Iran:Rate of executions rising in Iran

Rate of executions rising in Iran

 The UK Representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has said that the rate of executions is rising during Hassan Rouhani’s presidency despite his claim to ‘moderation’. In an interview with the ncr-iran.org website on Tuesday 26 April Dowlat Nowrouzi said that recent visits to Tehran by European leaders had not lead to any improvement of the human rights situation in Iran.

Officials from Italy, France and Austria have all engaged with the Iranian government since the start of the year and a new, reduced sanctions framework. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran at the time of two executions. Mogherini and seven other commissioners were meeting to discuss trade agreements and increased co-operation.

Iran – Women: Female workers suffer from discrimination

According to official statistics, female workers make up only 5% percent of the total number of Iranian workers. They are thus ignored and even deprived of their minimum legal rights.

Some of the so-called privileges considered for women in the Iranian Labor Law, are actually working against women discouraging employers from employing women to dodge the rules on maternity leaves and creation of kindergartens and child care centers at the work place.

“Women mostly work in services sectors. Most of the women working in these sectors are single-parents. Given the economic situation, high inflation rate and soaring prices, women constantly face the risk of losing their jobs when their workplace gets shut down. A female worker who weaves a rug over a year, receives 1 million toumans as salary which is about 100,000 toumans per month. This is a quarter of a worker's minimum wage but since they badly need the money, they accept to work on such low wages. They are therefore exploited in this manner,” said Soheila Jelodarzadeh, a former member of the Iranian parliament.

Iranian workers protest for their rights in Tehran

NCRI – Iranian workers protested on Saturday in central Tehran denouncing the detention of banned union activists and demanding labor rights currently denied to them by the mullahs’ regime.

The rally had been organized by the state-affiliated Worker’s House, and there was a heavy police presence to ensure that the rally did not get out of hand. In the middle of the procession, however, large numbers of workers began to chant slogans against the regime and demanded freedom for political prisoners.

“Arrested workers must be freed,” they chanted.

They also held up banners with messages countering those that had been produced by the official state-affiliated body.

Tehran bus drivers hold rally demanding release of political prisoners

NCRI - Members of the Tehran Bus Workers Union took part in a rally in central Tehran on Saturday on the eve of International Workers' Day demanding the release of labor activists from jail and their basic rights including decent wages.

The bus drivers and staff were joined by a large number of students in the rally. They raised banners which read: “Arrested workers must be freed,” "Unions are our inalienable right" and "A just (decent) wage is our inalienable right."

Minutes after they began their rally, suppressive state security forces attacked the gathering and confiscated the banners.

The mullahs’ regime is taking draconian measures to prevent workers in Iran from holding protests on International Workers' Day on May 1.

IRAAN: NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee chief comments on recent spate of executions in Iran

NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee chief comments on recent spate of executions in Iran

NCRI – Regarding the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran, which have numbered at least 46 since April 10, Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of (NCRI), said:

“In the month of April, during and after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran. Among the latest cases was the execution of eight Iranian Baluchis in Zahedan Prison on Saturday and Tuesday.

Iran regime broadcasts video to recruit children for Syria war

Iran regime broadcasts video to recruit children for Syria war

NCRI – The Iranian regime, faced with a crisis in recruiting fighters to defend Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, has embarked on a new propaganda campaign to encourage children to join the war in Syria.

The Iranian regime’s state media have been broadcasting a new promotional clip entitled ‘Martyrs who defend the sacred shrine’ in recent days encourage young children to take part in the war.

Iranian refugee, 23, self-immolates; call for support for Iranian refugees in Australi

Iranian refugee, 23, self-immolates; call for support for Iranian refugees in Australia

The Iranian Resistance declares its deep regret for the self-immolation of an Iranian refugee, 23, that occurred during a visit by a UNHCR delegation from a refugee camp in New Guinea.

This Iranian refugee, reported to be in dire condition, is among around 800 Iranian and Afghan refugees who had succeeded in reaching Australia but the Australian government, in breach of recognized refugee standards, has sent these refugees to Papua Islands in New Guinea

IRAN:Kazem Rajavi: Iran human rights advocate remembered

 

Iran Focus

London, 25 Apr - Last Sunday, 24 April, marked the 26th anniversary of Professor Kazem Rajavi’s assassination. Professor Rajavi was a renowned defender of human rights in Iran and the elder brother of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the organised Iranian opposition.

