Report of secret burials in Iran brings call for inquiry |
A reformist lawmaker vows to examine allegations that 44 unidentified bodies were buried in a cemetery amid heavy security following post-election unrest. |
Reporting from Beirut -
An Iranian lawmaker vowed today to examine allegations that dozens of unidentified people killed in the recent post-election unrest were secretly buried in the country’s largest cemetery last month. |
The reformist website Norooznews.org on Friday cited an unnamed employee of the capital’s Behesht Zahra cemetery as saying that 44 unidentified corpses were buried under heavy security July 12 and 15. |
Majid Nasirpour, a reformist lawmaker who serves on parliament’s Social Affairs Committee, filed a request for an inquiry into the mass burial allegation, the website Parlemannews.ir reported. |
Iran’s Rafsanjani urges warring factions to follow Khamenei |
TEHRAN — Powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani urged Iran’s warring political groups on Saturday to follow the orders of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for ending the present political turmoil. |
In his first such statement in direct support of Khamenei since the June 12 election, the former president said “the current situation needs everyone to observe the leader’s decrees and advice,” Iranian news agencies reported. |
Rafsanjani was speaking at the start of a meeting of Iran’s top political arbitration body, the Expediency Council, which he heads. |
He urged the bitterly divided groups to create “appropriate conditions to act and commit to the constitution … and confront law breakers, whatever their ideological leanings.” |
A supporter of the opposition, Rafsanjani distanced himself from Khamenei in a Friday prayer sermon last month and said the election had triggered a “crisis” in the country. Read more at www.google.com |
قطعه ای از بهشت زهرا سبز شده است
بیست و یکم و بیست و چهارم تیرماه در بهشت زهرای تهران چه خبر بوده است؟ |
پیکر دهها نفر از شهروندان تهرانی در تاریخ های 21 و 24 تیرماه بدون اسم و مشخصات فردی در قطعه 302 بهشت زهرای تهران به خاک سپرده شده است.
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نوروز:یکی از پرسنل زحمت کش بهشت زهرای تهران به خبرنگار نوروز گفت:”در روزهای 21 و 24 تیرماه جنازه هایی بدون نام و مشخصات و تحت تدابیر شدید امنیتی، به این قبرستان آورده شده و با صدور اجباری جواز دفن برای آنها در قطعه 302 به خاک سپرده شده است. |
با پیگیرهای خبرنگار نوروز از بهشت زهرای تهران، روز بیست و یکم تیرماه از بین جوازهای دفن صادر شده در آن قبرستان، 28 جواز بدون ذکر نام و نام خانوادگی صادر شده و همگی در قطعه 302 به خاک سپرده شده اند. 24 تیرماه نیز 16 جواز دفن با شرایط فوق صادر شده است. |
گفتنی است سایت نوروز در تاریخ 24 تیرماه نیز به نقل از خانواده یکی از شهدای حوادث اخیر، از وجود دهها جنازه در سردخانه ای در جموب غربی تهران خبر داده بود، که با تحویل جنازه های منجمد به خانواده ها در روزهای بعدی این خبر تا حدودی مورد تائید قرار گرفت. Read more at norooznews.org |
| Saudi Arabia censors activists’ Twitter pages |
Saudi Arabia has begun blocking the Twitter pages of activists in a move one man targetted says may be a result of Twitter’s role in publicising Iran’s recent pro-democracy uprising. |
Human rights lawyer Waleed Abulkhair and businessman Khaled al Nasser said their Twitter pages have been blocked since about Monday by the official government Internet censor, the Communications and Information Technology Commission. |
Some pages of offshore dissidents have been blocked for a few weeks, but this is apparently the first move against known Twitter users inside the kingdom, said Ahmed al-Omran, who first reported the censorship on his blog “Saudi Jeans”. |
“My account has been blocked for four days,” Nasser told AFP. Accessing his page http://twitter.com/Mashi97 from inside Saudi Arabia brings up the official censor’s notice “Sorry, the requested page is unavailable.” Read more at news.theage.com.au |
Iranian judge orders ban on pro-Ahmadinejad daily |
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Tehran - An Iranian judge ordered a ban on the daily newspaper Kayhan, which is a fierce supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the news agency ILNA reported Thursday. The ban came after the daily’s hardline chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, failed to appear twice before a court that was supposed to deal with Kayhan’s claims that one of the aides of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi had ties with the CIA. |
| The judge’s ban, however, must be approved by the Tehran prosecutor general’s office. |
| Kayhan is one of the oldest newspapers in Iran. Since the 1979 revolution, its chief has been appointed by Iran’s supreme leader. |
| Shariatmadari has turned Kayhan into the leading media outlet supporting the Islamic hardline. Shariatmadari’s editorials, especially against the country’s reformists and recently against Moussavi, have always beencontroversial and led to legal procedures against him. Read more at www.earthtimes.org |
 Mohammed Dadkhah never organized political rallies or delivered soaring speeches.
