Iran: issues

The president of California State University has issued a statement of great concern about the arrest of Esha Momeni.
October 15th, Esha Momeni was arrested in Tehran.
He states that Esha Momeni is a US-citizen, who is arrested while conducting research as part of her Master’s degree requirements in Mass Communications at California State University, Northridge.Her thesis is focused on women’s issues in Iran.
He also stated that the university supports the efforts of the American government to secure Ms. Momeni’s immediate release.



The Iranian Labor minister said Thursday in the financial newspaper Sarmayeh that at the moment more the 1 out of 10 people is jobless.
The unemployment rates are risen this summer from 9.6% to 10.2%.
He said that 15.6 % of those without work were university graduates, but gave no further details.
In March it was said there was a continuing decline in unemployment rate compared to the same month in the previous year.



Wednesday Iran forced a Belarusian fighter jet , a Ilyushin Il-76, to land on a airfield near Bushehr.The fighterjet violated Iranian airspace.
The plane was carrying a Belarusian military delegation to Doha in Qatar.
Members of the military delegation aboard the plane were interrogated by Iranian officials before they were permitted to leave Iran.
Belarus' Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Belarus, who apologized and assured that Tehran would conduct a comprehensive investigation into the incident, which he said occurred due to lack of coordination.


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

Newspapers Etemad and Kargozaran report that the execution of Reza Alinejad is imminent.In 2003, when he was 17-year-old, he stabbed another boy, he claims in selfdefense.
He was sentenced to death, the verdict was thrown by the supreme court and the case sent to another court. The other court sentenced him to death and this time the verdict was approved by the supreme court.
The head of justice Hashemi Shahroudi has now approved the death sentence and sent the execution order to the prison where Reza is being held.


A Malaysian university has cancelled a scheduled speech by the Iranian human rights defender Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi entitled Islam and Cultural Diversity .
The University of Malaya has withdraw the invitation and an official said that the Malayan foreign office sent a letter "strongly advising" the organisers not to go ahead with the speech.
The vice-chancellor of the university told the French news agency AFP that the decision was made "out of respect for our Iranian students, who were not very happy".
The speech was supposed to begin a series of talks with speeches from among others Nobel laureate President Jose-Ramos Horta of East Timor and American activist Jesse Jackson.


Iraq has imported over half of the handicrafts produced in Hamadan over the past 6 months.
Hanmade glassware, wooden and leather handicrafts have been the main categories of exports to Iraq over the past two years.
France ranks second with imports for stone, ceramic and clay products.
Italy and Turkey come next with most of their purchases to ceramic and clay goods. Hamadan is known for her pottery since pre-history.
The city of Hamadan was founded by the Medes and was the capital of the Median empire around 600 BC.
After that Hamadan became one of the capital cities of the Achaemenid Dynasty.(558-330BC).


On the website of the National Council for Resistance in Iran is the report that a former member of the Research Division of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), Reza Malek made the shocking confession that during the execution of political prisoners in Iran 33,500 people were murdered.
He made this confession on a videotape addressed to the Secretary General of UNO.
Malek worked for MOIS during the time that Ali Fallahian was minister.
He was a collegue of Saeed Emami and was after Emami was arrested in connection to
the chain murders, arrested and transferred to section 209 of Evin Prison, which is led by MOIS and kept 7 years in solitary confinement.
In this video Malek says there are between 170 to 190 mass graves in various locations.
In Tehran alone, there are 100 secret prisons and torture chambers affiliated with the MOIS.
In the video addressed to Ban ki Moon he speaks about an underground expand of section 209 with soundproof cells and torturechambers.
He also said that 170 to 190 massgraves contains truckloads full of bodies.They included 11-12 year old children and pregnant women.
Malek says that this is the result of the velayat-e faqih (absolute clerical rule) regime, which has subjected all that is humane to death and destruction.

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: the nature of the beast

Iranian security forces arrested two pigeons near the Natanz nuclear facility.
One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province.
Daily Etemad Melli wrote that metal rings and "invisible" strings were attached to the bird, suggesting that the bird communicated what it had seen.
Earlier this month, a black pigeon was caught also bearing rings with invisible strings.
Last year there were reports of spying squirrels.



