Iran Focus– Some 60 percent of drug addicts in Iran are between 14 to 16 years of age, according to a study conducted on the national crisis which has reached epidemic proportions.

Agha Balazadeh, head of education and welfare in East Azerbaijan province made the announcement, stating, “The majority of addicts in society are individuals aged between 14 and 16. From the 3.2 million of the country’s addicts, 60 percent are youths whose average age lies between 14 and 16. This is the equivalent of 1.8 million people”.

Previous estimates have put the total number of illegal-drug users in Iran at more than seven million.

Last year, Akbar Alami, a member of Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) from Tabriz, northwest Iran, went public and revealed that the actual number of drug users in Iran stood at 11 million.

An official survey, whose findings were released in 2005, showed that drug smuggling in Iran was a 10 billion dollar market the previous year, nearly three quarters of the total revenue from Iran’s oil market during the same period.

Reuters - Iran is forging ahead with a nuclear fuel enrichment program in defiance of world pressure and stonewalling U.N. probes spurred by fears it secretly wants atomic weapons, a U.N. watchdog report said on Monday.

The report by International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei was circulated to IAEA board members before they meet on March 6 to discuss it. The report will be forwarded to the U.N. Security Council, which could consider sanctions.

"It is regrettable and a matter of concern that the uncertainties related to the scope and nature of Iran's nuclear program have not been clarified after three years of intensive agency verification," said the report, obtained by Reuters.

"We are not yet at the point to be able to conclude that this is a (peaceful nuclear program)," said a senior official familiar with IAEA investigations, who asked not to be named.

The report said Iran had begun vacuum-testing a cascade of 20 centrifuges -- machines that purify uranium UF6 gas into fuel suitable for nuclear power plants or, if enriched to high levels, for bombs -- at its Natanz pilot enrichment plant.

Iran had also begun substantial renovations of Natanz's system handling UF6. IAEA monitoring had been impaired by Iran's removal of agency safeguards seals from centrifuge-related raw materials and components, the report said.

Tehran had further told the IAEA it would start installing the first 3,000 of a planned 50,000 centrifuges in the fourth quarter of 2006, the 11-page report went on.

Some 3,000 centrifuges of the type Iran has at Natanz working nonstop for a year would produce the 20 kg (45 pounds) of highly enriched uranium (HEU) needed for one atomic warhead, nuclear analysts say.

Iran's moves ended a 2 1/2-year enrichment moratorium agreed during since-collapsed talks with EU powers which had offered incentives if it curbed its nuclear ambitions, and spurred the IAEA board to report Tehran to the Security Council on February 4.

"SIGNIFICANT ESCALATION"

"ElBaradei has now reported Iran's intention to go beyond so-called R& D (research and development) and begin installing centrifuges in a full-scale enrichment facility. That's a significant escalation," said a senior Western diplomat.

"Today's report reinforces the board's decision to report Iran to the Security Council since it validates ... international mistrust in the peaceful nature of its program.

"It shows how Iran in the face of growing international concern continues its calculated approach to produce material necessary for nuclear weapons," the diplomat added.

Iran denies seeking nuclear arms, saying its atomic energy program aims solely to generate electricity. But it hid nuclear fuel development from the IAEA for 18 years until 2003 and calls for Israel's destruction, stoking Western suspicions.

ElBaradei's report emerged as the West reacted with deep skepticism to a tentative Russia-Iran deal on uranium enrichment meant to help resolve the nuclear crisis and avert Security Council steps toward sanctions, opposed by Moscow and Beijing.

The Iran nuclear energy program chief said on Sunday Tehran had reached a "basic" agreement with Moscow on a proposed joint venture in which Russia would provide enriched uranium to the Islamic Republic. But Russian officials were later quoted as saying Iran had so far made no commitment to renounce home-grown enrichment as demanded by Russia and major Western powers.

ElBaradei's report said Iran had also produced 85 metric tonnes of UF6 gas at its uranium-conversion facility in Isfahan since September 2005, which would be enough for several atomic bombs once Iran masters industrial-scale enrichment technology.

Probes had not uncovered any diversions of nuclear materials into bomb-making, it said, but the IAEA still could not verify there were no covert atomic activities in the Islamic Republic.

Iran's cancellation of voluntary compliance with short-notice IAEA inspections in retaliation for the February 4 IAEA board decision would make it all that much harder to track down possible underground nuclear work, the report noted.

It made clear Iran had done little to heed the February 4 board resolution except for giving slightly more but inadequate information about intelligence reports of military involvement in nuclear research and about equipment linked to a military-run installation razed by Iran before inspectors could reach it.

"The fact that three years have gone and we still have major open issues, including 'dual-use' equipment with a military connection popping up now and then, shows how difficult it is to get to the bottom of their program," the senior official said.

The IAEA board demanded Tehran stop impeding investigations.

"We didn't learn much more this month. Iran is inching forward. With enrichment resuming, it makes the whole atmosphere much more negative," said another official close to the IAEA, alluding to the specter of a showdown in the Security Council.

