Iran: lawfully/unlawful

In the prison of Isfahan are Sunday two men hanged.
The website of the statebroadcaster said that the unidentified men were convicted for the murder on a couple in Damaneh.



Thursday is in the prison of Sanandaj a man hanged.The man, Ahmad Khalaj was sentenced to death by hanging by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj.The sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court.
The way the execution was conducted, makes the execution order questionable and shows a lack of regards for the laws by authorities.
Ahmad Khalaj only learned of his execution on the morning of that day, and initially tried to commit suicide.
He suffered heavy blood loss and was rendered unconscious. He was transfered to a medical facility where his injuries were attended to.
Judge Baba'i, assigned to Sanandaj’s Revolutionary Court, Branch 1, insisted on proceeding with the execution order.
Iranian law states that in cases where an individual is not medically fit, the person cannot be put to death until the individual has fully recovered.
Furthermore, the law says that an execution should be done before sunrise, otherwise it must be postponed to another date.
Ahmad Khalaj’s execution occurred after 11:00 am while he was still suffering and bleeding to the extent that he was too weak to stand on his own.


In the city of Tehran the narcotic police have busted weapons, 800kg drugs and arrested drug dealers in an overnight operation.
A crackdown on drug and weapons dealers was launched last year to maintain social safety.
The spokesman for the police said that the crackdown was still in effect and that the police will continue tracking down drug cartels.



According to the newspaper Etemad, the death sentence of the juvenile offender Mohammad Fadaei, is going to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court.
He was scheduled to be executed June 11, but his sentence was postponed partly due to pressure from the international community.
Faeie alledgedly committed a murder when he was a minor.
He says he had confessed to the crime under torture.
Also he was convicted in a Court, where his defence lawyers were false lawyers.


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: Quantities

On the anniversary of the 1999 student riots, Iranian authorities arrested a number of student activists in Tehran and Mashhad
Ali Gholizadeh, secretary of the Islamic Student Association of Shahroud University
Ali Saberi, former secretary of Islamic Student Association of Polytechnical University
Salman Sima, Azad University student activist,
Mehdi Khodayee, Azad University student activist
Reza Arab, Mehdi Qodsi, Amir Sarabi, Majid Asadi, Mojtaba Emadpour, Bayat, Towhid Dowlatshenas, Mohammad Zera'ati, Farzad Hassanzadeh, Sajjad Rajabi, Mohammad Mizban, Ashkan Arshian, student activists
Mohammad Ehsani, both Sistan va Balouchestan University student activist and former secretary of the Islamic Student Association.
According to Advarnews(fa) the arrested students are transferred to ward 209, Evinprison.


The head of Iran's Tobacco Company has denied that the country directly imports cigarettes from the United States.
He said that Iran imports cigarettes through multinational firms and not directly from the US.
He said this in response to a report which said that the US has exported $158 million worth of cigarettes to Iran during George W. Bush's term as president.
The american presidential candidate McCain recently joked in response to the report that the US could kill Iranians by sending them cigarettes.



President Ahmadinejad replaced the Minister for Transportation.
As caretaker he apponted Hamid Behbahani.
He told journalists that it is not unusual to make changes in a country of 70 million, provided these changes do not negatively affect the country's affairs.
The Supreme Leader Ayatolla Khamenei appointed new commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Brigadier-General Mohammad Jafar Assadi was appointed commander of IRGC's ground force, and Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb was named the new commander of IRGC's Basij force.
Brigadier-general Mohammad Hejazi, retaining his post as acting IRGC commander, was appointed commander of the Sarallah Military Base.


Iran released 22 Indian nationals.
They were aboard 5 Saudi fishing boats that were seized last week while fishing in Iranian territorial waters near Bushehr.
According to the head of Saudi borderpolice all vessels returned “safely” to Darin, on the Saudi east coast.



The Iranian police discovered 1500 kg drugs and arms in Iranshahr, Sistan-e-Baluchestan province.
This happened after chasing and stopping two suspect vehicles. Three people were arrested.
Also a large amount of weapons such as RPGs, automatic weapons and Kalashnikovs and a large amount of munitions were seized from the smugglers.


