Iran: judicial

The daily Iran wrote that Wednesday in Evinprison 8 men and 1 woman all convicted for murder, were hanged.
The men were only identified by their first name, the woman was Fakhteh, 30.

In the city of Shiraz are Wednesday 3 men hanged in public.
Fars reported that the men, Vahid E., Mohammad A. and Ahmad E. were convicted for kidnapping and disrupting public order.


ISNA reported that writer/activist Akbar Ganji, former head of Book Department at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the publisher of a recent book, written by Ganji, have been charged with ‘propaganda against the Islamic system’.
Public prosecutor was the plaintiff in the case.
Ganji’s case was first referred to a circuit at Tehran Public Court, but the judge referred the case to the Revolutionary Court.
Ganji was also notified of the charges of ‘insulting the officials and publishing sheer lies’.


According to a government spokesman in Tokyo the abducted student
Satoshi Nakamura has been confirmed safe, but it was unknown when he would be released.
Japan's Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs went to Tehran on Tuesday to help secure Nakamura's release.
Iran's Foreign Ministry has denied that a deal would take place with the kidnappers but has said the government was hopeful Nakamura would be released soon.


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: accusations

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that it had arrested three individuals involved in a string of bombings more than a year ago in the city of Ahwaz.
The men are accused of having links to "foreigners". The Iranian government claims to have confiscated three pistols, two Kalashnikov rifles and some 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
The Iranian newsagency Rajanews wrote in a article (Farsi) that the British secret intelligence service had set up the British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS) to instigate ethnic unrest in Ahwaz, in collaboration with Wahhabist (Sunni fundamentalist) groups.
The BAFS denies this accusations.


The three imprisoned students from Amir Kabir university,
Ehsan Mansouri, Ahmad Ghassaban and Majid Tavakkoli are sentenced to terms from three, a two-and-a-half, and two year prison.
Their lawyer Mohammed Ali Dadkah said that they are convicted for "insulting Islamic sanctities and its authorities". All three students belong to the Office for Fostering Unity — Iran's biggest reformist student organization.
They were arrested this spring after the appearance of an article, insulting to Islam in a studentnewsletter.
They all three always denied having anything to do with this.
The students will have 20 days to appeal the sentences.


In the city of Hamedan has a young woman hanged herself while being in police custody.
The daily Etemad wrote that the woman, named Zahra, apparently committed suicide on Saturday while in the city’s police detention centre for those accused of moral crimes.
A judicial spokesman said that the young woman was committing an offence in one of Hamedan’s parks and was arrested by police.
The father said that they told only that she was apparently with a young man, an employee of state television, who is still in detention.
Zahra’s family have asked for an investigation into her death.

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: actions

Ronak Safazadeh, a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign was arrested at her home in Sanandaj, Kurdistand on Tuesday October 9, 2007.
There is no information on the whereabouts of Ms. Safazadeh since her arrest and her family has not been able to contact her or obtain additional information about the charges against her.


The daily Etemad Melli wrote that the attorney for women’s activities Shadi Sadr, Masoumeh Zia and Mahboube Abbas-Gholizadeh has said: “The cases of all of my clients are in limbo in various branches of the Tehran Revolutionary Court and I don’t expect a resolution in the near future.”



Fakhteh Samadi, a former law student, had to end her studies after her marriage failed. She was working as a carer for an 80-year-old man who allegedly held her captive and tried to rape her several times.Furthermore she claims to have suffered from depression and was deprived of medicines prescribed by her 'jailer'.
After that much attempts to rape her, she hit his head with a metal object killing him.
According to medical experts who visited her in prison, she was in a state of panic and reacted unconsciously.
The court sentenced her to death and she may be executed within days.
The case of Fakhteh is the subject of a documentary by Iranian director Mahvash Sheikholeslami.


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: tenacious

According to the overall head of police, Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghaddam,no new information about the fate of a Japanese student Satoshi Nakamura, who was kidnapped last week.
He said that according to what is known he has not been taken abroad and the objective of the kidnappers is to exchange him for one of their imprisoned companions.
Nakamura was abducted last week, probably by the same gang who kidnapped a Belgian couple this summer.