Human Rights Watch

New York -- Hojat Zamani, a member of the opposition Mojadehin Khalq Organization outlawed in Iran, was executed on February 7 at Karaj’s Gohardasht prison, Human Rights Watch said today, after a trial that did not meet international standards. Human Rights Watch also expressed grave concern for the safety of other members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization imprisoned in Iran, including Saeed Masouri, Gholamhussein Kalbi, and Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi.
Following the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year, the number of executions in Iran has increased sharply. According to news articles in the Iranian media, between January 20 and February 20 alone, the judicial authorities executed 10 prisoners and condemned another 21 to the death sentence.
The Iranian judiciary accused Zamani of involvement in a bomb explosion in Tehran in 1988 which killed three people and injured 22. He was condemned to death in 2004, after a court hearing that did not meet international standards for a fair trial, because Zamani was not allowed access to his lawyers.
Zamani was taken from his cell by the prison authorities and hanged inside the Gohardasht prison on February 7, but his execution was not confirmed until a week later, after mounting international protests, by Minister of Justice Jamal Karimirad.
In addition, Human Rights Watch fears the imminent execution of three persons accused of involvement in hijacking an airplane in 2001. They are Khaled Hardani, Farhang Pour Mansouri and Shahram Pour Mansouri. At the time of the alleged hijacking, Shahram Pour Mansouri was only 17 years old.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18. These treaties also prohibit the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishments. Iran is a party to both treaties.
Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian judiciary to stop applying the death penalty and to abide by its obligations under international treaties, including abolition of death penalty for juveniles and implementation of fair trial standards.
Iranian human rights activists have repeatedly expressed serious concerns that under President Ahmadinejad the government will increasingly resort to violent means to suppress dissent. These worries are accentuated by the presence of several ministers in the cabinet who are suspected of grave human rights violations. The Interior Minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi, for example, is suspected of crimes against humanity for his involvement in summary and arbitrary execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.

Iran Focus

London, Feb. 27 – Iran Focus has obtained a list of 20 terrorist camps and centres run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The names and details of the training centres were provided by a defector from the IRGC, who has recently left Iran and now lives in hiding in a neighbouring country. Iran Focus agreed to keep his identity secret for obvious security reasons.

The former IRGC officer said the camps and the training centres were under the control of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force, the extra-territorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards.

“The Qods Force has an extensive network that uses the facilities of Iranian embassies or cultural and economic missions or a number of religious institutions such as the Islamic Communications and Culture Organisation to recruit radical Islamists in Muslim countries or among the Muslims living in the West. After going through preliminary training and security checks in those countries, the recruits are then sent to Iran via third countries and end up in one of the Qods Force training camps”, the officer said.

The Imam Ali Garrison has been a long-time training ground for foreign terrorist operatives. Presently, some 50 Islamists from neighbouring Arab countries are receiving training there in five groups of 10, the officer said.

“Iraq followed by the Palestinian territories have become the focal point of the Qods Force’s activities. Many of the foreign recruits in these camps now come from these two areas, but others come from a wide range of countries, including the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, North Africa and south-east Asia”, he said. “In most camps, the Sunnis outnumber the Shiites”.

“The scale and breadth of Qods Force operations in Iraq are far beyond what we did even during the war with Saddam”, the officer said, referring to the IRGC’s extensive activities in Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “Vast areas of Iraq are under the virtual control of the Qods Force through its Iraqi surrogates. It uses a vast array of charities, companies and other fronts to conduct its activities across Iraq”.

“We would send our officers into Iraq to operate for months under the cover of a construction company”, he said. “Kawthar Company operated in Najaf last year to carry out construction work in the area around Imam Ali Shrine, but it was in fact a front company for the Qods Force. Qods officers, disguised as company employees, established contacts with Iraqi operatives and organised underground cells in southern Iraq”.

The officer said Qods Force officers also used the Iranian Red Crescent and the state-run television and radio corporation as fronts for their operations in Iraq.

A special branch inside Iran’s Foreign Ministry is responsible for assisting the Qods Force in bringing in foreign recruits. The recruits first travel to third countries where they are given new passports by Iranian agents to facilitate their entry into Iran. Upon finishing their training course, the new agents leave Iran for third countries from where they use their genuine passports to return to their countries of origin or where missions are planned.

The list of the bases used for training terrorists identified for Iran Focus are as follows:

1) Imam Ali Training Garrison, Tajrish Square, Tehran,
2) Bahonar Garrison, Chalous Street, close to the dam of Karaj,
3) Qom’s Ali-Abad Garrison, Tehran-Qom highway,
4) Mostafa Khomeini Garrison, Eshrat-Abad district, Tehran,
5) Crate Camp Garrison, 40 kilometres from the Ahwaz-Mahshar highway,
6) Fateh Qani-Hosseini Garrison, between Tehran and Qom
7) Qayour Asli Garrison, 30 kilometres from Ahwaz-Khorramshahr highway,
8) Abouzar Garrison, Qaleh-Shahin district, Ahwaz, Khuzestan province
9) Hezbollah Garrison, Varamin, east of Tehran
10) Eezeh Training Garrison
11) Amir-ol-Momenin Garrison, Ban-Roushan, Ilam province
12) Kothar Training Garrison, Dezful Street, Shoushtar, Khuzestan province
13) Imam Sadeq Garrison, Qom
14) Lavizan Training Centre, north-east Tehran
15) Abyek Training Centre, west of Tehran
16) Dervish Training Centre, 18 kilometres from the Ahwaz-Mahshar highway,
17) Qazanchi Training Centre, Ravansar-Kermanshah-Kamyaran tri-junction,
18) Beit-ol-Moqaddas University, Qom
19) Navab Safavi School, Ahwaz
20) Nahavand Training Centre, 45 kilometres from Nahavand, western Iran

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 27 – Iran’s prison population has increased more than 10 times since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the country’s head of prisons announced.