About ten villages have been destroyed by heavy bombardments of the Iranian army near Zahedan, Sistan-e-Baluchistan province.
Since October 11th, when the bombardment has started, shootings take place, and the government tries to prevent the news from spreading, they only showed a picture of four killed members of Jundullah.
According to Jundullah more then forty security forces died and as many are wounded. Also a helicopter was shot.
Balochistan PeoplesParty says that electricity in the area as well as all telephone links are cut off.
The clashes in the area started after Sjiite militias demolished a Sunni mosque and school near the city of Zabol at August 27, 2008.
Over the past three years, hundreds of people have been executed or are in prison without having the right to have a lawyer.
In Sistan-e-Baluchistan most people are sunni moslim and the majority of people in Iran are shia.



Esha Momeni,, member of the OneMillionSignatures Campaign and a student from California was arrested on Wednesday October 15, 2008, while on a visit to Tehran.
She was pulled over on Moddaress highway, by "under cover traffic police" on the pretense that she had unlawfully passed another vehicle while driving.
After her arrest she was transferred to Evinprison. Prior to this, officials with a searchwarrant searched her home and seized property, including her computer and films which were part of her thesis project.

While security forces had promised Esha’s family that she would be released quickly if news of her arrest was not published, the news came out with a delay.
Two months ago she came to Iran to visit her family and to work on her Masters thesis project, focused on the Iranian women’s movement.
To this end she had conducted video interviews with members of the One Million Signatures Campaign in Tehran.
Friends of Esha established a weblog (for Esha) as a support for her release.


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: convenant

The newspaper Kayhan said that Monday four men were hanged in the prison of the city of Zahedan.
The men, Vatan Y., Mohammad S., Zahoor Sh. and Anvar D. were convicted of drug trafficking.



According to Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte (IGFM) have the more then 100 political prisoners of the prisons of Urmiye, Sine, Kermanshah and Tehran after 47 days ended their hungerstrike.
In talks with the prisoners, the government made promises to better the prisonconditions.
In a statement reported the imprisoned despite their hunger strike is finished, they declare solidarity with the prisoners condemned to death.


Iran did not end the deathsentence for juvenile offenders who committed a murder.
Deputy prosecutor general Hossein Zebhi told the newspaper Etemad-e-Melli that under Sharia law only a murder victim's family could commute a death sentence.
He said that the principle of retribution is not up to the government, it is up to the private plaintiff. Only if the next of kin give their consent can there be a reduction in the punishment.
Iran violates the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Tehran is a signatory.
At the undersignment as well as at the ratification Iran made the reservation that she reserves the right not to apply any provisions or articles of the Convention that are incompatible with Islamic Laws and the international legislation in effect.
Last week Zebhi suggested that judges were being told to stop imposing the death penalty on young offenders.

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: written

After protests against articles 23 and 25 to the Family Protection Bill, both articles were removed before the bill could be brought to parliament.
Recent reports however indicate the possibility of re-adding both Articles and resubmitting them to the commission for yet another review.
A member of the legal and judicial commission told Mehrnews agency that new additions were made to Article 23.
Hereby a man wishing to remarry must first secure permission from his wife, and additional requirements will also be stipulated to ensure that men will maintain equality.


The Iranian parliament is set to discuss a petition for the impeachment of Iran's interior minister Ali Kordan.
Wednesday 20 members of parliament petitioned for impeachment of Kordan and the discussion will be October 26th.
Kordan said that he had a honorary degree from Oxford university but the degree turned out to be fake.
Kordan pressed charges against a person claiming to be a representative of Oxford University in Tehran.


Javad Alizadeh an expelled student for a Masters degree at Alameh University was detained and sent to section 209 of Evin prison.
December 7, 2007 he was arrested in Tehrann university after he held a speech.
He spent 2 months in solitary confinement before he was released after posting a bail bond amounting to $85,000 .
His has been freed a little less than a year ago and the court repeatedly delayed and postponed his case.
This week he went to the Revolutionary Court and annulled his bail bond as a sign of protest.
Following this he was arrested and transferred to Evinprison.



