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Wednesday, 24 November 2004 |
 AFP: The European Union lodged a formal protest with Iranian authorities Wednesday over the arrest and harassment of journalists, staff of non-governmental organisations and members of religious minorities. "The European Union has protested in general the arrest and harassment of journalists, Internet technicians and NGO activists ... for expressing their views, and has urged the immediate release of those who are still detained, often in unknown locations," said a statement from the embassy of the Netherlands. |
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Tuesday, 23 November 2004 |
 Reporters Without Borders: Six years after a wave of murders of intellectuals and journalists in Iran, the Kazemi, Forouhar, Charif, Mokhtari, Pouyandeh and Davani families, and other families like them, still wait to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones, while the instigators and perpetrators of these killings celebrate six long years of almost total impunity that shows no sign of stopping given the frequent displays of judicial complicity and hypocrisy in these cases, Reporters Without Borders said today. |
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Tuesday, 23 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Nov. 22 - A total of six people have been sentenced to execution in Iran over the past week including two children under the age of 18 as well as two young women and two political prisoners. The two minors who were sentenced to executions who were identified only by their first names, Wahid and Mehdi.
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Thursday, 18 November 2004 |
 AFP: A UN committee on Wednesday sharply criticised human rights in Iran, citing the use of torture and a widespread crackdown on the country's media and political opposition. The UN General Assembly's social and humanitarian committee adopted the resolution, which carries symbolic value but no legal weight, for the second straight year in a 69-55 vote with 51 abstentions. |
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Wednesday, 17 November 2004 |
 RFE/RL: A UN General Assembly committee has voted to condemn human rights abuses in Iran, citing a crackdown on media, use of torture, and discrimination against women. The assembly's human rights committee approved a resolution calling on Iran to carry out widespread reforms required by conventions it has joined. The measure was approved by a
vote of 69 to 55, with 51 abstentions. |
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Wednesday, 17 November 2004 |
 Radio Farda: United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office published it annual report on human rights on November 10. Jack Straw the British Foreign Secretary presented the report, on the same day, at a press conference at the Foreign office and answered questions from the media. The first chapter of the nine-part report lists twenty countries with critical human rights records.
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Tuesday, 16 November 2004 |
 AFP: Iran's hardline judiciary has sentenced a 16-year-old boy to death for murder, the reformist Shargh daily reported Tuesday.
According to the report, the boy -- only identified as Vahid from near Tehran -- confessed to stabbing his friend Mehdi to death but insisted he did it in self-defence, saying the victim wanted to sexually abuse him. |
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Saturday, 13 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Nov. 13 - Iranian officials in the town of Babol (northern Iran) paraded a young man around the town’s main streets on Wednesday. One eyewitness reported that in a bid to mock and disgrace the young man as well as to ‘humiliate his dignity’ the regime’s agents ‘shaved his hair like a cross, put a long stick through his sleeves, and paraded him around the streets’. |
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Tuesday, 09 November 2004 |
 Human Rights Watch: The Iranian government is moving to silence Internet and Web-log communications, the last remaining outlet for freedom of expression in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of Iran’s most high-profile civil society activists rely on the internet to get their message out. |
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Saturday, 06 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Nov. 6 - Security forces have raided and arrested three webloggers in Tehran, according to reports
from the Iranian capital.
The three, identified by their first names as Dariush, Omid
and Payvand, were arrested in midnight raids on their homes on Thursday. |
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Friday, 05 November 2004 |
 AFP: Canada on Friday introduced a draft resolution at the UN General Assembly on what it maintains is the worsening human rights situation in Iran, a foreign ministry statement said. The text follows an earlier resolution on human rights violations by Iran, adopted by the United Nations and sponsored by Canada, in November of last year. |
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Sunday, 31 October 2004 |
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Reporters Without Borders: Reporters Without Borders today deplored the arrest of Iranian journalist Fershteh Ghazi, of the daily Etemad ("Confidence"), for working with reformist Internet news websites and expressed alarm at reports that the intelligence services were preparing to accuse her and five other imprisoned journalists of "adultery" in a bid to hide the political nature of their detention. |
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Saturday, 30 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 30 - Zhila Izadyar, the 13-year-old schoolgirl from the Iranian town of Marivan (north-western Iran) who is sentenced to be stoned to death is reported to be in poor health after she was lashed 55 times in prison.
Azad Zamani of the Society for the Protection of Children’s Rights has said that Zhila’s health has been rapidly deteriorating. Zamani has managed to visit Zhila although under close supervision of the Iranian regime’s agents. |
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Thursday, 28 October 2004 |
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AFP: The European Parliament expressed alarm Thursday at the deterioration in the area of human rights in Iran, in particular those relating to press freedom and the death penalty. "The situation in Iran with regard to the exercise of key civil rights and political freedom has deteriorated since the parliamentary elections of February this year despite commitments on the part of the government of Iran to promoting these universal values," according to a motion passed by the parliament. |
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Tuesday, 26 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 26 – Agents of Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF) raided a house-party in the town of Imam Hossein in the northern province of Rasht and arrested 20 young boys and girls.