Ali-Akbar Yassaqi, head of the Organisation of Prisons of Iran, said that the total number of prisoners in Iran was 130,118, up from the 13,000 at the beginning of the revolution.

Yassaqi said that 96 percent of prisoners were men and four percent were women.

The latest figure, however, was lower than the prison figures previously announced by Iran’s judiciary.

International human rights groups regularly voice their concern at the plight of political prisoners in Iran, but Tehran maintains it has no political prisoners and describes jailed dissidents as “criminals”.

DIYARBAKIR (DÝHA) - 20 people got injured in the harsh intervention of the police to the mortuary of Ergin Ekinci(Zagros) from HPG who had lost his live in the clash occured in the district of Dargecit, Mardin.

Very seriously injured 20 person, after intervention of police to about 5 thousand person gathered in the square of Dagkapi, were carried to State Hospital and Dicle University Medicine Faculty. Among the police and the groups dispersed occured clashes. A group of 50 who marched to Urfakapi Quarter had clashed with the police. The group who walked from Eskihal to Station square had broken automated tellers of SSK, Ziraat and all banks on the road. The group later began to march towards Regiment. It was learnt that the conflict were continuing in quarters of Dortyol and Melikahmet. The car of mortuary which came off from the crowd had passed from quarter of Ofis and advancing towards cemetery of Yenikoy.

About 2 thousand person had gathered before the mosque of Sefik Efendi which motuary namaz will be performed for Ekinci. The crowd frequently shouts slogans as '' Viva chairman Apo'', '' PKK is people people is here'', '' Martyr does not die'', ''Ocalan'', '' HPG to the Front to retalliation''.
www.kurdishinfo.com

Iran Focus– A man accused of being a “trouble-maker” was flogged in public by police in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, a semi-official daily reported on Monday.

The man, only identified as Farshid N., received 74 lashes in Shik Street, Jomhouri Islami wrote.

A court in Rasht convicted Farshid of “causing trouble” and “frightening people in public places”.

The “Plan to Increase Security in Society” has been in effect in Gilan province, since February 20, according to Brigadier General Ali Aghazadeh, the commander of State Security Forces in the province. Rasht is the provincial capital of Gilan.

Under the plan, individuals accused of being “trouble-makers” have been rounded up for sentencing in special courts.

Iranian officials often refer to millions of unemployed young men, who are largely beset by frustration and despair, as “trouble-makers”.

Iran Focus– Three explosions have rocked the south-western Iranian province of Khuzestan, the Fars news agency, run by the Office of the Supreme Leader, reported on Monday.

The blasts took place in different parts of the province in the early hours of the morning.

One blast occurred in the village of Malashieh nearby the volatile city of Ahwaz which has been a hotbed for anti-government protests and clashes.

A second blast was heard near the Governor’s Office in the city of Dezful and a third blast went off in the lavatory of the Governor’s Office in the city of Abadan.

The report said that three people had been injured in the blasts but gave no further details.

Ahwaz, the capital of the Arab-dominated province of Khuzestan, has been the scene of several bombings this year and in 2005.

In January, Iran accused British troops in Iraq of being behind a twin bombing in Ahwaz which left at least nine people dead and dozens injured.

A string of top Iranian officials including hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have accused Britain of being behind the bombings.

London has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 26 – Hard-line Islamists staged two demonstrations outside the British embassy in Tehran on Sunday, hurled stones and petrol bombs at the compound and set fire to British, American, Israeli and Danish flags, as they accused London of being behind the bombing of a revered Shiite Muslim shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra.

“By the blood of our martyrs, we will kill you, Blair”, the radical Islamists chanted, as they trampled on an effigy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A similar slogan was chanted against U.S. President George W. Bush.

The government-owned news agency, Fars, put the number of protesters at 2,000 and said they were all university students. Eye-witnesses said there were about 500 demonstrators in the first rally and had the appearance of belonging to Ansar-e Hezbollah, a government-organised group of radical Islamists who are used for attacks on dissident rallies.

The second demonstration was larger, but many in the crowd had been seen in the earlier protest.

Marchers chanted, “Death to America”, “Death to Zionists”, and “Death to Britain”, and hurled stones at the embassy compound in downtown Tehran.

The British embassy has been the target of numerous violent demonstrations, attempted seizures, and even drive-by shootings by radical Islamists in recent months.

The marchers demanded the closure of the embassy and the expulsion of the British ambassador from Iran. Several protesters who had thrown petrol bombs at the embassy were briefly held by the police, Fars news agency reported.

