Iran: permit

July 23 are two men hanged in the prison of the city of Shiraz.
The newspaper Khabar Jonub reports that one man, H.A. who is sentenced for kidnapping and murder of a younger boy in the city of Marvdasht, was probably a minor(novajan).
Further details are not available.
The other man (22), was sentenced for murder.


The Egyptian police has closed down the bureau of satellite tv network Al-Alam in Cairo.
The head of the Cairo bureau says that the closure is because the network had no licence to operate in Egypt.
According to Press-TV Hassan Abedini, Al-Alam newsroom Chief, told Fars newsagency that there are still talks with Egyptian media and security officials to return to the normal activity of the network.



Iran has banned the evening edition of the newspaper Hamshahri. The reason was that the newspaper published news aimed at damaging the economy.
The newspaper is run by Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a critic from president Ahmadinejad and a potential candidate for the presidential election of 2009.


The managing director of Interior Ministry's Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA), Seyed Taqi Qaemi said Tuesday that 12,5% of Afghan population is official living in Iran as refugees.
2,000,640 Afghan refugees settled in Iran in 1983.
Most of them live in urban areas, with less than 3.3 percent living in camps.
All these people have access to education and health care.
In 1990 101,820 Afghan children were educated at Iranian schools, in 2008 some 199,346 Afghan children were educated.
The UNHCR bureau in Iran had a budget of $12.8 million in 2007.
According to Qaemi this is far from sufficient.
Afghan refugees cost Iran $6 million per day.



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: waiting

Four times heavyweight weightlifting champion Hossein Rezazadeh ended his career for medical reasons.
Doctors have prohibited him from taking part in any sports activity.
Last year he was involved in a caraccident where he suffered a knee-injury.
Rezazadeh, also named the "Iranian Hercules" has won gold at the Olympics in Sidney and Athens.
He was expected to win his third Olympic gold medal in Beijing.


Iran will resume its wheatimports next month.
Four years ago Iran reached self-sufficiency in producing wheat.
Last year Iran even started exporting wheat to Iraq and Oman, but due to a devastating drought, this year there was a heavy fall in grain production.
Officials suggest that the country will have to import 5 to 6 million tons of wheat by the end of the Iranian year (March 20, 2009) to prevent supply shortages. .



Behrooz Javid-Tehrani , a political prisoner who is imprisoned for four years in 2005 for charges of membership in the group Iran Democratic Front, is in another case in appeal convicted to 3 years in prison for having connections to Mojahedin-e Khalgh.
He learned of the sentence through an order submitted to him at Raja’i prison in Karaj.
In total he is sentenced to seven years in prison.



Press-TV reports that the Egyptian office of the satellite channel Alalam in the Egyptian capital of Cairo not has been closed by the authorities.
Earlier, AFP had said that securityofficers had closed down the Cairo bureau to protest against an Iranian film about the former Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat.
Alalam has declared on its website that it has not been involved in producing the documentary The Assassination of a Pharaoh.
Diplomatic ties between Iran and Egypt severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran but in recent years, both sides showed their willingness to improve relations.


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: wait

According to the newspaper Kargozaran, the execution of the childoffenders Mohammad Fadaei en Javad Shojaee, which was set for July 23, is postponed again.
It is not known when they will be executed.
The newspaper says it is still possible that they could be executed within weeks.


Human Rights Watch calls upon Iran to release the two last month arrested HIV/Aids physicians Arash Alaei en Kamyar Alaei immediately or charge them.
The Alaei brothers were arrested June 22 and since then the authorities have not yet announced why the brothers were detained, they have refused to disclose information about where the Alaei brothers are being held and have not provided them access to counsel.


Mohsen Namvar, the Iranian christian who was detained and tortured for a month in Sepah, has been fled with his wife and son to Turkey after his release.
He went to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ankara to apply for status as an asylum-seeker.
The procedure to establish whether he and his family can get refugeestatus, can take three or four years.
Currently there are 15,000 applications for refugee or asylum status now in process at the Ankara office.



Iran has discovered an oilfield with a capacity of 500 million barrels.
This announced the Iranian oilminister.
The new oil field, Arvand, is located in the city of Abadan in Khuzestan province.
Earlier this month, two new oil fields were discovered.


