Iran Focus – An Iranian court sentenced seven individuals to death for allegedly playing a role in twin bombings in the south-western city of Ahwaz that occurred in January, the state-run daily Iran reported on Wednesday.

The report quoted Iran’s Minister of Justice Jamal Karimi-Rad as saying that a number of other individuals also received prison sentences.

Some 45 people had been arrested in connection with the bombings.

At least eight people died and dozens were injured when two bombs exploded at a bank and a government building in the oil-rich city on January 24.

A string of senior Iranian officials have accused Britain of being behind the bombings.

Ahwaz, the capital of the Arab-dominated province of Khuzestan, has been the scene of unremitting anti-government protests since the start of 2005. Iran has pointed the finger at Britain as the primary instigator of anti-government violence in Khuzestan.

TEHRAN, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Iranian police have arrested around 1,000 people in the central seminary city of Qom after violent clashes over the closure of a house of worship used by mystical Sufi Muslims, city officials said on Wednesday.

Officials and a Qom resident said the police had fired teargas to disperse a crowd of dervishes, or mystics, and those who had gathered to support them. They said the dervishes were armed with knives and stones.

Around 200 people were hurt in the clash, one official said.

The fighting erupted on Monday after the Sufis refused to evacuate a suburban house where they had been congregating for dervish rites, said an official at Qom municipality who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The violence ended and their place was knocked down on Tuesday," he said, adding the municipality had demolished the building because the Sufis had illegally turned their residential building into a centre of worship.

Sufi Muslim spirituality is tolerated under mainly Shi'ite Iran's strict Islamic laws, although some senior religious figures occasionally call for a clampdown on its rites.

The governor-general of Qom accused the dervishes of being part of a foreign plot, but he did not explain this.

"We did not aim to confront them at first, but when we felt that ... a plot was under way, we took steps," Abbas Mohtaj was quoted as saying by the Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper.

"The arrogant powers are exploiting every opportunity to create insecurity in our country and (the Sufis') links to foreign countries are evident," he added. Mohtaj said about 200 people had been hurt and around 1,000 arrested.

The Sufis' mystical path to God through dance and music does not go down well with some of the most senior religious figures in the country.

Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani in September called for a clampdown on dervish groups in the holy city of Qom, which he called a "danger to Islam".

Some said the tensions with dervishes in Qom were due to the increasing popularity of Sufism there.

"Dervishes were becoming popular in Qom and the officials wanted to crackdown on them," said an employee at one of Qom's reformist seminaries.

United Press International

TEHRAN, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Hojjat Zamani, a political prisoner and member of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran in Gohardasht prison in Karaj, west of Tehran was hanged Feb. 7.

Zamani was under torture and pressure since 2001, for five years. Ali Haji Kazem, the warden of Gohardasht prison, and two others known as Arjmandi and Seyyed, an executive deputy for implementation of the verdicts, were among those involved in the execution.

The 6th branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court had already condemned Hojjat to four executions, in summer 2004. At the end of the same year, a two-man branch of the Supreme Court consisting of mullah Mohseni Ezheii, the incumbent Minister of Intelligence, and Nabi Raji used many false allegations and condemned Hojjat to two times executions and full payment of blood money.

Zamani, 31 at the time of hanging, underwent the most severe physical and psychological torture. The clerical regime's henchmen sought to break his morale and compel him to express remorse and surrender. To this end, they sent him to the cell block where ordinary and very dangerous prisoners were held. Zamani protested against this condition and went on hunger strike several times in 2004 and 2005. His conditions were a cause of concern in recent years, protested to by international human rights organizations and reflected in the media.

The anti-human clerical regime in Iran hanged Mojahedin member, Hojjat Zamani, a political prisoner since 2001 in Gohardasht prison near Tehran, on Tuesday, February 7.

Zamani had endured prison and torture for four and a half years. Ali Haji Kazem, warden of Gohardasht prison, and two other henchmen, Arjomandi and Syed, carried out the ruthless hanging.

Zamani was handed four death sentences by the branch six of the Revolutionary Court in summer of 2004. By the end of 2004, the Supreme Court, presided over by Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje'i [now Minister of Intelligence] and Nabi Raji, handed Mr. Zamani two death sentences and payment of blood money on bogus charges. When informed of the sentences, Zamani rejected the charges and wrote below the verdict: “I do not protest the sentence that has been issued.”

Zamani, 31 at the time of his execution, tolerated intense physical and psychological torture in prison. The regime’s henchmen tried to break his resolve and coerce him into surrender. They transferred him to a ward housing dangerous criminals for a long time to put him under pressure. Zamani, however, remained steadfast and resisted the pressures. He went on hunger strike several times in 2004 and 2005 to protest against the horrendous prison conditions.

Hojjat was the third child from the Zamani family murdered by the Iranian regime. Hojjat’s older brother, Khaz'al Zamani, a Mojahedin member, was killed in Ilam’s mountainous terrain in 1999 and his other brother, also a Mojahedin member, was killed in March 2001 by the regime’s agents in the Haft-Cheshmeh region of Ilam. Abdullah Naderi, Hojjat's maternal uncle, was also killed under torture by the regime’s henchmen in 1989.

