NCRI – Two prisoners were stoned by the mullahs' judiciary in Behesht-Reza cemetery in the holy city of Mashhad.

One of the victims managed to get out of the hole while the other died of stones. The two men were sentenced to death by stoning at the same time. However, one of them identified as Mahmoud escaped with minor injures.

According to mullahs' penal codes he will not be stoned to death for the second time.

A local judge sentenced the prisoners to death by stoning in Khorasan's province Fifth Circuit Court.
On August 4, 2007, Alireza Jamshidi, mullahs' judiciary spokesman, announced that stoning as a sentence was abolished altogether from the Iranian criminal laws.

Despite much smoke screening by the mullahs' judiciary regarding the commuting of all such rulings, there has not been any change made in the stoning cases.

In July 2007, the Iranian regime caused international outrage when Jafar Kiani was stoned to death in the northwestern city of Qazvin.
 
A man and a woman -- Abbas H. and Mahbubeh A. -- were also stoned to death in May 2006 in the northeastern city of Mashhad, although their execution has never been officially confirmed.
On February 4, the mullahs' Supreme Court upheld the death sentence by stoning of two sisters Zohreh (27) and Azar (28) Kabiri-Neyat in the notorious Gohardasht (Rajaishahr) prison in Karaj some 40 km west of the capital Tehran.

Similarly, in the winter of 2007, the death sentence by stoning of a 49-year-old man named Abdullah Farivar was upheld by the Supreme Court in the northern city of Sari. The man has two children.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's official news agency says dozens of hardline students have broken into the British Embassy residence in Tehran.

The IRNA agency says the students accuse Britain of supporting Israel's air assault on the Gaza Strip.

According to the agency, the students stormed the compound Tuesday evening and pulled down the British flag.

IRNA says the students then hoisted a Palestinian flag at compound's entrance before police forced them to leave.

The news agency says the break-in lasted about an hour and that the area is now calm. No injuries were reported.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called for an immediate cease-fire by both Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Iranian Resistance condemns bombing and killing of innocents in Gaza and calls for eviction of Iranian regime ruling religious fascism from the region

NCRI-The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip and the killing of innocent civilians, in particular women and children. It mourns with the Palestinian people, especially with the relatives of those who have perished.

The Iranian Resistance also calls on the international community to condemn the warmongering and fundamentalist meddling in Palestine by the religious fascism ruling Iran. The mullahs’ ruling Iran are benefiting the most from this conflict and the crisis brewing in the region.

Facing fierce resentment and isolation at home, the mullahs’ regime believes that it can prolong its existence by exporting terror and fundamentalism abroad and taking advantage of the situation in Palestine and dominating the region. The mullahs’ strategy in the region revolves around opposition to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Palestinian government and President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as disintegration and division of Palestine. The regime has been the main obstacle to the goals and legitimate demands of the Palestinian people over the past three decades.

The Iranian Resistance urges all regional governments, political parties, and political, cultural and religious figures to create a united front against fundamentalism and evict the mullahs’ regime in particular from Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.

The Widespread Practice of Female Circumcision in Iraq's North Highlights The Plight of Women in a Region Often Seen as More Socially Progressive.

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq

Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.

There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.

As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan's genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood. As she carried the sobbing child back home, Sheelan's mother smiled with pride.

"This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember," said the mother, Aisha Hameed, 30, a housewife in this ethnically mixed town about 100 miles north of Baghdad. "We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it."

Kurdistan is the only known part of Iraq --and one of the few places in the world--where female circumcision is widespread. More than 60 percent of women in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq have been circumcised, according to a study conducted this year. In at least one Kurdish territory, 95 percent of women have undergone the practice, which human rights groups call female genital mutilation.

READ MORE

NCRI - The mullahs' inhuman regime hanged in public a man identified as Abdolrahman Baluch Zehi in the southeastern city of Nikshahr, reported the official daily Kayhan on Monday.

To avoid public abhorrence for its cruel punishments, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, mullahs' chief of judiciary on January 31 issued a directive banning all public executions.  

Separately, a 31-year-old prisoner named Alireza was hanged in the northwestern city of Ardebil on December 27.

The ruling criminals in Iran have turned to public hangings to terrorize the public and combat rising popular uprisings. 

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations, in particular, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to refer the mullahs' human rights dossier to the UN Security Council for adopting binding measures against it.  

The Kurdsat channel on Monday deeply shocked upon spreading the news of losing its prominent broadcaster Mrs. Leyla Ali in tragic death accident took place in her house.

Leyla was a writer, excellent news caster and experienced manager of a children association here in Sulaimani. She had been working in front of the screen since early 1997, starting from the local Khak television, where she served as news reporter.

And alongside Khak, Leyla worked in Kurdsat channel for more than 8 years and become an expert in special interviews with the high profile figures and news analyst.

Leyla also has left books written on the variety of topics, especially women.

Born from a prominent revolutionary Kurdish family in 1970, Mrs. Leyla had B.A degree in nursing College of Baghdad University and statistics and computing of Sulaimani University. Her interest in media made shifted her course of carrier towards that world, in which she managed to perform incredibly.

On Tuesday, Leyla was engraved in a special funeral attended by many senior Kurdish officials and crowds of Sulaimani residents.

KURDSAT

Kurdistan region presidency called the Turkmen front bloc of Kirkuk not to set preconditions for any possible meetings with Kurdistan region because they are not accepted by the region.

In his D visit to Kirkuk meetings with its different ethnic groups, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani had proposed the Turkmens to meet with Kurdistan region president to end the problems stand still since the fall of Saddam.

The Rurkmen front expressed willingness to meet hold meetings with president Barzani, but they lately set preconditions for their meeting, including cancelling article 140 and compensating the group for closing their headquarter in Erbil.

Kurdistan region presidency chief of staff Fuad Hussein said such preconditions would not serve the attempts made to forge an agreement to come up with positive results on Kirkuk.

“Kurdistan leadership doors have always been kept open for any sort of mutual discussions and exchanging attitudes, but without setting preconditions” Shif of staff said in a statement posted on KRP website on Monday.

The statement also described those who set preconditions for talks want to remain the problems unsolved, asserting that President Barzani approval on the meeting came to respect the proposal of president Talabani in that regard.

NCRI – 1,000 workers of two textile factories, Farnakh and Mahnakh, walked out over their unpaid salaries, reported the state-run news agency ILNA on Sunday.  The two are located on the International Qazvin Highway, 165 kilometer northwest of Tehran. 

"The workers blocked the highway and burned used tires to get the attention of travelers," said one of the workers to ILNA.

However, the government appointed management did not pay any attention to workers protests of textile factories and said that the workers will be paid next year.

Hundreds of workshops and factories went on strike over payments in the past year. Factories such as Haft-Tapeh sugar cane mill, Kiyan-Tire making car tires, Iran Khodro car manufacturer are some of the biggest with tens of thousands of workers.
 
In the past decade, most of Iran's factories have been privatized by the mullahs' regime opening the doors to even more suppressive measures against the Iranian workforce.  The new managements were appointed by the government without adequate protection for workers and their families who make the most venerable part of the population.

peykeiran.com

By Robert Evans

GENEVA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Iranian opposition leaders on Monday claimed victory in their campaign to ensure continued U.S. protection for 3,500 fellow exiles in a camp north of Baghdad that the Iraqi government says it wants to close.

Speaking as a five-month demonstration in Geneva in support of the camp in the township of Ashraf concluded, they said a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad meant the people there could stay on in safety.

"This is a real victory," Mohammed Mohaddesin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the French-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told reporters outside the United Nations European headquarters.

"It means the United States has recognised its responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our people in Ashraf," said Ali Safavi, another official of NCRI, political wing of the People's Mujahideen, or PMOI.

"We can now halt our sit-in. We have got what we wanted."

The embassy statement in Baghdad said U.S. forces will maintain a presence in Ashraf, which has sheltered exile Iranians for 20 years, after Iraq takes over responsibility for the camp on January 1.

On December 21, the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government told the camp's residents that it planned to close Ashraf down and that they had to leave the country. The exiles feared they would be forcibly returned to Iran, where they say they face death.

The PMOI has been listed as a terrorist group in the United States and Europe since the late 1990s. The Iraqi government, which is friendly to Shi'ite Iran, itself regards the PMOI as a terrorist grouping.

But a Swiss lawyer for NICRI said the U.S. decision to stay at the camp and a European Union court ruling in early December against a Brussels move to freeze the PMOI's assets indicated the Western front against the group was crumbling.

"We might see a stronger move in the next few days," declared the lawyer, Marc Henzelin. The outgoing U.S. administration of George W.Bush could decide to remove the PMOI from its terror blacklist before handing over, he added.

The U.S. statement said that U.S. forces, who have protected the camp since PMOI fighters there handed over their weapons in 2003, would help Iraq "in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents of camp Ashraf."

The United States, together with the Iraqis, would work with international organisations "to assist the camp residents in securing a safe future," it added. (Additional reporting by Peter Graff in Baghdad; editing by Keith Weir)

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29 – Iranian authorities hanged a man in public in the restive province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan, south-east Iran, state media reported on Monday.

The report by the semi-official daily Kayhan identified the man as Abdol-Rahman Baluch Zehi. It did not say when the execution took place.

It quoted Colonel Mohammad-Reza Mortaz, a local commander of the state security forces, as saying that Baluch Zehi had killed two people in Nikshahr in October.

Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug trafficking.

Sistan-va-Baluchistan Province is home to Baluchis, a predominantly Sunni Muslim ethnic minority.

Iran has witnessed escalating unrest since 2006 in areas populated by Baluchis, who complain of discriminatory and repressive policies by the theocratic regime.