Professor Rajavi was 56 when he was killed whilst driving to his home in Coppet, a village near Geneva. The assassination was carried out in broad daylight by members of the Iranian government’s infamous Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Extensive investigations from Swiss authorities found 13 Iranian government agents including former President and one of the richest men in Iran - Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – to be involved in masterminding the assassination.

Professor Rajavi held six doctorate degrees in law, political science and sociology from universities in Paris and Geneva. He was an active advocate for a free Iran, establishing the Swiss Society for Defence of Iranian Political Prisoners in 1971 with Geneva resident Christian Grobet who went on to become head of government advisors.

IRAN:The Iranian Regime Will Collapse Following Assad’s Leave from Power

Paris-Maryam Rajavi, President of the “People’s Mujahedin of Iran” party, said that the Iranian regime is founded on three main pillars for it to prevail. The three principals are assembling a nuclear deterrent,absolute oppression of the interior and the export of terrorism and extremism to the outside.

Rajavi, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, said believes that Tehran’s strategy is established on the extent of interference it manages in affairs of other countries, the incitement of war and the exporting of terrorism; however, all the regime’s plots have failed after the Decisive Storm.

“The Iranian regime can be defeated once and for all in Bahrain if it was confronted with a decisive alliance formed by regional countries,” Rajavi said. She mentioned that the Iranian regime is close to drowned in the swamps of the Syrian civil war.

Iran :Afsaneh Hajibaba: Fate-making moments

Afsaneh Hajibaba

There are pivotal moments in life that would change everything. There are pivotal moments that would stay with you till eternity and are impossible to forget.

I was a nurse, working night shifts in a hospital. One morning, as I was returning home, I was stopped by a horrific scene.

In Imam Hossein Square in , a 17-year-old boy had been hanged in public. I arrived at the scene when his body was swinging in the air and his legs making sudden movements.  People were watching in awe.  No one was even breathing. The terror was indescribable.

  The dreadful spectacle of the tiny legs of a young boy twirling and seeing him struggling while suffocating, changed my whole life. I made a choice to fight against the brutal dictatorship ruling my country.

 When I was leaving the country, I was not able to bring my 9-year-old son.  Leaving him behind was one of the toughest moments of my life. He was weeping so baad that everyone in the airport was crying with him. I said good bye to my son, held the hand of my older daughter and stepped forward.

Iran: Public flogging of a woman

Iran: Public flogging of a woman

A woman was flogged this morning, April 27, 2016, in public in the city of Golpayegan, in the central Iranian Province of Isfahan.The unidentified woman had been arrested and imprisoned four years ago on the charge of complicity in the murder of her husband and illicit relations with another man.

Amb. Lincoln Bloomfield: Iran regime has ‘legitimacy deficit’

amb-lincoln-bloomfield

NCRI – Iran’s regime has a “legitimacy deficit” and fears any challenges to its rule and as such is “jailing and executing people who pose a political challenge,” said Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, a former senior United States official.

In an interview on Iran News Update's YouTube page, Amb. Bloomfield criticized the Obama administration for not considering Iran’s human rights violations as a factor in the nuclear agreement made with the mullahs’ regime in 2015.

“This raises the question of whether the United States has been ignoring one of the most egregious violators of human rights in the world, and ignoring the plight of the individuals who are being detained and jailed and tortured and executed in Iran,” said Amb. Bloomfield who previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs in the U.S. State Department from 2001 until 2005.

“I do think that there is a refocusing that is needed as to what should be the appropriate approach to the behavior of the ruling regime in Iran.”

Amb. Bloomfield said he does not believe that international trade deals would encourage the regime to reduce the number of executions in carries out annually.

Iran;Five NGOs urge UN protection for PMOI members in Camp Liberty

Camp Liberty

NCRI - Five international organizations with United Nations consultative status have issued a statement addressing the UN Human Rights Council session in which they stressed that “there is absolutely no evidence” of an investigation by the Government of Iraq into deadly attacks on members of the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty since 2009. They called for an investigation into the “seven massacres of residents, especially that of September 1, 2013 in Ashraf and the slaughter of October 29, 2015 in Camp Liberty.”