A mob leader shouted through a megaphone that the marchers would do everything in their power to harm Western political and economic interests in Iran.

“The agents of Global Arrogance should know their security and political and economic interests will be in danger”, he shouted.

“In particular, the ambassador of this corrupt embassy will not be safe in our streets”, he added.

Today’s demonstration follows several days of escalating attacks on the British government by Iran’s hard-line press. Kayhan, Iran’s largest daily with close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been calling on the government to retake possession of Bagh-e Gholhak, a sprawling, leafy compound north of Tehran that was once the summer residence of British ambassadors to Tehran. The land was donated to the British embassy by Nasseroddin Shah, a nineteenth century monarch from the Qajar dynasty.

Earlier this month, Kayhan published a letter from Revolutionary Guards General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh to the country’s Chief State Prosecutor, in which the General demanded, in the name of the Revolutionary Guards’ Foundation for Preservation of the Values of Sacred Defence, that the Gholhak compound be taken away from the British.

“In view of the fact that after the dissolution of the Qajar dynasty, the contract by which the land was donated to Britain became null and void, the foundation urges the State Prosecutor to take steps to cut the hands of the usurping British government from this land on the basis of Islamic and legal standards”, the general, a member of the IRGC high command, wrote.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have both accused “the occupiers of Iraq and the Zionists” of carrying out the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Analysts saw the escalating attacks on the British government by the Iranian theocracy as Tehran’s bid to press London to distance itself from the United States on Iran’s nuclear program.

“The Supreme Leader and his entourage see the British as the key link in the united Western position on Iran’s nuclear program”, said Ahmad Hashemi, a university professor and political analyst. “They feel that if they force London into making concessions, Western unanimity on Iran’s nuclear file will evaporate”.

In recent weeks, Islamist “students” have attacked European embassies in Tehran in response to newspaper cartoons that first appeared in Denmark, depicting the Prophet Mohammad. Independent analysts in Tehran have noted that with security being as tight as it is in the Iranian capital, such attacks could not have been carried out without official connivance.

Reuters
TEHRAN -- More than 500 protesters angered by the destruction of a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Iraq gathered outside the British Embassy in Tehran on Sunday, burning flags and calling for the mission to be closed. Iran accused Western forces in Iraq of orchestrating Wednesday's bombing of the Golden Mosque of Samarra, one of the most venerated buildings in Shi'ite Islam, in order to spark civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis.

Western nations condemned the attack and Washington suggested the al Qaeda network could have been trying to stir up sectarian bloodshed through the bombing.

The crowd in Tehran chanted that the British Embassy should be shut down and burned Danish and U.S. flags.

"We are all here to defend Islam to the last drop of our blood," said protester Hassan Moradkhani, dressed in a Palestinian headscarf.

The United States has no embassy in Iran so protesters enraged by events in Iraq usually focus their wrath on close U.S. ally Britain.

In recent weeks crowds of hardline students have attacked European embassies in Tehran in response to newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

The cartoons, which first appeared in Denmark, caused offence because many Muslims believe representation of the Prophet is blasphemous. Many also found the tone offensive, appearing to show Mohammad as a terrorist.

"Publishing cartoons and bombing shrines is all part of a U.S. and Zionist conspiracy to divide Muslims but the Islamic community is aware of what they are up to," said Maryam Hajizadeh, 26.

The Sunday Times
Peter Conradi
IRAN is believed to have begun small-scale enrichment of uranium, raising the stakes in its dispute with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the extent of its nuclear ambitions.

A report to be published by the United Nations nuclear watchdog tomorrow is expected to claim that scientists at Iran’s plant in Natanz have set up a “cascade” of 10 centrifuges to produce enriched uranium — the fuel for nuclear power plants or bombs.

Iran is a long way from the 50,000 centrifuges it would need for full-scale enrichment, but experts said that getting a small number of them to work together meant it had overcome some technical hurdles.

The report, by Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the IAEA, will also accuse Tehran of continuing to deny inspectors access to crucial people and sites linked to its 20-year-old nuclear programme.

ElBaradei’s findings will set the tone for discussions at the UN security council next month which American officials believe could lead to sanctions against Iran this summer.

Tehran’s relations with the international community hit a low point this month when the IAEA voted overwhelmingly to report it to the security council, expressing doubts that its nuclear programme was “exclusively for peaceful purposes”.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s volatile president, responded by vowing to resume “commercial scale” enrichment, suspended in 2004.

International concerns over Iran’s intentions have been increased by the emergence in recent weeks of documents that for the first time appear to provide scraps of evidence of a covert weapons programme.

Attention is focusing on the so-called Green Salt Project, a previously undeclared scheme to process uranium. The project was linked to tests on high explosives and missile design, suggesting a “military nuclear dimension”, the IAEA said. Inspectors travelled to Tehran this weekend to obtain more information.

It is thought that some of the clandestine work was done at a plant in Lavisan, near Tehran, under the auspices of a body known as the Physics Research Centre. Iran denied IAEA inspectors access to Lavisan until 2004 by which time the buildings had been demolished.