Since 2006, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A group of Iranian hardline clerics is signing up volunteers to fight in the Gaza Strip in response to Israel's air strikes that have killed at least 300 Palestinians, a news agency reported on Monday.

"From Monday the Combatant Clergy Society has activated its website www.rohaniatmobarez.com for a week to register volunteers to fight against the Zionist regime (Israel) in either the military, financial or propaganda fields," the semi-official Fars news agency said.

Israel patrols the coastal waters around Gaza and has declared areas around the enclave a "closed military zone."

The hardline Iranian group, which is headed by some leading clergy, says it has no affiliation with the government and was formed shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians in Gaza against Israeli attacks "in any way possible."

A religious decree is an official statement by a high-ranking religious leader that commands Muslims to carry out its message. While there is no religious and legal force behind it, Khamenei is respected by many Iranian and non-Iranian Shi'ites.

Iran refuses to recognise Israel, which accuses Tehran of supplying Hamas Islamists with weapons. Iran denies the claim, saying it only provides moral support to the group.

Israel said the strikes, that have killed 307 Palestinians, were launched in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after the Islamist Hamas group ended a six-month cease-fire a week ago.

Fars said the hardline group provided volunteers with a registration document called "Registration form for dispatching volunteers to Gaza." It said more than 1,100 people so far had registered for military service against Israel.

Khamenei said on Sunday that whoever was killed in the fight to defend Palestinians was "considered a martyr."

Iran will send its first ship carrying aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said.

"Iran has dispatched its first plane load of aid, including medicine, to Gaza on Sunday. The second cargo is on the verge of being dispatched," Qashqavi told reporters on Monday. "The first aircraft arrived in Egypt last night."

Israel, which patrols the coastal waters around Gaza, tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip two years ago after Hamas won a parliamentary election.

The Jewish state turned back a Libyan ship from delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza earlier this month.

Tens of thousands of Iranians protested on Monday to condemn the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which began with air strikes on Saturday.

Protesters burnt Israeli and U.S. flags and demanded a stronger response from international organisations to stop Israel's raids, a Reuters witness said.

They also called on Islamic countries to boycott "Zionist companies."

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Student Council of Defense of Human Rights in Kurdistan: After 36 days of imprisonment the Kurdish journalist Mr. Bahman Tutunchi was transferred to the Central prison in the City of Sanandaj on December

24^th 2008.

Mr. Tutunchi was arrested on November 18^th 2008 by the Regime Agents after his home was searched.  In a conversation with members of his family, they stated their grave concern over the health and well being of Mr. Tutunchi.

Mr. Tutunchi was convicted of working with a very active political organization in Kurdistan.  Mr. Tutunchi is an independent journalist and also was an executive board member of a weekly journal called “Kereftu”.  Due to extreme pressure from the Ministry of Intelligence he was forced to resign from that position last year.

Student Council of Defense of Human Rights in Kurdistan: Islamic Regime Security Forces attacked a village in “Baneh” under the guise of fighting against drugs and started searching the homes of residents without a warrant.

On Monday December 22^nd 2008 the Regime Security Forces attacked a village called “Kandeh
Sour” and set fire on a large amount of gas which was present in the village. The security forces also took many of the animals in the village including horses and donkeys, broke the windows of the homes with sticks or stones and took many breakable items from the homes and either broke them or took it with them.

The residents of this village are extremely concerned and unhappy about the illegal actions of the security forces in their village.

Due to extreme poverty and lack of opportunities in the City of Baneh some residents of the village of Kandeh Sour have turned to illegal activities.  As a result many of the residents of this village die every year under the gun fire of Security forces, or get stuck in mine fields and either lose their lives or their limbs.

Student Council of Defense of Human Rights in Kurdistan:

Ronak Safazadeh was arrested on October 9^th 2007 and although a year

has past since her arrest she still remains in pre-trial custody.

In an interview with the Student Council of Defence of Human Rights in Kurdistan Dr. Mohammad Sahrif, Ms. Safazadeh’s lawyer stated that although the defence is ready to proceed, the judge has confirmed Ms. Safazadeh’s pre-trial detention on eight (8) different occasions.

On March 13^th 2008 a court hearing was scheduled in Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Courts and a written and an oral defence was submitted to the court, however no decision has been rendered by the courts.

Mr. Sharif has further stated that he is extremely concerned about the fact that The Court has refused to render a decision to this date. It must be mentioned that in regards to his other client Ms. Hanna Abdi both a judgment at a lower court and at the court of appeal has been rendered but not in Ms. Safazadehs’ case. Mr. Sharif is extremely concerned about Ms. Safazadehs’ case especially due to the serious charges she is facing (fighting against god).

Student Council of Defense of Human Rights in Kurdistan: Two more prisoners in Ardebil Prison have been transferred to solitary confinement and are awaiting execution.

Mass executions in Iran still continue. According to news received from the Ardebil Prison on Friday December 26th 2008 Mr. Aziz Khosro Zadgan and Mr. Hushang Behrouz who have been imprisoned for the past year have been transferred to the solitary ward of the prison and are awaiting execution.

There is no information about what these individuals have been charged with or whether they have been convicted.

Further last Wednesday December 24th 2008, eight (8) men were executed in Evin Prison. It has been estimated that about 310 people have been executed in the past year in Iran.

NCRI – 2,000 retired teachers will not be paid this year by the mullahs' Ministry of Education, reported the state-run daily Resalat on Saturday. The ministry claimed that there are no funds to pay the pensioners.

Ali Abbaspour Tehrani, head of mullahs' Majlis (parliament) Investigation Committee  told the semi-official new agency Fars, "We have received complaints from some retried teachers that they have not been paid their salaries for the entire year [Persian calendar starting 21 of March]."

"Out of 6,000 retired ministry's employees this year, roughly 4,000 will be paid according to the regulations," Abbaspour said. 

He said that there is a budget problem and the Education Ministry is negotiating with the Organization of Retired Government Employees to come up with a solution.

Abbaspour did not offer a way for the 2,000 mostly senior citizens solely depended on their pension salaries what to do in the meantime.  

The problem of teachers' pay even for those who have not reached retirement yet surfaces at the beginning of every school year. However, the officials in mullahs' Ministry of Education pay no attention to the teachers' problems and would suppress them instead.

In February 2007, the streets ending to the Majlis were the scene of protests by more than 15,000 teachers demanding their full pay rise in accordance with the sky rocketing cost of living for the fix income families. With teachers very low pay grades, they are hardly able to cope with the cost of living.
  
Under the mullahs' rule, Iran’s oil-based economy is fundamentally dysfunctional.  The official inflation rate is 30% and there is double-digit unemployment.  Hundreds of protests, sit-ins and strikes by trade unions, teachers, and others prove beyond any doubt that the economic problems are endemic.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians against Israel's attacks on Gaza, state television said.

"All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world's pious people are obliged to defend the defenceless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defence is considered a martyr," state television quoted Khamenei as saying in a statement.

Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second day on Sunday and has killed more than 270 people in one of the bloodiest days in 60 years of conflict between the Palestinians and the Jewish state.

Israeli leaders said the campaign was a response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire by Gaza militants that intensified after Hamas, an Islamist group in charge of the coastal enclave Israel quit in 2005, ended a six-month cease-fire a week ago.

Iran refuses to recognise Israel, which accuses the Islamic state of supplying Hamas Islamists with weapons. Tehran denies the claim, saying it only provides moral support to the group.

Khamenei also criticised some Arab governments for their "encouraging silence" towards the Israel's raids on Gaza.

(Writing by Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Giles Elgood)

The Norway Post
   
Norway deplores the executions of 10 persons in Iran on Christmas Eve. Prior to the executions Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere appealed to Iran to stop in time and not go ahead with the executions.

- It is highly regrettable. Norway is opposed to all forms of capital punishment, the Foreign Minister continued.

- Norway is engaged in the fight to abolish capital punishment, both in international organisations and through active cooperation with human rights organisations and likeminded countries. We regularly raise the issue of capital punishment as a matter of principle with countries where it is practiced. We focus special attention on individual cases where we know that there are plans to carry out the death penalty in a particularly inhuman way or to execute minors, pregnant women or persons who cannot be deemed criminally responsible. In such cases Norway considers use of the death penalty to be a violation of international law, Stoere said.

Last week Norway aligned itself with an EU declaration on the mass executions in Tehran’s Evin Prison on 26 November and other repeated violations of human rights that have taken place in Iran lately.

The Government is concerned about the human rights situation in Iran in general.  Two days ago the Iranian authorities closed the Center for Defence of Human Rights in Tehran, The centre was established and headed by the Iranian lawyer and human rights defender Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.

“Norway has again today been in touch with the French EU Presidency about the closure of Shirin Ebadi’s human rights centre in Tehran, and we will follow the situation of Ms Ebadi and other Iranian human rights activists in the time ahead,” The Norwegian Foreign Minister said.

(NRK/Press release)

Rolleiv Solholm

The Times

Patrick Foster, Media Correspondent

Channel 4 was rebuked by the Government yesterday for its decision to broadcast an address by the President of Iran as the channel’s alternative Christmas message.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that providing a platform for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust “a myth”, would cause widespread offence, despite the conciliatory tone of his speech.

A spokeswoman for the FCO said: “President Ahmadinejad has, during his time in office, made a series of appalling anti-Semitic statements. The British media are rightly free to make their own editorial choices, but this invitation will cause offence and bemusement not just at home but among friendly countries abroad.”

In the address, a Channel 4 tradition since 1993, Mr Ahmadinejad made a thinly veiled attack on the United States by claiming that Christ would have been against “bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers”.

He added: “If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly He would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over. If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly He would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems, as He did in His lifetime.”

