Iran: connectivity

Almost 3900 schools are to be connected to Iran's national internet network today in a ceremony attended by ministers of communications and information technology as well as education.
Once the project is fully implemented, educational and research centers can contribute to generating knowledge and making it available on the Iranian internet network.
As per statistics, about 60,000 schools out of 135,000 schools can be connected to the national Internet network. About 50,000 schools nationwide could be connected to the network by the end of Fourth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2005-2010).
However this will happen once the government provides the budget.


Ghorban (Ramazan) Alipour and Mohammad Heydari Mehr, two representatives of the workers of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company, who were arrested and detained last week, have now been taken to court.
They have been charged with “acting against national security”, “acting against the establishment” and “conducting interviews with foreign radios and media”.
Bail has been set for them but as they did not have the money ($50.000), they're still detained.


Supportcommitees for Iranian workers from unions all over the world released a statement in which they condemn the arrests of students, women, teachers, writers, workers and ethnic minorities and call for solidarity with these groups and call for a week of action in solidarity with the Iranian workers' movement, to be held from November 24 till November 30.


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: apples and oranges

November 17 the trial against French-Iranian filmmaker Mehrnoushe Solouki was held in Tehran.
The trial was held behind closed doors and took from 10AM to 1PM (local time). Her parents were not allowed to attend the trial.
She is accused of "intent of committing propaganda" against the Iranian regime.
The trial was adjourned to an undetermined date.

petition



After the harvest season 300 thousand tons of apples have been stored in the city of Oromieh, West-Azerbaijan province for balancing the domestic market of Iran.
The whole harvest was 700 thousand tons. One third of the province’s apples are attracted by the concentrate and juice industries annually.
This is because 60 units of industrial fruits units to be converted into juices are settled in this province.



Over 3,000 types of Iranian goods and products have found their way to the markets of 151 different countries.
According to the secretary of the non-oil exports development group of Eastern Azarbaijan province, this province ranks first among all Iranian provinces in exporting non-oil goods and commodities.


The last week ordered ban on the book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez has only provoked greater interest in the book.
Copies of the sold-out book were being sold on the black market for more than twice their list price.


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: to write about, or not

An appeal court in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, reduced journalist Ako Kurdnasab’s sentence from three years to six months. The conviction on a spying charge was overturned, but the court upheld his conviction for “trying to overthrow the government by means of journalistic activities.”.
The journalist is detained since July 21 and has not been allowed any visits since his arrest.
Another Kurdish journalist Ejlal Ghavami of a weekly closed since 2004, Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan, is been held since 9 July, and sentenced to three years in prison for “inciting the population to revolt” and “activities against national security.”,
Meanwhile more than 160 Iranian journalists have signed a statement calling for the release of journalist Emadeddin Baghi,who was arrested October 14.
The signatories are to participate in a demonstration for his release, tomorrow in Tehran that has been organised by his family and friends.



Etemad newspaper reported Thursday that students have staged gatherings at six universities across the country this week against rising pressure from the authorities.
Students at provincial universities in Ahwaz, Isfahan, Shahroud and Sistan-Baluchestan staged demonstrations to criticise the climate prevailing in their academic institutions.
About 100 Amir Kabir students and professors on Monday cancelled classes and called on university officials to "use their authority to support and follow up the case of fellow student Massoumeh Mansouri. According to a report she is been kept in detention for an unnamed period, the report said, adding that the faculty had been looking for news about her situation "over the past 18 days without any result."
None of the demonstrations had been reported by official or semi-officiial media.


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: moratorium

In the city of Zahedan, Sistan-e-Baluchestan province is a man, Rostam Sepahi, known as Mola Moussa, hanged in prison.
He was convicted for armed trafficking of 274 kilos (600 pounds) of opium and carrying guns.



According to the website Iran Human Rights Mohammadreza Tork (18) was hanged November 15 in a prison in the city of Hamedan. He was convicted for a murder that was allegedly committed when he was 16 years old.
Mohammadreza is the seventh child executed in Iran this year.
Two others, who are believed to be in Mohammadreza’s family, were hanged right after. They are identified as Manuchehr Tork (30) and Safarali Waramzyaar (31).