The number of suspended students and human rightsactivists who are prevented from study, is increasing.
Shiva Nazarahari, a civil engineering student at the University of Tehran found herself on the list of suspended students and can't register in the master’s program.
When she tried to registrate to some courses she repeatedly got an errormessage so registering was impossible. After consulting with the registration center she was told that her identification has been removed from the center’s file and she should consult with the selection desk at the teacher-student center.
At the center, her name was checked against a list of a few hundred names and then she was told she could not register and that she should try to resolve the issue with the Ministry of Intelligence.
As long as the Ministry of Intelligence has not given their approval, she is not allowed to continue her studies in Iran.


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: points of time

The new judicial directive that bans the execution of child offenders is only for juvenile drugsoffenders.
Deputy State Public Prosecutor Hossein Zabhi said that the judges are still required under Iran's Islamic laws to issue death sentences for minors convicted of murder if the victim's family refuses financial compensation. The new directive was issued more than a year ago, but was announced Saturday.
Mohammad Mostafaei, a lawyer who defends juveniles who are sentenced to death welcomed the new directive but said it was not sufficient.
He said that human rights activists won't give up the fight until execution of under 18 people is abolished altogether in Iran.
The new directive changes nothing for the 120 children on deathrow in Iran.
No one under 18 has ever been executed for a drug-related crime.


According to the policecommander of Sistan-e-Baluchistan, the righthand of the leader of Jundullah (soldiers of god), Ahmad Fani and Nasser Shahbakhsh (brother of the bandit Dera Shahbakhsh) and two other rebels were killed during clashes with soldiers in the Pir Souran mountains.
According to the commander they were preparing for terrorist attacks. There was also a lot of weapons and ammunition confiscated.
In June Jundullah kidnapped 16 borderpolice and probably transferred them to Pakistan.


Fars newsagency reported that Saturday in the city of Qom 9 men were flogged in public.
They were sentenced to 74 lashes and$1000 fine for disruption of public order, especially for breaking glass in public buildings and buses.
The occasion on which these people were involved in "disruption of public order was not mentioned.

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: die

Iran announced that it ends the death penalty for minor offenders.
IRNA reported October 15th, that Assistant Attorney General for Judicial Affairs, Hossein Zabh announced on October 15, 2008 that death sentences for offenders under the age of 18 would be commuted to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
In addition, in cases of good behavior and signs of rehabilitation, juvenile offenders may qualify for conditional release under Islamic compassion guidelines.
Zebhi also said that the directive would apply to all offenders under the age of 18, regardless of their offenses.
In 2004 Iran also banned executions of persons under 18, but has not stopped judges from issuing death sentences against juvenile offenders or execute them.
Six juvenile offenders have been executed in Iran in 2008 alone.
Human Rights Watch said that until Iranian lawmakers pass legislation to ban all juvenile executions, judicial authorities should discipline officials who order or carry out executions of juvenile offenders in violation of the directive.
On the website of StopChildExecutions.com in Farsi and English.


In the Iranian Zanjan province three soldiers of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed by members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). The clashes took place in the Chaldoran regio.
Iranian state-run television says Iran's air force has begun a military exercise north, near the border with Turkey.
American-made F-4s, F-5s and F-14s, Russian-made Sukhoi and Iranian-made Saeghehplanes, are involved in the drill.


The director of Iranian Drug Control Headquarters (IDHQ), announced that there are 1,2 million addicts in the country, and 5 percent of them are addicted to synthetic and psychedelic drugs.
He also said that about 50% of the budget is allocated for demand reduction activities, treatment, and prevention.
Iran is situated at a a major smuggling route to the West from neighboring Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium and its derivatives, morphine and heroin.


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: politics

Iranian National Confidence Party (NCP) holds a two-day conference to speak about the party's future policies.
More then 400 heads of offices, committees and members gathered and they will choose also the next party inspectors. Former president Khatami and visitors from 44 countries attended the event as guests.
The NCP belongs to the Reformist Coalition.
Mehdi Karroubi,who has candidated for the presidential election next year, is the NCP secretary-general.