Channel 4 had worked hard to court Mr Ahmadinejad and refused to release details of its speaker until an ITN film crew had captured his address on camera, late on Tuesday.

Sources at Channel 4 said that it was aware of the sensitivity of giving a platform to Mr Ahmadinejad. In a break with tradition the alternative address did not go head to head with the Queen’s Christmas message, screening instead at 7.15pm. “We didn’t want to imply an equivalence between the two,” one insider said.

Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, said: “As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad’s views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view.”

Mr Ahmadinejad surprised many by curbing his rhetoric and offering the British people his warm wishes. He sent his congratulations to “the followers of Abrahamic faiths, especially the followers of Jesus Christ, and the people of Britain”. He said that the ills in the world had come about through nations failing to follow the teachings of the Prophets, including Jesus.

He added: “Today, the general will of nations is calling for fundamental change. . . Demands for a return to human values are fast becoming the foremost demands of the nations of the world.”

Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to London, said: “In Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty. It is perverse that this despot is allowed to speculate on the views of Jesus while his Government leads Christ’s followers to the gallows.”

Mr Ahmadinejad once told a Western audience that Iran had no homosexuals. Gay men have been filmed being hanged from cranes in Tehran.

The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “Ahmadinejad’s apparently reasonable words are pure propaganda. His actions are devoid of love, justice, humanity and brotherhood. They involve the brutal repression of his own people.”

LONDON: Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will deliver an alternative Christmas message on British television to rival Queen Elizabeth II’s annual address, broadcaster Channel Four said yesterday.
Ahmadinejad, whose comments will go out on 1915 GMT on Christmas Day, will say that if Jesus Christ were alive today, he would oppose “bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers”, according to a pre-released transcript.

Britain and Iran have had rocky relations since the 1979 Islamic revolution, particularly over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, which the West fears could be used to build arms but Tehran insists is for civilian purposes.

Ahmadinejad is the most high-profile guest yet on Channel Four’s alternative broadcast, which was started in 1993 and has seen Jesse Jackson, Brigitte Bardot and cartoon character Marge Simpson among others take to the airwaves.

However, Israel’s ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, condemned the message as a “scandal and a national embarrassment” given the Iranian president’s denial of the Holocaust and his calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

“In Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty. It is perverse that this despot is allowed to speculate on the views of Jesus, while his government leads Christ’s followers to the gallows,” he said.

The message begins with Ahmadinejad congratulating Christians and the people of Britain on the anniversary of the birth of Christ, which Christians celebrate on Christmas Day.

“If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers,” he says.

“If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over.”

Speaking in Persian, Ahmadinejad blames society’s problems on humanity’s rejection of religion but predicts Christ will return and “will lead the world to love, brotherhood and justice”.

He ends by saying: “I pray for the New Year to be a year of happiness, prosperity, peace and brotherhood for humanity. I wish you every success and happiness.”

Explaining the decision to invite Ahmadinejad to speak, Channel Four’s head of news and current affairs Dorothy Byrne said: “As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad’s views are enormously influential.

Kurdish rebels launched a deadly attack in southeastern Turkey hours after the Turkish and Iraqi prime ministers vowed a fresh clampdown on the separatists, officials said Thursday. Skip related content

Three soldiers were killed and another nine wounded, four of them seriously, when rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) armed with automatic weapons attacked an army vehicle, the local officials said.

The attack late Wednesday in the village of Cizre, near the borders of both Iraq and Syria, came hours after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks in Ankara with Iraqi counterpart Nuri al-Maliki.

The prime ministers vowed to step up their cooperation against Turkish Kurdish rebels whose presence in neighbouring northern Iraq has cast a shadow over relations.

The thorny issue of PKK rebels taking shelter in Iraqi mountains along the border was at the centre of their talks.

"We should not allow terrorist organisations, in particular the PKK, to weaken our relations," Maliki said.

Erdogan said the fight against "terrorism" was a common issue for the neighbouring nations. "Our joint fight will continue," he said.

Maliki later told reporters that a mechanism of three-way talks between Iraq, Turkey and the United States, set up last month, was tasked with doing "what is necessary... against any activities by the PKK."

"We have a common understanding that it is a terrorist organisation," he said.

Hundreds of militants from the PKK are holed up the mountains of northern Iraq, which they use as a launching pad for cross-border attacks on Turkish targets.

Turkish warplanes have since last year bombed rebel hideouts in the region.

Ankara has often accused the Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in northern Iraq, of tolerating and even aiding the rebels.

But in a policy shift earlier this year, it said it would seek to resolve the issue through diplomacy and intensified contacts with the Iraqi Kurds, whom it had long snubbed.

Iraqi Kurds are now included in the three-way talks.

A senior Turkish official said Wednesday Ankara "sees signs" that the Iraqi Kurds are willing to cooperate against the PKK.

On the eve of Maliki's visit, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, gave fresh assurances that both Baghdad and the Kurdish administration of northern Iraq were determined to purge the region of the PKK.

"We, the Iraqi Kurds, will no longer allow armed people from any Kurdish group to use our territory to carry out attacks on Turkey or Iran," Talabani said in an interview with Turkey's Aksam daily.

He said Kurdish parties in northern Iraq would soon convene a meeting to issue a joint appeal to the PKK to abandon its armed struggle.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.

Merry Christmas to all our readers

EastKurd blog online would like to wish all of our readers a merry Christmas.

I hope you have a wonderful festive period and a fantastic New Year.

kurdish
له‌ دایک بونی عیسا مه‌سیح علیه‌السلام و ساڵی نوێ زایینی له‌ هه‌مو خوشک و برایانی مه‌سیحی کورد پیرۆز بێت،به‌هیوای گه‌شتن به‌ ئاواته‌کانی گه‌لی کورد له‌ سه‌راسه‌ری کوردستاندا

persian(farsi)

تولد عیسی مسیح علیه‌ السلام و سال جدید میلادی را به‌ تمام هموطنان کوردم و ایرانیان آزاده‌ در سراسر جهان تبریک عرض کرده‌ و آرزوی سالی پر از آرامش و صلح را برای همه‌ خواستارم

امیدوارم سال جدید سالی باشد که‌ همه‌ ملتهای ستمدیده‌ بخصوص ملت رنج دیده‌ کورد به‌ حق و حقوق انسانی خود برسند

ISTANBUL, Dec 24 (KUNA) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki held talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Wednesday on cracking down on Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq and activating bilateral cooperation.

Al-Maliki met with President Abdullah Gul and discussed security developments in Iraq and Turkey's campaign to crack down on the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Anadolu news agency said.

The Iraqi Prime Minister also met with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discussed Iraq-US security agreement and cooperation between Baghdad and Ankara on fighting PKK rebels.

Erdogan voiced content for the visit of Al-Maliki to Turkey, his second this year, and said it would pave way for activation of strategic dialogue between both countries.

Al-Maliki, said Anadolu, emphasized that Iraq would not allow the PKK to tarnish relations with Turkey.

Al-Maliki also met a host of senior Turkish officials and discussed means of fostering political and economic cooperation, in addition to the activation of a strategic agreement that was signed last July.

The mullahs' judiciary hanged 9 prisoners in a mass execution in Tehran's Evin prison on Tuesday, the state-run Fars news agency reported.

The report gave no further details but indicated that the executions were carried out months after the victims were sentenced to death.

On December 19, the UN General Assembly condemned widespread human rights violations in Iran.
 
It was the 55th such resolution passed by the UN bodies on human rights violations in Iran.

Reporters Without Borders condemns yesterday’s closure of the Tehran-based Human Rights Defenders Centre by some 20 plain-clothes police. Headed by Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and launched in 2002, the centre provided free legal aid to journalists and human rights activists.

“We urge the international community and human rights activists to press for the reopening of the centre,” Reporters Without Borders said. “After the imprisonment of six journalists and intimidatory measures against those who express their views online, this is a new attempt by the regime to silence its critics. We fear further arrests. The circle must be able to continue to defend those who use their right to free speech and those who defend that right. We call for it to be allowed to reopen.”

The police raided and closed the centre as Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2003, was about to preside a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Run by lawyers and human rights activists, the centre defends free speech and human rights. The government has regarded its activities as “illegal” since 2006.

Ebadi told Reporters Without Borders today that “a request for a permit was submitted to the interior ministry as soon as the circle was created, but it was always turned down.” She added that the circle intended to challenge the closure. “We will exhaust all legal channels in an attempt to affirm our rights,” she said.

Reporters Without Borders has meanwhile learned that intelligence officials arrested blogger Esmail Jafari (http://www.poutin.blogfa.com) on 18 December. Jafari was sentenced to five months in prison on 6 December in the southwestern city of Bushehr for covering a demonstration in April by about 20 workers protesting against their dismissal. It is not known where he is held.

Officials have confirmed that blogger and women’s rights activist Shahnaz Gholami (http://azarwomen.blogfa.com) has been transferred to a prison in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where she had been held with common criminals since 9 November. Neither her lawyer nor her daughter has been able to see her.

Iran is one of the world’s most repressive countries towards journalists and bloggers, who are punished severely if they criticise the government. Three cyber-dissidents and six journalists are currently in prison.

Reporters Without Borders calls on the judicial authorities to overturn the jail terms that were passed on blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi (http://rooznegaar.blogfa.com) on 15 December, coinciding with a European Union appeal to Iran to respect the rights of its detainees. A Tehran revolutionary court sentenced Mirsayafi to two years in prison for “insulting” the Islamic Republic’s leaders and six months in prison for “publicity against the government.”

“These sentences are much too severe for a blogger whose only crime was to express his views online,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The offending blog entries were satirical comments about Iran. They may seem excessive but they cannot be regarded as ‘insulting’ and certainly do not deserve a prison sentence.”