Tehran is believed to have persisted in its refusal to allow inspectors to interview up to five research centre officials. “This is a shame because we believe these are high-ranking military officials actively involved in a nuclear weapons programme,” said a US official.

Diplomatic efforts have continued to persuade Tehran to agree not to enrich uranium itself but to be supplied with the material by Russia. Iran wants to be allowed to conduct some enrichment on its territory.

kurdishinfo.com
MARDÝN (DIHA) - While it was stated that the military operations started 2 days ago are continuing with intensifying, the authorities said that close contact has been lived. According to claims many soldiers and 5 guerilla of HPG had died in the clashes.

It was learnt that the military operation started in the region of Belen and Bostanli villages connected to district of Dargecit is expanded. It was stated that the operation which soldiers and rural guards had participated and continued with close contacts and with air support is intensified in the region of Belen village in Hell Stream. It was claimed that in the clash between TSK and guerillas of HPG many soldiers and 5 guerillas of HPG had lost their lives.

According to information got from local sources 2 ambulance came from outside of the district had gone to place of conflict.

Iran Focus– Iranians were surprised to see that the Persian translation of this year’s “The World’s 10 Worst Dictators” published in the New York-based weekly Parade contained only nine names. Who was missing?

Iran’s state-run news agency ILNA carried a report on the list of authoritarian rulers published by the magazine, but the agency deliberately removed the name of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, from the list.

Parade’s list says that Khamenei has “shut down the free press, tortured journalists and ordered the execution of homosexual males”.

“Over the past four years, the rulers of Iran have undone the reforms that were emerging in the nation”.

Khamenei was a new entry in the Top 10, up nine points from his previous standing.

In a report on Khamenei’s role in the Iranian theocracy in December 2004, the U.S.-based Committee on the Present Danger wrote, “In addition to its peace-threatening nuclear program, Iran under Khamenei continues to be the world’s foremost state supporter of terrorism… He is seeking regional hegemony, both ideologically and militarily. His growing oil wealth increases his capacity for wreaking havoc on his own people and the region”.

The following signatures would like to purpose the listed 5 major requests in an effort to curb the current Iranian crisis;

1- To expel the entire Islamic Republic diplomatic corp from the international and diplomatic communities.

2- To stop the Regim’s propaganda outside Iran, including media sponsored by the Islamic Republic.

3- to prevent the Islamic Republic diplomatic corp. and their families from entering any other country.

4-To freeze all assets including bank accounts of the Islamic Republic leadership and their families through out the world.

5- To prosecute and issue warrants for the arrest of the Islamic Republic leadership by an international criminal court and the Interpol.

Post your Agreement click: www.irany.net/e_version.html

Iran Focus– Radical Islamist militiamen affiliated to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps staged military exercises in the western suburbs of Tehran on Friday to defend the Iranian capital against “enemy assaults”, a government-run news agency reported.

Some 2,500 members of the paramilitary Bassij took part in Friday morning’s military drills in Qods (Jerusalem) Garrison in Tehran’s Garm-Darreh district.

“In the military exercises, the Bassij forces destroyed the positions of enemy forces who had been ferried to Tehran by helicopters and mopped up the drop zone”, Isca-News reported.

“The Bassij forces accomplished more than 90 percent of their mission”, the report added.

Deputy Commander of the Bassij forces in Tehran, Brigadier General Ahmad Zolqadr, attended the rally. Zolqadr’s brother, Mohammad-Baqer, is a top IRGC commander who was recently appointed as Deputy Interior Minister.

While the Revolutionary Guards and the Bassij regularly stage military and security exercises in Tehran and its suburbs, it is the first time that the objective of the war games is to destroy heliborne “enemy forces” in the Iranian capital.

The exercises were code-named Imam Hassan Askari, one of the two Shia Imams whose shrine was destroyed this week in Samarra, Iraq.

The Supreme Commander of the IRGC announced on Thursday that God and Muslims would carry out a retaliatory strike against the United States, Britain, and Israel, who he alleged were behind Wednesday’s attack in Samarra.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad each separately announced that the attack on the revered shrine was the work of agents of “the occupiers of Iraq and the Zionists”.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Public Statement
AI Index: MDE 13/019/2006 (Public)
News Service No: 050
Amnesty International today expressed grave concern about the rate of executions reported in Iran and said it feared for the lives of a number of political prisoners, some of whom are reported to have been on death row for several years. The organization is also outraged that Iran continues to sentence child offenders to death in contravention of its international human rights obligations.

Executions in Iran continue at an alarming rate. Amnesty International recorded 94 executions in 2006, although the true figure is likely to be much higher. So far in 2006, it has recorded as many as 28 executions. Most of the victims were sentenced for crimes such as murder but one of those recently executed was a political prisoner, Hojjat Zamani, a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), who was abducted from Turkey in 2003 and sentenced to death in 2004 after conviction of involvement in a bomb explosion in Tehran in 1988 which killed 3 people (See Urgent Actions AI Index EUR 44/025/2003, 5 November 2003 and MDE 13/032/2004). He was taken from his cell in Gohar Dasht prison and executed on 7 February 2006, though his execution was officially confirmed by Iranian officials only on 21 February.