The human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi is Sunday arrested.
Baghi, who heads the Committee for the Defence of Prisoners' Rights, and a known anti-death penalty activist, has been imprisoned several times.
According to his lawyer he is charged with spreading propaganda against the regime and publishing secret government documents.
Over the last months, he has publicly protested against the wave of hangings.
IRNA reported that members of Emadeddin Baghi's family had taken part in meetings that were arranged by the opposition to topple Iran's Islamic regime.
Baghi's lawyer says a bail of $ 53,500 had been set but it was then decided to imprison Baghi as he still had a one year jail term to serve from a previous conviction.
In 2003 he was sentenced to three years in prison on similar charges of violating national security. He served two years and one year was suspended.
A n unnamed official said that now, the suspended term will go into force.


Mehrnoushe Solouki will be charged with 'making propaganda against the state'.
In February 2007 she was arrested in Tehran and released after a month. But she was not allowed to leave the country and her passport was confiscated.
In July she was involved in een accident in which she was hit by a motorcyclist who fled the scene and got wounded on her face.She had multiple facial surgery to fix her facial paralysis.
Since a couple of weeks she is residing on occasion at the French Embassy in Tehran as a guest.
November 4th, her case is set for court and her lawyer found in the 400 pages file, that she will be accused of having the intention of making a propaganda film.


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: drive

A Christian couple were flogged in Iran for participating in an “underground church”.They were arrested in September 2005 and a Revolutionary Court reviewed their case in July 2007.
Although the couple had decided to marry seven years ago,the country’s marriage laws forbid them to obtain a certificate of marriage.
In Iran it is forbidden for ex-Muslims to marry members of other religious minorities.
The woman was born a Christian in an Assyrian-Iranian family and the man was a convert to Christianity.
The court ruled that both the man and the woman were Mortad, a description of someone who has committed apostasy by leaving Islam.


ISNA reported that Friday, members of an insurgent group killed a police officer and wounded another in the province of Kurdistan.
ISNA also reported that the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan (PJAK),claimed responsibility for the attack.




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

Two men have been hanged in Kurdistan province.
Kiumars and Nader Mohammadi are according to the authorities buried in the cemetery of Behesht Mohammed in the city of Sanandaj.



During the last days up to 400 Iranian Kurds who belong to the Sunni faith and two imams are arrested in Saghez and other cities of Kurdistan province.
All those arrested belong a Sunni religious group called Maktab Quran (The Way of the Koran), which disapproves of the presence of clerics in the government. Almost every Iranian is Shia muslem.
In Saghez, which has the greatest number of Maktab Quran followers, a curfew was imposed for three days and all religious ceremonies organised for Ramadan were suspended.
On Thursday morning a group of citizens gathered in front of the government building of Kermanshah, calling for the two religious leaders and all detainees to be released.



The daily Donyaye Eqtessad reports that a high official at the Ministry of Health, has announced that currently 16,090 people have been identified as HIV positive, of which 15,150 are men.
Also 2,121 patients have already died of AIDS, of which 2,039 were men.
66.7% of AIDS patients have contracted this fatal ailment due to intravenous drug use.





On a press-conference Mohammad Hosseini, member of parliament, also a member of Majlis Food Industries Faction, put sugar production at 1.4 million tons and domestic demand at about 1.9 million tons per year.
The government has imported over three million tons which can meet domestic requirement for six years.
He called for the removal of state monopoly on sale of raw material needed for production of sugar.
This way, sugar mills would be able to purchase raw materials themselves and the current crisis in the industry would be removed.
The chairman of Board of Directors of Association of Sugar Mill also earlier warned that sugar industry is grappling with its biggest crisis in the past 110 years.

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: supply and demand

The kidnapped Japanese student, Satoshi Nakamura, is according to Press-tv transferred to Sistan-e-Baluchistan.
He is reportedly abducted by a bandit only known as Shahbakhsh.
He wants to exchange the Japanese with his jailed son.




