ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's military says its warplanes struck Kurdish rebel targets overnight in northern Iraq.

A military statement says Air Force jets bombed targets in the Iraqi border regions of Zap and Avasin-Basyan on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Hours earlier 10 Turkish soldiers were killed in two separate attacks suspected of being launched by Kurdish rebels.

Turkish warplanes have often targeted rebel hideouts in northern Iraq from where guerrillas have staged hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets for decades.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey's southeast since 1984.

While talk of global economic boycotts of Iran are being widely reported, Mehdi Ghazanfari, head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, told IRNA, an official Iranian news agency, that five European countries have been Iran’s main trade partners during the past year. $15.4 billion worth of trade was conducted in the past year with Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and France.

“Despite the sanctions imposed on Iran by some Western countries and U.S., the European states are keen on continuing bilateral economic cooperation with Iran,” he said, referring to the figure of trade exchange between Iran and those states. Meanwhile, Iran’s ambassador to Turkey, Bahman Hosseinpour, has told another official Iranian news agency, Fars News, the volume of trade between Iran and Turkey has reached a record $12 billion.

IsraelNN.com

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran said on Wednesday jailed US-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi should appeal to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if she wants to be pardoned, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"This case is going through the legal process and if there is a request for amnesty it should be made to the supreme leader," attorney general Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi said.

Saberi, 32, has appealed against an eight-year sentence handed down to her on charges of spying for the United States.

"There have been such cases in the past and it is possible that the appeals court could change the verdict," Najafabadi said, adding that an appeals court could either reduce or increase sentences.

Under Iran's judicial system only the supreme leader can pardon convicted offenders, except in murder cases where retribution is considered a private right.

Saberi's father Reza told AFP on Tuesday that his daughter has been on hunger strike for more than a week and would continue the protest until she was released.

The judiciary denied that Saberi was refusing to eat or that her health had been affected. The United States said it was "very concerned" about her health and urged her release.

Saberi has both US and Iranian citizenship, but Tehran does not recognize dual nationality.

Saberi, who is also partly of Japanese descent, has reported for the US National Public Radio, the BBC and Fox News and has lived in Iran for the past six years.

In a rare move, both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi have called for a fair appeal.

The Saberi incident comes as US President Barack Obama tries to repair ties with Iran, an arch-foe since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Guardian

Owen Bowcott

Three UK-based businessmen illegally exported equipment to support Iran's ageing squadrons of US-manufactured "Top Gun" fighter aircraft, a London court heard yesterday.

Customs officers discovered liquid oxygen cylinders - enabling pilots to breathe at altitude - being despatched through Heathrow airport with "bogus paperwork" purporting to show that they were for medical use, the prosecution alleged.

That interception in May 2006 triggered an investigation of Mohsen Akhavan Nik, 58, his son Mohammed Akhavan Nik, 26, and their business contact Nitish Jaitha, 43, prosecutor Mukul Chawla QC told jurors at Southwark crown court.

It was "inconceivable" that the trio were unaware they were breaking the law, Chawla said.

"They were well aware that the equipment they were supplying was military in nature and they knew that they could not legally supply this equipment to Iran and yet ... carried on doing precisely that," he said. What was described as just a "fraction" of their company accounts showed deals with Iran worth £1.2m.

The paperwork for the oxygen cylinders had been copied from websites, the jury was told. Nix Aviation Limited would buy parts from Oxford-based Aerospace Support International (ASI), in which Jaitha was a partner.

Iran continues to use American-made aircraft bought before the US embargo came into force in 1979. Tehran makes 15% of the spares itself, but the rest is purchased on the black market.

The Niks allegedly used a US business address to receive parts from American suppliers without needing an export licence. They were then shipped abroad, often via London, using innocent or misleading descriptions.

Chawla said that around 150 American fighter jets were still being operated by Iran, including the F-4 Phantom II and F-5 Tiger II. The country is also believed to have 30 US-manufactured helicopters.

Among the records confiscated from the raided firms was a 2005 letter from Nik Sr to an associate, mentioning an agent in Tehran.

He wrote: "We are specialised in spare parts for the military section. I'll try to help you find any equipment relating to any industry and aviation."

Mohsen Akhavan Nik, Mohammed Akhavan Nik, and Nitish Jaitha deny the charges. The trial continues.

Iranian artilleries once again shelled the border villages of Kurdistan region on Wednesday under the pretext of chasing the Kurdish PJAK armed group who fighting the Islamic republic for the rights of Kurdish people.
Sources near to the areas reported that the bombardment, lasted for an hours, has caused severe material damages and forced people rush to nearby shelters for their safety.
Iranian artilleries periodically bombard the villages across the border line between Kurdistan region and Iran in chase of the PJAK armed group.

Meanwhile, Turkish war planes bombed several positions Kurdistan region’s border areas under the pretext of hunting down PKK guerrillas.
The head of the Dahuk province border guards, Colonel Hussein Tamor, said in a statement to Reuters that no civilians were hurt because the area was unpopulated. He did not know about any rebel casualties in the strike, which continued from 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) to 6 p.m. (1500 GMT).
These attacks comes hours after a roadside bomb ripped under a Turkish military armor in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir and killed at least nine soldiers.
No one has so far claimed responsibility and the Turkish military officials accuse PKK and terrorist groups to be behind the attack.
PKK leaders have given no comment over the attack so far.

President of Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani met with Archbishop Ibrahim Ibrahim Michigan, Chaldean Archbishop Sarhad Jammo and an accompanying delegation.

At the meeting Archbishop Ibrahim expressed their gratitude to President Barzani for giving them an opportunity to meet and praised his role and the course of democracy in Kurdistan Region, saying that Chaldeans were always with the position of Kurdistan people and want to learn from the experience of the region.

The delegation also showed their perspectives about a number of issues referring to the killings of Christians and forcing them to leave homes in some areas of Iraq and how Kurdistan Region has become a haven for them. They asked President Barzani to protect Christians in some disputed areas.

On his part, President Barzani reaffirmed that Kurdistan Region's doors have always been opened to the Christian brothers, saying "it is our duty to protect and defend them".

kurdsat

ISTANBUL – (AP) A roadside bomb killed nine Turkish soldiers in an armored personnel carrier Wednesday in southeastern Turkey, making it the deadliest attack by suspected Kurdish rebels in six months, officials said.

In a separate ambush near the border with Iraq, guerrillas fatally shot a Turkish soldier, local media reported.

Officials suggested both attacks were done by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has been fighting since 1984 for more autonomy for Turkey's Kurds, who makes up a fifth of the country's 70 million population and live predominantly in the impoverished southeast.

Many PKK guerrillas shelter in the mountains of neighboring Iraq, crossing the border for hit-and-run assaults. The group is considered a terrorist organization by both the European Union and United States.

The vehicle targeted in Wednesday's bomb attack had been accompanied by a tank to secure an area near Lice, a town in the southeastern Diyarbakir province, before a larger military convoy passed, military chief Gen. Ilker Basbug said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but Basbug said the attack — 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the Iraqi border — made the military even more determined to fight terrorism, and he urged Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region to crack down on the rebels from Turkey.

"Our security forces, our armed forces, our police will press ahead with the struggle against terrorism with more determination and tenacity than ever," Basbug said.

Meanwhile, suspected rebels opened fire on a military unit in Semdinli, near the borders with Iraq and Iran. An injured soldier died later in a hospital, and the military launched a new operation in the area, according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.

Tens of thousands have died in Turkey's Kurdish conflict. In recent years, the government has taken fitful steps to provide more economic help and cultural rights to Kurds, including lifting a ban on the Kurdish language in 1991.

But as the PKK campaigned has continued, Turkey last year staged a ground offensive against suspected rebel targets in northern Iraq, and has launched aerial attacks across the border with the help of U.S. intelligence.

On Oct. 3, Kurdish rebels attacked a Turkish military outpost at Aktutun near the Iraqi border, killing 17 soldiers.

In recent weeks, Turkish authorities arrested dozens of members of the Democratic Society Party, a pro-Kurdish party in parliament that is suspected of having ties to the rebels. The party alleges it is the target of persecution, after winning a majority of votes in areas of southeast Turkey in March local elections.

In a third incident Wednesday, authorities said a woman set off a small explosion, killing no one, in a botched suicide attack targeting a former justice minister condemned by leftist militants for his treatment of prisoners.

Bodyguards of former Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk, who was preparing to teach a class at Bilkent University in Ankara, overpowered the alleged assailant. Turkish media said a second attacker was arrested as he tried to flee.

The PKK and leftist militants have cooperated in the past, though attacks by leftist militants have diminished since the 1990s. The Kurdish rebel group was initially Marxist, but now focuses exclusively on Kurdish rights.

The leftists blamed the minister, Turk, for mistreating prisoners, after he presided over the transfer of inmates in 2000 and 2001 from large wards housing up to 100 to new maximum-security cells housing one to three people each.

The government said the big wards had become virtual training centers for underground groups, but the transfers sparked deadly prison riots and hunger strikes by leftist extremists who said small cells isolated prisoners and left them vulnerable to guard abuse.

___

Associated Press Writer Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara.

By Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's judiciary said on Tuesday a U.S.-born journalist jailed for espionage was in good health and not on a hunger strike, but Roxana Saberi's father said she was "frail and weak" after refusing food for a week.

Reza Saberi said his daughter, who was sentenced on April 18 to eight years in prison on charges of spying for the United States, had not eaten since last Tuesday.

He told Reuters he had failed to persuade her to stop the protest action while visiting her in Tehran's Evin prison.

U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood also voiced concern about Saberi's health and urged Iran to free her.

"We're very concerned about her mental state, about her physical being," Wood told reporters in Washington.

"We believe the charges against her are baseless, without foundation. You know, the judicial process surrounding this case has been anything but transparent," he added.

But Iran's ISNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi as saying: "Roxana Saberi's condition is good and she is not on hunger strike."

Judge Hassan Haddad, deputy prosecutor for security issues, said the 32-year-old reporter had no physical problems.

"The issue of hunger strike was raised by those who have the intention of exploiting the issue ... for propaganda purposes," he said, according to the same news agency.

Haddad confirmed Saberi's lawyer had appealed the verdict.

"If there is a possibility of adjusting the sentence it will be done," he said, giving no detail on when the higher court would examine the issue.

The case could complicate Washington's efforts toward reconciliation with Iran after three decades of mutual mistrust. U.S. President Barack Obama has offered a new beginning of engagement if Iran "unclenches its fist."

"FRAIL AND WEAK"

A citizen of both the United States and Iran, the freelance journalist was arrested in late January for working in the Middle Eastern country after her press credentials expired.

Obama has expressed deep concern for the safety of Saberi, who has reported for the British Broadcasting Corp. and U.S. National Public Radio.

Tehran, which does not recognize dual nationality, says Washington should respect the independence of Iran's judiciary.

Reza Saberi, who moved to the United States in the early 1970s and returned to Iran with his wife after their daughter's arrest, expressed hope she would be freed.

"She is very frail and weak. She hasn't eaten for the past seven days," he said. "We just have hope that they acquit her."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week called on the prosecutor to ensure Saberi enjoys full legal rights to defend herself. The judiciary chief has said the appeal must be dealt with in a "quick and fair way."

A pro-reform and moderate politician who is aiming to challenge Ahmadinejad in Iran's June presidential election said he hoped Saberi would be freed.

"I hope that in this stage of the investigation they will reach the conclusion that she is innocent and we hope she can return to her family," cleric Mehdi Karoubi, a former parliamentary speaker, told a news conference.

The United States has also repeatedly raised the case of former FBI agent Robert Levinson who went missing two years ago while on a business trip to Iran.

"His family is, as you can imagine, in a very terrible situation, with no information about Mr. Levinson," said Wood. "We call on Iran to do the right thing and provide information on this case as well."

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Hashem Kalantari and Hossein Jaseb; Sue Pleming in Washington; Editing by Sophie Hares and Eric Walsh)

Reporters Without Borders members began a hunger strike today in support of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on a charge of spying for the United States.

Saberi has herself been on hunger strike since 21 April and, according to her father, Reza Saberi, who visited her in Tehran’s Evin prison yesterday, she is “determined and ready to go all the way.” He said she appeared “much weaker” as a result of going without food for a week.

“Roxana has been significantly weakened by these seven days of hunger strike and we are very concerned for her health,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We are therefore symbolically taking over the hunger strike in a gesture of solidarity, so that she no longer has to go on. Reporters Without Borders activists began their hunger strike at 11 a.m. today in Paris.”