Hojjat Zamani’s execution has fuelled fears that other political prisoners may be at risk of imminent execution. According to unconfirmed reports that have been circulating since early February, a number of political and other prisoners who are under sentence of death have been told by prison officials that they would be executed if Iran should be referred to the UN Security Council over the resumption of its nuclear programmed (which Iran claims is intended solely for the peaceful production of nuclear energy). These are said to have included other members of the PMOI, which is an illegal organization in Iran. It was the PMOI that was the source of evidence in 2002 revealing Iran’s nuclear programme to the outside world.

Among those feared to be at risk are Sa’id Masouri (See Urgent Action AI Index MDE 13/018/2002), a PMOI member who has been held in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin Prison since late 2004; Khaled Hardani, Farhang Pour Mansouri and Shahram Pour Mansouri (See Urgent Action AI Index: MDE 13/003/2005), all three of whom were involved in hijacking a plane in 2001 when Shahram Pour Mansouri was aged only 17; Gholamhossein Kalbi and Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi, both PMOI members, and Alireza Karami Khairabadi.

Amnesty International has also received reports that at least two Iranian Arabs may be facing imminent execution. The province of Khuzestan has been the centre of wide scale unrest since 15 April 2005 (For further information on the unrest in Khuzestan province, see Iran: New Government fails to address dire human rights situation AI Index MDE 13/010/2006). Mohammad Ali Sawari and Mehdi Nawaseri, both said to be in their early twenties, have reportedly been sentenced to death. Mohammad Ali Sawari was arrested following demonstrations in Ahwaz City on 4 November 2005. Mehdi Nawaseri was arrested in October 2005, after previously having been detained in April 2005 and subsequently released.

On 14 February 2006, Jamal Karimi-Rad, Minister of Justice and Spokesman for the Judiciary, told the news agency IRNA that seven of the 45 people arrested in connection with bomb explosions in September and October 2005 had been convicted on charges including “enmity with God, corruption on earth and murder” and that their sentences would be announced shortly. The penalty for enmity against God and corruption on earth can be execution, cross amputation, crucifixion for three days, or banishment. On 20 February 2006, the Prosecutor General Ghorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi was reported as stating “some of the convicted in this case have received execution verdict, including the two main culprits, whose presence in the recent Ahvaz incidents was proved and their execution verdict is definitive”. On 21 February, in a statement to IRNA commenting on this report, Jamal Karimi-Rad stated that only two had been sentenced to death and these were under review by the Supreme Court. He noted that “the crimes committed by all the seven convicts do not call for the death sentence”. Amnesty International fears that Mohammad Ali Sawari and Mehdi Nawaseri may be the two referred to and may be at imminent risk of execution.

Amnesty International is also outraged that Iran has sentenced yet another child offender to death. According to reports carried by two Iranian news agencies, Fars, and the Iran Students Correspondents Asscociation (ISCA), an 18-year-old youth, identified only as Mohammad, was sentenced to death by Branch 71 of the Tehran Criminal Court for a murder he committed in August 2003 when he was aged only 16. According to these reports, he had originally been tried by the Childrens’ Court and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and payment of blood money. However, the family of the victim reportedly complained that the sentence was insufficiently severe and the Supreme Court decided that as Mohammad had now reached 18, he could be tried in the Criminal Court, which resulted in his death sentence. The death sentence must be ratified by the Supreme Court before it can be carried out.

On 18 February 2006, IRNA is said to have reported Ahmad Mozaffari, a judge in Tehran’s Appeal Court, as stating that Iran will continue to sentence child offenders to death “without considering other options”.

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Iran has undertaken not to execute anyone for an offence committed when they were under the age of 18. Nevertheless, Amnesty International has recorded 18 executions of child offenders in Iran since 1990. In 2005 alone, at least eight executions of child offenders were recorded

Amnesty International recognizes the rights and responsibilities of governments to bring to justice those suspected of committing recognizably criminal offences, but the organization is unconditionally opposed to the use of the death penalty as the ultimate violation of the right to life. It therefore urges the Iranian authorities to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty and to abide by its international obligations not to execute anyone for an offence committed when they were a child.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE130192006

By Guy Dinmore in Washington
news.ft.com

The intelligence wing of the US marines has launched a probe into Iran’s ethnic minorities at a time of heightened tensions along the border with Iraq and friction between capitals.
Iranian activists involved in a classified research project for the marines told the FT the Pentagon was examining the depth and nature of grievances against the Islamic government, and appeared to be studying whether Iran would be prone to a violent fragmentation along the same kind of fault lines that are splitting Iraq.
The research effort comes at a critical moment between Iran and the US. Last week the Bush administration asked Congress for $75m to promote democratic change within Iran, having already mustered diplomatic support at the UN to counter Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme.
At the same time, Iran has demanded that the UK withdraw its troops from the southern Iraqi city of Basra which lies close to its border. Iran has repeatedly accused both the US and UK of inciting explosions and sabotage in oil-rich frontier regions where Arab and Kurdish minorities predominate. The US and UK accuse Iran of meddling in Iraq and supplying weapons to insurgents.