Afghanistan has appealed to Iran to delay the deportation of thousands of illegal Afghans until the end of winter. The country does not have the resources to look after them during the harsh season.
Iran has already sent back some 260,000 Afghans who it regards as illegal immigrants since April, and plans to deport another 200,000, despite calls by Afghanistan.


Iran's hand-woven carpet ranks first in non-oil export and third in overall export. This says the head of the National Iranian Carpet Center. He said so during a ceremony held for improving the status of Iranian carpets at Tehran's permanent trade fairgrounds and he pointed out that the carpet industry is a good source of income for villagers in Iran.





According to the agreement between the Ministry of Road and Transportation and Bonyad Mostazafan Association, costs of construction of Tehran-Shomal Highway, which connects Tehran to Tonekabon in North of Iran, were to be shared equally amongst them.
Despite this agreement, so far none of the parties have fulfilled their responsibilities regarding the payments.
Considering the size and importance of this project, and the delay that has been caused by lack of budget, government has decided to sell the share of this project to public division.
In two weeks time shares of this project with total worth of 50 milliard Tomans are going to be sold.


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: review

According to Japanese authorities a Japanese student has been kidnapped by an armed group in Kerman province south-eastern Iran.
The student crossed into Iran after travelling in Pakistan. His identity has not been released.
IRNA reports that the student was abducted on Monday while visiting Kerman's Old Arg Citadel.




A media adviser to president Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Kalhor said to Reuters that when Ahmadinejad was quoted saying there were no gays in Iran, he was misquoted by the translator.
What Ahmadinejad said was not a political answer. He said that, compared to American society, we don't have many homosexuals. Kalhor said to Reuters that because of historical, religious and cultural differences homosexuality was less common in Iran and the Islamic world than in the West.



An Iranian animal-rights group claims a recent clampdown against keeping dogs as pets appears to have abated in Tehran.
The clampdown began in late September on the orders of the head of Tehran's security forces who said that walking a dog in public is against the law.
Police in the capital have confiscated dogs and placed them in what animal-rights defenders have called a "dog prison."
A member of Iran's Society to Defend the Rights of Animals, Payam Ehtisabian, told Radio Farda that officials appear to have abandoned their most controversial tactics.
He says that pressure by his group and foreign news coverage has led authorities to send some of the animals to a veterinary university and eventually return them to their owners.


Shirin Ebadi was in Prague this week for the Forum 2000 conference.
In an interview with Radio Farda she said that rights abuses have worsened in Iran in the past year, but that military action is not the solution to Iran's domestic problems.



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: wrinkles

Iranian officials have announced they intend to continue with a nationwide crackdown on “corruption” in society with at least six months.
According to Brigadier General Iskandar Momeni from the State Security Forces (SSF), is the National Security Plan been added to the SSF’s permanent agenda.
He told this to Fars Newsagency.
He also said that the SSF were targeting “trouble-makers”.


Cosmetic surgery and beautifying is on the rise in Iran.
Breast augmentation, liposuction, nosejobs, body-tanning or hairextensions, everything can be done in dozens of beauty centers, including spas and salons.
Many women want to be 'goodlooking' in spite of the obliged hijab, especially during summer, when there are more parties.
Also women who wear the bodycovering chador in public,sometimes visit the beautysalons once or twice a week.
Cosmetic surgery is not limited to the affluent and has spread among lower-income families where a teacher may earn about $200 a month.Women from all layers of the society want to iron out wrinkles. It costs around $200.Botox injections are very popular even among lower-income Iranians.


Today, the International Day to abolish death sentence, the International Coalition Against the Death Penalty announced that in the previous twelve months 265 people were executed in Iran, compared to the 140 executions recorded in the previous 12 months this is a dramatic increase.