Members of Reporters Without Borders have been stationed outside the Iran Air office at 63, Avenue des Champs Elysées in Paris since 11 a.m. today.

Roxana Saberi needs to know she is not alone, and that she can now take a rest. We will not abandon her.”

Seven journalists and two bloggers are currently imprisoned in Iran, which was ranked 166th out of 173 countries in the 2008 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Timeline of Saberi case
31 January: Roxana Saberi is arrested.
1 March: The US public radio network NPR breaks the news of her arrest (after being alerted by her father on 10 February).
2 March: Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi says Saberi was working “illegally” in Iran.
3 March: Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi says she has been “arrested on the order of the Tehran revolutionary court and is being held in Evin prison.”
9 April: Saberi is charged with spying by deputy prosecutor Hassan Zare Dehnavi. This charge is often used by the Iranian authorities to arrest journalists and tighten the muzzle on freedom of expression.
13 April: Saberi is tried in a closed-door hearing on a charge of spying for the United States.
18 April: Saberi is sentenced to eight years in prison.
20 April: Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi announces that she will join the Saberi defence team.
21 April: Saberi begins her hunger strike.
25 April: Her lawyer file an appeal against her conviction.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Senators have crafted legislation aimed at choking off Iran's gasoline imports to break its defiance of global demands to freeze its suspect nuclear program, their offices said Monday.

The bill, which has the support of 23 senators from both major US parties, would empower President Barack Obama to punish petroleum exporters supplying Iran, including a ban on doing business in the United States, they said.

Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, Republican Senator Jon Kyl and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman are the lead authors of the measure, which comes one week after lawmakers introduced a similar bill in the House of Representatives.

The senators were to unveil the legislation at a press conference on Tuesday.

"Limiting Iran's access to essential energy supplies could aid US diplomatic efforts to achieve concessions from the Iranian government regarding its nuclear operations," Bayh, Kyl and Lieberman said in a joint statement.

At the same time, a key committee in the House will take up that chamber's version of the legislation, which comes as US lawmakers express growing frustration at the pace of diplomatic progress in nuclear talks with Iran.

Iran, though rich in oil, is estimated to rely on gasoline imports to meet 40 percent of domestic demand, most of it coming from five European firms and one Indian company.

Entities potentially affected include the Swiss firm Vitol, the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura, the French firm Total, the Swiss firm Glencore, and British Petroleum, as well as the Indian firm Reliance, while Lloyds of London insures the majority of tankers carrying gasoline to Iran.

The new legislation would expand the criteria under which a company could face US sanctions under a 1996 law targeting investments over more than 20 million dollars in Iran's oil and gas infrastructure.

Human Rights: Two people were hanged in the prison of Ahwaz (southern Iranian province of Khuzestan) yesterday, reported the official Iranian news agency Irna. The two individuals who were just identified as "Ala H." and "Mostafa Kh." were convicted of murder and hanged in the Karoun prison of Ahwaz Sunday morning according to the report.

According to the same report another person identified as "seyed Masoud M." was hanged in Ahwaz in February-March 2009. He was convicted of drug trafficking.

Age of none of those executed was mentioned in the report.

The Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) is ready for a peaceful resolution to the conflict with the Turkish government, the group's leader has told the Arab Al Jazeera channel.

While the PKK remains on alert against the Turkish military, the organisation is also open to resolve the conflict peacefully, Murad Karalyan said from Qandil Mountain.

"Now, the situation is very delicate and dangerous. There are two possibilities, and we are ready for both - a big war or a peaceful resolution to the conflict," Karalyan was quoted by the channel as saying.

The PKK is closer than ever before to a negotiated solution with Ankara, Karalyan said.

"Turkey wasn't able to get rid of us militarily and they also tried politically and they failed. That is why a political solution is close," he said.

The PKK leader explained that ending the presence of their guerrillas in Qandil woul not mean the end their end, since PKK exist inside Turkey strongly.
"If they get rid of the PKK in Qandil, it doesn't mean we are finished because we are inside Turkey and we are strong," Karalyan said.

"Turkey's new policy is to involve the Kurdistan Regional Government," Karalyan said.
"They used to have a red line not to deal with the regional administration in northern Iraq. Now they are in direct contact with them.
"The Turkish government wants the KRG to fight us. I do not expect the KRG to use force, but they have been taking measures against us restricting our movements. The Turks want them to do more than that."

BRUSSELS (AFP) — The European Union will urge Iran to take advantage of a change in US policy to seal a deal and end the standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, according to a draft document Friday.

EU foreign ministers, at a meeting in Luxembourg Monday, will welcome Washington's new attitude saying it creates a "window of opportunity" for talks on Iran's atomic programme and other issues, the document said.

"The EU calls upon Iran to seize this opportunity to engage seriously with the international community in a spirit of mutual respect, in order to find a negotiated solution to the nuclear issue," it said.

Such a solution "will address Iran's interests, including the development of a civil nuclear power generation programme, as well as the international community's concerns.

"The evolution of our relations with Iran will also depend on it."

Western powers fear that Iran's nuclear drive could be a cover for efforts to build an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists it is aimed purely at generating electricity for a growing population.

The Europeans have been struggling since 2006 to persuade the Islamic republic to accept a package of political and economic incentives in exchange for an end to uranium enrichment.

Enrichment is a process for powering a nuclear reactor, but at highly refined levels the uranium can be used to build the core of an atom bomb, which many countries fear the Islamic Republic is trying to covertly develop.

Iran, which is labouring under three sets of UN sanctions, has refused to sit down at the negotiating table if it has to suspend uranium enrichment even before the talks begin.

While Washington is offering dialogue, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the new administration of President Barack Obama would be prepared to push for tough sanctions against Iran if the new dialogue fails.

STRASBOURG (AFP) — The European Parliament on Friday called on Iraq to respect the "protected persons" status of an exiled Iranian opposition group and withdraw a threat to close their camp north of Baghdad.

The parliamentary text, adopted during a plenary session in Strasbourg, called on the Iraqi prime minister "to ensure that no action is taken by the Iraqi authorities which violates the human rights of the Camp Ashraf residents and to clarify the government's intentions towards them."

Iraqi national security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie said last month that the 3,000 members of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI) should leave the camp, 80 kilometres (50 miles) from border with Iran, where they have been living for two decades, describing them as "foreign terrorists."

The EU parliament said that those in the camp who left Iran for political reasons "could be at risk of serious human rights violations if they were to be returned involuntarily to Iran."

The MEPs said that "no person should be returned, either directly or via a third country, to a situation where they would be at risk of torture or other serious human rights abuses."

They called on the Iraqi government to respect the legal status of the residents as "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions and to refrain from any action that would endanger their life or security.

The resolution also called on the European Union, together with the Iraqi and US governments, the United Nations and the Red Cross "to work towards finding a satisfactory long-term legal status for Camp Ashraf residents."

The camp houses supporters of the PMOI and their families.

The PMOI was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah of Iran, but was defeated by the rival clerical regime which took power in 1979.

The group disarmed after the overthrow of Saddam in April 2003 by US-led forces but was allowed to remain at Ashraf.

In 2002, the PMOI was listed by the European Union as a terrorist organisation but was struck off the list in January this year, to the fury of Tehran. It remains on a US blacklist.

PMOI head Maryam Rajavi, who lives in exile in Paris, welcomed the EU parliament's stance as "a defeat for the clerical regime in its plots against the residents of Ashraf and its attempts to prepare the grounds for a human catastrophe."

Adoption of the resolution "clearly showed that diametrically opposite to the mullahs' plots, support for the rights of Ashraf residents as the bulwark to the mullahs' export of fundamentalism is growing in Iraq, in the region and in the international scope," Rajavi said in a statement.

The Iranian state media reports that several Iranian police officers have been killed in separate clashes with the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) in two of the country's western provinces (Presstv.ir, 25 April). PJAK is related to the Kurdistan Workers Party. The pro-PKK news agency ANF also reports several soldiers have been killed by several PJAK attacks (ANF, 25 April).

PKK media earlier claimed that PJAK killed 17 Iranian soldiers on 19 April and killed 6 Iranian militia soldiers of the Sepah Pasdaran (Basiji) in Marivan (ANF, 22 April).

In January 2009 Iranian state media reported that PJAK was defeated. This was later denied by PJAK. PJAK temporary stopped their armed operations because of the winter. Just like in the Pakistan border regions, 'everyone is preparing to halt fighting for the Winter, and get back to the killing in the Spring.'

wvw

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president accused Israel Wednesday of "brutal acts" and "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinians, two days after his denunciation of the Jewish state as racist prompted a walk-out from a U.N. meeting on race.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a conference in Tehran on Israel's "genocide and war crimes" in Gaza that Israeli "criminals" should be brought to justice for the war in the Palestinian coastal strip in January.

He said Iran, Israel's arch-foe, had submitted requests for the arrests of 25 "Zionist war criminals" to Interpol. Iran often refers to Israel as the "Zionist regime." Iran had previously announced that it had taken such action with Interpol.

"(They) must be held accountable for all their brutality," Ahmadinejad told the meeting of prosecutors from Islamic countries in a speech broadcast live on state television.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran ... expects this organization to fulfill its legal duties," he said.

His comments were translated by Iran's English-language Press TV.

Monday the Iranian president, who has in the past raised doubts about the Nazi Holocaust, denounced Israel at a United Nations conference on racism as a "totally racist government" founded "on the pretext of Jewish sufferings."

Ahmadinejad's comments caused European countries not already boycotting the conference to walk out but drew applause from Islamic delegations. U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday condemned his remarks as "appalling and objectionable."

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Fredrik Dahl;, Editing by Dominic Evans)

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its support for independent journalists in Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan, which today celebrates Press Day. Kurdistan was spared much of the fighting that engulfed the rest of Iraq after the US-led intervention of March 2003, but it is now experiencing many press freedom violations including harassment and violence against journalists.

Soran Mama Hama, a 23-year-old journalist working in Kirkuk for the magazine Leven, was gunned down in his home on 21 July 2008. A strong critic of local politicians and security officials in his articles, he had repeatedly been threatened and warned to stop his investigative reporting. But his courage and professionalism pushed him to continue.

The investigation into his murder has ground to halt despite protests by his fellow journalists. Reporters Without Borders today reiterates its appeal to the Kurdish authorities to carry out a thorough investigation aimed establishing the circumstances of his death.

Less than two weeks ago, Azeez Mahmoud, the correspondent of the Kurdish-language weekly Roudaou, escaped a murder attempt as she was returning to her home in Sulaymaniyah by car on the night of 9 April. The police say they are investigating. Reporters Without Borders urges the Kurdish regional government to shed light on this incident, in which Mahmoud could have died.

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the many lawsuits and prosecutions that have been brought against journalists in Kurdistan as a result of complaints by politicians over articles about corruption or mismanagement of public affairs.

Surwan Omar, the editor of the magazine Rika and representative of the Kurdistan News agency, was arrested in Kurdistan on 17 March as a result of a complaint by Raniyah mayor Jiwar Gorna over a report about abuse of authority by several local officials. Omar had to pay bail of 3 million dinars (2,000 euros) to get out of prison. No date has so far been set for his trial.

Abd Arif, the editor of the Kurdish-language newspaper Haoulati, was sentenced on 15 March to pay a fine of 13 million dinars (8,500 euros) as a result of a complaint by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani because a translation of an article by US journalist Michael Robin in Middle Eastern Outlook was published in the 13 January issue of Haoulati. The article accused Talabani of embezzling 400 million dollars and referred to the lack of transparency about the assets and income of Iraq’s leaders.

Reporters Without Borders wrote to justice minister Safa El Safi on 17 March urging the judicial authorities to be more lenient with Arif as the fine threatens the future of weekly, the oldest Kurdish publication.

Jassem Mohamed, the head of the TV station Dalal, was arrested by the Kurdish security forces on 25 February in Erbil province for saying in an interview published in the local newspaper Awene that his detention for two weeks in January had “no legal grounds” and was a “human rights violation.”

The police often prevent journalists from covering events in Kurdistan. On 4 April in Badil, for example, the police prevent a Farhat TV crew from filming a demonstration in support of political prisoners.

These are just a few examples of the kinds of harassment to which journalists are regularly exposed in Kurdistan. The Reporters Without Borders correspondent in the region was to speak at an event organised today by the magazine Leven, with support from IFEX, to mark Press Day. A “Soran Award” is to be given to three local journalists for producing work of quality.

By DAVE KOLPACK

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Hometown friends and colleagues of an American journalist imprisoned in Iran for espionage maintain that she's a political pawn and not a spy — though a local newspaper editor hesitates to declare her innocent without seeing the evidence.

