Student blogger Mojtaba Saminejad has spent more than one year in prison in Tehran, said Reporters Without Borders, calling for his immediate release and that of one other blogger currently behind bars in Iran.

This 25-year-old student was arrested on 12 February 2005 and sentenced to two years in prison by a revolutionary court for “insulting the Supreme Guide”. One month later he was given a further ten months for incitement to “immorality”

“The Iranian authorities sentence and imprison people like criminals when they are merely expressing their opinion on the Internet”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “This draconian policy is unacceptable and we call for the immediate release of the two bloggers who are currently imprisoned in Iran, Mojtaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi" .

Saminejad was arrested for the first time, in November 2004, for using his blog to condemn the arrest of three colleagues. Released in January 2005, he was returned to prison on 12 February 2005 after putting his blog back online. Sigarchi has been in prison since 26 January 2006 after being sentenced to three years in prison on the same charge as Mojtaba - "insulting the Supreme Guide".

Reporters Without Borders also expressed its sympathy to Arash Sigarchi and his family after the death of his brother in a car accident on 9 January. The young man was on his way to the prison in Rashat to take Arash his request for an appeal before the Supreme Court that his lawyers had prepared for him.

www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16455

MDE 13/013/2006
news.amnesty.org

A top international rights group blasted on Thursday the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for failing to address the “dire human rights situation” in that country.

Amnesty International issued a report accusing Tehran of locking up scores of its critics and opponents. It added that “torture was common” and that Tehran used the death penalty following “grossly unfair trials” against such individuals.

“The authorities maintain strict controls on freedom of expression and association, and religious and ethnic minorities are subject to persecution. Women are severely discriminated against in both law and practice and those lawyers, journalists and others who dare speak up in support of human rights - Iran’s community of courageous human rights defenders – do so at constant risk of harassment, imprisonment or other abuses by security authorities who are able to act with impunity”, the group said.

”Since President Ahmadinejad’s election, several people have been killed and scores injured by security forces possibly using excessive force, in the context of ongoing violent unrest in Khuzestan Province”. Hundreds of Arabs have been arrested in the volatile region since Ahmadinejad came to power, Amnesty said.

“Since President Ahmadinejad’s election, members of Iran’s religious minorities have also been killed, detained or harassed solely in connection with their faith. Even the recognized religious minorities of Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians face discrimination in law and practice with respect to employment, marriage, and criminal sanctions”, it said.

“Torture has been used systematically in Iran for many years for the purpose of extracting information and confessions. Torture is facilitated by laws and procedures governing detention and interrogation which permit solitary confinement and ban access of detainees to lawyers until the process of investigation is completed, and by the existence of parallel and sometimes informal institutions which run their own detention centres to which the judiciary has no access”.

”In addition, Iranian legislation permits the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments which amount to torture, such as flogging and amputations”.

The group called on Iran to end torture and release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally.

Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1 0DW

Agence France Presse - French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy branded Iran's nuclear programme for the first time Thursday as a "clandestine, military" project.

"It's very simple: no civilian nuclear programme can explain Iran's nuclear programme," he told France 2 television in an interview, two days after Tehran confirmed it was resuming sensitive uranium enrichment work.

"Therefore it's a clandestine military nuclear programme."

The exact nature of Iran's nuclear ambitions -- Tehran insists that it just wants to make civilian nuclear power -- has sparked an international standoff which has led to the brink of UN Security Council intervention.

Earlier this month the United States and a European Union troika made up of Britain, France and Germany persuaded the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran to the Security Council for action.

The world body is awaiting a March 6 report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei before deciding how to proceed.

"Firstly, the international community has sent a very strong message to the Iranians: show reason, suspend all nuclear activities and uranium enrichment," Douste-Blazy said, adding: "And they're not listening to us.

"That is the reason why, for the first time for days, the international community is united. It's not just the Europeans -- France, Germany and the British -- it's also Russia and China."