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: sentence

The website of the state broadcaster says that in the prison of the city Bushehr 3 men are hanged.
They were convicted for a rape, which only was referred to as "Chah Kootah Forest".



According to the Guardian are 9 women and one man sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted for adultery.
Lawyers say that these senteces are a resurgence of hardline Islamic fundamentalism.
Despite a moratorium the sentences have been imposed in courts across the country.
The lawyers say most of the nine have been victims of violence and are mostly illiterate.
Many of the sentences were handed down after hearings held in private without the presence of witnesses and defence lawyers.
One woman, Kobra Najar, an etnic Kurd, is condemned after her husband forced her to work as an prostitute.
Another defendant Shamame Qorbani, was raped but the allegation was not investigated.
Details of the sentences were revealed Sunday by Iranian lawyers in Tehran, as they attempted to generate international support for a campaign to force Iran's government to abolish stoning.



The newspaper Kargozaran reported that
Safar Ali (35), Ali (39) en Rahmatollah (40) are sentenced to 74 lashes and amputation of four fingers of the right hand and three years in prison.
All three are convicted for robbery.



The deputy bureau chief of AFP in Tehran, Stuart Williams, has been told to leave Iran within a few days.
A reason was not given.
Williams has been in the country for two years,and held a renewable resident's permit which was valid until August 28.
(Photo AFP-logo)


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: 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

Iran: (re)search

The investigation into the death of Zahra Bani Yaghob is considered closed and put in the archives by the public prosecutor’s office of Hamedan’s Revolutionary Court, Branch 3.
The lawyer for the family, Shirin Ebadi, stated that they will appeal the case.
She submitted a request to the office of Ayatollah Shahroudi, to transfer the case to Tehran for a fair trial, because the officers and authorities involved in this case,are associated with Hamedan’s judicial office.
The request to transfer the case to Tehran was accepted, and a letter was sent to Hamedan. After this nothing happened.
Zahra Bani Yaghub was found dead in her cell the morning after she was arrested by the moral police. According to authorities, she committed suicide by hanging herself. Shirin Ebadi says she has reasons that show this was not the case.



Two days after confirmation of the deadsentence for the Kurdish teacher
Farzod Kamangar is July 14 another teacher in Kurdistan province
sentenced to dead.
Hosein Panohi is charged for mohareb (enemy of islam) and activities against national security.
He was brought to the jail of the Information Ministry in Gharaveh. He has been tortured and went into a hungerstrike to protest. After this he was transferred to Sanandaj.


July 17 four activists of the Movement for the Rights of South-Azerbaijan,
Sajad Radmekhr, Aydin Khajai, Daryus Khatami en Feraz Zekhtab, were arrested.
They were detained at the entrance to the Tabriz university and their flats were searched.
They are transferred to an unknown place.



Thursday, 70 teenagers were by the moralpolice from Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Bassij arrested on a party in Shiraz.
The warrants for searching the premises and arresting the participants were provided earlier by the judicial authority.
The participating juveniles resisted arrest , but 70 of them got arrested.
The files for the seventy juveniles have already been referred to Shiraz prosecutor's office for action.


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: tie and untie

Wednesday struck two eartquakes measuring 4.2 and 4.0 on the Richter scale the city of Shahmirzad in Semnan province.
There are no reports of serious damage.



Last Sunday is the Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, appointed as Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs.
Also Abu Taleb Shafeghat is appointed governor for Bushehr province, Habibollah Dehmardeh governeur for Kerman province and Sha'bani governeur for Markazi province.


According to Kurd.net are after the 19th anniversary of the assassination of the Kurdish leader Dr. Abdulrhaman Ghassemlou (Qasimlo), who was assassinated in Vienna, 1989, 86 kurdish civilians arrested in Bokan.
Later they were transferred to prisons in the cities of Uromiyeh and Miandoab.
Iranian police also started a crackdown against satellite TV dishes.
Kurd.net reports that thousands of dishes have been confiscated by the Iranian security forces.

Asia Society writes that two leading Iranian experts on HIV/AIDS are arrested.
The brothers Arash and Kamiar Alaei are experts who have pioneered HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment activities in Iran. In the Asia-Pacific region they worked with Asia Society for years.
Since 1998 the brothers have been carrying out preventionprograms in Kermanshah province and since 1986 they work on ongoing programs concerning the prevention and care of HIV/AIDS, STI, and Drug-Related Harm Reduction into the Iranian National Health Care system.
They worked at a plan to regional cooperation among 12 Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries.