Arrested on 22 April, Mirsayafi was released after 41 days in detention on payment of 100 million toman (72,000 euros) in bail. When he appeared in court on 22 November he was charged under article 514 of the criminal code, which says “insulting Supreme Guide Khomeiny, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the country’s leaders, is punishable by six months to two years in prison,” and under article 500, which says “propaganda against the state is punishable by three months to one year in prison.”

Most of what Mirsayafi posted on his blog, Rooznegar, which can no longer be accessed, was about traditional Persian music and culture. He told Reporters Without Borders: “I am a cultural blogger, not a political one. Of all the entries I posted online, only two or three were satirical. I did not intend to insult anyone.”

Mirsayafi’s lawyer told Reporters Without Borders that, “in the opinion of the court’s experts, this blog did not have enough visitors to be regarded as a ‘publication’.” Mirsayafi is meanwhile still facing separate charges of “insulting the prophet of Islam” and “attacking the sacredness of Iran” before a Tehran assizes court.

Iran is one of the world’s most repressive countries towards outspoken bloggers and often imposes disproportionate sentences. The government is currently considering a bill that would extend the death penalty to crimes committed online. On 18 december, the UN general assembly passed a resolution urging Iran to put a stop to death sentences and executions.

NCRI – A prisoner indentified as 35-year-old Mohammad Ali Sadeqi was arrested by anti-narcotics division of Isfahan's Dastgerd prison in central Iran last week.

Upon his arrival at the facility, he was badly beaten by his jail keepers. According to the family, both of his kidneys malfunctioned because of the tortures. Despite the repeated requests by the prisoner for medical attention, he was kept in a quarantine cell for a few days with no attention.

On Saturday, Sadeqi died of kidney malefaction and his body was handed over to his family.

Murdering prisoners while in custody has been long practiced by the mullahs' regime in Iran. 

One shocking example was when 18 women inmates were locked in a metal mobile container during the scorching summer heat last August since there was no women ward in Kahrizak prison in southern suburbs of Tehran.
 
They died of dehydration and respiration problems and prison authorities paid no attention to their problems. Other prisoners found out about the tragedy by the odor of decomposing corpses spread in the prison complex. The regime made no attempt to transfer the corpses and left them in the metal cells to create more fear among other prisoners. The prison authorities tried to cover up their crime by claiming that the prisoners died of heart failure or committed suicide.

According to eye witnesses, in October 2007, ten other prisoners died under torture in this prison. During that period 80 children who were staying with their mothers in the same prison were kept in inhumane conditions in a warehouse.

NCRI – A week following Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's prosecutor general, announcement of new round of crackdowns on what he called "internet and SMS violators," a new special task force for "internet crimes" start working at mullahs' judiciary, reported the state-run daily Etemaad on Saturday.

"The SMS might target the society as a whole or individuals. In the first case the prosecutor general will act as public defender and in the second case an individual has to file a complaint on his own," Mortazavi added.

Amin Hassan Rahimi, Secretary of mullahs' Majlis (parliament) Judiciary Committee said to the state-run news agency ISNA that the new task force is designed to "enforce" the "filtering" of the sites.

Last month the Iranian regime said that more than 5,000 sites had already been filtered by the government. 
In October, A number of senior officials of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG), the main body for imposing censorship, have expressed its deep concern over the use of SMS messaging by the Iranian Resistance’s network inside Iran.

Sarami, Vice-president of MCIG’s Center for Development of Information Technology, said: “Mojahedin [the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)] is exploiting country’s communication network to spread their anti-revolutionary SMS messages,”   the state-run daily Qods reported on Tuesday, September 30.
According to some figures every day over 20 million text messages are received in Iran, the peak hours are between ten in the evening and one in the morning. The SMS has become a tool to exchange messages by opponents of the regime.

The network of the PMOI inside Iran has sent millions of SMS messages across the country making use of it for organizing protests against the regime.

In the past the regime’s officials while expressing their concern claimed that such activities by the PMOI’s network were directed from abroad.

Davood Zareian, regime’s Minister of Communications told the state-run news agency ILNA on September 24: “the messages have been sent from a foreign SMS center.”
                    
But the mullahs' officials now admit that the Iranian Resistance’s network is using the country’s communication network from inside Iran.
                 
In recent weeks the clerical regime has staged a repressive campaign to counter the activities of the PMOI’s network. 

On September 13, Tabnak Website belonging to Mohsen Rezaii former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) criticized the regime’s security apparatus for their incompetence in countering the activities of the Resistance’s network.

“In Tehran, supporters of the PMOI distributed CDs containing speeches and clips of their activities door to door.  Some media have even reported distribution of similar CDs in other cities in Tehran province, including Karaj,” the website added.

Iran has hanged five men in a prison in the religious city of Qom after they were convicted of crimes including rape and drug trafficking, the government newspaper Iran reported on Sunday.

The men were identified as Mohammad Reza, 37, convicted of raping a 12-year-old boy, and Hamid, 22, who raped a teenage boy after threatening him with a knife.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense systems to Iran which could help repel any Israeli and U.S. air strikes on its nuclear sites, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.

"After few years of talks with Russia ... now the S-300 system is being delivered to Iran," IRNA quoted Email Kosari, deputy head of parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Security committee, as saying.

Kosari did not say when the deliveries began. Iran's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the report.

The United States, its European allies and Israel say Iran is seeking to build nuclear arms under the cover of a civilian atomic energy program. Iran denies the charge.

Israel's insistence that Iran must not be allowed to develop an atomic bomb has fueled speculation that the Jewish state, widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, could mount its own pre-emptive strikes.

In October Russia's Foreign Ministry denied media speculation that Moscow would sell the medium-range S-300 system, adding Moscow had no intention of selling weapons to "troubled regions."

But Russia's RIA news agency last week quoted "confidential sources" as saying that Russia was fulfilling a S-300 contract with Iran.

The most advanced version of the S-300 system can track targets and fire at aircraft 120 km (75 miles) away. It is known in the West as the SA-20.

Russian arms sales and nuclear cooperation with Iran have strained relations with Washington, which says Tehran could use them against their interests in the region and also against its neighbors.

Russia, building Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr, says Tehran does not have the capability to make nuclear weapons.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Jon Boyle)

HALABJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iraqi minority Kurds demanded on Sunday the execution of a Saddam-era official known as 'Chemical Ali' for the killing of 5,000 Kurds in a 1988 gas attack.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a Sunni Arab who was Saddam's cousin and a member of his inner circle, has already been sentenced to death twice, once in 2007 for his role in killing tens of thousands of Kurds in Saddam's military 'Anfal' campaign.

Majeed and three other high-ranking officials accused of mounting attacks on civilians appeared at Iraq's High Tribunal at the opening of a trial for the March 1988 attack.

Prosecutors described how relatives of 483 plaintiffs were gassed to death in the Kurdish border town of Halabja.

Majeed's second death sentence came this month for his part in crushing a Shi'ite revolt after the 1991 Gulf War.

Disputes within the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, however, have so far stalled Majeed's execution.

In Halabja, more than 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Baghdad, hundreds of Kurds waved banners and shouted for Majeed and his fellow defendants to be executed.

"We ask the court to execute Chemical Ali and to heal the wounds he caused by gassing our beloved," said Shereen Hassan, a Halabja housewife who took part in the protest.

"I will never rest until I see him hanged," said Peshtwan Qader.

At the time of the massacre, Iraq had been at war with Iran for almost eight years, and Saddam's government alleged Halabja residents were aiding Kurdish militants and siding with Iran.

Fouad Saleh, the town's mayor, urged the Iraqi government to pay victims' families compensation.

Majeed's Halabja trial will be headed by Judge Mohammed al-Uraibi, a Shi'ite jurist who also headed Majeed's first two trials, a court spokesman said.

Also charged in the case are Sultan Hashem, a former defence minister, and two intelligence officers. All the defendants are already facing life sentences or execution.

Majeed has been held in a U.S. detention centre but is due like thousands of other detainees to be handed over to the Iraqi government under a security pact taking effect on January 1. U.S. military officials in Baghdad on Sunday could not immediately confirm whether Majeed was still in their custody.

(Reporting by Sherko Raouf in Halabja and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Missy Ryan; Editing by Michael Christie)

Senior leaders from Kurdistan region and Turkey plan to hold a broad peace conference either in Iraq or Europe to work on ending the thirty year old violence battle between Turkish army and the guerrillas of PKK, a Kurdish official of Turkey revealed on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference in Ankara, Ahmed Turk head of the Kurdish bloc in Turkey’s parliament said the conference would target ending the long standing bloody battle between Turkish military and the PKK.

He also said leaders of the two sides agreed on holding the conference came after his recent visit to Kurdistan region, where he met with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, Kurdish president Masoud Barzani and other officials from the KRG.

PKK, fighting for the rights of Kurdish people in Turkey through armed struggle, and the Turkish army have experienced a long history of bloody battles, in which Turkish sources estimate more than 40 thousand persons killed.

No Turkish official have either confirmed or denied Ahmed Turks allegations.

holding that expected conference would be the first of its kind between the the region and the neighboring Turkey since the first foundation of KRG in 1991, as Ankara still refuses to formally recognize the region.

Kurdistan region and Turkey have also sliped into tension in 2007, as the Turkish armed forces carried out military incursion into Kurdistan region under the pretext of chasing PKK, a move strongly opposed by the Kurdish officials.

However, a landmark visit of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani to Turkey amid rising the tensions between the two side paved the way for a gradual normalization of the relations, reaching the point now the Turkish president Abdullah Gul is expected to make a visit to Erbil to hold talks with the Kurdish leaders.  

