Behnood Shjaei and Safar Angoti will be execut at 11 and 21 October

Behnood had killed a boy during a street fight in Tehran when he was 17 years old. He has been in prison for the last ۴ years and all the reports pointed to a stay of execution in his case.

In his weblog, Mohammad Mostafaie wrote:  ”I went to the Executive office of the Tehran Criminal Court yesterday to follow up on Benood Shojai’s case. I was told by Mr. Jaberi, the clerk of the office that no date had been set for Behnood’s execution and a stay of execution is in effect. This morning I heard that Bahnood Shojai had been transferred to the isolation ward in prison. I went back to the Executive office to inquire about the case. Mr. Jaberi confirmed the execution and said that the Qisas( Islamic retaliation Law) will take place tomorrow”. (more…)

شهروندان جهان

من به عنوان کسی که از نزدیک با دست اندرکاران جنبش سبز در تماسم و از دیدگاه های آنان به طور دقیق اطلاع دارم مسئول شده ام به دنیا و به ویژه آمریکا اعلام کنم که جنبش سبز ایران بمب اتمی نمی خواهد، بلکه برای جهان صلح و برای ایران دمکراسی می خواهد. جنبش سبز ایران نگرانی های جامعه جهانی را درک می کند و خود نیز نگرانی های
مشابهی دارد.

همین طور موظف شده ام که اطلاع دهم هر نوع توافق یا قراردادی که توسط دولت غیر مشروع کودتایی ایران امضا شود از طرف جنبش سبز که مورد حمایت اکثریت مردم ایران است فاقد اعتبار بوده و در آینده مورد بازبینی قرار خواهد گرفت.

محسن مخملباف
۲۲ سپتامبر ۲۰۰۹

English version

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by The Associated Press

Hard-liners attacked senior pro-reform leaders in the streets as tens of thousands marched in competing mass demonstrations by the opposition and government supporters. Opposition protesters, chanting “death to the dictator,” hurled stones and bricks in clashes with security forces firing tear gas.

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Source: CNN

(CNN) — A coroner’s report says that a man arrested in the violent aftermath of Iran’s presidential elections died from beatings, Iranian media reported Monday in what appeared to be the first official confirmation of a detainee’s death from mistreatment.

The death of Mohsen Rouhol-Amini was the result of “repeated blows and severe physical injuries” and other mistreatment at Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported, citing an informed source. Officials initially had said Rouhol-Amini had died from illness.

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Source: The New Republic

by Ali Reza Eshraghi
Has Supreme Leader expedited his own fall by touching the third rail of Iranian politics?
Post Date August 20, 2009

During his August 3 speech formally endorsing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned protesters that “by imitation of Ayatollah Khomeini, they cannot deceive people.” Khamenei was mocking the opposition’s claim to be to reviving “the values of Ayatollah Khomeini”–the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Khamenei’s predecessor as Supreme Leader. Ironically, Khamenei made this statement while seated below a large, framed picture of Khomeini.

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Source: CNN

Hamid Dabashi says allegations of rape and torture are testing Iran's Islamic Republic as never before.

By Hamid Dabashi
Special to CNN

Hamid Dabashi is the author of “Iran: A People Interrupted.” He is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. His Web site is http://www.hamiddabashi.com/.

(CNN) — Troubling news of kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder is flooding out of Iran.

Neda Aqa Soltan was murdered point-blank in the streets of Tehran for the whole world to see; while Sohrab Arabi was killed far from any global attention and his body given to his mother quietly to bury, as was the tortured body of Mohsen Ruholamini.

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Source: BBC

Former President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani has urged Iran’s political factions to follow orders from the supreme leader, in an apparent conciliatory move.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has endorsed the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, but Mr Rafsanjani has backed the opposition.

Correspondents say his statement seems to contradict a speech last month when he said the country was in crisis.

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Source: The Times

August 22, 2009

Homa Homayoun

The 15-year-old boy sits weeping in a safehouse in central Iran, broken in body and spirit. Reza will not go outside — he is terrified of being left alone. He says he wants to end his life and it is not hard to understand why: for daring to wear the green wristband of Iran’s opposition he was locked up for 20 days, beaten, raped repeatedly and subjected to the Abu Ghraib-style sexual humiliations and abuse for which the Iranian regime denounced the United States.

“My life is over. I don’t think I can ever recover,” he said, as he recounted his experiences toThe Times — on condition that his identity not be revealed. A doctor who is treating him, at great risk to herself, confirmed that he is suicidal, and bears the appalling injuries consistent with his story. The family is desperate, and is exploring ways of fleeing Iran.

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Source: NPR

In 2005, she published the salaries of top Iranian politicians, exposing that many had lied about having taken pay cuts. That same year, she got into a verbal fight with a Muslim cleric in the Iranian Parliament for not having her hair fully covered under her headscarf. A year later, she requested an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The title of her column: “Talk To Me, Mr. Ahmadinejad, If You Dare To.” He declined.

But her best stunt yet may have come last November, right after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency. Iranian journalists are not permitted by their government to interview American officials. In fact, when 11 journalists tried to come to the United States to cover the presidential elections, they were stopped by Iranian officials at the airport and their passports were confiscated.

Alinejad was not deterred. Instead, it fueled her fire. She decided she could take the chance to seek an Obama interview as she was not on Iranian soil.

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Source: CNN

From left: former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Sadeq Larijani and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — There was a smile, a quick wave hello, a brief chat. Yet, despite the exchange of pleasantries, the simmering tensions between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and one of the nation’s most powerful clerics became quickly evident at a major ceremony in Tehran on Monday.