Despite strong oppositions by United States, China and Iran, a United Nations General Assembly panel on Thursday passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on death penalty.
The resolution, supported by 87 states, was passed with 99 votes in favour, 52 votes against and 33 abstentions.
The vote came after a debate of two days.
The non-binding resolution states that the death penalty "undermines human dignity" and calls on all states which still maintain the death penalty "to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty".


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: law and culture

In the city of Sahneh, Kermanshah province are two men hanged in public.
The men, Saeed Moradi and Hamid Fallahi are, according to ISNA, accused of armed robbery and murder.



The execution of Makvan Mouloodzadeh,who was sentenced to death for multiple counts of anal rape (ighab), allegedly committed when he was 13 years old, is halted by the Iranian Head of Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi.
The reasons are: the death sentence is in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land.



The former Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian has been charged with passing classified information to foreigners, including the British Embassy.
Mousavian was briefly detained in May, again on suspicion of espionage.
The date of his trial is still unknown.



From November 23 till November 25 is the Iran Art Festival to be held in Den Haag.
All information on this website.
Three films by Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad will be screened.
Also art from designer Reza Abedini, painter Mehdi Hosseini and photographer Kurosh Adim will be shown. There will be lectures on Iranian art.
The festival is being held to introduce Iranian culture and contemporary art to Europeans.



Iran has banned the latest novel by writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "My Melancholy Whores".
Newsagency Fars reported that the initial publication of "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" was a bureaucratic error.
The first edition of around 5,000 copies, which hit bookshops three weeks ago, has already sold out.
The culture ministry refused to issue a permit for the reprinting of the book,and the official responsible for originally authorising the book's publication has been sacked.


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: confidence

Monday visited a representative of the Dutch government imprisoned Dutch-Iranian Abdullah al Mansouri for the first time.
He is in prison in Ahwaz City.
The visit lasted 45 minutes in presence of Iranian authorities.
Al Mansouri said that he is doing well under the circumstances.
Since his arrest in Syria in May 2006, this was the first time, a representative of Dutch government was allowed to visit Al Mansouri.






According to The Times, an Iranian member of parliament, Mohsen Yahyavi. told British MPs at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a peace body, that homosexuals should be executed or tortured and possibly both.
The minutes, made at a gathering in May, describe the event.
Yahyavi explained that according to Islam gays and lesbianism were not permitted and he said that if homosexual activity is in private there is no problem, but those in overt activity should be executed.
He argued that homosexuality is against human nature and that humans are here to reproduce.


Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, the head of Iran's Democratic Front and the publisher of a now-banned weekly newspaper, "Payam-e Daneshjou-ye Basiji" is re-arrested by Iranian authorities.
He was released on parole after serving years of prison.
November 11 he had to report to a local court and was arrested there and taken to Tehran's Evin prison.
Tabarzadi claims that he has served his full sentence, but the authorities disagree, he told Radio Farda after he was released from jail last year.
Initially he was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment, his sentence was later reduced by a higher court to 7 years.
According to a document he received from the prison last year called 'Proclamation On The Prisoner's Situation' all of the time he served during various detentions would mean that the current term would have ended on August 30, 2007.
But the Intelligence Ministry says that he still have six more years to serve.



Gholam-Hossein Nozari, nominee for the Oil Ministry and Ali-Akbar Mehrabian, nominee for the Ministry of Industries, have received votes of confidence to lead their ministries respectively.
Gholam-Hossein Nozari won by 217 votes to 20, nine lawmakers out of the 246 members present abstained.
Ali-Akbar Mehrabian won by 174 to 49 against, 18 votes abstained.
The vote of confidence session was held with the participation of President Ahmadinejad, First Vice-President Parviz Davoudi and nine cabinet ministers.



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: increased

The inflation rate stood at 16.2 percent in the last 12 months leading to Oct. 22, 2007.
The price index of consumer goods and utilities in urban areas in the Iranian calendar month of Mehr (from Sept. 23-Oct. 22) had a 1.5 percent increase compared to that of its previous month, and an 18.1 percent increase of the corresponding period in its preceding year.