Roxana Saberi, who grew up in Fargo, was convicted last week after a one-day trial behind closed doors and was sentenced to eight years in prison. American diplomats objected, and Iran's president said this week that she should be allowed a full defense in her appeal.

The comments of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has helped to ease the shock of Saberi's conviction, said Donald Clark, a state legislator who lives near Saberi's parents in Fargo.

"It looks like a setup deal to me. She's a pawn in a bigger chess game," Clark said Monday. "This is something that would be a key in opening up relations with the United States, if they desire that. It would be viewed as a goodwill gesture if they turn her loose."

Charley Johnson, the general manager of Fargo TV station KVLY, who hired Saberi in the 1990s after teaching her in a college class, took some hope from the latest developments.

"Looking at the comments from Ahmadinejad, it seems to be a sign that something can be worked out sooner rather than later," Johnson said. "I don't think anyone thinks she went there to be a spy."

Saberi's mission to explore the culture and heritage of the Iranian people should have been a benefit to Iran, Johnson said.

"It seems to me they should have embraced her as a conduit for better relations with the United States," Johnson said. "Now they have turned her into a pawn."

Kevin Melicher, a neighbor of Saberi's parents, said residents plan to tie yellow ribbons around trees in the neighborhood Tuesday, and they plan to help the family with their travel costs and chores at their home.

Last month, residents piled sandbags about 3 feet high in their back yards to defend against flooding from the Red River. Melicher said he greeted Reza Saberi during the sandbagging effort and told him "we were thinking of them.

"He thanked me and said they were leaving for Iran," Melicher said.

Reza Saberi, who was born in Iran, told The Associated Press on Monday that he and his wife visited their daughter in Evin prison north of Tehran.

"She seems to be OK," he said, and was looking forward to her appeal.

Matthew Von Pinnon, editor of The Forum newspaper of Fargo-Moorhead, wrote in a Sunday column that while he doubts Saberi is a spy, "as a fellow journalist — and I think she'd appreciate me saying this though it works against her situation — I've been reticent to declare her innocent without knowing all the facts.

"And that's the most troubling part about all this. We don't know Iran's case against her, or her defense, because the trial was closed. Her father couldn't even attend," he wrote.

Von Pinnon had worked alongside Saberi as a journalist and both were on the same indoor soccer team.

Saberi, 31, is a graduate of Fargo North High School and Concordia College in neighboring Moorhead, Minn. One of her college instructors, Merrie Sue Holtan, said the trial was unfair and she's hopeful the case will be reviewed.

"I think it's higher up in politics than what I really understand," Holtan said. "I know that in prior cases, when their president has spoken, things get done and things happen. I just see it as an opening."

Holtan, who now teaches communication at Minnesota State University Moorhead, said she has talked about Saberi's case with one of her students from Iran.

"I asked her about Iran's judicial system and she said, 'I don't think we have a system,'" Holtan said.

The Guardian

Ian Black, Middle East editor

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comment that Israel came into existence "under the pretext of Jewish suffering" may sound unremarkable to Arabs and Muslims who are focused on the current suffering of the Palestinians. But it will outrage most Israelis, Jews - and many others - who see a direct link between the Nazi Holocaust and the creation of the state in 1948.

The Iranian president's charge that Israel is a "totally racist" regime also jars with his own doubts about the extermination of 6 million Jews by Hitler - racism of unparalleled savagery.

Iran, Arabs and other critics of Israel often argue that Zionism equals racism because citizenship is offered automatically to any Jew but denied to dispossessed Palestinians.

Israel's defenders say to deny the right of national self-determination to Jews is antisemitic.

Zionists see a historic and religious link with the Holy Land. Modern Jewish immigration dates to 1882 but the events that led to the creation of Israel began in earnest in 1917 when Britain said it favoured a "national home" for the Jewish peopleprovided nothing be done to prejudice the rights of what were called "non-Jewish minorities".

After 1945, when the horrific human cost of the Holocaust became clear, the US and the Soviet Union backed partition into separate Jewish and Arab states. The Palestinians rejected the UN proposal. The plan gave the Jews 56% of the territory but they ended up with 78% after the fighting.

Iran Human Rights, April 20: According to sources in Iran, the scheduled execution of the minor offender Delara Darabi has been postponed after orders from the head of the Iranian judiciary.

The execution has been postponed for two months after the massive national and international attention Delara’s case has received.

"The national and international attention Delara’s case has received has been decisive in postponing the execution" said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam the spokesperson of the human rights network Iran Human Rights. "It also shows that Iranian authorities, and not family of the offended, have the possibility and power to stop executions" he added.

Much attention has been directed to the family of Mahin, the 58 years old lady who was murdered in 2003, for which Delara is convicted and sentenced to death. Iranian authorities claim that Delara’s life is in the hands of the family of the offended and if they agree the death sentence could be substituted with "dieh" (blood money).

"Family of the offended have already lost a loved one and what they need is our sympathy and not the blame for the decision of whether or not to hang a young girl" said Amiry-Moghaddam, "Iranian authorities should be held responsible for the execution of minor offenders, which is a serious violation of Iran’s international obligations".

Iran was the only country to execute minor offenders in 2008 where at least 8 minors were executed. So far in 2009, one minor offender has been executed and at least 150 minor offenders are on the death row in Iran.

LONDON (AFP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown "unreservedly condemned" the "offensive" comments made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN racism conference Monday, his spokesman said.

"The view of the British government is that we unreservedly condemn the Iranian President's offensive and inflammatory remarks," Brown's spokesman said.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband, meanwhile, described Ahmadinejad's comments as "offensive, inflammatory and utterly unacceptable."

Ahmadinejad sparked a walkout of dozens of diplomats from the conference in Geneva when he criticised Israel, saying he deplored the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in 1948 and called it "the most cruel and racist regime".

Britain's representative at the conference, its ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Peter Gooderham, was among those who left the room in protest.

Brown's spokesman said: "Such remarks have no place anywhere, least of all in a UN anti-racism forum.

"We don't think that the President of Iran's presence in itself constituted grounds to withdraw from the conference, but in the light of his remarks the decision was taken that we would not attend for the part of the speech in which he was speaking."

Miliband said the British delegation and others "rightly walked out of President Ahmadinejad's speech because such hate-filled rhetoric is an intolerable abuse of free speech and of the conference."

He added: "We will not accept an event that degenerates into racism and intimidation.

"But nor should we leave the international stage only to those, like President Ahmadinejad, who would take global efforts against racism backwards."

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks, which prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out.

The meeting had already been boycotted by the United States and Australia, as well as Israel, in protest at the presence of the Iranian president, who has previously called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Diplomats streamed out of a United Nations conference on racism Monday after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel had occupied Palestinian land on "the pretext of Jewish suffering."

"Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," Ahmadinejad told the conference, speaking through a translator.

"And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine," he said.

"And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."

British ambassador Peter Gooderham condemned the Iranian leader's "offensive and inflammatory comments" that prompted the temporary walk-out. Delegates said they would return after he had finished speaking.

"Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a U.N. anti-racism forum," he said.

Slovenian ambassador Andrej Logar called the Iranian comments -- which prompted applause among delegations that remained in the U.N. assembly hall -- "detrimental to the dignity of this conference."

"The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces," Ahmadinejad told the conference.

The United States is among eight Western powers who are boycotting the week-long conference because of fears it will be used as a platform for unfair criticism of Israel.

"We strongly deplore the language used by the president of Iran. In our view this speech was completely inappropriate at a conference designed to nurture diversity and tolerance," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store told the conference after Ahmadinejad had finished speaking that his words amounted to incitement to hatred, and through his words Iran had made itself the odd man out at the meeting by undermining the agreement so far on the conference declaration.

"Norway will not accept that the odd man out hijacks the collective efforts of the many," he said.

(Reporting by Robert Evans and Jonathan Lynn; Writing by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Dominic Evans)

 

GENEVA (AP) — U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his tirade against Israel during a global racism conference.

Ban says the Iranian leader used his speech "to accuse, divide and even incite," directly opposing the aim of the meeting.

Ahmadinejad used the platform Monday to accuse Israel of being a "most cruel and racist regime."

His speech, which was repeatedly disrupted by protesters, sparked a walkout by angry Western diplomats.

The incident overshadows the weeklong effort to forge global unity in the fight against racism.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States called Monday on Iran to end its "horrible rhetoric" after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attacks on Israel but said it still wanted talks with Tehran to mend relations.

"We want to have a direct dialogue with Iran, but Iran needs to do a number of things to get back in the overall good graces of the international community," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.

"If Iran wants a different relationship with the international community, it has to stop this horrible rhetoric," he said.

"This type of rhetoric is unhelpful, it's counter-productive and it just feeds racial hatred," Wood said. "This is not rhetoric that should be used in the 21st century."

Addressing a UN conference against racism, Ahmadinejad criticized the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in 1948, calling it "the most cruel and racist regime."

The remarks by Ahmadinejad -- who has in the past denied the Holocaust -- prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out of the Geneva conference room in protest.

The United States and Israel were among countries which had already boycotted the meeting, refusing to attend at all due to its anticipated tone regarding the Jewish state.

US President Barack Obama has sought to repair relations with Iran, which turned from US ally to arch US foe after its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Obama sent an unprecedented video appeal last month to Iranians for their New Year, hoping to turn a new page in relations.

A US diplomat to the United Nations also denounced Ahmadinejad's remarks, calling his speech "shameful" and saying it was a disservice to the Iranian people.

"We call on the Iranian leadership to show much more measured, moderate, honest and constructive rhetoric when dealing with issues in the region and not this type of vile, hateful, inciteful speech that we all saw in the Ahmadinejad spectacle of this morning," said US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Alejandro Wolff.

Ahmadinejad's rabble-rousing speech came one day after a potentially conciliatory gesture to the United States -- calling for fair treatment for an Iranian-American reporter convicted of spying.

The hardline president said Roxana Saberi, a dual national, should be given the chance to defend herself.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier Monday called on Iran to swiftly free the 31-year-old journalist, voicing hope that Ahmadinejad's remarks would lead to action.

By FRANK JORDANS

GENEVA (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a walkout Monday by angry Western diplomats at a U.N. racism conference.

The hardline leader's appearance overshadowed the substance of the weeklong United Nations attempt to stamp out intolerance worldwide. The United States and eight other Western countries, expressing concerns about its fairness, were already boycotting the event.

Protesters dressed with clown wigs and holding placards repeatedly interrupted Ahmadinejad's speech with shouts of "Shame! shame!" and "Racist! racist!" throwing soft red objects on the podium. Later, about 100 members of mainly pro-Israel and Jewish groups blocked Ahmadinejad's entrance to a scheduled news conference.

Ahmadinejad, in a rambling speech, accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime" and pointed the finger at the United States and Europe for helping to establish the country after World War II "under the pretext of Jewish suffering."

That prompted a walkout by some 40 diplomats from European countries such as Britain and France, which had threatened to leave the conference if it descended into anti-Semitic or other rhetoric harshly critical of Israel, which marred the U.N.'s last racism gathering.

The boycotting countries expressed concern that Muslim countries would drown out many issues with calls for a denunciation of Israel and a global ban on criticizing aspects of the Islamic faith.

"As soon as he started to address the question of the Jewish people and Israel, we had no reason to stay in the room," said French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattei.

Speaking directly after Ahmadinejad, Norway's foreign minister said the Iranian leader's comments "run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference."

Ahmadinejad "has made Iran the odd man out," Jonas Gahr Store said.

Even before his speech, Ahmadinejad polarized the meeting, which is intended to examine all forms of intolerance around the world.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland earlier Monday to protest Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz's meeting with Ahmadinejad late Sunday during which Merz pressed the case of a jailed American journalist in Tehran.

"The meeting between the president of a democratic country with an infamous Holocaust-denier such as the president of Iran, who calls for Israel's destruction, does not mesh with the values that Switzerland represents and that are supposed to be represented at the U.N. conference on racism," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

President Barack Obama said Sunday that the United States would communicate with Iran about journalist Roxana Saberi through its Swiss intermediaries, which have officially represented U.S. interests in Iran since the American hostage crisis that began in 1979. The Swiss government said it also took up other "unresolved cases" of U.S.-Iranian relations.

Ahmadinejad's attendance has provoked outrage from Jewish groups and Israel, as he has in the past questioned the Holocaust and called for Israel's destruction.