The Afghan parliament has expressed its concern over the fate of
17 Afghan minors who have been sentenced to death in Iran.
These offenders committed the crimes as minors - under the age of 18 - and will only be sentenced to death after they turn 18.According to an independent commission at least two Afghans who had committed crimes in Iran when they were minors, were executed over the past few months. The Iranian government denies the executions.
The Afghan parliament is currently involved in discussions with Tehran for a bilateral agreement on the exchange of ordinary prisoners.


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: harm

Students at Tehran University hold signs with the text:



right: free imprisoned students: Ahamad, Majid and Ehsan
left: We also have questions? Why only in Colombia?







In the city of Shiraz, Fars province, is Monday a bomb exploded in a shop.
The bomb which went off in a shop wounding a number of shopworkers. They were despatched to a nearby hospital.






A correspondent for Press-tv in Afghanistan,
Fayez Khurshid , reported being tortured by American military during a illegal detention in Kabul last night.
According to him the soldiers asked him if he was a member of the IRGC (The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) and worked for the government of Iran.
After this he was allegedly taken to an American base and hold for 18 hours and was interrogated.
In recent reports from Afghanistan Fayez Khurshid wrote that the presence of the American forces in Afghanistan was the main reason for instability in the country.



Monday Iran opened after 14 days the border with Northern Iraq.
Hundreds of trucks were waiting at the bordercrossings.
The economical damage is according to the Kurdistan trade minister one million dollars a 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: view

Seven-year-old Amir-Hossein Kazemi of Tehran was awarded the Merit Certificate prize at the United Nations International Children’s Art Competition.
Children from around the world created paintings depicting various aspects of poverty and proposing ways to eradicate it.
The 50 best artworks will be displayed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in a special exhibition commemorating the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17, 2007.
The text of the drawing is:
"Here is a big farming village. The villagers are trying hard to improve their life and welfare. It is green and fresh everywhere and poverty cannot reach them here.".

IRNA reports that drug-related crime is the main cause of jail sentences in Iran, and most prisoners continue receiving drugs through smuggled supplies once inside.
According to prisons organisation chief Ali Akbar Yasaghi nearly half, 47%, of all male prisoners in the country are being held for drug-related crimes.
Based on the existing statistics, about 50% of the prisoners have a history of addiction.
Due to the latest available figures from August the total number of prisoners in the country is 158,351,
The world's average rate is 144 prisoners per 100,000 people, in Iran its 225 per 100,000 people.
As for women, crimes related to moral issues account for 15.14% of the cases, second to drugs," which scores 61%.
Irans prison system consists of 130 run-down jails, while 41 new prisons are currently under construction. "Using substitute punishments and reduction of the prisons population is one of the main plans of the judiciary system of the Islamic republic," Yasaghi said.
He also invited international judicial officials and institutions to visit the country's prisons.


More than 100 students scuffled with police and hardline supporters of president Ahmadinejad on Monday on Tehran University campus and chanted "Death to the dictator" , "Revolutionary president, we support you," the hardline students shouted back.
Inside Ahmadinejad held a speech for the opening of the current academic year.Statelevision, broadcasting the event, made no mention of disturbances outside.
Police, dressed up in riotgear, gathered outside campus. Students, trying to leave campus were briefly hold up by them.


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: health

Although a World Health Organisation (WHO) official last week said that 10 cases of cholera had been confirmed in Iran, an official of the Iranian Health Ministry said Saturday that the total number of confirmed cholera cases has reached 43.
Most cases are located in Kurdistan province.
ISNA reported that those affected had been commuting across the border with Iraq.
Except people fleeing from Iraq, also a lot of pilgrims travel to Iraq.


IRNA reported that Iran will reopen its five bordercrossings with Kurdish-run northern Iraq. September 24 those were closed after the arrest of an Iranian by US military.
Mohammad Jafari, a senior security official said the decision to reopen was taken following a two-day meeting between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish officials.



Mohammad Hassan Fallahyia, Ahwazi Arab journalist, who since November 2006 is detained in Evinprison and April 2007 was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
Among other things he asks attention for the position of minority groups in Iran.
Amnesty International called in May for an urgent action for him and has concern for his medical condition.
He suffers from sickle cell anaemia and has heart problems.


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