KURDSAT

Iraqi high criminal court will resume trials of the former dictator aides who were involved in the chemical massacre of Halabja in 1988, in which more than 5 thousand innocents were slaughtered and double were wounded.

8 suspected criminals are set to appear before the court, including Ali Hassan al Majid, known as chemical Ali, who masterminded the bombardment.

the trials will begin on 21st of December.

Sources near to the Iraqi court said that chemical Ali is expected to reveal new information and new confessions about the crime.
Iraqi parliament and presidency have adopted a bill formally recognizing the crimes against Kurdish people in Halabja and Anfal campaign as crimes against humanity.

In Halabja, crowds of people are expected to take into the streets to call for confirmation about the criminals’ trials and sentencing them with the toughest punishment.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — The president of a foundation that co-owns a Manhattan building allegedly linked to a bank accused of supporting Iran's nuclear program was arrested Friday.

Farshid Jahedi, 54, the president of the Alavi Foundation, was charged with obstruction of justice after he tried on Thursday to throw away documents responsive to a subpoena he received one day earlier, federal prosecutors said.

An FBI complaint against Jahedi said he was warned not to destroy documents requested by a grand jury. It said he disobeyed the order when he went home to Ardsley, N.Y., where he dumped papers in a public trash can.

The documents referred to Assa Limited, Assa Co. and 650 Fifth Ave. Co., subjects responsive to the subpoena, authorities said. Jahedi's Alavi Foundation owns 60 percent of the building on Fifth Avenue.

The U.S. government said Assa Co. Ltd. was a front set up by Iran's Bank Melli to funnel money from the U.S. to Iran. Bank Melli has been accused of providing support for Iran's nuclear program. Earlier this week, the Treasury Department sought forfeiture of the 40 percent interest that Assa held in the building and the money in its bank accounts.

The government alleged the company violated U.S. sanctions with Iran and engaged in money laundering. It claimed that Assa Corp. had repeatedly transferred rental income from the building back to Bank Melli through Assa Co. Ltd.

The government also said Assa Corp. had shared financial and other information on a regular basis with Bank Melli.

Last year, the United States accused Bank Melli of providing services to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and put the bank on its list of companies whose assets must be frozen.

Prosecutors said the Alavi Foundation is the successor organization of the Pahlavi Foundation, a nonprofit group used by the Shah of Iran to advance Iran's charitable interests in the United States.

The Pahlavi Foundation built the Manhattan office tower with a substantial loan financed by Bank Melli, prosecutors said.

If convicted, Jahedi could face up to 10 years in prison. A lawyer representing him and his foundation did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

United Press International

LUXEMBOURG, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- A European court in Luxembourg issued a ruling in favor of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, declining a challenge to maintain the group on state terrorist lists.

The European Court of First Instance declined a request by the European Union and the French government for reconsideration of a Dec. 4 ruling for the delisting of the PMOI by the EU. The PMOI, along with its political wing, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, is seeking regime change in Iran.

"The PMOI is no longer on the list, and the (European) Council has no alternative other than formally and publicly removing the PMOI from the EU terrorist list," said NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi.

The PMOI is listed on several state terrorist lists for its activity against the clerical regime in Iran in the latter part of the 20th century. The group says it renounced violence in 2003, however, and has lobbied aggressively to be delisted.

The European court ruled Dec. 4 the European Union had "violated the rights of defense" of the PMOI, adding Europe had not provided sufficient grounds to include the group on its list of terrorist entities.

The Dec. 4 decision follows a move in May by the British court of appeals moving to delist the group.

A group of 100 French lawmakers called on the government in Paris, meanwhile, to embrace the decision and reverse its standing on the PMOI.

Iran Focus

London, Dec. 19 - The United Nations General Assembly accused Iran on Thursday of continuing the practice of torture and punishments such as flogging, stoning and amputation of limbs.

The UNGA adopted a Canadian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 69 in favour to 54 opposed, with 55 abstentions.

The 192-member world body expressed "deep concern" at "serious human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran" relating to "Torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including flogging and amputations ... The continuing high incidence of executions carried out in the absence of internationally recognized safeguards, including public executions and executions of juveniles ... Persons in prison who continue to face sentences of execution by stoning ... Arrests, violent repression and sentencing of women exercising their right to peaceful assembly, a campaign of intimidation against women's human rights defenders, and continuing discrimination against women and girls in law and in practice".

It urged Iran to "eliminate, in law and in practice, amputations, flogging and other forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" and "abolish the use of stoning as a method of execution".

The resolution also pointed out that there was "discrimination and other human rights violations against women and girls" in Iran.

The UN body requested an update from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the situation of human rights in Iran, including its cooperation with international human rights mechanisms, at its next session.

It also decided to continue its examination of the situation of human rights in Iran at its sixty-fourth session under the item entitled "Promotion and protection of human rights".

By YAHYA BARZANJI

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi police say attackers have decapitated the leader of the women's league of the Kurdish Communist Party.

A police officer says gunmen on Thursday stormed the Kirkuk home of Nahla Hussein al-Shaly and shot and beheaded her.

The city of Kirkuk lies 180 miles north of Baghdad. The officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Party spokesman Azad Gahareeb says the 37-year-old al-Shaly may have been targeted because she promoted women's rights. He says the married mother of two was alone in the house when she was attacked.

A Turkish official said on Wednesday that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will travel to Turkey soon, as part of the attempts made to intensify the bilateral relations between the two countries.

This expected trip comes after postponing the allegedly visit of Turkish president Abdullah Gul to Iraq, where he was expected to meet Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and also visit Erbil, Kurdistan region’s capital.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin said Zebari would arrive at Ankara soon but did not specify an exact date for the planned visit.

Iraq’s vice president, Tariq al Hashimi, is also expected to travel to Turkey, although the Turkish Foreign Ministry neither confirmed nor denied the trip.

Health reasons are expected to be behind Al Hashimi visit, who earlier had visited Turkey for a nose operation.
Commenting on the reasons behind the delay of president Gul’s visit, the spokesman said President Abdullah Gülhad an ear problem that makes flying difficult.

In comments on the trilateral mechanism involving American, Iraqi (including KRG) and Turkish officials on PKK problem, the spokesman said the mechanism would soon be active. "We can say an understanding has emerged with the local authorities," he said, referring to KRG.

However, Özügergin once again repeated that when necessary, Turkey would continue to take military and political measures in the fight against PKK, in compliance with international law.

Turkish war planes and the Iranian artilleries have resumed their assaults on the border areas of Kurdistan region forcing dozens of families to escape their homes for their safety.

Turkish military on Wednesday reported that their warplanes “carried out bombing raids against PKK targets in northern Iraq”

“The planes had returned safely after hitting the terror organization PKK hideouts in the Qandil mountains on Tuesday afternoon” declared a Turkish military statement posted on its website.

The statement made no mention of PKK losses, while stressing that measures were taken to prevent “any damage to the civilian population of the region”.

Meanwhile, sources from the border areas of Kurdistan region along with Iran reported that the Islamic republic artilleries in the last 24hours heavily bombarded several villages under the pretext of chasing the guerrillas of PJAK, a newly formed Kurdish armed organization fighting for the rights of Kurdish people in that country.

According to the sources, the assaults caused heavy damage to the areas and forced dozens of Kurdish families to flee their homes heading to the more secure areas.

KURDSAT

NCRI - The mullahs' regime carried out the sentence on a prisoner and amputated his hand as the regime’s court ruled, the state-run daily Quds reported on Tueday.

The man who was not identified, was sentenced to 6 months jail and 30 lashes, in addition to amputation of his hand, the report said.

“We would deal harshly with those who make our society unsafe,” prosecutor general of the western province of Kermanshah said on the sideline of the execution of the inhuman punishment.

In February, in a press conference at the Iranian regime's embassy in Madrid, Seyed Davoud Salehi, the regime’s ambassador to Spain, justified the inhuman punishment of amputation and hangings in Iran, Spanish Media reported.

The regime's ambassador compared chopping off the hands of victims to a "surgeon amputating a limb to prevent the spread of gangrene. "  He argued that the death penalty was necessary "to preserve the health of the society as a whole.

"Our laws establish that we amputate a hand of those who steal. It is not accepted in the West, but local customs must be respected", he said.

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish warplanes on Tuesday bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq, the military said.

The raid targeted Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hideouts in the Qandil mountains, a major rebel stronghold, a statement on the army's website said.

"The planes completed their mission successfully and returned safely to their bases," it said.

The statement made no mention of PKK losses, while stressing that measures were taken to prevent any damage to the civilian population of the region.

The Turkish army has been pounding PKK bases in northern Iraq -- with the help of intelligence from its NATO ally the United States -- under a parliamentary authorisation for cross-border military action, which was first approved in 2007 and renewed for another year in October.

The previous air strike was on December 5.

Ankara says about 2,000 PKK rebels are holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq, where they allegedly enjoy free movement and obtain weapons and explosives for attacks in Turkey.

Turkey has often accused the Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in the region, of tolerating and even aiding the PKK, but has said it will still pursue dialogue with them to resolve the problem.

Last month, Iraq, Turkey and the United States agreed to form a joint committee to track the threat posed by the PKK and enact measures to stop the militants' activities.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.

NCRI - A prisoner identified by his first name, Abbas, was hanged in the southern city of Kazeron, the state-run daily Qods reported on December 10, 2008.

Three prisoners identified only by their initials as M.M., P.D. and A.R. were hanged by the mullahs' judiciary in the southeastern city of Zahedan, reported the semi-official news agency Fars on December 6.

Separately, the mullahs' regime hanged two prisoners aged 25 and 27 without identifying them in Dastgerd prison in central city of Isfahan on December 2.