Associated Press writer Eliane Engeler contributed to this report.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday an Iranian-American journalist jailed for espionage had the right to appeal against her eight-year sentence, but that the United States should respect rulings issued by Iranian courts.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday he was "deeply concerned" for the safety of jailed freelance reporter Roxana Saberi and urged Tehran to free her, saying he was confident she was not involved in spying.

Saturday's jailing of Saberi on charges of spying for the United States could add to U.S.-Iranian tension at a time when Obama's administration is trying to engage the Islamic state diplomatically, following three decades of mutual mistrust.

Asked about Obama's comments, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told a news conference: "It is an international norm that one should respect the rulings issued by the court."

He added: "I recommend that as long as you have not studied the contents of the case one should not just express his views ... I'm sure some American officials have also studied law."

Qashqavi's remarks were translated by Iran's English-language Press TV.

"But I should emphasize that we take into consideration all the legal issues, including the right of appeal, and this is a right that is preserved for Roxana Saberi," he said.

Defense lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi has said he will appeal against the verdict on Saberi, a U.S.-born freelance journalist who has worked for the BBC, U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) and other international media.

In a statement welcomed by Khorramshahi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday urged Iran's judiciary to ensure that Saberi enjoys her legal right to defend herself and said the legal process should be based on justice.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said releasing Saberi, 31, would serve as a goodwill gesture.

Saberi, who is a citizen of both the United States and Iran, was arrested in January for working in Iran after her press credentials had expired.

Her father, Reza Saberi, told NPR on Saturday she had been coerced into statements that she later retracted.

Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based media rights group, has called Saberi's conviction "unjust under the Iranian criminal code" and said her lawyer was not with her when she appeared before the judges for the single hearing on April 13.

Washington cut ties with Iran shortly after the Islamic revolution in 1979 but Obama has offered a new beginning of engagement if the Iranian government "unclenches its fist."

Iran says it wants to see a real switch in Washington's policies away from those of former President George W. Bush, who led a drive to isolate the country because of nuclear work the West suspects has military aims, a charge Iran denies.

(Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Turkish police arrested on Monday 30 people in Istanbul on charges of association with the rebel Kurdish group, the Workers Party of Kurdistan (the PKK).
The Turkish news agency, "Ikhlas," quoted Turkish security sources as saying the 30 suspects were arrested in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, on charges of having relations with the outlawed organization.
The agency said the arrests were part of a campaign by the Turkish security forces, aimed at dismantling the organization, the largest in terms of scale since 2004.

Kurdistan Human Rights Observers

Saman Rasoulpoor is sentenced to one year in prison

HROK: Saman Rasoulpoor, journalist and human rights activist is sentenced to one-year imprisonment by the First Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Mahabad.

The sentence was issued for this Kurdish activist on charge of waging propaganda against the regime and disturbing public perception as a result of interviewing with foreign media outlets.

It is important to state that following Saman Rasoulpoor’s arrest last Murdad 1387 (Sep 2008) and as a result of the relentless pressure by the security forces, he was forced to leave the country and this sentence was handed out in his absence.

Iran Human Rights: Attempts are being made to stop Delara Darabi’s execution that is scheduled to take place one of the coming days in Iran.

Delara is sentenced to death convicted of the murder of her father’s 58-year-old female cousin Mahin in September 2003. She was 17 at the time of the crime.

Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, Delara’s lawyer, told Iranian daily Etemad that Delara’s family are trying to get the offended’s family’s agreement to accept blood money. He added "an exact time for execution has not been announced, but Delara’s father was told last week that her daughter will be hanged in the coming days"

Delara’s family have also written letters to Mahin’s family as well as Mr. Shahroudi, head of the Iranian judiciary.

According to our sources, no agreements have been made so far, but the attempts are being still made.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights said to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, that "the responsibility of Delara’s life is all on the Iranian authorities and not the family of the offended".

Amiry-Moghaddam said in a separate statement "Iranian judiciary has the authority to stop Delara’s execution and order a reconsideration of the verdict". He added " Iran has ratified UN’s convention of children’s rights that bans death penalty for offences committed at under 18 years of age. Delara is a minor offender. The international community, especially countries with economic and political ties with Iran should make it clear that continued excution of the minors will not be tolerated"

Delara’s scheduled execution has attarcted much attention in the international media ad among the human rights organizations.

Amnesty International has planned several demonstrations and petitions in protest to Delara’s death sentence around the world.

In a statement yesterday, Rome Mayor Mr. Gianni Alemanno, joind the petition in protest against Delara’s scheduled execution and demanded that Delara’s death sentence should to be stopped.

There have not been any official public protests from the European governments yet.

"What Mr. Gianni Alemanno did should be followed as an example for all other Italian and European politicians" said Iran Human Rights spokesperson Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

The New York Times

By NAZILA FATHI
Published: April 19, 2009

TEHRAN — Iran has sentenced an Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, to eight years in prison after convicting her of spying for the United States, her lawyer said Saturday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was “deeply disappointed” by what the State Department has called baseless charges against Ms. Saberi, and demanded her release.

“We will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement released Saturday.

The sentencing of Ms. Saberi, 31, could complicate political maneuvering between Iranian and American leaders over Iran’s nuclear program, an issue that kept relations icy during much of the Bush administration. President Obama recently made overtures to Tehran about starting a dialogue over the nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran responded positively.

Ms. Saberi’s sentencing appears to set the case apart from other recent detentions of people with dual citizenship. Two Iranian-American scholars, Haleh Esfandiariand Kian Tajbakhsh, were arrested in 2007 on accusations that they tried to overthrow the government, but they were released on bail before their trials began. Ms. Esfandiari was allowed to return to the United States, and Mr. Tajbakhsh is allowed to leave Iran when he wants.

It is difficult to judge how politics may have affected Ms. Saberi’s case.

One political analyst in Iran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate subject matter, said Ms. Saberi’s arrest could be part of the efforts by radical forces within the establishment who might be trying to sabotage any reconciliation with the United States.

“There have been similar efforts in the past to sabotage efforts that were aimed at resuming ties with the United States,” he said. “Her jailing might be part of the same efforts.”

Iran has also been pressing for the release of three Iranian officials whom the United States took into custody in 2007 in Iraq. The men, who Iran says are diplomats, were arrested at Iran’s consulate in Erbil in northern Iraq.

United States forces have said the men had links to the Revolutionary Guards.

Some diplomats have suggested in the past that another American who many believe is being held in Iran, Robert Levinson, a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, might be being held as a high-value chip in a possible prisoner swap. Mr. Levinson traveled to the southern island of Kish in 2007 on what his family said was a business trip and has been missing since then.

Ms. Saberi, who grew up in Fargo, N.D., was arrested in January on the charge of buying alcohol, which is outlawed in the Islamic Republic. The Foreign Ministry said later that she was accused of working as a reporter without press credentials, but the prosecutor’s office said this month that she was put on trial for spying. She was tried in the Revolutionary Court, which hears security-related cases, and is is being held in Evin Prison in Tehran.

She has lived in Iran for six years and has worked for National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Iranian authorities revoked her press card in 2006.

The verdict came after an unusually swift trial, which started last Monday and was held behind closed doors.

Ms. Saberi’s lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, told the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was told he could appeal the case and that he would.

In a statement released Saturday, Vivian Schiller, the president and chief executive of NPR, said, “We are deeply distressed by this harsh and unwarranted sentence.”

She also said that “we know her as an established and respected professional journalist.”

In an interview with NPR, Ms. Saberi’s father, Reza Saberi, who was in Iran but not allowed into the courtroom, said his daughter was coerced into making incriminating statements.

“They told her if she made the statements they would free her,” according to a transcript of the interview on the NPR Web site. “It was a trick.”

He also said that his daughter wanted to go on a hunger strike, but he added that she was weak and that he feared it would be dangerous to her health.

Both Democratic senators from North Dakota, which is where Ms. Saberi’s parents live, expressed outrage over the sentencing, A.F.P. reported.

"This is a shocking miscarriage of justice," Senator Byron Dorgan said in a statement. "The Iranian government has held a secret trial, will not make public any evidence, and sentenced an American citizen to eight years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

"I call on the Iranian government to show compassion," Senator Dorgan said, adding that he would continue to work with the Saberi family, State Department officials and the international community to gain her release.

"I will not rest until Roxana is given her freedom and arrives home," he said.

The other senator, Kent Conrad, described her sentence as "preposterous" and a "travesty of justice," adding that Iran "is doing enormous damage to their credibility on the world stage with behavior like this."

Iran Human Rights: One man was hanged in the Adelabad prison of Shiraz reported the state run Iranian news agency ISCAnews today.

The man was identified as "Amir Kh." (24) and was convicted of murdering a girl identified as "Robabeh" in one of the villages outside the southern Iranian city of Shiraz.

According to the report the execution took place during this week.

The Times

Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.

Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.

Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.

“Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,” one senior defence official told The Times.

Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250 tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor produces plutonium.

The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870 miles, a distance that the Israeli force practised covering in a training exercise last year that involved F15 and F16 jets, helicopters and refuelling tankers.

The possible Israeli strike on Iran has drawn comparisons to its attack on the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981. That strike, which destroyed the facility in under 100 seconds, was completed without Israeli losses and checked Iraqi ambitions for a nuclear weapons programme.

“We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,” said another official from Israel's intelligence community.

He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America, which has struck a more reconciliatory tone in dealing with Iran under its new administration.

An Israeli attack on Iran would entail flying over Jordanian and Iraqi airspace, where US forces have a strong presence.

Ephraim Kam, the deputy director of the Institute for National Security Studies, said it was unlikely that the Americans would approve an attack.

“The American defence establishment is unsure that the operation will be successful. And the results of the operation would only delay Iran's programme by two to four years,” he said.

A visit by President Obama to Israel in June is expected to coincide with the national elections in Iran — timing that would allow the US Administration to re-evaluate diplomatic resolutions with Iran before hearing the Israeli position.

“Many of the leaks or statements made by Israeli leaders and military commanders are meant for deterrence. The message is that if [the international community] is unable to solve the problem they need to take into account that we will solve it our way,” Mr Kam said.

Among recent preparations by the airforce was the Israeli attack of a weapons convoy in Sudan bound for militants in the Gaza Strip.

“Sudan was practice for the Israeli forces on a long-range attack,” Ronen Bergman, the author of The Secret War with Iran, said. “They wanted to see how they handled the transfer of information, hitting a moving target ... In that sense it was a rehearsal.”

Israel has made public its intention to hold the largest-ever nationwide drill next month.

Colonel Hilik Sofer told Haaretz, a daily Israeli newspaper, that the drill would “train for a reality in which during war missiles can fall on any part of the country without warning ... We want the citizens to understand that war can happen tomorrow morning”.

Israel will conduct an exercise with US forces to test the ability of Arrow, its US-funded missile defence system. The exercise would test whether the system could intercept missiles launched at Israel.

“Israel has made it clear that it will not tolerate the threat of a nuclear Iran. According to Israeli Intelligence they will have the bomb within two years ... Once they have a bomb it will be too late, and Israel will have no choice to strike — with or without America,” an official from the Israeli Defence Ministry said.

By CHARMAINE NORONHA

TORONTO (AP) — A Canadian man has been charged with trying to export nuclear technology to Iran, his native country, police said Friday.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Greg Johnson said Mahmoud Yadegari tried to ship pressure transducers, which are devices that can be used in the process of making enriched uranium.

While the devices are relatively easy to obtain, RCMP Sgt. Marc Laporte said Yadegari improperly described the items, underevaluated their value and physically removed some of their packaging and labeling when trying to ship them to a company in Dubai that had affiliations in Iran.

The U.S. and its allies have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons secretly under the guise of a civilian atomic energy program. Iran insists its efforts are aimed at producing nuclear power only.

Canadian police, acting on a tip from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said Yadegari obtained the transducers from the United States. They said he took steps to conceal what they were so he could export them overseas without export permits.

"The declared point of destination was Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. However, we have evidence to support the fact that its ultimate destination was Iran," Johnson told reporters during a news conference.

Laporte later said police found evidence to suggest that the Dubai company would ship the items to its affiliate company in Iran.

Yadegari, who police said is a Toronto businessman and a Canadian citizen in his mid-30s, is charged under the Customs Act and Export Import Permits Act, and is also accused of violating U.N. sanctions on Iran.

He is in jail pending a bail hearing. Police said they do not know what lawyer is representing him.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed his country's armed forces as the "guarantor" of regional security, during a low-profile parade on Saturday marking Army Day in the Islamic republic.

"Iran's armed forces are the guarantor of security in the region," Ahmadinejad in a televised speech during the parade, refraining from the confrontational tone that has marked previous Army Day addresses.

