Brief On Iran – Newsletter May18th, 2015

During the past four days at least 10 people have been executed in Iran, according to the official Iranian sources. One of those executed was a woman convicted of drug related charges.

Iran Human Rights, May 13, 2015: One prisoner identified as “M. M.” (44 year old) was hanged in the prison of Rasht (Northern Iran) early Wednesday morning May 13, reported the Iranian state media. The prisoner was convicted of murder, said the report. Another prisoner who was hanged on Wednesday morning was “Kh. Ahmadi” (43) convicted of murder. Thi prisoner was hanged in the prison of Qazvin (Western Iran) according to the official website of the Judiciary in Qazvin province.

Four prisoners were hanged in the prison of Arak (Central Iran), and three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Hamedan (Western Iran), Tuesday morning May 12, reported the official websites of the Judiciary in the provinces of Markazi and Hamedan. All the prisoners were convicted of drug-related charges said the report. The four prisoners executed in Arak were identified as “Ali Y” , “Batool A.” (woman), “Mansour G” and “Abolfazl M.”, all convicted of drug related charges. None of the three prisoners executed in Hamedan were identified by name.

The ruling theocracy in Iran executed 93 individuals in one week this past month, and no one cried out. According to opposition sources, between April 12 and April 18, Iran executed 65 individuals, many in secret. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) also reported that as many as 200 individuals are currently on death row in Karaj Prison, west of Tehran.

Iran not only leads the world in per capita executions, but it is on pace to break its own record for executions in one year. What is particularly troubling is that these atrocities are being completely ignored by the international community and Western media.
According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation center, the regime executed 721 individuals in 2014. Now, one third of the way into 2015, it has reached almost half that amount at 342, and could top 1,000 executions by the end of this year.

The execution wave continues in Iran. At least 45 people have been executed so far in May 2015.

Iran Human Rights, May 16, 2015: One prisoner was executed in the prison of Mashhad (northeastern Iran) and seven people were hanged in the prison of Shiraz (southern Iran).

The Iranian daily newspaper “Khorasan” reported on Thursday May 15, that a 45 year old man who was convicted of murdering a 26 year old man was hanged in the prison of Mashhad. Both the offender and victim were drug addicts said the report.

According to unofficial reports from Adelabad prison of Shiraz seven prisoners were hanged in this prison. The “Human Right Activists News Agency” (HRANA) reported that four of the prisoners were convicted of armed robbery and executed on Sunday May 11, while three were convicted of murder and hanged on May 13. One of those executed was an Afghan citizen.

Amnesty- Mohammad Ali Taheri, who has spent four years in solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin Prison for “insulting Islamic sanctities” through his spiritual beliefs and teachings, is now on trial for an additional charge of “spreading corruption on earth”, for which he may be sentenced to death.
Mohammad Ali Taheri was tried before Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran in two sessions on 11 March and 29 April, for “spreading corruption on earth” (efsad-e fel arz) by establishing a new spiritual group called Erfan-e-Halgheh. This trial has begun when Mohammad Ali Taheri is a year from completing his five-year sentence. He has been in solitary confinement since he was arrested, on 4 May 2011.
The same court had convicted Mohammad Ali Taheri on 30 October 2011 of several offences including “insulting Islamic sanctities”, “committing a religiously forbidden act”, which included touching “non-relatives of the opposite sex” (namahram), “unlawful involvement in the medical treatment of patients” and publishing “misleading” (zalleh) writings, and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment, 74 lashes and a fine of nine billion rials (about US$315,000). At the time, the court acquitted Mohammad Ali Taheri of the capital charge of “denigrating Prophet Mohammad” (saab ul-nabi) but allowed the prosecutorial authorities to conduct further investigations into the activities for which he was sentenced to five years and seek to convict him of an additional charge of “spreading corruption on earth”.

 “[B]oth the ISIS and Islamic Republic [of Iran] use rape as a political weapon against Kurdish women on the basis of ethnicity, gender, and religion. The only difference is that the Islamic Republic denies its well-documented abuses while ISIS publically defends its enslavement of Kurdish women and girls.” – Dr. Amir Sharifi, Director, Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group.”Women in Iran as a whole, and Kurdish women in particular, have very little legal protection against sexual harassment or violence.” – Dr. Amir Sharifi, Director, Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group.One of the most savage forms of state-sponsored human rights abuse aimed at women in custody in Iran is the raping of virgins prior to execution.Sixty-nine years after the fall of the Kurdish Republic, the fate of Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan is still in the hands of a regime hostile to them and to all the values of the West.

The execution wave continues in Iran. More than 140 prisoners have been executed since the beginning of April 2015.  Most of these prisoners have been sentenced to death for drug related charges. The United Nations’ Special Rapporteurs issued a statement earlier today condemning the execution surge in Iran.

Iran Human Rights, May 8, 2015:  Three prisoners were executed in the prison of Sari (Northern Iran) on Tuesday morning May 6, reported the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Mazandaran Province. The prisoners who were sentenced to death for drug related charges, and none of them were identified by name.

The Iranian State media also reported on another execution in the Central prison of Qazvin on Tuesday. The prisoner who was not identified by name was convicted of murder, said the report.

Gulf countries are right to be concerned about Iran as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday, talking exclusively to Asharq al-Awsat, which marks his first ever interview with an Arab newspaper.

“Iran clearly engages in dangerous and destabilizing behavior in different countries across the region. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. It helps prop up the Assad regime in Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen. So countries in the region are right to be deeply concerned about Iran’s activities, especially its support for violent proxies inside the borders of other nations,” Obama told the newspaper.

The president was speaking ahead of the Camp David on Thursday, in which he will host GCC leaders.

“The countries in the region are right to be deeply concerned about Iran’s activities, especially its support for violent proxies inside the borders of other nations”.

If Barack Obama has taught the Arab world anything, it is surely that the United States is a weak-willed and perfidious ally. Whether by acceding to Iranian negotiators’ every demand in nuclear talks, or by facilitating the ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs by Iranian militias in Iraq, Obama seems hell-bent on making the Islamic Republic, in his own words, “a very successful regional power.” The Gulf states, meanwhile, have been hung out to dry.

Arabs are loath to go down without a fight, however, and Operation Decisive Storm is proof that they are more than capable of confronting the Iranian threat on their own. It also proves that the mullahs are not the unstoppable menace they would have their enemies believe; it took just four days of Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen for Ayatollah Khamenei and his minions to switch from promising “military defeat” for the Arab coalition (on April 9th), to begging for a ceasefire after seeing their Houthi proxies routed from central Aden (on April 14th).

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif now insists – contrary to military and intelligence officials’ earlier jubilation at having “conquered” Yemen and “taken over” Sana’a – that his regime “is not seeking to dominate Yemen.” Statements such as this fool nobody, of course, but are intended to save face in anticipation of an Iranian defeat.