The website of the One Million Signatures Campaign, the site Change for Equality has been blocked for the sixteenth time for readers from Iran.
The original address of the site of Change for Equality is:
www.we-change.org/ (fa and eng). The site will continue to update, along with any future domains.
The new address for readers in Iran is: www.change4equality.org.
The authorities in Iran have continually blocked sites related to the Campaign and other related sites addressing women’s issues.
Each time those operating these sites, establish new domains where readers can access information.

In Roozonline Hossein Bastani wrote an article about the prisonrelease of a man Esmaeil Eftekhari, who already before the islamic revolution of 1979 was a gangmember and hooligan in Tehran and extracting ransom and extortion from prostitutes.
After the revolution he found his way into the Revolutionary Police, who had its own version of justice and law and order. During this time he was involved in serious crimes as the kidnapping of young girls and married women, rape, involvement with local kidnappers, threats, creation of fake legal charges.
In 2002 he was on trial for espionage and drugstrafficking.During these trials it was revealed that he also had held other official positions in the revolutionary court system, Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mostazafan Foundation, and in Tehran’s ‎municipality.
In this functions he raped various women and intimidated their familymembers.
At these trials many crimes were proved, but he ended up with a sentence of only 8 years in prison.In prison he continued to murder other prisoners, and, is now released because of “good behavior” behind bars.
Eftekhari is only one of hundreds of thousand "leniency-for-cooperation cases" in the judiciary and security apparatus of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who got released as "first-class citizen".


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: suspension

In the prison of the city of Zahedan are 3 men hanged.
The men, Shahram Eyvani, Ramezan Rafei and Sasan Dogoshkani were convicted of possession of 322 kilos of heroin and 15 grammes of opium.
In the prison of Doroud, Lorestan province is Wednesday a man hanged.
The man, M.Gh., was convicted for murdering a woman and her daughter during a robbery.



According to the economics advisor to President Ahmadinejad, Morteza Tamaddon, lack of good information has led to the problems around the introduction of VAT. He says that the needed infrastructures have not been put in place and there has not been enough information.
After strikes last week in some Iranian cities, the implementation is suspended by two months.
Tamaddon says that many countries have improved their taxsystem by successfully implementing a value-added tax plan and Iran needs to update the tax system by leaving the traditional methods that do not meet the needs.
Meanwhile , some Iranian businesses have asked for more time until the new tax law is implemented.They say they need another six months to a year suspension.


The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps naval forces have stopped a vessel in the Persian Gulf, carrying 90 tons of smuggled gasoline.
The vessel was heading for one of the Gulf states and was seized 20 miles southwest of Siri Island.
This happened shortly after Iran assigned the IRGC to replace the Iranian coastguard in protecting the Persian Gulf.



The Committee to Support Hunger Strike by Kurdish Civil Rights and Political Prisoners reported that Kaveh Tahmasbi, a civil rights activist and mountain climber from Sanandaj, was transferred to an unknown location by security forces stationed inside the prison.
There is no information on his status.
Tahmasbi was sentenced in August 2007 to a one-year imprisonment for his attempts against national security.
In September 2008 he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for illegal border-crossing by a court in the city of Piranshahr.
So far he has spent 14 months of his sentence.



According to a report of Reporters without Borders Evin prison is still one of Middle Easts biggest prisons for journalists after Emadeddin Baghi’s release.
Baghi was released October 5th, but next month he will be prosecuted for his activities as Head of the Organisation for the Defence of Prisoner Rights.
At this moment there are six journalists in Evinprison.
Four Azeri-journalists are kept in Evinprison since September 10th.
Alireza Sarafi, editor for Dilmaj (a monthly, closed 23 September 2007),
Said Mohamadi, editor for the literary magazine Yashagh, and reporters
Hassain Rashedi and Akabar Azad, for the magazine Varlighe and the weekly Yarpag.
They were allowed visits for the first time on 13 October.
After leaving Evin, their families told Reporters Without Borders that the four were weak, exhausted and had lost a lot of weight.
Mohammed Sadegh Kabodvand, former editor of in 2004 closed down weekly Payam-e mardom-e Kurdestan is imprisoned for 16 months now.
Mohammad Hassin Falahieh is arrested and in section 209 since November 2006 and is sentenced in april 2007 to 3 years in prison on a charge of espionage.
Three other journalists are in jail in Kurdistan.
Massoud Kurdpoor is jailed in Mahabad.
Adnan Hassanpour is in prison in Sanandaj, awaiting a new trial,
Kaveh Javanmard is in jail in Maragheh for a sentence of two years and is temporarily released for treatment for a liverailment.