 A young pregnant woman identified as Shahla has been sentenced to death by the Iranian regime. Her husband has also been sentenced to death according to the state-run media.

In the meantime, the mullahs' judiciary had sentenced a 30-year-old woman to death, reported the state-run daily Etemaad on December 14.

The Iranian Resistance draws the attention of all international human rights organizations, in particular the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to the appalling human rights conditions in Iran and calls for the referral of the regime’s human rights dossier to the UN Security Council for adoption of binding measures to stop brutal rights abuses.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has documents to prove the United States and Britain, the Islamic Republic's two Western arch foes, back a group that killed 16 abducted Iranian police officers, state radio reported on Saturday.

Shi'ite-dominated Iran said this month the Sunni group Jundollah (God's Soldiers) had killed 16 police hostages who were abducted from a checkpoint in the southeastern Sistan- Baluchestan province in June.

Tehran, which often accuses Britain and the United States of trying to destabilise the Islamic Republic, has said Jundollah's head, Abdolmalek Rigi, is part of the Sunni Islamist al Qaeda network.

"There are documents that show that Britain and America are supporting Rigi's terrorist group with arms and information," the radio quoted Ebrahim Raisi, first deputy to Iran's judiciary chief, as saying.

"The Iranian nation will avenge the blood of the border post soldiers powerfully," it added, without providing further details on the documents.

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda is blamed for numerous attacks on the United States, including the September 2001 assaults on New York and Washington that killed some 3,000 people.

Jundollah operates mostly in Sistan-Baluchestan, a volatile region near the border with Pakistan, home to Iran's mostly Sunni ethnic Baluchis. The area is notorious for clashes between security forces and heavily armed bandits and drug smugglers.

"All forces -- police, security and the judiciary branch -- are determined to deal very strongly with the soldiers of the devil," Raisi said, referring to Jundollah.

Similar comments about action against the group's attacks were made by Ahmad Khatami, a senior Iranian cleric, during a sermon to worshippers on Friday in Tehran.

Iran has blamed Jundollah for other abductions and in 2007 the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying Iranian Revolutionary Guards that killed 11 people.

Iran has not had diplomatic ties with the United States since 1980. Britain has an embassy in Tehran but relations have often been strained over the years, mainly because of Britain's involvement in Iranian politics when it was an imperial power.

(Reporting by Hashem Kalantari; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Sami Aboudi)

Turkish President Abdullah Gul is going to visit the city of Kirkuk on December 20, according to local media on Saturday.
According to NTV news network, Gul would be discussing with Iraqi officials means to bolster bilateral relations in addition to security measures to counter activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.
It added that Gul will also be visiting the city of Irbil where he is to meet with senior officials of Iraq's Kurdistan.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran has summoned the French envoy to Tehran to protest at comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy about refusing to meet his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state television reported on Thursday.

The foreign ministry summoned Bernard Poletti on Wednesday to express "its strong objections to the recent interfering comments by the French president," according to a ministry statement read on state television.

The ministry also "warned about the repercussion on bilateral relations of any repetition of such ill-considered remarks."

Sarkozy said it was "impossible for me to shake hands with someone who has dared to say that Israel should be wiped off the map," and that he would not "sit at the same table (as Ahmadinejad)."

His comments were made on Monday on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to the French presidency website.

Iran does not recognise Israel and Ahmadinejad has caused outrage by saying the Jewish state was a "cancerous tumour" and should be wiped off the map.

KurdishMedia.com
By Arez Aran

Last week the Hewler-based Kurdistan-TV Satellite Network reported that a well-known Turkish company has been allegedly sending poisoned food in what many have claimed is a calculated attempt to harm Kurdish citizens in the Iraqi or Southern Kurdistan region. Critics of Turkey find little surprise in this recent allegation claiming that after having publicly failed to justify their torture and even executing of anyone who speaks out for human rights in Turkey, the Turkish government has employed new strategic plan to harm innocent civilians of Kurdish descent.

Turkey, a country that is often falsely labeled as a democracy, has become familiar to many critics for its countless human rights abuses. The government has been regularly condemned by human rights group for imprisoning anyone who speaks or writes about the Kurdish issue in the country.

Recent trade increases between Turkey and the Kurds in Iraq have been viewed as a positive developments in the two group's relations. Turkey is responsible for shipping a very large percentage of foods and other products into South Kurdistan. However, critics say that the Turkish government's policy towards Kurds is unchanged and this recent discovery is proof of that.

Turkish companies ship cooking-oil into South Kurdistan and recent discoveries indicate that it comes with poison. The experts who reported these claims say the recurring incident is far from an accident. The President of the Science Department of the University of Salahadin in the Kurdish capital, Hewler, noted that the food from Turkey containing the poison is a perfect mixture to harm and even kill any person who consumes it.

Critics speculate that there are many reasons as to why Southern Kurdistan could have possibly been a target; a major one being that Southern Kurdistan has become a representation of Kurdish identity and national pride in the region. Critics say it has been Turkey's aim to wipe it out.

FUNNY NEWS

ANKARA, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - At least 670 Kurdish militants have been killed by Turkish forces in counter-terrorism operations this year, the country's General Staff said on Thursday.

The largest numbers of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists were killed in February and May - 250 and 179, respectively - mostly in the course of Turkish army air raids in northern Iraq, where PKK camps are based.

The Turkish military said over 300 acts of violence had been prevented by army units as part of counterterrorism operations in the southeast of the country, and about 500 kilograms of explosives, 55 antipersonnel mines, and an assortment of weapons and ammunition were seized.

The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the EU, the U.S. and many other countries, has been fighting for an autonomous ethnic Kurd state in southeast Turkey for nearly 25 years. The conflict has claimed over 40,000 lives.

Student's day

Three prisoners were hanged by the mullahs' judiciary in the southwestern city of Shahr-e Kurd, reported the semi-official news agency Fars on Monday.

Two were indentified as Hassan Baba-Ahmadi and Shahab Shahabi, the last was named only as A.D.

In the past week alone, 12 prisoners were hanged by the mullahs' inhuman regime.  

On November 21, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing deep concern over human rights violations by the ruling clerics in Iran.

NCRI - The mullahs' judiciary sentenced two young men to death by being thrown off of a cliff in the holy city of Qom on Sunday.
 
On May 12, five young men identified only as Morteza, 21; Hadi, 24; Javad, 24; Hossein, 19 and Mehdi, 24 were hanged in the same city, reported the state-run daily Iran.

The mullahs' judiciary did not stop at sentencing the five young men to execution by hanging; in addition, they were also sentenced to be thrown off a cliff.

On January 2, two other men identified as Tayab and Yazdan in their twenties, were given the same punishment.

"Two youths will be thrown into a precipice in the vicinity of the city of Shiraz," reported the state-run daily Qods. Shiraz is located in southern Iran.
The prisoners will be enclosed in a bag before being thrown into the ravine at the top of a cliff.

According to mullahs' penal laws if the victims survive this fall, they will be hanged.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq will halt attacks within Turkey in a week-long cease-fire in honour of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday, an official said on Monday.

Ruz Walat, an official with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said the cease-fire for the separatist group, which has fought for years with Turkish forces in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey, would last until Saturday.

"PKK fighters will stop attacks inside Turkey, but if the Turkish army does not respect the cease-fire then we will fight back," he added.

Turkish forces have routinely bombed and shelled remote PKK areas in the mountains of northern Iraq, from which rebels have launched attacks into Turkey.

The PKK, which the United States and European Union deem a terrorist organisation, claimed responsibility for detonating a section of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline between Iraq and Turkey last month.

Also last month, U.S., Turkish and Iraqi officials held talks in Baghdad on how to restrain PKK activities.

(Reporting by Sherko Raouf in Sulaimaniya; writing by Ahmed Rasheed and Missy Ryan in Baghdad; Editing by Charles Dick) 

Death to dictator

More than 4,000 students gathered outside Engineering College of Tehran University to mark the National Student Day on Sunday.

A large number of students from other universities and colleges in the capital such as Polytechnic (Amirkabir), Indusial University, Abbaspour, Science and Technology and Rajai joined the protest.

The State Security Forces (SSF) --mullahs' suppressive police-- and other security agents from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) blocked the main entrance to the school. However, the students broke the gate to 16-Azar Street and joined the gathering already in progress.

Students chanted anti-government slogans such as, "Death to dictator," "Student will die but will not be humiliated" and "Ahmadinejad is responsible for destruction in Iran."

Iranian universities are hotbeds of student activism and protests are common despite strict control on campus since the early days of mullahs' rule.

 Last year, the Student Day was marked on December 9, Iranian students in universities across Iran staged demonstrations, chanting anti-government slogans and calling for the release of the detained students.

At Tehran University, the protesters chanted slogans against Ahmadinejad and carried banners calling for the release of three fellow students who have been held since May, the state-run media such as Fars news agency and IRNA reported.

"The students marched on the gate and damaged it... The students chanted slogans and carried protesting placards," IRNA reported. According to the eyewitnesses, SSF agents had initially shut the main gate in to prevent large numbers gathering for the protest, but the students broke the gate so that others could enter.

"Ahmadi-Pinochet, Iran will not become Chile!", "Death to dictator," "Free all political prisoners," "University is wide awake," "University is the last barricade," "Students die but will not be humiliated," "Mr. President the student movement will stand until the end",
 chanted the students.

NCRI – On the anniversary of Student Day, the State Security Forces (SSF) --mullahs' suppressive police-- fired tear gas into the crowd of students at Boali Sina University in the western city of Hamedan.

SSF agents tried to force students out of Humanities College by using tear gas. But they met stiff resistance from the students chanting slogans and singing songs related to past student protests.

SSF units were assigned to stop student gatherings from taking place outside the college.