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: rightly/wrongly

The deathsentences of Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heydarian and Farhad Vakili are approved by the Iranian Supreme Court.
Farzad Kamangar, a Kurdish teacher, was sentenecd to death Februar 25 by branch 30.
He was charged for being member of the Kurdish organization PKK.
Ali Heydarian and Farhad Vakili were sentenced by the same court to 10 years of prison and execution.



The public hanging of Ahmad (32),who was scheduled to take place on Thursday July 10. in a village outside Varamin, is postponed for a month.
The decision of postponing the execution was made by the family of the victim, while the noose was already around Ahmad’s neck.



Mahboubeh Karami and nine women who were illegal arrested, three weeks ago, while being passengers in a bus passing by a protestdemonstration at Mellat Park, Tehran, have all decided to go on hunger strike.
Karami's lawyer said that he has not succeeded to visit her and that he is not aware of the charges against her.
The mother of Karami told that her daughter has said in a telephone conversation that she is beaten and with 9 other women, varying in age from 17 to 70, is detained in a small cell on ward 209, Evinprison, Tehran.
Mahboubeh Karami is a member of the One Million Signature Campaign


The newspaper Jam-e Jam reported that Iranian police has arrested a serial killer.
The man, Babak, is suspected of murdering eight women.
The police recovered the bodies of six women wrapped in bedsheets from the streets of Karaj in the past six months.
All women were strangled to death by their scarves.
The man confessed and said to the police that he hated women because two of his relationships had failed.


Iran has voluntarily reduced its caviar export quota from the Caspian Sea by one ton this year.
The director of Iran's Sturgeon Research Institute said that Iran will export 42 tons in 2008, instead of the allowed 43 tons.
Iranian scientists estimate that sturgeon could be extinct within 14 years if poaching is not controlled.
The quata is set each year by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species for the five Caspian Sea countries.
These countries are Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia.


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: decrease

In the city of Borazjan, Bushehr province, are July 10, four men hanged in public.
Their initials are H. N. A - P. M - h. G (fa).
They all were convicted for murder. One of them was an Afghan national, the other three men were from Bushehr province.
The public hangings were a warning to "ashrar", a term used for those who disrupt public order and who fight with the authorities.


The unemployment rate in Iran has fallen below the 10 percent mark for the first time in recent years.
According to the latest data by the Iran Statistics Center,unemployment stood at 9.6 percent during the past season.
Compared to spring 2007 this is a 1.1 percent fall, and compared to spring 2006, this is a fall from 1.4 percent.
Reducing unemployment rate below 10% has always been a challenge to Iran.
Every year 750,000 people enter the labor market.


The Dutch newspaper NRC reports(du) July 9, that a group of Iranian-Dutch students has protested against the decision of Dutch Foreign Minister Verhagen to exclude Iranian students from specified studies.
This decision comes after a change in the law dealing with the sanctions because of UN-resolution 1737 concerning Iran.
Through these extended sanctions (du) Iranians, also those with a Dutch passport are excluded from 9 studies at Dutch universities and work at specified companies.




The weblog Critical Distance shows a video about the entertaining Tehran traffic.

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: storm

Amnesty International reports that Davoud Abdollahi Moghadam, 40 years, armycolonel is hanged in Evinprison Tehran. He was sentenced to death in Februar 2007 on charges of spying.
Moghadam was arrested 11 years ago and was in Evinprison since 2006.

Newspaper Kargozaran reports that July 10 a man, Ahmad (32) will be hanged in public in the village Ahmadabad near the city Varamin.
This will be the first public hanging since Shahroudi, head of the Iranian judiciary, sent an order banning public hangings unless special permission is given by him. He has now approved the public execution.



On the third day of the military maneuvers called Great Prophet III, Iran tested long range missiles from a ship in the Persian Gulf.
Wednesday the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired nine long and medium range missiles including the Shahab 1, 2, 3, Fateh and Zelzal rockets.
There were also scuba divers and marines who conducted practice assaults with speed boats on hypothetical enemy targets.


Since a few days an e-mail with the text Worldwar III broke out and USA already attacked Iran, circulates.The mail links to a malicious website with an embedded video.
When people click on the videolink, an trojanexploit iran_occupation.exe is executed.
The name of the trojan is Storm Worm.
Domainnames, used by the worm are statenewsworld.com, morenewsonline.com,
dailydotnews.com, dotdailynews.com en newsworldnow.com.


