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Friday, 31 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Baghdad, Dec. 31 - The Iraqi interim-Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, speaking on Iraqi TV today echoed comments made yesterday by Iraq’s Defence Minister, about Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq. “There are countries which host those who are involved in activities that are harmful to the people of Iraq”, he said. |
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Friday, 31 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Baghdad, Dec. 31 – The Iraqi Defence Minister announced yesterday that he has fresh information on Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq. “I have important information regarding the interference into Iraq by these two countries”, Hazem Shaalan said. Speaking on Al-Arabia satellite TV channel, Shaalan stated, “The Iraqi people will soon see footage of the confessions of one of the perpetrators who has information about the meddling of these two countries in Iraq”. |
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Friday, 31 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 31 - Recent studies reveal that fourteen percent of all children in Iran are currently working so as to provide income for their families.
Many of these children are forced into illegal employment such as smuggling, selling narcotics, and prostitution and have to forgo any opportunity of studying in school. Virtually all such children are facing malnutrition and are prone to diseases due to lack of hygiene, according to the latest statistics. |
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Thursday, 30 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 30 - The director general of Iran’s Teachers Union resigned on Tuesday after increased
pressure by the Iranian regime on teachers and educational establishments. In the general meeting of the directors of the Teachers Union attended by ten of the fifteen members of the board, Mahmoud Beheshti-Langroudi, handed in his resignation citing “personal reasons”. |
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Thursday, 30 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 30 - Following recent protests by Iranian students in Tehran’s Water and Electricity University a member of Iran’s parliament (Majlis) called for the immediate closure of the institution and a clampdown on the protest.
Mr. Rostami, the MP from Ghoochan, said “this university must quickly be shut down”. |
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Wednesday, 29 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Baghdad, Dec. 29 - The police chief in Najaf said that the commander of three terrorists arrested on Sunday in connection with a car bomb that exploded in the holy city, had extensive connections to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). He said that intelligence for when and where
to attack was given by an MOIS agent to the terrorist cells. |
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Wednesday, 29 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 29 - More than half of Iran’s hospitals have declared bankruptcy in the past four years according to the head of Medical Department of University of Gilan (northern Iranian province). Dr. Fariborz Ghanaati stated that since the government introduced a scheme four years ago to privatise
the majority of Iran’s hospitals, 350 out of the 550 hospitals throughout Iran have declared bankruptcy. |
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Wednesday, 29 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Berlin, Dec. 29 - Three members of the European Parliament took part in a demonstration outside the Iranian embassy in Berlin in protest to the Iranian regime’s practice of stoning people to death. A large number of Iranian exiles yesterday afternoon joined the three The MEPs, Alexander Alvaro, Holger Krahmer, and Alexander Lambsdorff, from the German Free Democratic Party. |
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Tuesday, 28 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 28 - A young man who was accused of killing a member of Iran’s security forces when he was a minor is
to be executed within “the next few days”, according to a Tehran judge who sentenced him.
Iman Farrokhi who was 17 at the time of the offence is currently
on death row in the Tehran Centre for Reform and Education (Juvenile Prison). |
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Tuesday, 28 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 28 - Two young men were hanged in public in the Iranian city of Mashad (northeastern province of Khorrasan) yesterday and on Sunday after authorities accused them of rape. One of the young men identified only by his first name, Mohammad-Reza, was publicly hanged in Hedayat blvd. in the city-center. |
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Tuesday, 28 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 28 – A teenager who is currently in one of Iran’s Centers for Reform and Education (Juvenile Prison) is to be hanged to death within three weeks for a crime allegedly committed when he was fourteen. The boy only identified as Mohammad T. was accused of fatally stabbing another boy who was involved in a scuffle with his brother. Mohammad M. died from his wounds in hospital on October 17, 2000. |
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Monday, 27 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 27 – A 60-year-old mother of six set herself on fire in Iran, with her family blaming it on stress and her social surroundings.
The elderly woman only identified by her first name, Zahra, lived in the western Iranian city of Ilam with her husband for the past 40 years. |
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Monday, 27 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 27 - Fourteen people were reportedly killed after heavy rainfall caused severe flooding in southeastern Iranian provinces of Sistan-Balouchestan and Hormozgan. Ten people were found dead near Sarbaz region in Sistan-Balouchestan after rains there caused rivers to flood. |
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Monday, 27 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 27 - The head of the Iranian Nurses Union said Iran’s nurses would stage nationwide protests on January 18, 2005, if the authorities continue to ignore their demands. Mohammad Sharafi Moghadam reiterated that the authorities have thus far refused to issue permission for a rally and therefore a protest had been organised instead. |
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Monday, 27 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 27 – More than 200 workers from Iran Pars Garment plan to hold a rally over back pay in Tehran this week. They will begin a march from the city of Rasht (northern Gilan province) to the Iranian capital, the state-run news agency ILNA said. The workers have not received their salaries for the past seven months and Gilan Workers’ Union demands for government action have proven fruitless. |
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Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 26 – Iranian press have reported the public execution of at least four women in the past year, with at least 14 more to be publicly hanged or stoned to death.
