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.