The Zamani family is a well-known in the Haft-Cheshmeh region of Ilam (western Iran) and has been the target of persecution. Mr. Zamani was a teacher in the villages in Ilam until 1996 when the regime attempted to arrest him because of his support for the Mojahedin.

Faced with domestic and international crises, the clerical regime has in recent weeks stepped up pressures and torture against steadfast political prisoners, including Mojahedin detainees. The regime’s henchmen had threatened that if the regime’s nuclear file were referred to the Security Council, they would kill all Mojahedin political prisoners similar to the massacre of political prisoners in summer of 1988.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), extends it deepest condolences to the grieved Zamani family and the people of Haft-Cheshmeh. The NCRI also calls on the United Nations Security Council, the Secretary General, the High Commissioner of Human Rights, and all international human rights organizations to condemn this hideous crime. The NCRI appeals for urgent action to save the lives of other political prisoners, in particular those on death row and others who have disappeared.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 15, 2006

Iran Focus
A 15-year-old schoolboy has been sentenced to death accused of murder, government-run websites announced on Wednesday.

The teenage boy, only identified by his first name Mohammad, was originally sentenced by the Supreme Court to serve five years behind bars and pay blood-money for allegedly stabbing to death a friend after a scuffle.

An appellate court, however, raised his sentence to death by hanging.

The Washington Post
By Nora Boustany

While the international community is locking horns with Iran over its plan to push ahead with uranium enrichment -- a potential first step toward making nuclear weapons -- a separate global confrontation is gathering steam over labor practices under the Iranian theocracy.

Labor unions in 18 capitals, including Washington, are taking part today in demonstrations outside Iranian embassies and interest sections to protest the coercive treatment of bus drivers in Tehran and its suburbs, who have been beaten, jailed and dismissed for attempting to negotiate better wages.

A number of international and Washington- based organizations are responding to a call by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, based in Brussels, for an international day of action on Iran. The AFL-CIO, its Solidarity Center here and the federation's Metropolitan Washington Council have called for a demonstration at noon in front of the Iranian Interest Section at 2209 Wisconsin Ave. NW.

Abroad, protests are scheduled by transportation unions in France, Britain, Spain, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Bermuda.

The catalyst for the global protests was the arrest on Dec. 22 of Mansoor Osanloo , president of the Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Co., along with the members of its executive board.

Under pressure from international labor and human rights groups, the board members were released, but Osanloo remains in jail and is reportedly in poor health. On Jan. 28, the 17,000-member Syndicate called a strike to protest his detention and demand that the government recognize the rights to form a union and engage in collective bargaining -- rights protected under the conventions of the International Labor Organization.

On the eve of the strike, police raided the homes of union activists and arrested workers, in some cases with their wives and children, including a 2-year-old girl who was bruised and hurled into a patrol van, according to a report posted on the Web site of the Solidarity Center.

The next day, the government and the public transportation company dispatched security and armed forces, who used tear gas and wielded batons while threatening to shoot at rioters. Others who arrived at the picket line were rounded up at gunpoint.

Hundreds of people were arrested in their homes, said Heba F. El-Shazli , regional program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Solidarity Center. Some prisoners have since been freed but have been denied the right to go back to work.

Hundreds remain at Tehran's Evin prison without formal charges.

It was not possible to contact the Iranian Interests Section for comment. The Tehran government has accused some labor unions of acting against national security, holding illegal gatherings and being linked to banned communist and Kurdish groups.

In a Feb 1. letter, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney wrote to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to protest the arrests. Sweeney wrote that the AFL-CIO "strongly condemns the arrest of workers exercising their legitimate, internationally recognized trade union rights and demands the immediate and unconditional release of all detained trade unionists."

According to Gholamreza Mirzaei , a spokesman for the Tehran bus workers union who was quoted on another Web site, 200 workers were freed by Feb. 7 but none have been able to go back to their jobs, and hundreds still languish in prisons.

NCRI – Death sentences for two teenagers were approved by the State Supreme Court on Monday according to state-run news agency IRNA.

The head of Tehran's punitive court, Naser Saraj, was quoted telling reporters that the two were both 18 years of age and their death sentences were approved for alleged sexual assault. They were identified only as "E. N." and "E. K."

The same news agency also reported on Tuesday that two men are going to be hanged in Shiraz, provincial capital of Fars, central Iran, on Wednesday. Death sentences for "Ayat Kh." and "Mehdi A." were endorsed by the State Supreme Court, said the Revolutionary Prosecutor of Fars province.

In the meantime it was reported by IRNA on Tuesday that seven people were sentenced in connection with January bombings in Ahwaz, provincial capital of Khuzistan, southwestern Iran.

The seven were charged by the clerical regime for "murder, war against God and being corrupt on earth," which are normally punishable by death in Iran.

The regime's officials had put the blame for the bombings on Britain which has been denied by London.

Khuzistan province, in particular Ahwaz, were the scenes of widespread riots last summer which left hundreds killed or wounded and many more arrested by suppressive forces. A number of those arrested have already been hanged in public in the past few months in a bid to impose a reign of terror to avoid further unrest.