Iran Focus reports that a military fighterjet has crashed in Ahwaz, Khuzestan.
ALO reports that the Ahwazi Brigade "Fatah Al-Ahwaz" took responsibility for the attack. The attack was a retaliation for the burning-down by the government of palmfarms near Abadancity, to force the farmers to clear the area.

The ALO states that Arab and Iranian media also aacknowledged the retaliation.
(elaph.com and IRNA (fa)).


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

Time out

The next few days I have no computer.
I expect to be back online end this week.

Iran: mental security

The Iranian parliament will discuss a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet.
New is that the bill includes "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy".
This is a new addition to crimes punishable by death, such as rape, armed robbery and apostasy.
Those convicted of these crimes "should be punished as "mohareb' (enemy of God) and "corrupt on the earth'.
Under Iranian law the standard punishments for these two crimes are "hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile".
In recent years, some Iranian bloggers have been sent to jail and many have had their sites
filtered.
If this bill is accepted, bloggers could be legally executed as criminals.
No one has defined what it means to “disturb mental security in society”.
Read more on Global Voices Online


Sadigh Banai, journalist on the magazine Nasou, is arrested
Thursday for having published reports that were "false and biased" having been accused of "collaboration with counter-revolutionary groups."
Currently there are four kurdish journalists in jail.
Sadig Kabovand who is sentenced to 11 years in prison and Hiwa Boutimar and Adnan
Hassanpour who are sentenced to death.
Reporters without Borders reports that a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, the editor of Etemad Melli.
The newspaper had published an article, critical of president Ahmadinejad that was previously
posted on a blog.
Rasoul Montajab-Nia, a religious leader and member of the Etemad Melli party, condemned June 30 in a blog president Ahmadinejads comment that the hand of the Mahdi (regarded by Shiites as the twelfth and last imam) was “visible in the management of all the country’s 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

Iran: shake

July 4, 03,40 local time, there was an earthquake west of the city of Kashmar, Khorasan(central)province with a magnitude of 4,8 Richter scale.
Except for damaged buildings, no personal injuries were reported.



According to police in Bushehr, four foreign fishingboats were captured, illegally fishing in Persian Gulf waters.
The fishing vessels were Saudi-Arabian and the crew were 17 Indian nationals.
The documents are confiscated and the vessels are held in naval police headquarters in Southern Iran.


The peace group of the Dutch youth with the motto of "Global Peace and Promotion of Friendship among Nations" arrived in Tabriz,on their way to the Olympic Games in China.
They were received by the mayor of Tabriz.
They are scheduled to pass through the Iranian cities of Qazvin, Isfahan, Tehran and Gorgan.


During a speech in Tehran, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi warned the West for forcefully attacking Iran or imposing economic sanctions over its contested nuclear programme.
They would spread destitution in Iran and we will do our best to prevent this disaster occurring,she said.
The speech marked the formation of a "National Peace Council" of around 70 dissident Iranian politicians, social activists and intellectuals.
On the list of founding members of the council are Ibrahim Yazdi, head of the outlawed but tolerated Freedom Movement and Hashem Aghajari, who was sentenced to death but pardoned for apostasy.
Also film director Jafar Panahi, winner of prizes at the Berlin and Venice film festivals and Iran's leading female film-maker Rakhshan Bani Etemad are on the list.


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: work

July 2nd are 3 men hanged in Evinprison in Tehran.
Hamidreza M. (26) convicted of murdering Roohollah (21) in 2006, Reza (age not given) convicted of murdering Ramin R. in 2006 and Naghib (age not given) convicted of murdering Abdulrasoul in 2004.
Four others, Vahid R (31), Firooz (27), Ali and Majid B. were also scheduled to be executed, but the execution of the first three was postponed and Majid B. was forgiven by the victims family.



The Iranian judiciary head has appointed former Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi as the Head of the General Investigation Organization.
The previous head of the organization, has been appointed as the deputy of Iran's Supreme Court.
Pourmohammadi was the first interior minister in Iran's ninth government and was replaced for Mehdi Hashemi by President Ahmadinejad.