Last year, the Student Day was marked on December 9, Iranian students in universities across Iran staged demonstrations, chanting anti-government slogans and calling for the release of the detained students.

At Tehran University, the protesters chanted slogans against Ahmadinejad and carried banners calling for the release of three fellow students who have been held since May, the state-run media such as Fars news agency and IRNA reported.

"The students marched on the gate and damaged it... The students chanted slogans and carried protesting placards," IRNA reported. According to the eyewitnesses, SSF agents had initially shut the main gate in to prevent large numbers gathering for the protest, but the students broke the gate so that others could enter.

"Ahmadi-Pinochet, Iran will not become Chile!", "Death to dictator," "Free all political prisoners," "University is wide awake," "University is the last barricade," "Students die but will not be humiliated," "Mr. President the student movement will stand until the end",
chanted the students.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – A 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit an area in southern Iran, Iran's state Press TV reported on Sunday, giving no detail of any damage.

"Magnitude 5.6 quake rocks Dargahan area in south Iran," the English-satellite television station said in a scrolling headline, without specifying the time it struck.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is criss-crossed by faultlines and often experiences earthquakes.

(Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Charles Dick)

Three prisoners identified only by their initials as M.M., P.D. and A.R. were hanged by the mullahs' judiciary in the southeastern city of Zahedan, reported the semi-official news agency Fars on Saturday.

On November 21, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing deep concern over human rights violations by the ruling clerics in Iran.
 

The UN document reads in part: "Torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment such as flogging and amputations, public executions, stoning as a method of execution, execution of persons who were below 18 years of age at the time their offence was committed, arrests of and violent crackdowns on women exercising their right to assembly, increasing discrimination and other human rights violations against persons belonging to religious, ethnic, linguistic or other minorities, ongoing and serious restrictions of freedom of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the increasing harassment, intimidation and persecution of human rights defenders," are a common practice in Iran.
NCRI

Tha raid targeted Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hideouts in the mountainous region of Qandil, a major rebel stronghold near the border between Iraq and Turkey, a statement on the army's website said.

"The targets... were struck successfully," it said, but made no mention of PKK losses.

All the planes returned safely to base, the statement added, underlining that the army took care to prevent collateral damage to civilians.

The Turkish army has been hitting PKK targets in northern Iraq -- with intelligence from its ally the United States -- under a fresh one-year mandate which was approved by parliament in October.

The last recorded air strike was on December 1.

Ankara charges that 2,000 PKK rebels are holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq, where they allegedly enjoy free movement and obtain weapons and explosives for attacks in Turkey.

Turkey has often accused the Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in the region, of tolerating and even aiding the PKK, but has said it will still pursue dialogue with them to resolve the problem.

Last month, Iraq, Turkey and the United States agreed to form a joint committee that would track the threat posed by the PKK and enact measures to stop the militants' activities.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iranian artillery fire rained down on a remote area of northeastern Iraq on Friday, causing some material damage but no casualties, a local Kurdish official said.

The artillery bombardment was intermittent, said Azad Asso, a district mayor for Jarawa district at the Iranian border, around 195 km (120 miles) northeast of Sulaimaniya.

Asso said the bombardment began in the afternoon and continued into the early evening.

Iran occasionally shells northern Iraq, where it says Iranian Kurdish separatist fighters take shelter.

The last reported bombardment occurred in August, when an Iraqi civilian was wounded by rocket fire.

(Reporting by Sherko Raouf; Writing by Michael Christie; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Iranian Internal Security confirmed on Thursday that all 16 Iranians held hostage by an armed opposition group in Bluchistan in eastern Iran had been killed.

The interior security undersecretary, Ahmed Reza Radhan, said in remarks broadcast by the national Mehr news agency that all the abducted nationals had been killed "by the terrorist group Jendullah.
"The group had kidnapped the 16 Iranians, members of the interior security squad, in an attack last June, and took them to a hideout in the Pakistani border region. The group tried to blackmail Tehran to free imprisoned members of the organization.

Radhan indicated that contacts were underway to arrange handover of corpses of the slain personnel.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Police have arrested 49 people this week in a northern Iranian city during a crackdown on "satanic" clothes, IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

The measures are the latest in a country-wide campaign against Western cultural influence in the Islamic Republic, where strict dress codes are enforced.

"Police confronted rascals and thugs who appeared in public wearing satanic fashions and unsuitable clothing," Qaemshahr city police commander Mahmoud Rahmani told IRNA.

Rahmani also said that five barber shops were shut and 20 more warned for "promoting Western hairstyles."

In the past, such crackdowns have lasted a few weeks or months, but the current campaign was launched in 2007 and has not let up.

It includes measures against men sporting spiky "Western" hairstyles or women wearing tight trousers and high boots.

Women are supposed to wear clothing that covers their hair and disguises the shape of their bodies. But some, particularly in cities, wear headscarves pushed back well beyond their hairlines and sport tight-fitting outfits.

Some analysts say the authorities fear such open acts of defiance against the Islamic Republic's values could escalate if they go unchecked. This worries them when Iran is under pressure from the West over its disputed nuclear work, they say.

"Some individuals, not knowing what culture they are imitating, put on clothing that was designed by the enemies of this country," Rahmani said.

"The enemies of this country are trying to divert our youth and breed them the way they want and deprive them of a healthy life," he added.

Rahmani did not say how the offenders would be punished. Usual penalties are a warning or a fine.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has in the past suggested Iran's enemies may try to stage a "soft" or "velvet" revolution by infiltrating corrupt culture or ideas.

(Reporting by Hashem Kalantari, Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Catherine Bosley and Kevin Liffey)

A top European court ruled Thursday that the EU wrongly froze the funds of Iran's main opposition group in exile and violated its rights by not justifying why it was placed on a terror list.

The group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), hailed the verdict as a victory for justice and demanded that the EU strike it off the list of terrorist organisations and pay damages.

"The court annuls the funds-freezing decision insofar as it concerns the PMOI," the Luxembourg-based Court of First Instance said in a statement, just a day after the case was heard, the quickest judgement it has delivered.

The tribunal said the EU had "violated the rights of defence of the PMOI" by not providing the group with new information which the bloc said justified keeping it on Europe's list of terror organisations.

It said the EU had also refused to provide the information to the court based on a request from France, even though the details had already been given to the other 26 member countries.

"By refusing to communicate to the court certain information about the case, the (EU) has equally infringed the fundamental right of the PMOI to effective judicial protection," it said.

It was the third such ruling by the court, which is Europe's second-highest tribunal. The EU now has the choice of lifting the freeze, striking the group off its list or appealing against the decision.

"The council is examining the decision, and does not exclude an appeal," an EU official said.

He conceded the court had the jurisdiction to examine the freeze but said it had no power to rule on whether the PMOI could be placed under increased police surveillance, an element that also warrants inclusion on the list.

"The court has no competence over that aspect," he said.

Founded in 1965 with the aim of replacing first the Shah and then the clerical regime in Iran, the PMOI -- now led by exiled Iran opposition figure Maryam Rajavi -- has in the past operated an armed group inside Iran.

It was the armed wing of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) but it renounced violence in June 2001.

In a telephone call with AFP, Rajavi said: "This is a victory for justice."

"With this verdict, PMOI is no longer on Europe's terrorist list and cannot be put on it in the future," she said, adding that the EU "must officially and publicly present an apology".

She also demanded that the bloc pay court costs and damages.

The EU first decided to put the group on its list of people and entities whose assets should be frozen in May 2002, citing the move as part of its efforts to combat terrorism

The move was based on EU measures implemented to respect a UN Security Council resolution drawn up in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, which required countries to crack down on terror funding.

This decision was annulled by the court in December 2006, but owing to the fact that the terror list is updated roughly every six months, the PMOI was struck off a list from 2002, but remained on those that followed.

Then in July, the European Council of EU member states placed the Iranian opposition group on its latest terror list citing "new information" on the group, which has not been made public.

But in a second ruling in October, the Court of First Instance ruled that the EU had "failed to give sufficient reasons" to keep the group on the list after a British court decision to remove them from its national list.

This third verdict increases the pressure on the European Union to heed the court and keep the PMOI name off any future list -- and a fresh review is currently underway.

The EU official said "the updating of the new list will be postponed (by the ruling) but in any case should be done by the end of the year."

A Turkish court on Thursday sentenced Leyla Zana, a former parliamentarian and winner of the European Parliament's 1995 Sakharov Peace Prize, to 10 years imprisonment after finding her guilty of belonging to a terrorist group, the Anadolu news agency reported. The court in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir ruled that a number of speeches she has made in the few years proved that Zana was a member of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and had spread "terrorist propaganda".

Zana and three other Kurdish former members of parliament were imprisoned in 1994 after being found guilty of a terrorist organization in a trial that human rights groups complained was unfair and with the convictions based on witness statements allegedly obtained under torture.

In 2001 the European Court of Human Rights ordered a retrial that eventually took place in 2004 again finding the four guilty. After almost 10 years in prison the four were released when an appeals court prosecutor called for another retrial and for the convictions to be quashed on a technicality.

In 2007 the four were again found guilty but sentenced to time served.

Ankara blames the separatist PKK for the deaths of more than 35,000 people since the early 1980s when the PKK began its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east of Turkey.

The PKK is considered by the United States and the European Union to be a terrorist group.

Sulaimaniyah, 4 Dec. (AKI) - International rights groups have called for the release of a journalist jailed in northern Iraq for breaching a decency law by writing a story about homosexuality.

Adel Hussein was sentenced last week to six months' jail by a court in Erbil, capital of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, according to the Committee To Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.

Hussein was jailed over an April 2007 article he wrote for the independent weekly Hawlati that detailed the physical effects of homosexual sex.