Ahmadinejad and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani were attending the inauguration of Sadeq Larijani — brother of Iran’s prominent parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani — who was tapped by Iran’s supreme leader to be the new judiciary chief.

It was only the second time Ahmadinejad and his political rival Rafsanjani, a reformist who has been a vocal critic of the hard-line regime in place, sat under the same roof since the disputed June 12 elections drew a rift among Iran’s Islamic leadership, Iranian media reported.

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Source: Reuters

By REUTERS

Published: August 17, 2009

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Dozens of opposition supporters chanted “death to the dictator” on Monday after police prevented a protest rally in front of the building of a reformist daily which says it has been temporarily closed down, a witness said.

Police at the scene in central Tehran prevented the demonstrators from gathering outside the offices of the Etemad-e Melli newspaper of leading reformist Mehdi Karoubi, the witness said.

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Source: The New York Times

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A group of Iranian clerics has issued an anonymous letter calling Iran’s supreme leader a dictator and demanding his removal, the latest and perhaps strongest rhetorical attack on him yet in the country’s post-election turmoil.

While the impact of the clerics’ letter, posted late Saturday on opposition Web sites, may have been diluted by the withholding of their signatures, two Iranian experts vouched for its authenticity. Its publication followed other unusual verbal attacks on the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in recent days.

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Source: The Times

Martin Fletcher

August 17, 2009

Iran released on bail yesterday a French student who was accused of spying. She had spent six weeks in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail.

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Source: Associated Press

Reuters – EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Write

TEHRAN, Iran – A group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body in Iran to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country’s most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.

The call came as controversy heated up Friday over allegations that protesters detained the crackdown were tortured. Hard-line clerics across the country demanded that a senior reform leader be prosecuted for claiming that some detainees were raped by their jailers.

The former lawmakers’ appeal was to the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics that under Iranian law has the power to name the supreme leader and, in theory, to remove him — though such a move has never been attempted. There was no immediate response from the assembly to the group’s letter, sent late Thursday.

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Source: FaceBook

Solidarity Committe to Protect the Iranian People’s Will

Host: Solidarity Committe to Protect the Iranian People’s Will

Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009

Time: 8:00am – 8:00pm

Location: U.N. Headquarters in New York City

Address: 760 United Nations Plaza, Manhathan, NY

E-mail: scpipwdc@gmail.com

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Source: The Economist

Allegations of torture against opponents of the president

Aug 13th 2009 | CAIRO

From The Economist print edition

WHEN residents of Iran’s capital seek escape from its choking smog, they often head for the hills, or rather the barren mountains that soar above Tehran’s northern suburbs. But the anxious little crowd gathered at the foot of one of these slopes on a recent morning was not in search of fresh air. Clustered around lists of names pasted on a high concrete wall topped with concertina wire, they were hoping for a clue that some missing loved one might be immured inside, in the hillside complex of cell blocks and interrogation rooms that make up Iran’s most notorious prison.

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Source: CNN

August 13, 2009 — Updated 1811 GMT (0211 HKT

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) — Three independent United Nations human rights experts have accused Iran of torturing confessions from detainees charged with fomenting political unrest, the international organization said Thursday.

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Source: Los Angeles Times

By Borzou Daragahi

August 12, 2009

A reformist politician’s letter claiming jailed protesters have been abused brings details of such allegations to the fore. The parliamentary speaker has promised to investigate.

Reporting from Beirut – Nearly a month later, she can’t erase images of the dying young man from her mind. All but two of his upper teeth had been knocked out. His nails had been pulled out. His head had been bashed in. His kidneys had stopped working. But what most disturbed her, she said, were the stitches around his anus — a sign, the nurses told her, that he had been raped.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

Mass Hearing of Detained Opposition Members Comes as Ahmadinejad Prepares for Inauguration

Associated Press

The mass trial of Iran’s top reformist leaders over the weekend on charges that include conspiring to overthrow the regime signals that a process is under way to eventually outlaw the reformist party and ban its members and supporters from political activity, Iran analysts say.

On Sunday, reaction by Iranian newspapers and Web sites to the trials of some 100 detained opposition members, including a former vice president, was polarized as some raised questions about whether their confessions were coerced.

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Source: Associated Press

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi on Sunday urged Iran’s government to release detained activists and citizens accused of involvement in the country’s postelection unrest, saying the president must “listen to the people’s voice.”

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Source: Reuters

By Reza Derakhshi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, a defeated presidential candidate and a former president should be tried for inciting unrest after a disputed presidential poll.

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Source: Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Hundreds of supporters of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi chanted “death to the dictator” in Tehran on Thursday, a witness said, a day after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as president.

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Source: Free Kian 2009

“The false imprisonment of Iranian/American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh and 100 other activists involved in the ongoing democracy movement in Iran deserves our immediate attention.

I urge those of us living in a democratic society to speak out against the current Iranian regime’s system of political repression and human rights violations threatening to silence these activists and journalists.

Without freedom of speech and the right of dissent, there can be no viable democracy.”

Source: The Guardian

Monday 3 August 2009

Hundreds, probably thousands, have been arrested in Iran since the
presidential election on 12 June. Human rights and campaign groups such as Human Rights Watch, the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Reporters Without Borders have been collecting and publishing the names of those dead or detained.

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Source: The Christian Science Monitor

A force to reckon with in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s  second term, the Guards are led by commanders whose  worldview was forged during the devastating Iran-Iraq war.

BEIRUT – To Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the danger  facing the Islamic Republic is acute: Its founding ideals are  under serious threat at home and from abroad, and every sacrifice must be made to preserve them as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad embarks on his second term.

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