US intelligence experts suggested the marines’ effort could indicate early stages of contingency plans for a ground assault on Iran. Or it could be an attempt to evaluate the implications of the unrest in Iranian border regions for marines stationed in Iraq, as well as Iranian infiltration.

Other experts affiliated to the Pentagon suggest the investigation merely underlines that diverse intelligence wings of the US military were seeking to justify their existence at a time of plentiful funding.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rick Long, a marines spokesman, confirmed that the marines had commissioned Hicks and Associates, a defence contractor, to conduct two research projects into Iraqi and Iranian ethnic groups.

The purpose was “so that we and our troops would have a better understanding of and respect for the various aspects of culture in those countries”, he said. He would not provide details, saying the projects were for official use only.

Marine Corps Intelligence defines its role as focusing “on crises and predeployment support to expeditionary warfare”. It also provides threat and technical intelligence assessments for the Marines.

The first study, on Iraq, was completed in late 2003, more than six months after marines spearheaded the US invasion. About 23,000 marines are still in Iraq. The Iran study was finished late last year.

Hicks and Associates is a wholly owned subsidiary of Science Applications International Corp, one of the biggest US defence contractors and deeply involved in the prewar planning for Iraq.

The Strategic Assessment Center of Hicks and Associates advertises one of its current projects as the “Impact of Foreign Cultures on Military Operations”. SAIC confirmed it completed the confidential studies for the Marine Corps.

While most analysts would agree that Iran has a far stronger sense of national identity than Iraq, its ethnic mix is even more complex than its neighbour.

Different in language and divided between followers of Sunni and Shia Islam, the ethnic minorities have little coherence. At times tensions among themselves are greater than with Tehran. Iran’s strongly centralised government does not release statistics on the ethnic groups that mainly inhabit sensitive border regions with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Farsi-speaking Persians who dominate the central government are generally believed to make up a slim majority, followed by Azeris and Kurds in the north and west, Arabs in the oil-rich southwest and Baluch in the southeast.

A patchwork of Turkmen, Christian Armenians and Assyrians, Jews and tribal nomads are among many groups scattered across a country of some 68m people.

Diplomats in Washington expressed shock at the possible implications of the Marine Corps research.

The Financial Times interviewed several Iranians in the US who were invited to help. Some refused, seeing it as part of an effort to break up Iran. However several exiled politicians representing minority groups opposed to the Islamic regime did agree to take part, although they said they wanted a peaceful transition to a democratic, federal Iran and were opposed to any US military action.

Mauri Esfandiari, US representative of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan which ended its armed struggle in 1997 and is based mostly in northern Iraq, said he believed the Pentagon was acting on its long-standing distrust of CIA and State Department analysis. He thought the Pentagon was looking to counter the prevailing administration view that US support for Iran’s minorities would create a disastrous backlash.

“They want to study and see if the State Department’s chaos theory is a valid hypothesis,” he told the FT. The US could not look to the Kurds to support an invasion as they did in Iraq, he said. “Iran will become democratic only if it is built by the Iranians. The democracy movement is strong enough to find its way without military struggle,” he said.

Karim Abdian, head of the Ahvaz Human Rights Organisation which campaigns on behalf of Iranian Arabs in the south-west, said his meeting with SAIC was video-taped. He was told the report would be made public.

Questions put to him were wide-ranging -- on the ethnic breakdown of Khuzestan province on the Iraq border, populations in cities, the level of discontent, the percentage of Arabs working in the oil industry, how they were represented in the central government, and their relations and kinship with Iraqi Arabs next door.

Mr Abdian said he did not know the motives behind the survey, whether the Marines were seeking a better understanding of the region that directly affects them, or were forming a contingency plan in case they had to “enter” Iran. They were learning from the lessons of Iraq where they had not understood the ethnic dynamics, he suggested.

Mr Abdian, who says his organisation has no government funding, accused Iran of using the threat of a US invasion as a pretext to suppress ethnic grievances rather than address what he called the root causes of land confiscation and discrimination.

Exiled Iranians from various ethnic groups held a “Congress” of nationalities in London a year ago. They issued a “manifesto” for a federal, democratic Iran with separation of mosque and state. Seven organizations included Baluch, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.

Iran has recently experienced some of the worst unrest and violence among its Kurdish and Arab populations in recent years.

Although the root causes of the unrest -- economic and cultural grievances -- are long standing, analysts in the US believe that events in Iraq – where the new constitution has embraced the concept of federalism and a Kurd has become president -- are serving as a catalyst.

Last month two bombs exploded in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province close to Iraq. Eight people were killed on the same day that President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad had been due to visit. Six people were killed in bombings last October. Oil installations have been attacked. Iran has repeatedly accused the UK and US of being behind the violence, using separatist Arab groups in southern Iraq to foment instability inside Iran.

“We are very suspicious of British forces’ involvement in terrorist activities,” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad was quoted as saying last October. He accused British troops in Iraq of “hiring terrorists for sabotage”.

London and Washington have strongly denied Iran’s allegations.