Hussein is being held in Mahata prison in Erbil, north of Baghdad and has also been ordered to pay a 100 dollar fine, the groups said.

"We are astonished to learn that a press case has been tried under the criminal code," Reporters Without Borders said on its website.

"What was the point of adopting — and then liberalising — a press code in the Kurdistan region if people who contribute to the news media are still be tried under more repressive laws."

The sentence handed down by the Kurdish court was based on an outdated 1969 Iraqi penal code, said Luqman Malazadah, Hussein's lawyer.

Hussein was prosecuted as a result of a complaint brought by the city’s public prosecutor over a scientific article published in April 2007 that detailed the physical effects of sodomy.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said it began six days of naval war games on Tuesday in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic transport route for global oil supplies which the Islamic Republic has threatened to close if it is attacked.

Iran often stages exercises or tests weapons to show its determination to counter any attack by the United States or Israel against sites they believe are to make nuclear arms.

"The aim of this manoeuvre is to increase the level of readiness of Iran's naval forces and also to test and to use domestically-made naval weaponry," Admiral Qasem Rostamabadi told state radio.

The radio said the naval manoeuvres would cover an area of 50,000 square miles, including the Sea of Oman off Iran's southern coast.

"In this six-day long manoeuvre there will be more than 60 combat vessel units," Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, commander of the navy, was quoted as saying by the Kayhan daily.

They would include destroyers, missile-equipped battleships, submarines, special-operations teams, helicopters, and fighter planes, he said.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer, says its uranium enrichment activities are aimed at making fuel for electricity-generating nuclear power plants, not bombs.

The United States says it wants diplomacy to end the nuclear row, but neither Washington nor Israel have ruled out military action if that fails. Iran has vowed to retaliate if pushed.

Military analysts say Iran's real ability to respond could be with more unconventional tactics, such as deploying small hit-and-run craft to attack oil tankers, or using allies in the Middle East to strike at U.S. or Israeli interests.

Iran has previously said it could close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, through which about 40 percent of the world's globally traded oil passes. The United States has pledged to protect shipping routes.

An Iranian naval commander was last week quoted as saying the country's navy could strike an enemy well beyond its shores and as far away as Bab al-Mandab, the southern entrance to the Red Sea that leads to the Suez Canal.

Iran's 1980s war with Iraq included a period that became known as the tanker war when oil carriers and other energy installations became targets by both sides. This led to the United States stepping in to protect oil shipping.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Hashem Kalantari; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Katie Nguyen)

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran has lifted a ban on a cinema magazine which was ordered to halt publication in March for printing "decadent and corrupt" articles on foreign film stars, Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.

Branch 27 of Tehran's public court has lifted the ban on Donya-ye Tasvir (World of the Image), Fars said.

"We now hope to publish the new issue of Donya-ye Tasvir in the month of Day (December-January)," its editor Ali Moallem said, explaining that the magazine had appealed against the ban.

The monthly was banned along with other lifestyle and cinema magazines for publishing pictures of "corrupt" foreign film stars and details about their "decadent" private lives.

The last issue of Donya-ye Tasvir carried reports on several Hollywood starlets, including Naomi Watts, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, all accompanied by pictures.

To keep in line with the cultural standards of the Islamic republic, foreign movies are often heavily censored before screening to cut any scenes in which actresses are scantily clad.

Iran Human Rights: A pregnant woman and her husband were sentenced to death convicted of drug trafficking, reported the state run news agency ISCA news.

According to the report, the couple identified as "Shahla" (wife) and "Shahram B." are convicted of keeping 800 grams of heroin, and were sentenced to death by the revolutionary court in the town of Roudan, south of Iran.

Under interrogations, they have confessed that poverty was the reason why they wanted to sell drugs, said the report.

The prosecuter of Roudan, Jafar Hamzei told ISCA news:"The court has sentenced them to death according to the law, but we have asked the judiciary to reduce their punishment to life in prison, due to their poverty and bacause they had not succeeded to sell any drugs yet"

"Another reason why we have asked for reduction of the punishment is because the woman is pregnant" he added.

An Iraqi court is to decide on Tuesday the fate of Saddam Hussein's notorious hatchet-man "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid and 14 others accused of committing war crimes during the 1991 Shiite uprising.

The hearing, comes after harrowing testimony from witnesses of Saddam's crushing of the rebellion who described family members being thrown from helicopters and mass executions.

Majid was sentenced to death in June 2007 for genocide after ordering the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds during the 1988 Anfal campaign, when Iraqi forces strafed villages with poison gas, the source of his grim nickname.

Iraq's presidential council approved the death sentences of Majid and two other former senior military officials -- Sultan Hashim al-Tai, another former defence minister, and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, former armed forces deputy chief of operations -- in February, after months of legal wrangling.

But the three remain in US custody and have since been charged with committing similar war crimes in southern Iraq during the Shiite uprising that followed Saddam's crushing defeat at the hands of US forces in the 1991 Gulf War.

Perhaps as many as 100,000 people were killed as troops carried out massacres around the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and the Hilla and Basra regions and shelled towns and villages across the south.

Many Shiites who participated in the uprising say they had expected US forces to back them, but former US president George Bush instead ordered a halt at the Iraqi border, leaving the rebels at the mercy of Saddam's forces.

Majid served as minister of the interior at the time, after serving as the military governor of Kuwait. The 68-year-old was arrested by US forces in August 2003.

In August 2007 an unidentified witness accused Majid of personally executing her two sons by tying bricks to their feet and throwing them out of helicopters into the Gulf after detaining them in March 1991.

Another witness, who also testified behind a curtain, said in September 2007 that Majid had overseen the execution of some 200 people in a sports stadium near the southern city of Basra, shooting them dead in batches of 25.

Majid has never denied or expressed remorse for his actions during the campaign against the Kurds, but he insisted he was not in Basra during the alleged massacre.

Since the March 2003 US-led invasion, experts have exhumed dozens of mass graves of victims killed in the two uprisings.
Saddam was hanged in December 2006 for his role in the massacre of 148 Shiite villagers in the southern town of Dujail in 1982.

Shiites, a minority in the Muslim world, comprise 60 percent of Iraq's population and were ruled for decades by Saddam's Sunni-led regime.

 
Two prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for hanging at a future date in the central city of Isfahan, according to the Resistance sources in Iran on Monday. The two men were identified as 27-year-old Mehdi Rezaii and 25-year-old Naqeb Alami. 

Prior to their transfer, the prisoners were held in a ward known as Afghan's Ward.

On November 21, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing deep concern over human rights violations by the ruling clerics in Iran.
 
The UN document reads in part: "Torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment such as flogging and amputations, public executions, stoning as a method of execution, execution of persons who were below 18 years of age at the time their offence was committed, arrests of and violent crackdowns on women exercising their right to assembly, increasing discrimination and other human rights violations against persons belonging to religious, ethnic, linguistic or other minorities, ongoing and serious restrictions of freedom of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the increasing harassment, intimidation and persecution of human rights defenders," are a common practice in Iran. 

Turkish fighter jets on Monday raided on several boarder areas of Kurdistan region under the pretext of chasing PKK.

Turkish warplanes on Monday bombed the terror organization PKK targets in northern Iraq, the general staff said in a statement.
The jets bombed the Zap region, close to the Turkish border, the army said in a statement posted on its website.

It said all planes returned to their bases safely and described the operation as "effective." There was no information on casualties.

Turkey, provided with intelligence by the United States, stepped up its campaign to crackdown on the PKK inside Kurdistan region that have forced tens of Kurdish families to escape their homes heading to the shelters for their safety.

Also Iranian artilleries have been shelling border areas of Kurdistan region in the last 50 hours attacking the Kurdish guerrillas of PEJAK.
No casualties have been reported yet, but sources confirm that the assaults have spread panic among the families along the border.
The sources also said the families fled to caves to protect their lives from the assaults.

Istanbul, 1 Dec. (AKI) - A prosecutor in southern Turkey on Monday charged six children for attacking police with stones in a recent street protest in support of Kurdish separatists. According to the news site of Hurriyet, the stone-throwing youths face up to 58 years in prison if they are convicted.

Six youths, aged from 13 to 16, are alleged to have participated in street demonstrations in the southern province of Adana in which nearly 100 protesters clashed with Turkish security forces in November.

The protesters claimed that Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), was being mistreated in Imrali prison where he is serving a life sentence.

All six are charged with committing a crime on behalf of the terror organisation PKK.

In a similar incident earlier this month, a prosecutor in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir charged six children with attacking police with stones and Molotov cocktails, after they participated in street protests during Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's recent visit.

They are facing 23 years in prison if they are convicted.

The PKK's goal is to create an independent, socialist Kurdish state in Kurdistan, a region that comprises parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. The organisation is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, and the European Union.

NCRI – On Sunday, students gathered outside administration office of Tehran's Polytechnic (Amirkabir) University protesting to reckless handling of a fellow classmate's falling from a three story building.

Said Arablou, an electrical engineering student fell from third floor of a school building and nearly lost both his legs.

Participants called for the resignation of Farahani, Dean of Student Affairs, for spending his entire budget on restrictive measures against the students such as close circuit cameras. The instruments are installed to keep an eye on the students' every move on campus. 

In the run-up to December 6, the Student Day, most students in major Iranian schools are preparing for traditional anti-government demonstrations. Polytechnic University has been the focal point of such student protests since their famous move of burning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's pictures before his eyes when he was speaking at the school in December 2006.

Following the move, most of the school's students have been summoned to the so-called "disciplinary committee."  Many were suspended from following academic semesters despite Ahmadinejad's hollow show of tolerance for students' critical views of the mullahs' regime.