"Today the Iranian nation, with its religious armed forces, is ready to have a wide role in world management and to establish security based on justice across the world," he added.

Local media had said that 140 fighter jets and other aircraft would stage an aerial display on Saturday but the show was cancelled due to what the media said was bad weather and poor visibility.

In previous years, Iran -- which has long been at odds with the international community over its disputed nuclear drive -- has used army day to display its military might including home-built missiles.

Turkish prosecutors Thursday launched an investigation with a Kurdish leader who made a comparison between PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and South Africa's legendary former President Nelson Mandela.

Turkish Hurriyet daily newspaper reported that the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in the the province of Diyarbakir launched the probe into Democratic Society Party (DTP) chairman Ahmet Turk, the Anatolian Agency reported.

At a Nevruz celebration in Diyarbakir Ahmed Turk told a crowd of Kurdish people that the black-white dispute was resolved when Mandela was freed and that the Kurdish issue could only be resolved if Ocalan, who was currently serving a life imprisonment, was freed.

Prosecutors requested a transcript of Turk's speech from Diyarbakir police and launched an investigation into Turk for disseminating propaganda on behalf of PKK, the agency said.

Prosecutors will also prepare a report to be submitted to Turkish Parliament to lift Turk's legislative immunity. The report will be submitted to Parliament through the Justice Ministry.

Ahmed Turk is heading the only Kurdish parliamentary bloc in Turkey’s parliament, DTP, which has 20 seats.
The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in the capital Ankara rejected Monday another complaint against Turk who in February addressed his party's legislators in the parliament building in Kurdish in defiance of Turkish law.

Prosecutors decided not to start proceedings, saying the law does not clearly specify which language a lawmaker must use when addressing a political party meeting. The prosecutors' decision can be overturned by a higher court.
kurdsat

Iran Human Rights: Delara Darabi, the painter who is sentenced to death for a murder she allegedly committed at the age of 17, is scheduled to be executed in four days.

The Iranian daily newspaper Etemaad reproted that Mr. Khoramshahi, Delara’s lawyer, was informed by the authorities that her death sentence is scheduled to be carried out in four days.

Mr. Khoramshahi told the newspaper that he still believes that Delara is innocent and her verdict is illegal, but our only hope is that the family of the offended accept blood money, something they have denied so far.

According to human rights defenders, international attention is the only way that Delara Darabi’s execution could be halted.

Despite ratifying UN’s convention on children’s rights that bans death penalty for offences committed at under 18 years of age, Iran is on the top of wolrd when it comes to execution of minor offenders. Iran was the only country to execute minor offenders in 2008.

Background: Delara Darabi, aged 22, faces execution after being convicted of the murder of her father’s 58-year-old female cousin Mahin in September 2003. She was 17 at the time of the crime.

Delara Darabi initially confessed to the murder, but later retracted her statement. She said that her boyfriend, Amir Hossein Sotoudeh, was the murderer and that she had admitted responsibility to protect him from execution, claiming that he had told her she was too young to be executed.

Delara Darabi was initially sentenced to death by Branch 10 of the General Court in Rasht on 27 February 2005. In January 2006, the Supreme Court found "deficiencies" in the case and returned it to a children’s court in Rasht for retrial.

Following two trial sessions in January and June 2006, Delara Darabi was sentenced to death for a second time by Branch 107 of the General Court in Rasht. Amir Hossein Sotoudeh was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for complicity in the murder.

Both received sentences of three years’ imprisonment and 50 lashes for robbery, plus 20 lashes for an "illicit relationship". Delara Darabi’s death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court on 16 January 2007.

Delara Darabi has been detained in a women’s prison in Rasht since her arrest in 2003. Her detention conditions have been poor and she has suffered from depression in prison. Her father has said that she is not fed properly and is treated badly by the prison staff.

Delara Darabi has had only sporadic access to her family. Visitation rights are frequently denied and the family have sometimes been turned away on arrival.

In January 2007, Delara Darabi attempted to commit suicide, but was saved when cellmates alerted prison officials. Prior to her suicide attempt, her family and lawyer made repeated requests that she be moved to another prison because of her deteriorating physical and mental state.

Background source: Amnesty International

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice; Litigation / Medical Malpractice; Public Health
Article Date: 16 Apr 2009

medicalnewstoday.com

The detention and trial of journalist Roxana Saberi, as well as the recent sentencing of Iranian brothers and HIV/AIDS physicians Kamiar and Arash Alaei, are a "tragic example of human rights violations that have become the norm in Iran," Olga Khazan -- program assistant with Physicians for Human Rights -- writes in a Washington Post letter to the editor. She adds that Kamiar and Arash Alaei were sentenced to "three and six years in prison, respectively, for allegedly 'communicating with enemy governments' because of their participation in global health conferences." According to Khazan, "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime has condemned countless Iranian journalists, activists and scientists on illegitimate charges without producing evidence to back them up." She continues, "This crackdown on international exchange and academic freedom undermines the efforts of those who seek to shine light on Iranian society and serve the Iranian people." According to Khazan, Ahmadinejad wrote a congratulatory letter to President Obama in which Ahmadinejad "asked him 'to use every chance to serve, to spread love and kindness, to eradicate oppression (and) to do justice.'"

Ahmadinejad "should begin by spreading justice in his own country" and
release innocent citizens like the Alaei brothers and Saberi, Khazan writes, concluding, "Whether reporting the news or treating devastating diseases, each deserves the opportunity to serve" (Khazan, Washington Post, 4/15).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Thursday that there was no military solution to arch-foe Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

"The solution in Iran is not a military one," Peres was quoted by his office as telling visiting US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.

Over the past several years Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that all options were possible in resolving the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.

Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East's sole nuclear armed power, and the United States suspect the Islamic Republic of using the programme to develop atomic weapons, a charge that Tehran has repeatedly denied.

The Jewish state considers Tehran to be its arch-enemy because of repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.

New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that the threat posed by Iran constituted the biggest threat to Israel's existence since its creation 61 years ago.

Last week US Vice President Joe Biden said Netanyahu's cabinet would be "ill-advised" to attack Iran, but stressed it was unlikely to do so.

Human Rights Activists in Iran report: Ms. Haleh Hooshmandi who war arrested on March 18th is in critical condition and so far, since her arrest, she has not been legally charged. Based on received reports from the Baha’i
Committee of the Human Rights Activists in Iran was under strict medical care for heart murmur and hypertension.
Whie in detention, she has been permitted to make one phone call during which she explained that she is weak and described her condition as serious; she requested that her medical documents be presented for examination at the bureau of intelligence.

The condition of this Baha’i compatriot, whose family and physician are being prohibited from visiting her, particularly at a time when many prisoners of conscience have died mysteriously, while in custody as result of lack of medical attention, has deeply alarmed her family and human rights activists.

It should be noted that security agencies in Shiraz have arrested at least four other Baha’i citizens in recent days and summoned for interrogation a number of others.

On Saturday, April 11th, 2009, 25-year-old Ms. Sorour Sorourian was arrested by the regime’s security forces while at home in Hamadan. The security forces searched her family home and confiscated personal items such as religious books. Following her arrest by several plain clothes agents Ms. Sorourian, a research graduate student in business management was taken to the main offices of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in Hamadan for booking and then transferred to an unknown location. Her family has been refused all information regarding her whereabouts so far.

Iran Focus

More than one in ten murders in Iran are committed by parents who kill their own children, a senior police official has said.

Recent official statistics show that compared to the Persian calendar year 1386 (March 2007-March 2008), there has been a 3% increase in the number of parents murdered by children in 1387 (which ended March 20, 2009), deputy police investigator Mostafa Rajabi said at the end of last week, the state-run Tehran Times wrote on Tuesday.

A total of 16% of murders in Iran are committed by husbands, 6% by wives, 12% by parents, and 11% by the children, Rajabi said.

Authorities in Iran say drug addiction is the root of family disputes that lead to murders; however, an Iranian sociologist based in London says the blame lies squarely with the government's social policies.

"These grim figures stem from high poverty levels and rampant unemployment, for which the government is responsible. Sometimes parents think it is better if their child does not grow up in such poverty", said Hassan Memarzadeh.

"There are a staggering number of cases where husbands kill their wife and children before committing suicide. In the majority of such cases, the person has either been out of work for long periods or receives inadequate pay to meet the rising costs of supporting a family", he said.

The government said on Saturday that the country’s overall murder rate rose by 11% over the past year, adding that there was a rise of 23 percent in the number of female murder victims.

Still, Memarzadeh says illegal drugs are a contributing factor to the murder and suicide rate. The authorities in Iran even secretly help drug dealers to get their illegal products onto the streets, he says. "The ruling elite, particularly those allied to [former President Ali-Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, facilitate drug distribution, especially among the young urban population. It is institutionalised; that's why it doesn't stop".

Asked why authorities would want addiction in their cities, Memarzadeh says, "It keeps the young people from focusing their anger on the regime. When you are an addict, you tend not to attend rallies".

But he also says that there were more than 7,000 anti-government protests in Iran over the past year, adding that one of the most active groups were university students unhappy with the government’s attempt to spread its fundamentalist culture on campuses.

An Iraqi Kurd official affirmed here Thursday that the Kurdistan region was ready to receive Palestinian refugees.

Vice President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region Imad Ahmad told the press that the region was ready to receive Palestinians in Iraq where nearly 13,000 are already living there.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said during his recent visit to the region that the PLO was willing to bolster relations with Kurdistan.

The visit by Abbas was not entirely taken in a good sense especially with the Muslim scholars union's criticism of the ordeal, saying that such actions served the separation of the regions of Iraq from the motherland.

Nokia-Siemens Networks (NSN), a joint venture between the Finnish cell-phone giant Nokia and German powerhouse Siemens, last year installed an electronic surveillance system for Iran that target dissidents, Washington Times reported on Monday.

NSN is a major contractor to the U.S. government and a top cell-phone equipment maker. Recently a number of US lawmakers have called for tougher sanction on companies that trade with Iranian regime.

According to the Times, a spokesman for NSN said the servers were sold for "lawful intercept functionality," a technical term used by the cell-phone industry to refer to law enforcement's ability to tap phones, read e-mails and surveil electronic data on communications networks.

“In Iran, a country that frequently jails dissidents and where the regime’s opponents rely heavily on Web-based communication with the outside world, a monitoring center that can archive these intercepts could provide a valuable tool to intensify repression,” Washington Times added.

TEHRAN (AFP) — US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been detained in a Tehran jail since January, has been put on trial on charges of spying for Iran's arch-foe the United States, an official said on Tuesday.

"Yesterday, the first session of the trial was held and she was given an opportunity to speak in the court to present her defence," judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters.

He said Saberi, who has been held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, is accused of "spying for foreigners... for America."

Saberi, a 31-year-old with dual Iranian-US nationality, risks the death penalty if convicted.

Iran's decision to put Saberi on trial comes despite calls by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her release and US President Barack Obama's diplomatic overtures to Iran.

Jamshidi said the verdict was expected in one or two weeks.

He also dismissed remarks by US State Department spokesman Robert Wood who said last week that the charges against Saberi were "baseless."

"It is really funny that someone comments on a case without even seeing it," Jamshidi said.

Saberi was reportedly initially detained for buying alcohol, which is prohibited in the Islamic republic.

Last week Tehran's deputy prosecutor Hassan Haddad said Saberi was carrying out "spying activities under the guise of being a reporter."

"The evidence is mentioned in her case papers and she has accepted all the charges. She has been arrested under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.

In March, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said Saberi's press identity card was revoked in 2006 and that since then she had been working "illegally" in the country.

Haddad said Saberi had entered Iran as an Iranian citizen and Iran was unaware if she had any other citizenship.

"There is no evidence that she has another citizenship and the investigation is still on," he said.

US-born Saberi has reported for US-based National Public Radio (NPR), the BBC and Fox News, and had lived in Iran for six years.

Her parents, Reza and Akiko Saberi, have come to Tehran to pursue her case and have met her in the prison at least once.

Her father told NPR after seeing his daughter that Saberi wanted to see her lawyer to point out that some of the statements she made were "under pressure, under threat."

Last month the parents appealed to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for her release, saying she was in a "dangerous" mental state.

Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality and has had no ties with the United States for three decades, has detained several Iranian-Americans, including academics, in recent years.

Clinton delivered a letter to the Iranian delegation on the sidelines of an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31, seeking Saberi's release and making appeals on behalf of two other US citizens.

Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, vanished on the Gulf island of Kish two years ago, and student Esha Momeni has been prevented from leaving Iran despite being released from jail last year.

Momeni -- a graduate student at California State University -- was detained in Tehran on October 15 and released on bail in November, but has since been prevented from leaving the country.

She had travelled to Iran to carry out research on women's rights but was detained on national security charges.

Ghashghavi has denied receiving any letter from US officials asking about the three American citizens.

The remains of 187 Kurdish martyrs, whom were killed during process of Anfal by Iraqi dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, will be re-buried in their homeland in Garmiayn in a funeral by attending hundreds of people and officials.

The remains were discovered in a mass grave nearby a village name Haidarya in Najaf province. They were moved to Irbil last year and kept there till yesterday.

In special ceremony, they are buried Today 14, in district of Rizgary, Kalar area.

Anfal was an ethnic cleansing process conducted in 1988 against Iraqi Kurdish people by Saddam regime by which more the 182000 Kurdish elderly men, women and children were forced to leave their home and were taken to unknown place. After passing 21 years, their relatives are in wait of their coming back.

Security forces in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region operate outside the rule of law and regularly abuse their authority, according to a new Amnesty International report.

During a fact-finding mission to the Kurdistan Region in 2008, Amnesty International researchers found many cases of people arrested and arbitrarily detained by Asayish (security) officials, including some who were tortured and others who were forcibly disappeared and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

Torture methods include electric shocks to different parts of the body; beatings with fists, cables and metal or wooden batons; suspension by the wrists or ankles; beating on the soles of the feet (falaqa); sleep deprivation and kicking.

Amnesty International has called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to hold those responsible for human rights violations to account.

"The Kurdistan Region has been spared the bloodletting and violence that continues to wrack the rest of Iraq and the KRG has made some important human rights advances," said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. "Yet real problems - arbitrary detention and torture, attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, and violence against women - remain and need urgently to be addressed by the government."

Hundreds of detainees who were held without charge or trial for several years have now been released but the authorities have failed to significantly curb the powers of the Asayish. They have also failed to rein in the Parastin and the Dezgay Zanyari, the security arms of the two main Kurdish political parties - the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - which jointly comprise the KRG.

"The KRG must take concrete steps to rein in these forces and make them fully accountable under the law if recent human rights gains are to prove effective," said Malcolm Smart. "The authorities must do more to uphold media freedom and redouble their efforts to overcome discrimination and violence against women, and end the vicious cycle of so-called honour killings and other attacks on women by men who wish to subordinate them."

Amnesty International's report cites several cases of women who were murdered by male relatives in 2008. These include Cilan Muhammad Amin, 23, who was strangled to death, apparently by her brother, because of her suspected relationship with another man.

Another woman, Kowan Yunis Qadir, aged 17, was shot dead after she sought a divorce from her husband.

In other cases, women and girls are reported to have committed suicide because of violence, or the threat of it, from their male relatives, including 13-year-old Rojan, who burnt herself to death in March 2008 to escape forcible marriage to an adult man.

"Such cases show how much more still needs to be done by the KRG authorities to give women and girls effective protection against violence from those who wish to control their behaviour or force them into marriages against their will," said Malcolm Smart. "No effort should be spared to prosecute and imprison those who commit violence against women, and to make clear that those who perpetrate these crimes cannot escape justice.

amnesty.org

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – Turkish police arrested some 50 Kurdish politicians and activists today on suspicion of ties to an outlawed separatist group, in the latest crackdown on the country's only legal Kurdish party.

The Democratic Society Party (DTP), to which most of those detained belong, is on trial for alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a charge it denies. If found guilty, the DTP could be closed by the Constitutional Court.

In today's swoop, police carried out 27 raids in nine cities nationwide, arresting officials including the DTP vice-chairman, the deputy mayor of Tunceli and a city council member in Batman, security sources said on condition of anonymity.

The sources said they are suspected of backing the PKK, an armed separatist group whose 25-year campaign for autonomy in the southeast has cost 40,000 lives, mainly among Kurds.

The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, has criticized the trial of the DTP, the first Kurdish party in parliament in more than a decade, and wants the government to expand political rights for the country's 15 million Kurds.

The DTP did well in local elections last month, doubling the number of municipalities it controls in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, despite an offer by the ruling AK Party to launch state television broadcasts in the once-banned Kurdish language.

Selahattin Demirtas, deputy chair of the DTP parliamentary group, said the arrests were a politically motivated reaction to the DTP's success in the local elections.

"This is an illegal operation against the DTP and an attempt to manipulate the DTP's political support and break its will," Demirtas told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It's no coincidence the operation comes so soon after the election."

In the March 29 vote, the DTP won eight municipalities, four of which were previously controlled by the ruling AK Party.

The raids today hit homes, offices and other buildings in nine cities, including the capital Ankara, the Mediterranean resort Antalya and Diyarbakir, the southeast's largest city.

In Diyarbakir, police searched municipal buildings and the offices of Kurdish broadcaster Gun TV, accused of violating a ban on Kurdish-language programs during the election period, witnesses said.

Among those detained was a lawyer for Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's jailed leader, the sources said.

The police operation was still in progress and there might be more arrests, they added.

reuters

A security agreement between Turkey and Iraq has not been approved after months of signing it due to Iraq’s fear of an article that allows Turkey to cross Iraqi border under the pretext of the possibility of eradicating terrorists, says an Iraqi senior official.

“There is a security agreement between Iraq and Turkey that has not been Okayed yet, since the government avoids presenting the draft to parliament due to having problem in an article that allows both countries to cross each others’ borders in case of having security problems” said Shirwan al Waeli, Iraqi minister of national security in an interview with the London based Sharq al Awsat newspaper, released on Monday.

Al Waeli said any strategic security agreement Iraqi government sings with other countries should be debated and approved by parliament and council of ministers before putting it into act.

“The Iraqi side fears that the article could result in violation of sovereignties; therefore, it is expected to be redrafted to be later presented to the national assembly for approval” explained the minister.

Kurdistan region and its representatives in the Iraqi national assembly strongly oppose any military move of Turkey’s forces into the region’s border villages under the pretext of chasing PKK.

Therefore; any agreement between Iraq and Turkey will likely be blocked by the Kurdish alliance list, if it does not guarantee the sovereignty of Iraqi lands, including Kurdistan region.

Turkey has previously carried out offensives into Kurdistan region border villages under the pretext of chasing PKK guerillas, who take the rigid mountains of Qandil as bases.

The offensives raised tensions between the two states high and led to creating diplomatic problems between Ankara and Baghdad.

However, the tensions started to abate as the Iraqi president Jalal Talabani made a land mark visit to Turkey at the time Turkish military were still in Kurdistan region borders, and later paved the way for repeated visits of the two countries officials.
To deal with PKK problem, Iraq, Turkey and U.S are having a joint committee to cooperate in taking necessary measures to end up the problem.

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday met Kurdish regional government leader Massud Barzani in a visit aimed at cementing ties between the two largest stateless peoples in the Middle East.

"We did not need any invitation to visit this brotherly nation and we have felt for a long time that the doors were always open to us without even needing to make an appointment," Abbas said at a joint news conference.

"The honourable president Barzani was not even told of our visit until 24 hours beforehand and he said 'Ahlan wa Sahlan,'" Abbas said, using the common Arabic form of greeting.

Barzani for his part praised Abbas for being the first "president" to visit the autonomous region in northern Iraq.

"We are used to our Palestinian brothers always being in the forefront of aiding our people in the past and present," he said. "This visit will cement the relationship between our two peoples with their similar suffering.

"Just as he is the first president to visit the region we expect and we hope that the Palestinian consulate will be the first consulate to open in Arbil."

Abbas is the president of the Palestinian Authority, an entity created by the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords that governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Abbas's forces were driven out of the Gaza Strip by the Islamist Hamas movement in June 2007.

Barzani is the president of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The Kurds, numbering between 25 and 35 million people, are concentrated in a region overlapping Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria and have never had a state.

Abbas's trip came one week after he held talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, in Baghdad, in what was the first visit to Iraq by a Palestinian leader since the 2003-US led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Saddam was a vocal patron of the Palestinians under Abbas's predecessor Yasser Arafat but ruled the Kurds with an iron fist, brutally crushing Kurdish rebellions in the 1980s and killing an estimated 182,000 people.

In a farewell ceremony held on Sunday 12, dozens of the remains of those Kurdish victims who have been killed by previous dictatorial regime in process of Anfal, were transferred from Irbil to Garmyan to be buried there.

Those remains that were discovered recently in a mass grave near the Najaf have kept in Irbil.

The ceremony was attended by speaker of Kurdistan Parliament Adnan Mufti, his deputy Kamal Kirkuki, a number of parliamentarians and officials.

The remains are 187, scheduled to be buried in a special cemetery in Rizgari district, Garmyan.

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran now controls the entire cycle for producing nuclear fuel, the Iranian president said Saturday, highlighting his country's growing capabilities at a time when the U.S. wants to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments came two days after the inauguration of a facility which produces uranium oxide fuel pellets for a planned heavy-water reactor — the final step in the long, sophisticated nuclear fuel cycle.

"Today, with the grace of God, Iran is a country controlling the entire nuclear fuel cycle," Ahmadinejad said on state television Saturday.

The step is significant toward furthering Iran's nuclear energy capabilities and, an analyst said, could be designed to strengthen Iran's position at a time when the Obama administration says it would negotiate with the Iran over it nuclear program.

However, it is less worrying for the West in terms of its potential to be used in nuclear weapons than Iran's advanced enriched uranium program.

Spent fuel from heavy-water reactors can eventually be reprocessed to produce plutonium for a warhead, but that would still take many years whereas Iran is already believed to have enough enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon should Iran decide to do so.

The U.S. and its allies have expressed concern over Iran's developing nuclear program for fear it masks a weapons program. Tehran says its nuclear program is only designed to create peaceful energy.

Ahmadinejad has announced several times in the past that Iran has the knowledge necessary to produce its own fuel, but with the opening of the new facility near the central city of Isfahan, the Islamic republic says it now has the capability on a large scale.

Ahmadinejad's comments come after U.S. administration officials said earlier this week that U.S. diplomats would attend group talks with Iran over its suspect nuclear program. That would be a major departure from President George W. Bush's policy of isolation from a nation he once deemed to be evil.

Ahmadinejad said Thursday during the inauguration ceremony that his country is open to talks with the U.S. and other countries over its nuclear program. But he insisted the talks must be based on respect for Iran's rights, suggesting the West should not try to force Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

Ahmadinejad said Iran would present a new proposal for negotiations, saying "conditions have changed" — an apparent reference to Obama's election and Iran's own progress in its nuclear program since talks held with Iran last year. He did not elaborate on the proposal.

Prominent Iranian political analyst Saeed Leilaz said the announcement about controlling the fuel cycle helps strengthen Iran's bargaining position in future talks with the world powers by creating a new reality on the ground.

"By inaugurating the Isfahan facility, Iran will have the upper hand in future talks. It is not only a technical achievement but also a far more political gain. It is a winning card in Iran's hands," he said.

Heavy-water reactors do not need enriched uranium for fuel and instead use the more easily produced uranium oxide pellets.

Iran has also been making strides in its efforts to enrich uranium. Officials said Thursday Iran had increased the number of centrifuges — machines used to enrich uranium — at their enrichment facility in Natanz, and that a new, more advanced type of centrifuge had been tested.

Ahmadinejad said the next step is to build nuclear power plants without help from foreign countries.

Iran is putting the finishing touches on a nuclear power plant with Russian help in Bushehr, in southern Iran, but the uranium fuel to power it is imported. Tehran also plans to build a 360-megawatt light-water nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in the southwestern Khuzestan province, which it will power with its own fuel.

"With the construction of (indigenous) nuclear power plants, all of Iran's nuclear energy needs will be met locally," Ahmadinejad said.

The New York Times

By BARRY MEIER
 

Two years after a former agent for the F.B.I. disappeared while on a trip to Iran, American diplomats and investigators are intensifying their efforts to resolve his case.

Two weeks ago, an Obama administration envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, gave a letter to Iranian officials requesting information about the missing former agent, Robert Levinson, and two Americans imprisoned in Iran. Over the past year, a small team of F.B.I. agents, aided by consultants and businessmen with contacts in Iran, has also been seeking information about him.

The efforts come at a delicate time in American-Iranian relations. The Obama administration is seeking greater engagement with Iran, even as the government there has announced that it will try one of the imprisoned Americans, Roxana Saberi, a freelance journalist, on espionage charges.

