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The clerical regime has embarked upon a new wave of executions and blatant human rights violations, reports from Iran say. On Saturday, June 13, dissident Javid Ghanbari was hanged in Mokhaberat square in the northwestern city of Orumieh. He was 21 years old.
Bushehr's prison officials have tortured or executed a number of prisoners, re-arrested after 300 death row prisoners and soldiers imprisoned for desertion escaped on June 19. Exact figures are not yet available on the number executed.
In Najafabad, central Iran, scene of repeated clashes and confrontations in recent weeks between the public and the clerical regime's agents, four fingers were chopped from the hand of Mohammad Reza Pahlevan, 21, during the Friday prayers on June 26. He had been charged with robbery and served time in Ahwaz and Isfahan prisons.
In remarks published in the state-controlled daily Kayhan on June 18, Morteza Bakhtiari, the head of the Prisons Organization unveiled a new scheme involving forced labor. Bakhtiari said: "We will use 20% of the prisoners in agricultural work," adding that soon camps would be set up in harsh desert areas in the provinces of Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan.
In a statement released in Paris, the National Council of Resistance of Iran urged international human rights organizations to take note of the deteriorating state of human rights in Iran and increasing executions.
At least 220 executions have been announced
during Khatami's tenure as president.
Tehran Mayor's Graft Trial, Reuter, June 30
TEHRAN - The graft trial of Tehran's mayor which has exacerbated an open row between conservatives and moderates resumed on Tuesday, Iran's official news agency IRNA said.
In the last session, Karbaschi said senior government figures were well aware of his use of city assets to reward key employees. He noted that former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had sanctioned such activities.
"I set... conditions to work as mayor
when Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani asked me to. I told him competent management
forces cannot be employed at (low) government salaries," Karbaschi said
in the previous session, marked by heated exchanges between Karbaschi and
the white-turbanned judge.
Iran Opens Oil And Gas Tender Seminar, Reuter, July 1
LONDON - Iranian Deputy Minister for International Affairs Mehdi Husseini opened an oil and gas tender seminar on Wednesday.
The three-day conference has attracted a heavy turnout from European, U.S. and Asian energy companies.
[In a statement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran declares that the Iranian people strongly condemn any cooperation with the anti-human clerical regime and any investment in the oil industry of this regime. All such investments run counter to the supreme interests of the people of Iran.
[Only a week ago, tens of thousands
of Iranians in Lyon's stadium chanted "down with Khamenei," "down with
Khatami," and "viva Rajavi" before the whole world during the football
match between Iran and the United States. They thus demonstrated the will
of the Iranian people to topple the mullahs and their support for the Iranian
Resistance. Under such circumstances, these deals and contracts with the
mullahs' regime are more illegitimate and unjustified than ever and the
Iranian people will not regard them as valid in future, the statement added.]
"Unprecedented Attack", Iran Zamin News Agency, July 1
In a June 27 statement on the Mojahedin's
attack on the central command headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards
June 2, the "Islamic Revolutionary Mujahedeen Organization," one of the
factions within the clerical regime, announced: "Such an attack was unprecedented
in the past 20 years... Firing seven mortars at a military center in Tehran
is no ordinary matter."
Turkish Police Seize Suspected Nuclear Material Smuggled From Iran, Reuter, July 1
ANKARA - Turkish police have seized 13 glass tubes containing suspected nuclear material and arrested six people, including an Iranian, in the southeast of the country, police said on Wednesday.
An officer at the anti-smuggling department in the city of Van told Reuters the six had been arrested on the basis of a tip-off that nuclear material was being smuggled into Turkey from Iran.