Iran Focus has obtained the names and particulars of the four executed women, among them a 16-year-old girl. They were: |
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Saturday, 25 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 25 – The acting director-general of the workers’ union of the city of Shahre-Rey (southwest of Tehran) yesterday said that workers were currently living below the poverty line. Ali Tarkashvand said that workers desire to work with dignity with the hope of earning salaries to be able to have a reasonable lifestyle. |
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Friday, 24 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Baghdad, Dec. 24 - The Iraqi Defence Minister stated that Iraq would soon display footage of Iranian
meddling throughout the country. Hazem Shaalan said that Iraqi security forces were able to obtain foreign satellite
footage of 50 suicide vehicles entering the country from Iran. |
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Thursday, 23 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 23 - A 15-year-old girl who ran away from home because of being forcefully married to a man twice her age was arrested and is currently in a juvenile correctional facility in Tehran. The girl, who is of Afghan origin, ran away from home after she was sold by her father to another 30-year-old Afghan man for 50 million rials (the equivalent of $5,000). |
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Wednesday, 22 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 22 – Two antique smugglers had
their death sentences upheld yesterday by an Islamic revolutionary court in the southern town of Jiroft.
The religious judge, Dadkhoda Sallari, also ordered the confiscation and sale of their personal property to cover the cost of trial. |
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Sunday, 19 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 19 - The head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Ahmad-Ali Noorbala, has been implicated in the smuggling and illegal sale of relief aid goods which were destined survivors of the earthquake-hit city of Bam (southeastern Iran). |
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Wednesday, 15 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Strasbourg, Dec. 15 – The Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi was the keynote speaker at a meeting of the members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Rajavi addressed some 200 MEPs, their assistants and other political personalities during a session, entitled “The Future of Iran: Oppression or Democracy,” that was organised by “Friends of a Free Iran”. |
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Monday, 13 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Dec. 13 - Workers and local residents in the northern Iranian city of Amol clashed with the security forces, leaving scores injured and a number of security vehicles destroyed. Workers from Amol's Textile Factory demonstrated outside the local governor's office after the factory claimed bankruptcy whilst owing the workers back-pay ... |
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Sunday, 12 December 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Paris, Dec. 11 – A three-day exhibition of a
quarter-century of human rights violations in Iran, sponsored
by over 30 European human rights organizations, began with
a conference in Paris on Friday and is drawing large crowds
of French and Iranian visitors. |
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Tuesday, 30 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Nov. 30 - The Supreme Court of Iran has upheld a stoning sentence for a woman accused of adultery. Hajieh Esmailvand has been serving prison time in the town of Jolfa (Northwestern Iran) since Jan. 2000 for having an affair
with a 17-year-old boy. |
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Thursday, 25 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Nov. 25 - New information has come to light over the sudden death of a 14-year-old schoolboy in western Iran, who died after being flogged for “eating in public” during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan. Kaveh Habibi-Nejad died Nov. 12 and was buried in the cemetery of the Kurdish city of Sanadaj on Nov. 13, according to his death certificate. |
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Tuesday, 23 November 2004 |
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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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Friday, 19 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Paris, Nov. 19 - Iran Focus has obtained the text of a press conference by senior representatives of the Iranian opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which took place in Paris on Friday, Nov. 19. Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee, accused Tehran on Friday of using advanced laser technology to secretly enrich uranium and of lying to the United Nations nuclear watchdog body about the covert program. |
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Friday, 19 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Washington, D.C., Nov. 19 - In what has been described as the largest Iranian demonstration in the United States, thousands of Iranians converged on the U.S. capital from all across the continent today to call for referral of the Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council. They also urged the U.S. administration to remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), the main Iranian opposition group, from the list of terrorist organizations. |
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Friday, 19 November 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Paris, Nov. 19 - Iran Focus has obtained the text of a press conference by senior representatives of the leading Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which took place in Paris on Wednesday, Nov. 17. Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee, on Wednesday revealed the presence of a new secret nuclear site in Northeast Tehran. |
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