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: society

The Central Bank of Iran announced that the inflation rate in the week ending July 11 increased 45.82 percent compared to the same period last year.
Among the food groups rice, with 238 percent, had the highest rate of inflation.
This group also includes dairies, vegetables, meat and sugar.


Complete text of the draft bill to expand crimes punishable by death to include certain blogging and website activities can be found here (fa) and here (eng).



Ahmed Batebi,the student activist who became "face of Iran’s student protests" in 1999, because of the photo on the cover of The Economist, and was sentenced to death which was changed to 15 years in prison, has fled through Iraq to the United States.

Because of serious health problems following extreme torture he was temporarily released to get medical attention.
In The New York Times is an interview.


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 14 is a man hanged in the prison of the city of Orumieh.
He was convicted for murder on a security guard.




Soghra Najafpour (31) is again sentenced to death for a murder she alledgedly committed when she was 13.
At the age of nine, she was sent by her family to work as a servant in a doctor’s home. Four years later she was accused of killing Amir, the eight-year-old son of the family.
She was sentenced to death.
At the age of 17, she was taken to be executed, but the victim’s mother requested the authorities to postpone the execution to a later time.
Since Amir’s family didn’t take further steps to carry out her death sentence, Soghra was released from jail on a bail of $6000 in October 2007.
When Amir’s parents learned of Soghra’s freedom, they once again requested the court to ensure her execution.
Her lawyer submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court calling for a review of the case. The Supreme Court decided to send the case to another court for reconsideration.
The court has now once again sentenced Soghra Najafpour to death.


A new oil-field in Khuzestan province, which holds around 1.1 billion barrels of crude oil is discovered by Iran.
In northern parts of Khuzestan's Andimeshk city is a new extractable oilfield discovered.
According to Iran's Oil Minister more than 230 million barrels of the field's oil deposits could be extracted.



1200 workers of Alborz Elastics Factory in Tehran are on strike for several months of nonpayment of wages owed to the workers.
Through the country, are protests and strikes at large and small factories alike, particularly over the past two years.
According to the website Dastranj are workers in hungerstrike.They are pressured by management, supervisors, security personnel and military personnel to break their hunger strike.
According to Fars the workers of Khuzestan Pipe Factory closed the Ahwaz-Khorramshahr road on July 9, 2008 to protest nonpayment of their wages.
This strike was broken after the military forces of Ahwaz intervened and the management promised to pay two months of back wages. Up to this point, there is no report of these payments.
At the Haft Tapeh Sugarcane Factory in Khuzestan, is on Sunday, July 12, 2008, after months of strike and promises, agreed that the workers received two of five outstanding months of back wages.
There also are reports of strikes at Tehran blanket and Iran Therme blanket factories in Ghom, at Iranian Steel Industries in Tehran, at the Long Distance Communications Industries in Fars province, as well as worker unrest in the iron mines of Khorasan Razavi 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: causal

In the city of Sabzevar are July 14, six men in public hanged.
The stateradio reported no details on names or convictions, but said
that they all were "arazel, troublemakers".




The wife of still missing American Robert Levinson plans to visit Iran in the coming weeks.
Although she has still no other news then that of the disappearing of her husband in March 2007, she is convinced her husband is alive.
She says that a lot of theories are floating around, but no concrete information is given.


Iranian automanufacturer SAIPA plans to export over 20,000 automobiles to Algeria in the next three years.
SAIPA has exported to Algeria various makes of its Pride and Rio line-up.
Since its establishment in 1966, SAIPA participated in projects with Citroen and Renault of France, Nissan of Japan and Kia Motors of South Korea.



Five students who were arrested last week following the anniversary of student protests in 1999, are released.
The newspaper Etemad reports that Mohammad Hashemi and Bahareh Hedayat are arrested and transferred to Evinprison, Tehran.
Both are members of the central council of the pro-reform student group The Office to Consolidate Unity.
A unnamed judiciary official told IRNA that they were arrested on accusation of "links with illegal and counter-revolutionary groups outside Iran".
He said also that their arrest has nothing to do with their studentactivities.
At least 18 students are still detained.


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