The following is the full text of their joint statement

IRAN:Video clip of retired teachers’ protest outside Iran regime’s Parliament

NCRI - Retired Iranian teachers this week protested outside the Iranian regime's Parliament in Tehran over inadequate retirement pensions.

The protesters, who gathered in front of the Majlis, or Parliament, on Monday said that they cannot make ends meet with their current low monthly pension.

NGO: International action needed to stop Iran regime’s military presence in Syria

Struan Stevenson

President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA)

NCRI - The Brussels-based European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA) in a statement on Saturday urged the international community to act urgently to stop the Iranian regime's military presence in Syria.

The following is the text of the statement by EIFA President Struan Stevenson:

23 April 2016

The international community should act decisively against the presence of the Iranian military in Syria

With the Syrian revolution against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad entering its sixth year, Tehran has escalated the presence in Syria of its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), together with regular Iranian military units, who are waging a brutal campaign against the Syrian people and the moderate opposition.

IRAN:How hypocritical the trip to Tehran is from the perspective of a dissident

The parade of Western leaders, with their shared weaknesses.

The young Zanjani speaks: “The mullahs haven’t changed”

Il Foglio - April 14, 2016

By Cynthia Martens

Paris. Elham Zanjani has never been to Iran. Her parents left their home country in the 70s, and she was born in Montreal in 1978 and raised in Toronto. Though Zanjani speaks fondly of Canada, as a young girl she was troubled by the knowledge that far away, cousins whom she had never met were living a totally different sort of life.

“You always have in the back of your mind,” she says in an interview with Il Foglio. “How is it possible that I could grow up in a place where I could do sports, I could swim, I could think freely, go to the mall, listen to music, eat what I want and start building the future that I want – but my cousins, the same age as I was, didn’t have the same rights,” she says, noting that the girls had to wear full black chadors. Contact with loved ones in Iran was limited, due to the regime’s aggressive monitoring of phone calls.

 The scar of Camp Ashraf

 Zanjani’s concern for her relatives eventually blossomed into a desire to work with the Iranian resistance. As a college student in Canada, she was interested in physiotherapy, but instead of finishing her studies, left everything for Camp Ashraf, a city in Iraq near the border with Iran that was home to many political refugees and former prisoners of the Iranian regime. Though she initially expected her stay to be brief, Zanjani stayed for well over a decade, working at the local hospital and putting her language skills – in addition to English, she speaks French, Farsi and a bit of Arabic – to use as an interpreter.

“I got to improve my Farsi, and got to really understand my background much more,” she recalls.

A relatively peaceful life in Ashraf took a turn for the worse after U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq, and residents of the camp experienced several attacks from Iraqi forces guided by a prime minister, al-Maliki, who was sympathetic to the Iranian regime. Zanjani was directly hit by a grenade. Getting proper care for her extensive arm and leg injuries was complicated, and Zanjani eventually returned to Canada, where she recovered.

Today, she continues to travel between Canada and Europe, and works with the dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran, specifically with the group’s women’s committee.

IRAN:Rouhani's demagoguery in defending the dispatch of forces and export of terrorism to the region

 

Hassan Rouhani, President of the Iranian regime, speaking on the occasion of Army Day, acknowledged the presence of the regime’s armed forces in Iraq and Syria and their pivotal role in keeping Bashar al-Assad in power. He said that the Iranian regime “has defended and persevered from the gates of Baghdad to the sacred shrines and holy places. The day that Damascus was threatened, they were our fighters that through dispatch of advisors defended the capital of that country and the sacred shrines.”

Iran:Ali Safavi: Iran regime uses sanctions money to spread terror

Dr. Ali Safavi

NCRI - On the meeting later today between United States Secretary of State John Kerry and the Iranian regime's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in New York, Dr. Ali Safavi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Ira (NCRI) made the following remarks:

“As has been evident since the implementation of the nuclear deal between the P5+1 and the Iranian regime, Tehran uses the windfall from sanctions relief to spread terror, prop up Bashar al-Assad and step up repression at home. Unfreezing more assets will only incentivize the ruling clerics to pursue more of the same policies.”