The Iranian police has made a "vice-list", which includes makeup, un-Islamic dresses, hats, dvd's, drugs and alcohol.
The list is part of a police "moral crackdown" launched in April.
Police warns that they will deal seriously with everybody who is not behaving according to the list.
Boots, instead of ull length trousers will not be tolerated, also small headscarves are out - the scarf must cover a woman's head and neck completely.
Wearing decadent Western clothes and displaying signs and insignia of deviant groups is also prohibited.


In the city of Qom Iran's2nd women's university, Hazrate Ma'soumeh University, was opened.
Deputy Science, Research and Technology Minister Dr. Hassan Khaleqi said in his openingspeech that this university is providing greater possibilities for the Iranian women to achieve their deserved status, based on Islamic and Iranian norms.

The university is scheduled to admit 300 students next year in its six faculties.


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: explanation

Dozens of Sufis got wounded or arrested Saturday, when the police and special forces stormed a Sufi- house after a clash between Sufis and members of a nearby Shiite mosque. This all happened in Boroujerd, Lorestan province.
Reports from the event differ.
A local journalist said that the violence began Saturday morning when Sufis attacked a nearby mosque, injuring several Shiite Muslim clerics who had previously urged their followers to shut down the Sufi temple because it was "illegitimate."
According to the town governor were some 80 people injured and a part of the Sufis' temple was destroyed during the clashes.180 Sufi members were arrested.
The independent news website Advarnews said some 100 Sufis were injured and another 500 arrested after an unidentified group captured the lodge and setting fire to it.
Although Sufism as part of the Islamic religion is tolerated in Iran, Sufis have had increasingly uneasy relations with Iran's clerical regime in recent years.


The lawyer of Delaram Ali says the country's judiciary has temporarily suspended her sentence for two weeks.
This is because the judiciary decided whether to review the case.
The lawyer hopes that in the next two weeks during which the implementation has been postponed, there will be a reconsideration and she will be found not guilty



In a interview on the site we-change has Ayatollah Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi,the General Secretary of the Organization of Researchers and Scholars of Qom Seminary claimed that the women's protest on 12th of June, 2006 was legal and according to the law.
Also he said that discriminatory laws against women can be reformed, and he has condemned the sentence issued in the case of Delaram Ali.
Furthermore he claimed that the charge of "actions against national security" is a political strategy intended to discredit people. Governments cannot charge citizens with this crime for the simple act of political and social activism.
The original interview in Farsi is here.


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: unauthorized

In the city of Zahedan, Sistan-e-Baluchestan province is a man hanged.
The man, Nader Kalbali , a drugstrafficker, was convicted for carrying 2 kilograms of heroin.



The Iranian Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence against Kurdish journalist Adnan Hasanpour, 27.
Hasanpour is sentenced to death for taking up arms against the ruling Islamic establishment, having unauthorized contacts with foreigners and helping several Iranian dissidents illegally escape abroad.
Hasanpour worked as a journalist for the Kurdish magazine Asou, until it was banned in 2005.
He also worked for foreign news media including Voice of America and Radio Farda.

French-Iranian filmmaker Mehrnoushe Solouki is being hold in Iran for almost a year. She came to Iran to shoot a documentary about the burial rites of Iran's religious minorities.
She says the authorities were told in advance of the locations where she wanted to film, and that they were aware that the subject dealt with the cemeteries of Iranian minorities.
When she came on an area at the Khavaran Cemetery in Tehran, which appeared to be a mass grave of regime opponents summarily executed in 1988, she was arrested and transported to Evinprison.
She was released after about a month, but authorities confiscated her French passport, withholding her from leaving the country.
November 17 she is due to go before an Iranian court. She faces charges of intending to make antiestablishment propaganda, which she denies.
The proceedings will take place behind closed doors.


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: freedom of expression

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, called upon the Head of Iran's Judiciary, Ayatollah Shahrudi to suspend the sentence for human rights activist Delaram Ali.
November 4, Branch 36 of the Appeals Court in Tehran sentenced her to two-and-a-half years in prison and a flogging.
It is not clear whether her sentence still includes lashing.
She has been ordered to begin her sentence on Saturday.
In the past month, the authorities have arrested at least two other women's rights campaigners
On September 25, Ronak Safazadeh,and on October 23, Hana Abdi who both were arrested in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province.
These women are also active with the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality.