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: truths

October 13th is in the prison of the city of Isfahan a man hanged.
The man, Omid was convicted of murdering a man in February 2003.




Human Rights Watch published a statement at the beginning of the yearly three days of debate on the rights of the child saying that more than 300 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from 82 countries called on the UN General Assembly to take urgent action to end executions for crimes committed by children.
The vast majority of states enforce the absolute prohibition on the death penalty for individuals who committed crimes as children, in compliance with international law.
Five countries, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen have carried out 32 of these executions since January 2005, and have well over 100 other juvenile offenders on death row.
The text and a list of the 305 groups which undersigned the petition can be read here.



IRNA reported Tuesday that during clashes between security forces and rebels in the past 24 hours, 10 members of a terrorist group were killed or wounded.
Brigadier General Bahram Norouzi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says that another 38 rebels had been killed or wounded over the past two months and that a large amount of weapons and ammunition was seized.
The most recently killed rebels were members of the group Jundullah (Soldiers of God). Jundullah was behind the kidnapping of 16 Iranian border policemen in June and claimed to have killed several of them.

ALO, Ahwaz Liberation Organization reported that the son of in Iran detained human rightsactivist Abdullah Al-Mansouri, Adnan, in 2007 during a public debate in Maastricht said that the Iranian government spreaded the HIV virus in the country, including in Ahwaz (Khuzestan).
Daily De Limburger reported:

"In the break of the debate he said that the AIDS blood comes from France and that the Ahwazi programs administered in hospitals, are controlled by Iran under the guise of donated blood. But he neither wanted to or could not explain his allegations."

Meanwhile it showed that the government of Iran indeed (blog 8-10-2008) has been accomplices in the spread of HIV through blood donor in the country, by importing in 1984 and 1985 with HIV contaminated blood donor from France.


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: looks

Police in Qom arrested a cleric from ayatollah Montazeri's office after he, Mojtaba Lotfi, published a sermon of ayatollah Montazeri.
The daily Kargozaran wrote that Montazeri in this sermon criticized the leaders of the country for describing Iran as the freest country in the world while legitimate and legal liberties inside the country are taken away.
Montazeri was seen as successor to ayatollah Khomeini until the late 1980s when he became
too openly critical of political and cultural restrictions.


Iran and Pakistan agreed to finalize a multibillion-dollar gaspipeline Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) even if India does not join the project.
The project dates from 1994, but has been delayed by repeated disputes over prices and transit fees.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mottaki said at a joint pressconference with the Pakistan Minister of Foreign Affairs that India can join the project whenever it is ready.
Initially the IPI was founded to transfer 60 million cubic meters of natural gas per day
from Iran to Pakistan and India.



According to Baluchistan Peoples Front dozens of villages have been destroyed by bombardments in the last three days in sistan-e-Baluchestan province.
The clashes started afterc security forces and rebels of the People's Resistance Movement of Iran met in the mountains between Zahedan and Kerman province.Also innocent people have been killed in the bombardments.
The rebels claim to have seen more then 50 dead bodies of the security forces, Iranian authorities ordered all its different government agencies and media to avoid broadcasting any news to prevent it from spreading.
October 11th the bombexpert Osmaan of the Peoples Resistance Movement in Iran has
been assassinated. The organization claims to know who is responsible and that further
investigations continue.
According to reports of people from Zahedan and the Western part of Baluchistan the heavy bombardment in Rood Mahi Mountains still continue.


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