Mr. Levinson disappeared in March 2007 on Kish Island, a Persian Gulf resort that is also a smuggling hub. His family has said that the former agent, who has worked in recent years as a private investigator, went there in connection with a cigarette smuggling case.

On Kish, he met with another American, Dawud Salahuddin, who fled to Tehran in 1980 after killing an associate of the former shah of Iran in Maryland. Mr. Levinson was last seen checking out of a hotel on Kish and getting into a taxi to the airport.

Since that day, even the basic question of whether Mr. Levinson is alive remains unresolved.

One businessman who is assisting the F.B.I. in its inquiry said in a brief telephone interview that it was his understanding that Mr. Levinson was alive, a view that F.B.I. agents involved in the case share, said several people who had spoken with them. That businessman, like several other people interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to disrupt efforts to resolve the case.

In a recent interview, a top F.B.I. official said the agency had received several unconfirmed reports of sightings of Mr. Levinson in Iran. But the official, Joseph Persichini Jr., said the inquiry had yet to produce evidence to prove that Mr. Levinson was alive. “Some of those reports were detailed and sound credible, and we need to resolve that,” said Mr. Persichini, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s Washington field office, which is conducting the investigation.

Some American lawmakers have said they believe that Mr. Levinson is being held in an Iranian prison. An expatriate Iranian businessman said his contacts in Iran had told him that Mr. Levinson was held for a time at a site near Tehran run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Government officials there have repeatedly said that they know nothing about Mr. Levinson. An official in the Iranian president’s office and a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry both refused to comment about the case on Saturday.

Because no group has said it is holding Mr. Levinson, some people familiar with his case have speculated that he may have died in captivity. But others believe that the silence surrounding his status could suggest that because of his F.B.I. background, his captors view him as a high-value chip in a possible prisoner swap.

“I am confident he is alive,” said David L. McGee, a lawyer in Pensacola, Fla., who represents the Levinson family.

Mr. Levinson, who turned 59 a day after his disappearance, lived in Coral Springs, Fla., 20 miles north of Fort Lauderdale. For his wife, Christine Levinson, and their seven children, ages 15 to 31, the past two years have been an excruciating ordeal. Their hopes have soared and then plummeted amid conflicting reports about progress in his case. Last year, Mrs. Levinson traveled to Kish to retrace her husband’s footsteps. She receives regular briefings from the F.B.I.

“They just keep telling me they keep hearing that he is doing well,” Mrs. Levinson said in a recent telephone interview. “I have always believed that he is alive and well and somewhere in Iran, and that has not changed.”

Mr. Levinson spent more than 20 years with the F.B.I. Before his retirement in 1998, he specialized in Russian organized crime cases. Most of his work as a private investigator involved product counterfeiting, though he also worked for human rights organizations.

It was an assignment for one such organization, Global Witness, a London-based group that investigates corruption in natural resource industries, that took Mr. Levinson to Dubai in March 2007. After spending several days there, he next flew to Kish for his meeting with Mr. Salahuddin.

Mr. Salahuddin’s involvement has added another mystery to the case. While he has been quoted in news reports as saying that the killing he carried out in 1980 was necessary to eliminate enemies of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, he has also criticized some of Iran’s recent leaders and once flirted with the possibility of surrendering and returning to the United States. Mr. Salahuddin did not respond to recent e-mail messages seeking comment.

Jeffrey Katz, the head of a London-based investigative firm for which Mr. Levinson did some work, said that he and other friends of the former agent believed that the F.B.I. was initially slow to devote sufficient resources to the case. An agency spokesman, John Jay Miller, disputed such suggestions.

The Levinson case has received more attention since President Obama’s election. Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida and a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been urging the F.B.I. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to make resolving Mr. Levinson’s case a priority.

Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has accused the Netherlands of plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime by supporting the opposition through the media and the Internet, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

"One of the countries which has given financial support to the opposition over the past few years is Holland," according to a statement issued by a centre run by the Guards, the Khorasan newspaper said.

It said the parliament in the Netherlands had in 2005 adopted a 15 million euro budget proposed by a Dutch MP of Iranian origin which was used to fund Persian Internet sites hostile to the Islamic regime and to help rights groups.

"The Dutch project aimed to encourage sexual and moral deviation in society," the Revolutionary Guards centre said, and to support the idea that the "threats (against Iran) are increasing (and) ... the idea that the current Iranian government is incapacitated."

The plot was led "in coordination with Britain" and involved "secret planning by the United States," said the Guards, an elite ideological corps set up to defend the Islamic republic.

The Guards said last month it had dismantled several networks it accused of setting up anti-Islamic, counter-revolutionary and "obscene" websites, and arrested a number of suspects including people normally resident abroad.

Tehran has repeatedly accused Washington and London of backing violent and non-violent actions against the state and has launched a number of crackdowns on bloggers and Internet users deemed to be hostile to the authorities and their Islamic values.

Reporters Without Borders is very worried by the charge of spying brought against American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi yesterday by deputy prosecutor Hassan Zare Dehnavi (better known as Hassan Haddad), who said that “Saberi has admitted the charges against her.”

“The Iranian authorities use and abuse this charge to arrest journalists and tighten the muzzle on free expression,” Reporters Without Borders said, reiterating its call for Saberi’s release.

Saberi’s arrest was revealed by National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States on 1 March as a result of a call it received from her father on 10 February. The day after the NPR report, the Iranian authorities confirmed she was being held in Tehran’s Evin prison. Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said she had been working “illegally” in Iran. Judicial authority spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said on 3 March that she had been “arrested on the order of the Tehran revolutionary court and is now in detention in Evin prison.”

Born and brought up in the United States, Saberi has lived for the past six years in Iran, where worked as a stringer for NPR from 2002 to 2006. She also worked for the BBC and Fox News. Her father, Reza Saberi, told Reporters Without Borders that she had not worked for the media since 2006. She did not have access to news and information as she did not have press accreditation.

“Her writings were just personal notes and comments about cultural and literary subjects with a view to writing a book about Iran,” he said, adding that “she had been concentrating since 2006 on studying Farsi and Iranian culture at a Tehran university.”

Ayatollah Khamenei ordered a crackdown on independent newspapers and journalists in 2000 for “collaborating and for being the domestic centre of enemy activity.” Most of the journalists arrested and jailed in Iran are charged with spying. Among the journalists currently held on this charge are Adnan Hassanpour, Mohammad Hassin Falahieh Zadeh and Mohammad Sadegh Kabodvand.

Journalist arrested in the past on this charge include Siamak Pourzand (in 2000), Hossein Ghazian (in 2004), Parnaz Azima (in 2006), Mehrnoushe Solouki (in 2007) and Yosef Azizi Banitrof (in 2008). All were convicted on spying charges brought by Dehnavi and his boss, Tehran chief prosecutor Said Mortazavi. As a result of physical and psychological pressure, most of them confessed to the charges.

Dehnavi, who continues to call himself Hassan Haddad, was one of the torturers in Evin prison in the 1980s. While a judge at the Tehran revolutionary court’s 26th chamber from 2000 to 2005, he sentenced several journalists to long prison terms. He has been Mortazavi’s right-hand man since 2006. It was Mortazavi who was chiefly responsible for Canadian-Iranian press photographer Zahra Kazemi’s death in detention in July 2003.

Kurdistan Human Rights Observers
HROK: Yesterday morning Abbas Jlilian attended the Revolutionary Court of Kermanshah and this Kurdish author and researcher was informed of the sentence of 15 months imprisonment issued by the court.

The judgment was rendered by the Third Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Kermanshah on charge of identifying and recruiting spies for a foreign country according to the supplementary clause of the 510 Section of the Islamic penal code. The court’s decision can be appealed within 20 days of receiving the sentence.

Abbas Jalilian has vehemently denied the accusation throughout the interrogation as well as the trial period and has requested evidence of this prompted-up charge against him to be disclosed. However, the court issued its judgment without giving due consideration to this request of the accused and rejecting his other request for the trial to be adjourned until he has access to a defence lawyer.

Abbas Jalilian whose penname is ‘Ako’ is a well-known Kurdish literary figure and has published books including; Farhange Bashor (South Dictionary), Rangama (novel), Zerinah and Siminah collections. He was arrested on the 26th of Dey 1387 (Jan 2009) in his house in Islamabad in Kermanshah province by the Intelligence Service agents. After his arrest he spent two months in the Intelligence Ministry and Dizl Abad prison in Kermanshah in quarantine.

He was eventually freed on bail and surety of 100 million tomans. Shortly after his release, he was tried on the 17th of Farwardin (5th of April 2009) without having a lawyer in the Third Branch of Kermanshah Revolutionary Court.

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay flew to Baghdad Saturday for talks on measures against Turkish Kurd rebels holed up in the mountains of neighbouring northern Iraq, Anatolia news agency reported.

The talks, Atalay said, will be held as part of three-way consultations between Turkey, Iraq and the United States, initiated last year to step up joint efforts against the separatist Kurdirtan Workers' Party (PKK).

"We expect both the central Iraqi government and the regional administration in the north to undertake concrete steps" against the rebels, Anatolia quoted the minister as saying before his departure.

He voiced hope the three-way cooperation "will produce good results, particularly in intelligence sharing."

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has long used mountainous bases in Kurdish-run northern Iraq as a launching pad for attacks on Turkish targets across the border.

In November, Iraq, Turkey and the United States formed a joint committee to tackle the threat and enact measures to curb the militants.

The Iraqi Kurds, whom Ankara had long accused of tolerating the rebels on their territory and even aiding them, also joined the committee.

During Turkish President Abdullah Gul's visit to Baghdad last month, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, said the PKK militants must lay down their arms or leave the country.

Turkish warplanes have bombed PKK hideouts in northern Iraq under a parliamentary authorisation since December 2007.

In a separate development, two Turkish soldiers were killed late Friday when PKK militants opened fire on troops in the province of Sirnak province, which borders Iraq, the army said on its website Saturday.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.

At least two Turkish soldiers were killed and another was seriously injured in clashes with the Kurdish rebels near the southern Turkish border with Iraq, Turkish Army statement said on Saturday.
The clashes took place as the Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay departed for the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, today to take part in a three-way meeting grouping Turkey, Iraq and the UStates, aimed at fighting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the US, has been fighting the Turkish authorities since 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey.
More than 40,000 people have been killed since the conflict between the two sides began more than 20 years ago.

Kurdistan Human Rights Observers

HROK: Muheidin Azadi, a Kurdish human right activist was arrested about two week ago and his personal belonging including a computer sized and was taken to the Intelligence Office in Sanadaj. He was transferred to Sanadaj central prison two days ago and no information has been released about the charges against him.

Muheidin Azadi was a member of HROK and worked with the organization in the past.

HROK: Sara F. a 17 year old teenager commits suicide by burning herself because of the alleged psychological and emotional pressures from her family. She was immediately transferred to Tawhid Hospital in Sanadaj where she was identified as having 90% burns.
It has been alleged that Sara’s family prevented her from attending school and forced her at he end to drop out.
Sara worked in a Doctor's surgery in Mariwan.

The focus on negotiations with the Iranian regime has been on the supreme leader, Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad’s cabinet. While the nuclear program is the subject of dialogue for the West, there is no talk about the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp, IRGC, who is in charge and in control of much more than nuclear program.

Manda Zand-Ervin
Family Security Matters
April 10, 2009

The focus on negotiations with the Iranian regime has been on the supreme leader, Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad’s cabinet. While the nuclear program is the subject of dialogue for the West, there is no talk about the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp, IRGC, who is in charge and in control of much more than nuclear program.

Iran has had two separate Armed forces since the 1979 revolution: a regular military to protect the sovereignty of Iran and an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, to protect the revolution and the Islamic regime.

The mission statement set by Ayatollah Khomeini, for the IRGC was: “Guarding the principle of government by supreme Islamic jurist and the principle of Jihad." In plain language, their mission is oppression and terrorism.

Although it was set up to be nonpolitical, the IRGC has gradually expanded to an organization with two auxiliary paramilitary forces under its direction: The Basij for the oppression of internal enemies, and the Quds for terrorism or Jihad against the infidels abroad.

Some examples: the massacre of 183 members of the Air Force who were plotting a coup against the regime in 1979 (known as the Nojeh Uprising); the seizure of the United States Embassy; destabilizing the moderate Bazargan government; the massacre of the Mojahedeen Khalq, one-time supporters of Khomeini who wanted a share of the power, and the over throw of president Bani-Sadr, all in the first year.

During the ‘90s, IRGC succeeded to assassinate tens of Iranian dissident Leaders in European countries to remove the possibility of any effective movement within the Iranian Diaspora.