Thursday is Ali Nikunesbati, spokesman for the Office for Strengthening Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat) arrested in his fathers house.
Officials did not inform the family why Nikunesbati was arrested or where he was being held.
He is the sixth student activist who was arrested in the past 10 days in Tehran.
Before, another student leader, Ali Azizi was detained on November 4.
Both students have been vocal critics of the government's crackdown on peaceful student activists.
October 16, security forces in the city of Ahwaz arrested five studentjournalists and activists on the campus of Chamran University Roozbeh Karimi, Javad Tavalli, Javad Alikhan, Mehdi Mansouri, and Raee Nikzad.
The deputy of the Prosecutor's Office of the General and Revolutionary Courts in the city of Ahwaz,claimed that the government carried out the arrests to preempt the students from distributing fliers that insulted Islamic sanctities. Article 513 of the Islamic Penal Codes of Iran criminalizes insults to any of the Islamic sanctities.


Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian government to amend or abolish provisions that impose criminal penalties for the free expression of ideas, such as Article 513 and 514 of the Islamic Penal Codes, as well as vague security laws that unduly restrict the right to peaceful association and assembly, such as Articles 500, 610 and 618.


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: risk or not

Iranian security forces have killed three Kurdish rebels in Kurdistan province,
The daily Iran reported that members of the PEJAK terrorist group were killed in Kamyaran county,without specifying when the incident took place.





Nine Iranians, including two diplomats jailed since January by American troops in Iraq, are released by USA because "none of them posed a threat to security in Iraq".The names of the diplomats are Hamidreza Askari en Mousa Chegeni.
According to Press-tv the nine are expected to return to Iran later Friday.


31 October is journalist Yaghoub Salaki Nia arrested and transported to Evinprison in Tehran. He is a free-lance journalist who contributed to several banned media, including Shamesse Tabriz, Ahrar, Omid Zanjan.
His house was searched and his work equipment and papers were seized. It is not known what charges he faces.
September 23 the Authorisation and Surveillance Commission of the Press suspended political monthly Dilmaj. No reason was given.
The quarterly Madresseh was suspended on 5 November for “apostasy”. The quarterly had published an interview with an intellectual cleric, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabesstary, who carries out research into the Koran.
Iranian leaders took the view that his remarks were “insulting of sacred texts”.
At the moment there are 10 journalists imprisoned:
Emadoldin Baghi,
Ako Kurdnasab,
Ejlal Ghavami,
Mohammad Sadegh Kaboudvand,
Said Matinpour,
Adnan Hassanpour,
Abdolvahed Botimar,
Kaveh Javanmard and
Mohammad Hassan Fallahieh


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: sanction

Wednesday are in Saveh, south from Tehran, two Afghans hanged in public.
They were convicted for the rape of a Dutch woman.




Ayatollah Kamenei said Wednesday at a gathering of students of the police-academy in Tehran that security plays a key role in the success and prosperity of Iran.
Also he said that the police has to take a firm stance against those who undermine the country's security.
According to statetelevision he said that the police must strongly press on with the 'social security plan' and avoid seasonal and temporary initiatives.
In the past months during the "crackdown for moral security" thousands of women have been warned for not being dressed properly to the islamic dresscode. Also hundreds of "thugs" were arrested and satellite-dishes were seized.
Some moderates have questioned the need for the moral crackdown but conservatives have applauded police and say its is popular with the public and necessary to improve security in society.


Yahoo! and Microsoft have removed Iran from the country lists of their webmail services.
Google has kept Iran as an option on the Gmail registration page. however.
Yahoo says that as consequence of the new US-sanctions, they cannot accept registrations from countries subject to these restrictions.
Microsoft said it was unable to comment on the issue.
Google insists the sanctions do not preclude it from including Iran in its Gmail country list, and that they are in full compliance with US sanctions.
On 30 October, the correspondent of NRC Handelsblad wrote (in Dutch) that his paid Skype account had been cancelled. Also Voip said its financial services provider had been forced to stop taking payments from 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