Tehran cannot afford to dismiss minority grievances out of hand and seeks to blame the violence on outside forces, says Bill Samii, an Iran analyst with Radio Free Europe.

“The regime can crush dissent when it is localised and relatively small,” he commented.”But if sporadic incidents of ethnic unrest occurred across the country simultaneously, or if such troubles coincided with labour troubles and student demonstrations then the regime would have its hands full.” Given these developments, the question of Iran’s minorities has aroused interest across Washington.

State Department officials met representatives of the London “Congress” in the first such talks between the Bush administration and a coalition claiming to represent Iran’s minorities, participants told the FT.

Last October, the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held a conference chaired by Michael Ledeen, a proponent of regime change in Iran. It triggered uproar among exiled opposition groups, especially Persian nationalists. Mr Ledeen called the conference “Another case for Federalism?” and denied that AEI was seeking to foment separatism.

Reuel Gerecht, also with AEI and a former CIA specialist on the Middle East, says the State Department under Condoleezza Rice, and not the Pentagon, is running Iran policy. He said State was “several steps removed” from discussing covert action and “nowhere near the point” of trying to use separatist tendencies among minorities as traction against the Tehran regime. No one knew whether that would work, he added.

However, he complimented the Pentagon for “looking down the road”.

A former intelligence officer said the Marines’ probe reflected the “contingency planning” mindset of the US military. Nonetheless, he said, it was important to note that the ultimate purpose of the intelligence wing was “to support effective ground military operations by the Marine Corps”.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ed436938-a49d-11da-897c-0000779e2340.html

EDINBOURG (24.02.2006)- A conference, named as "EU, the candidacy process of Turkey and the future of Kurds" is organized in Scotland Parliament. Patrick Harvie, Scotish Deputy, who is one of the organizator of this conference, defined that he will send a letter to European Commission about creating the re-judgement of Kurdish National Leader Mr. Abdullah Ocalan.

To the conference, which was organized by Green Party Group of Scottish National Parliament in Edinbourg and Peace Campaign to Kurdistan, Green Party deputy Patrick Harvie presided. KNK member Akif Wan and President of Federation of England Kurdish Associations (FEDBIR) Arzu Pesmen, who were the lecturers of this conference, gave informations about Kurdish Question in general lines.

In the conference, the isolation on Kurdish National Leader Mr. Abdullah Ocalan and his health problems and the re-judgement decision of European Court of Human Rights were discussed. Also the representatives of Socialist party, Scottish National party and Scottish Liberal Democrats from European Parliament, joined to the conference.

Member of KNK and president of FEDBIR, gave informations about how will be the future of Kurdish people during the European Union candidacy process of Turkey and how will be the solution of Kurdish Question. And they defined that Mr. Ocalan has got an important role about solution of this question and the re-judgement decision of European Court of Human Rights must be folllewed by EU.

EU must see Kurds as a formal collocutor

Patrick Harvie and representatives of other parties defined that they will support the solution of Kurdish Question in their campaigns. Harvie, who said that they are watching the developments in Turkey nearby, reminded that he went to Turkey as an observer and he stated that the infringements about human rights, must be eliminated. Harvie, who underlined that Turkey can not enter to European Union, without finding a solution to especially Kurdish Question, said that it is impossible for Turkey to join to EU in this present situation.

Arzu Pesmen defined that EU must receive Kurdish representatives as collocutors in a formal level, and wanted that the requests and problems of Kurds must be listened. Pesmen, talked like this; ‘’Kurdish side is ready for the solution. But there is no formal collocutor in a formal level. And this remain the problem without solution. Furthermore, we don't consider ourselves as a minority’’.

Question proposal about Mr. Ocalan will be given to Scottish Parliament

Pesmen wanted, Mr. Ocalan to be judged in a independent and just court with two ways. Patrick Harvie said that he will write a letter to European Commission about re-judgement. Patrick stated that he will also give a question proposal to Scottish Parliament about the situation of Mr. Ocalan. Besides, Harvie also said that, he will write a letter about ROJ TV, which exposed to close pressures, to European Commission.

Member of KNK Akif Wan and president of FEDBIR Arzu Pesmen stated that, Kurds give countenance to Turkey about entering EU, but in parallel to this EU must make efforts about solving Kurdish Question. The conference, which was started on Thursday night at 17.00, continued for 2 hours.
www.kurdishinfo.com

kurdishinfo.com
MAHABAD-A demonstration was organized in the city of East Kurdistan, Mahabad to protest the Mako and Sine massacres.
Hundreds of poeple who came together in the Mahabad Revolution Plazza and Þehid Þiwane junction this night, chanted slogans in the favour of Kurdish National Leader Mr. Abdullah Ocalan.
In the demonstration, in which there were slogans against Turkey and Iran, the massacres of Sine and Mako are condemned. Demonstrators announced that they will continue their protesting actions.
Iranian security forces opened fire on the crowd of people who wanted to protest the 15th February conspiracy in Mako and killed 11 persons.
On 22th February 1999, Iranian security forces also opened fire on the people who made a demonstration to condemn the 15th February international conspiracy in the city Sine, they murdered 18 persons and they arrested hundreds of people.