi (18), who is sentenced to death for a murder he alledgedly committed when he was 16-years-old, is scheduled to be executed in Tehran’s Evin prison on Sunday February22.

Hossein Toranj , who was sentenced to death for stabbing a man during a fight in 2003 when he was 17-years-old, has been pardoned by the victims family and after the bloodmoney is paid, he will be released soon.


February 18, members of the security forces, police, and plainclothes agents destroyed a Sufi house of worship in Isfahan.It was located next to the tomb of the great poet and dervish Naser Ali at the historical Takht-e Foulad cemetery.
Because more and more Sufi houses of worshipping are destroyed in Iran, several of the local dervishes were spending nights at the house to keep watch.
They were detained and transferred to a police station and their mobile phones were taken away.
One of the dervishes told RFE/RL that water and electricity were cut off and the walls of the tomb were destroyed with a bulldozer.
They also destroyed the library and took carpets and other properties.
In recent years Gonabadi dervishes are under heavy persecution of conservative clerics and the government.
Accusations are that Sufism is a deviation from true Islam.Sufi's have been arrested and been sentenced to lashings.


Bahrain stopped negotiations about a gasdeal with Iran after an Iranian member of parliament had criticized the shah for giving up Iran's right to its 14th province, which is now Bahrain.
Following, Bahrain left the negotiations and people of Iran are prevented from traveling to the country.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Iran respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all neighboring and regional countries and has no claim on Bahrain.


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: position

The website "Activists for democracy and human rights in Iran" writes that the names of the yesterday in Isfahan executed men are Hamid Babaei (35),Mohammad Gorgi (25),Omid Noori (27)Yasin Jafari (27)Abbasali Ghasemi (30).
Three of them were convicted for drugstrafficking, two were convicted for murder.



The lawyer of the minor Rahim Ahmadi told that the execution is postponed after a direct order of the head of justice.
He was scheduled to be executed today.




The blog "Forever under construction" of Homeyra has published 3 links to short video's of Iran by travel writer Rick Steves shown January 26th in California.






Near Lake Parishan, Fars province, are in the lasts months thousands of tortoises, birds, snakes and other animals burnt to death.
Employees of the Iranian Ministry of Transport purposely have burned out the territory around the lake to lay a road between Shahringan and Parishan villages.
The distance between both villages is 5 km, in total 28 hectares of woods were burnt out.
The ministry announced that fire took place in 800 square meter territory to reduce consequences of fire.


Reporters without Borders condemns the travelban of a freelance journalist and staunch free speech activist, Abolreza Tajik.
As he was about to board a flight to Spain at Tehran’s Imam Khomeiny airport yesterday, security agents seized his passport and summoned him to appear before a revolutionary tribunal.
A member of Human Rights Defenders Centre said that Tajik was travelling to Sevilla to attend a 2-days seminar. The seminar was entitled "Iran and 30 years of Revolution." .
Tajik was a regular contributor to Bahar (suspended in 2001), Hambastegi (suspended in 2003) and Shargh (suspended in 2008).


The Iranian bank Mellat has sold about half of its offered five percent shares to private investors.
Because of the bank's upcoming privatization, 393 million of shares should have been sold,but around 340 million shares were sold at a price of about (11 cents).
The head of Iran's Privatization Organization said that Tehran Stock Exchange approved the deal, adding that the rest of the bank's shares would be sold on Saturday.
Bank Mellat plans to offer another 20 percent of its shares to the private sector within a year.


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