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He was already locked in prison once, back in 2003, in an apparent attempt to prevent him from speaking up for those accused of political wrongs. |
Now he is in jail again, locked up in Evin Prison, the same one where most of his clients have spent time. |
According to his colleagues, Dadkhah has been under heavy pressure to publicly confess to being in involved in a nefarious plot against the Islamic Republic |
Specifically, his interrogators wanted him to betray the the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, the small nonprofit organization he runs with Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, and to state that Ebadi was a traitor. Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com |
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Iran: List of 18 proposed cabinet ministers released
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The names of persons for proposed ministries are as follows:
1. Sousan Keshavarz: education minister
2. Reza Taqipour: communications minster
3: Haidar Moslehi: intelligence minister
4: Shamsodin Hosseini: economy minister
5: Manouchehr Mottaki: foreign minister
6: Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi: health minister
7: Mohammad Abasi: cooperative minister
8: Sadeq Khalilian: agriculture minister
9: Hamid Behbahani: transport minister
10: Fateme Ajorlou: welfare and social security minister
11: Ali Akbar Mehrabian: industries and mines minister
12: Kamran Daneshjou: science minister
13: Mohammad Hosseini: culture and Islamic guidance minister
14: Abdolreza Sheikholeslami: labor minister
15: Mostafa Mohammad Najar: interior minister
16: Ali Nikzad: housing and urban development minister
17: Masoud Mirkazemi: oil minister
18: Mohammad Ali-Abadi: energy minister Read more at www.payvand.com |
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Independent investigation needed into rape and torture in detention in Iran
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Allegations that election protesters were
tortured and raped in detention must be urgently investigated by the Iranian
authorities, Amnesty International’s Secretary General said on Saturday. |
Irene Khan called on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to institute an
immediate, independent inquiry into the allegations, and to invite international
experts – including the UN’s experts on torture and extrajudicial killings - to
help carry it out. |
“Reports emerging from Iran allege that both men and women detainees have been
tortured, including by rape … in some cases causing their deaths,” said Irene
Khan. |
“The forms of abuse described appear to have been intended to degrade and
humiliate the victims in the most extreme way. If the allegations are
well-founded those responsible must be brought to justice without delay.” Read more at www.payvand.com |
Iran’s Opposition Claims ‘Evidence’ of Rapes |
On Wednesday in Tehran, the reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi asked to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior Iranian officials to present “documents and evidence” supporting his claims that some protesters detained during post-election demonstrations in Iran had been raped in custody. |
Mr. Karroubi, one of the candidates in the June 12 presidential election, which the opposition continues to insist was rigged, made his call for a meeting in a letter to Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament. He also published the letter online (in Persian). |
In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Mr. Karroubi said that discontent with the government is “growing at an extraordinary pace.” He told the newspaper: “In the streets, in the bazaars, at weddings and in mosques, everywhere you can hear people complaining about what has happened.” Read more at thelede.blogs.nytimes.com |
By Reza Derakhshi and Zahra Hosseinian |
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on Wednesday expected to nominate a relative novice as oil minister and seek to bring women into the cabinet for the first time — but he may face a hard fight to win approval from parliament. |
The outcome will be a further signal as to how secure Ahmadinejad’s grip is on power after political setbacks following his contested re-election in June that led to street protests and political turmoil. |
A presidential adviser said Ahmadinejad would name current Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi as new oil minister in the Islamic Republic, the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter. |
Parliamentary affairs adviser Iraj Nadimi said the president would propose to the assembly that Manouchehr Mottaki stays on as foreign minister, the official IRNA news agency reported. Read more at www.publicbroadcasting.net |
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Report of secret burials in Iran brings call for inquiry