Those arrested were charged with attending a mixed-sex
party. |
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Wednesday, 20 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 20 - The secretary of the student
union of Azad University in Iran’s Central province was sentenced to 40 lashes, one year in prison and fined one million rials in the town of Arak.
Soroush Farhadian was charged with ‘spreading false propaganda’ against the regime. |
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Wednesday, 20 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 20 – Four men were hanged in the town of Sari in the northern province of Mazandaran on
charges of armed violence. The men, identified only by their first names, Mohammad-Reza, Hamid-Reza, Hassan and Reza, were executed after the Supreme Islamic Court upheld the original judge’s verdict.
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Tuesday, 19 October 2004 |
AFP: The editor of a reformist Iranian newspaper has been arrested as part of the authorities' crackdown on "illegal" Internet sites, the local media reported on Tuesday.
Javad Qolam Tamimi, editor of the pro-reform daily Mardomsalari, was arrested Monday evening for his involvement in the dissident sites, the daily Iran quoted a
local judiciary official as saying. |
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Monday, 18 October 2004 |
 Asia News: Hamid Pourmand is a Protestant minister of the Assemblies of God Church. He converted from Islam several years ago. Since September he has been held in prison at an undisclosed location and under Iranian law he can be put to death for "apostasy against Islam". He was arrested on September 9 in Karaj, a town 30 km west of the capital Tehran during a police raid against the annual General Council of the Assemblies of God Church. |
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Monday, 18 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 18 - The Supreme Court has
approved and upheld the execution sentence of 3 teenage boys. The boys who were aged between 15 and 16 years
when they were charged are currently in the Center for Reform and Education (Juvenile Prison) until they turn 18 when they shall be executed. |
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Sunday, 17 October 2004 |
AFP: An Iranian soldier has been charged with killing a party-goer during a raid on an illegal mixed-sex gathering, the student news agency ISNA reported Saturday.
Security forces raided the party in the town of Karaj, west of Tehran, and one soldier opened fire, shooting dead one of the guests. |
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Sunday, 17 October 2004 |
 AFP: An Iranian man convicted of a series of robberies has had four fingers on his right hand amputated in public, the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper reported Saturday.
The man, who was only identified as Hamid H., was reportedly caught by locals in the southwestern city of Ahvaz while he was out on a burglary in September 2003. |
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Sunday, 17 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 16 - A 13-year-old schoolgirl has been sentenced to stoning in the town of Marivan (northwestern Iran). Zhila Izadi was condemned to death by stoning after giving birth to a child in prison 2 weeks ago. |
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Friday, 15 October 2004 |
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Human Rights Watch: The arrest of journalist and internet writer Omid Memarian continues a disturbing crackdown on journalists and internet writers in Iran, Human Rights Watch said today. Memarian, a well-known figure in Iran’s nongovernmental organization community, has been detained without charge since his arrest on Sunday, Oct. 10. The Iranian Students News Agency, citing family members, reported that agents of Iran’s Judiciary ... |
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Thursday, 14 October 2004 |
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Voice of America: An Iranian-American human rights group says the Iranian government has stepped up its campaign against pro-democracy dissidents, women and minorities with the staging of some 120 public hangings, and the arrest and imprisonment of more than 40 journalists. |
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Tuesday, 12 October 2004 |
 AP: A year after her Nobel Peace Prize was announced in Oslo, human rights activist Shirin Ebadi said today that the honor
had helped her cause everywhere except at home in Iran.
"The Nobel Peace Prize has given me more international possibilities. It has opened a lot of doors," said the Iranian lawyer, writer and activist. "But the prize has not made my work any easier in Iran." |
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Saturday, 09 October 2004 |
 Reuters: The United States said on Friday it is concerned Iran has arrested a journalist and stopped him picking up a rights award in New York in a sign of what it called worsening violations in the
Islamic republic. Emadeddin Baghi was due to receive next Monday a Civil Courage Award from the Northcote Parkinson Fund, which said he had previously been imprisoned for exposing the killings of intellectuals. |
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Friday, 08 October 2004 |
 Amnesty International: Imminent execution, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh: Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh has reportedly been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, who allegedly tried to rape her then 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage. She is reportedly at risk of imminent execution.
According to a 6 October report in the Iranian newspaper E’temad, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh murdered her husband in 1997. |
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Thursday, 07 October 2004 |
 Compass: Concern is growing among Iran’s evangelical community for the safety of a pastor arrested four weeks ago
by the Iranian security police. Iranian authorities have refused to give any reason for the arrest and prolonged detention of Hamid Pourmand, 47, a lay pastor in the Assemblies of God Church. No one has been allowed contact with Pourmand since September 9, when he was arrested along with 85 other evangelical church leaders.
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Wednesday, 06 October 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 6 – Three young men were flogged in public yesterday afternoon in Farah-Abad Square in the city of Isfahan.
No reason was given as to why the three men were flogged.
Security forces have recently launched a new clampdown on youth and women in Isfahan ... |
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