Iranian filmdirector Behrouz Afkhami worked for the past four years on a film about the life of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamitic Republic of Iran.
The film, Farzand-e Sobh (The Morning's Child) is set to be released in Iran in February during the official celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Without wanting to be a biography, the film focuses on Khomeini's childhood in his parents' home in the city of Khomein.
But it also includes Khomeini's sermons railing against the rule of the shah in the 1960s which led to his arrest by the SAVAK secret police and exile from Iran.
The film was suggested by the institute charged with promoting Khomeini's work.
A large percentage of Iran's predominantly youthful population were too young to have even been born when Khomeini was alive.
Akhami made his name with a number of social dramas, including Shokaran (Hemlock).
He also was a member of the reformist parliament between 2000-2004.
The director also said that the shooting of Farzand-e Sobh was not always smooth and sometimes they received threats and warnings from some regarding the choices for the cast.


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: performance

In the prison of the city of Isfahan is a man hanged.
His name was Hamid Reza Q and he was sentenced for a murder he committed in 2006.
The daily "Ebrat" says (fa) that he was 19 year old. Then he would have been a minor when he committed the crime.
According to the site "Democracy and human rights activists in Iran" Hamid was born in 1986.
Iran Human rights is investigating whether Hamid was or was not a minor at the time of the offense.


Iran Khodro has signed an agreement to export 10,000 cars.The agreement is worth $73 million.
The contract for exporting kits for 10,000 Samand sedans, set to be manufactured in Azerbaijan, was signed between Iran Khodro Company (IKCO), Azerbaijan's Elite Industrial and Trade Group, and the Export Development Bank of Iran.
The factory in Azerbaijan, which was opened in 2006, has an annual production capacity of 5,000 units and manufactures the sedans under the name, AzSamand.



Friday June 27, were more than 200 people arrested in Mellatpark, Mashhad.
They held a demonstration against the high cost of living.
Under those arrested were two students of Ferdowsi university.
Their names are Tohid Dolatshahi and Farzod Hasanzodeh..
Reports say that neither of the students had participated in the demonstration and were attacked while sitting on a park bench.
Security guards dressed in orange uniforms, attacked everyone in the area of the protest regardless of whether or not they were active in the demonstration.
The police also used cameras to record everybody in the park.



Mehdi Mahmoudi, and Sayed Bagher Sajodi,both students from the University of Sistan and Baluchistan were sentenced to 6 months in jail,by Branch 10 of the court in Zahedan.
They were arrested in April after holding a forum to discuss the ninth government’s economic and foreign policy performance.
Yunes Mir-Hosseini, a student activist from Shiraz University,is sentenced to a one-year suspended jail term for the next four years.
He was charged with propaganda against the government, membership in organizations opposing the government, and publicizing on behalf of anti-government organizations.(Source: Amir Kabir Newsletter)

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: ground

At least 19 people got killed when a building collapsed in Tehran.
Monday, when the building collapsed, a 20-member workforce was present in the building.
Five people were arrested immediately, under them the buildings owner and the contractors.


According to Iranian stateradio at least 25 people got killed and 16 wounded at a busaccident.
The accident happened 35 kilometers outside Tehran, on the road from Tehran to Qum.
The police investigates the cause of the accident.


The religious center of dervishes associated with Namatullahi Gonabadi in the city of Ahwaz has been attacked with molotowcocktails.
The centres caretaker was attacked with a knife and hospitalized.
Witnesses told that four men entered posing as representative from water facilities.
Once inside they attacked the caretaker and wrote anti-Sufi graffiti on the walls of the center. After that they threw Molotov cocktails and fled the scene on motorcycles.
The same kind of incident ocurred at a dervish religious centre in Orumieh.
A group of men, calling itself Mansoorvan 2 threw molotow cocktails and wrote death threats against members.
Although these incidents have been reported to the authorities, there has been no effort to pursue this case and arrest those involved.
there is a growing fear that similar attacks could be done to other Namatullahi Gonabadi dervish groups in other cities.


Ten days ago two students of Isfahan were arrested.
Jamol Rahmoni, a student activist for cultural and human rights and his roommate Roshed Abdullahi disappeared ten days ago.
After days of searching by family members, it became clear that both students were detained by the information ministry of Sanandaj.
The reasons for the arrests are unknown, but Rahmoni’s brother is a political prisoner in Kermanshah prison.


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