Commander in Chief of the IRGC said, in response to Khatami: “…How can any dialogue between civilizations save us from America’s dangers? This path threatens our national security."

The IRGC also disapproved of university students’ continued rhapsodizing about secular democracy and freedom; and in July 1999 the Basij forces attacked the Universities throughout the country, massacring, injuring and imprisoning thousands of both the students and the masses of Iranians who had joined to support them. Khamenei supported the IRGC’s actions and Khatami found himself helpless and intimidated.

The ongoing repression of intellectuals, the opposition and members of the media, quashing the women’s, labor and student movements, not to mention the silencing of various clerics who disagree with them, is also a part of the mission.

In reality, the IRGC is the hard line faction in the political machinery of the Islamic republic of Iran, controlling the arms and money with an iron fist.

On the political front, they have been steadily consolidating power and influence, as well as an absolute grip over the country. Not only did they determine that one of their own “wins” the Presidency in 2005, the IRGC veterans are now occupying the majority of the parliamentary seats.

Nine departments in Ahmadinejad’s cabinet are now under the control of the veteran Revolutionary Guards among them; Defense, Energy, Justice, Petroleum, contribute to increase IRGC’s influence, through inappropriate allocation of funds, money transfer and power-grabbing schemes.

Ahmadinejad has appointed the former officers of Guards and Basij to the governorship of every one of the 30 provinces in Iran, in order to guarantee his reelection in 2009.

Khamenei has recently made two more appointments; he installed former IRGC commander Ali-Reza Afshar to oversee the elections and Ezzatollah Zarghami, veteran Guard, to head Iran’s broadcasting.

Mohammad Ali Ja'fari, the new commander in chief of IRGC, said: “The IRGC is not only a military organization: it is a political and ideological organization,” he added that “The Basij has total political power to confront internal enemies.” But there is no talk about the power that their other auxiliary section Quds is exerting abroad.

The Iranian nuclear program is completely under their control. Terrorist programs are planed and carried out by Quds. Hamas among them; Quds is one of the main supporters, with hundreds of Millions of dollars in arms cash and goods. Hezbollah is the terrorist child of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Quds paramilitary force is in charge of keeping them armed and fed; this is in order to take control of the Lebanese government away from Christians and turn Lebanon into a Muslim country, in cahoots with Syria, against the southern borders of Israel.

The IRGC’s Quds has installed itself in most of the neighboring countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon Gaza strip and the Persian Gulf nations. Their budget is unlimited and they have branches in almost every large city of Europe and even in United States.

Their businesses in Europe are purchasing arms from manufacturers and international arms dealers. Last week the FBI arrested a Chinese arms dealer in New York, shopping for a nuclear bomb and missiles parts for the IRGC. Cost is no object. They are in China and North Korea making deals aimed at furthering their nuclear ambitions. They work with the Russians for the construction and development of their nuclear programs. Aside from the money and power over Iran, Russia is holding Iran’s nuclear development as a bargaining chip against United States.

The IRGC has large accounts in many European banks and transfer of money is as easy as it is illegal. Last year the FBI discovered the illegal activities of the Iranian bank Melli branch in Manhattan and learned in the process that nine European banks were involved in laundering Iranian money in to the United States.

Today’s Iran is no longer run only by the Ayatollahs. With the power that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp has slowly gained, the IRGC appears to be now more in control than the Ayatollahs.

The question that begs an answer, given these parameters, is who will be negotiating partner on the other side, in these imminent negotiations that the State Department will be conducting with the Iranian regime?

FamilySecurityMatters.orgContributing EditorManda Zand Ervin is a human rights activist for the Iranian women and children and the founder of the Alliance of Iranian Women.

iranpressnews

Iranian regime hanged three men in the southern city of Shiraz, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Mohsen Eslamian, 21, and Ali Asghar Pashtar, 20 - both university students - and Rouzbeh Yahyazadeh, 32, were hanged in the city's Adelabad prison on Friday.

Last year, the Iranian regime’s Judiciary charged them as "mohareb" (enemies of God), "spreading corruption on earth" and accused them of “conspiring to overthrow the government.”

Since the beginning of 2009 some 100 people have been hanged in Iran. Last year Iran under mullahs’ rule had the highest rate of executions per capital in the world with over 340 executions.

By Hewa Aziz

Asharq Al-Awsat

Sulaimaniyah, Asharq Al-Awsat- Throughout its long history, the forty-million strong Kurdish nation has never had its own independent state. Since the decline of the Median Empire some 3000 years ago, the Kurds have remained part of other states or, at the best, managed to establish scattered principalities as part of larger empires dominating the region such as the Islamic and Ottoman Empires.

The Kurds established the principalities of Baban in Sulaimaniyah, Ardalan and Botan, and later founded the province of Sharazor, the capital of which was Kirkuk, and Mosul and other cities.

The idea of establishing an independent Kurdish state was not a priority for the Kurds, nor was it a matter of necessity. This is because the concept of the modern state was yet to emerge or appear in the region until the late nineteenth century when states began to emerge according to a modern system.

At the time, despite their potential, Kurdish leaders were preoccupied with minor issues that took their attention away from realizing the dream of establishing an independent Kurdish state, a dream that the Persian and the Ottoman Empires, and modern-day Iran and Turkey have fought against.

After World War I, an opportunity arose for the Kurds to outline the features of their independent state within the framework of treaties and the international and regional coalitions that dominated that period. However, the Kurdish leader Sheikh Mahmoud al Hafid in particular, was content with establishing his small kingdom in Sulaimaniyah. The kingdom soon collapsed following bloody wars with the British occupation forces that brought down the Ottoman Empire and with it all its allying bodies including al Hafid’s kingdom. He failed to make the most of Kurdish sentiment at the time regarding the Kurdish right to establish a homeland.

Sheikh Mahmoud al Hafid was unaware of the fact that the new age required a new a vision and conduct, and as a result, the Turks established their own state and the Kurds were dispersed between four of the regional countries: Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Almost a century has elapsed since then. That experience was followed by other attempts to establish a Kurdish state such as the Republic of Mahabad by Qazi Mohammed in Iranian Kurdistan back in 1946. This attempt was short lived and was brought down by the army of the Pahlavi regime. The dream of establishing an independent Kurdish state is yet to be realized. But the main question is: will this dream ever come true?

Many Kurdish politicians, intellectuals and decision-makers agree that this dream is possible and can be realized in the right political regional and international circumstances. Others are of the view that the dream is unattainable for geopolitical reasons whereas others predict that more than one autonomous or semi-autonomous state will emerge in the four parts of Kurdistan shortly in view of recent developments and the potential political shifts in the new Middle East over the next two decades.

Fareed Asasard, a leading figure at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] party and the director of Kurdistan’s Strategic Studies Centre based in Sulaimaniyah, believes that the idea of forming or founding an independent Greater Kurdistan comprising of Kurdistan’s four areas continues to be a hypothetical issue.

“The basic components required for establishing any state are still unavailable [to the Kurds] at the present time and I believe that they will not be available in the long term for several reasons, the most important of which is that the world will witness a shift in the decades to come causing it to rely on geo-economics instead of geopolitics as the case is at present,” said Asasard.

Asasard, who has conducted a lot of research on this topic, stresses that the idea of founding a greater independent state has failed a number of times. For example the Turks failed to found the Greater Turkish Empire from China to the Mediterranean to ensure the existence of the Turkish race everywhere. Asasard adds, “In the mid-1990s, I presented a research paper on the geopolitics of Kurdistan in which I made clear that establishing an independent Kurdish state in Iraqi Kurdistan would be very difficult as it requires changing the map of a significant part of the world. Besides, even if this state were established, it would remain isolated from the world as it would have no seaports.”

Asasard expects that there will be several small Kurdish statelets in other parts of Kurdistan in the long term especially as the initial step in this direction has already been taken in the sense that the political and administrative structure of Iraqi Kurdistan is quite independent. However, he stressed that the link between these Kurdish states on the economic level in the future will be very weak and that these states will remain linked to the central systems in Tehran, Turkey and Baghdad.

Asasard stated that he believes that international politics will be subject to the logics and authority of the economy in upcoming decades. Therefore, the Kurdish statelets, if they emerge, will be economically weak and this will be their biggest problem, not to mention their unfortunate location, which will always tip the scale in favour of their neighbours, making it subordinate to these neighbouring countries. Therefore, the idea of founding an independent Kurdish state is an unachievable dream.

On the other hand however, Dr. Jaza Toufi Taleb, professor of geopolitics at the University of Sulaimani believes that all the basic constituents are available for an independent Kurdish state to be established on Kurdish land such as the geographical borders, nation, economy and seaports. However, the political atmosphere is completely unsuitable for outlining the features of the state at present, especially as the concerned countries continue to reject even marginal autonomy for the Kurds in their countries. Dr Taleb explained that even though several independent states around the world, such as Kosovo for example, do not have the potential that Iraqi Kurdistan enjoys.

“I believe that if reformists in Iran and the moderates in Turkey gain power in the upcoming elections, and with the geopolitical changes in Syria that are taking place, this would allow for the rise of political bodies in the Kurdistan region, specifically in Turkey which wants to join the EU but a precondition is the acknowledgement of the rights of all minorities. In Iran, there are signs of such bodies emerging under the rule of reformists. These bodies will represent the initial step towards the establishment of the Kurdish state in the long term. Turkey will be the starting point towards this goal. However, geopolitically, the dream of establishing the greater Kurdish state remains a difficult dream to make come true,” explained Dr Taleb.

But Hussein Yazdan Bana, Vice President of the Kurdistan Freedom Party headed by Ali Qazi Mohammed, the son of the founder of the Kurdish Mahabad Republic in Iranian Kurdistan, stressed that the Kurdish nation has the right to an independent state on its land in accordance with international law. He emphasized that Kurdistan possesses all the requirements necessary for establishing an independent state just like other countries in the world. “Conspiracies and international interests were, and still are, the major obstacles to the establishment of the Kurdish state. This is exemplified by what happened to Sheikh Mahmoud al Hafid’s kingdom and the Kurdistan Republic [of Mahabad] founded by Qazi Mohamed.”

Yazdan Bana emphasized that the most important prerequisite for the establishment of any state is the will and resolution of the nation itself and the favourable external factors and circumstances that have not been agreeable to the Kurds until now.

“If the British had not been present and the superpowers did not have their own interests, the Kurdish, Baban, Botan and Ardalan principalities would have been successful in establishing Greater Kurdistan. In addition, the very few opportunities that were made available to the Kurds throughout history, specifically after World War I, were not utilised well by Kurdish politicians to establish that state.”

Yazdan Bana confirmed that international policies in the current age of globalization are not resistant to the aspirations of countries seeking to establish their own independent states. These conditions can be utilised to make the Kurdish dream come true provided that there is a unified political will among the Kurds.

Yazdan Bana said, “The establishment of the Kurdish state is a goal that the Kurds and their political powers should act to achieve, and we can do this provided that a unified and a solid political will is made available. At present, the establishment of this state is not possible for several reasons, but once the Kurdish politicians abandon their personal dreams and ambitions for power and influence then forty million people will be able to establish their own state.”

Abdul Baqi Yousef, member of the politburo of the Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria highlighted that the establishment of an independent state is the right of the Kurdish nation and it is not an impossible dream. However, he explains that this is conditional upon future political developments in the region that will outline existing ties between the Kurds and the Middle East region and will result in establishing ties between all the parts of Kurdistan.

“States are not established based on emotions or desires but basic factors such as geography, economy and others factors that are all available in Kurdistan. I believe that the future developments, in the long run, will allow for the establishment of several Kurdish statelets in the region, and this will lead to the establishment of independent greater Kurdistan.”

But the issue differs for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK] in Turkey, which called for establishing greater Kurdistan since it began the armed struggle in 1984. The party reduced its demand to establishing a confederation system that ensures national and cultural rights for Kurds whose population exceeds ten million in Turkey’s Kurdistan region alone.

Ahmed Deniz, the PKK’s foreign affairs officer, believes that the municipal elections that took place recently in Turkey were promising as they indicated fair democratic and political solutions to the Kurdish cause in Turkey.

Deniz told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Kurdish nation, whose land was split between the four countries following the Treaty of Lausanne that was signed after World War I, is still the only nation with no independent state in the region despite that its population exceeds 40 million.

“In the PKK, we believe that a confederation system based on the freedom and rights of the Kurdish people is best suited to the Kurdish cause not only in Turkey but in the entire Kurdistan region as is the case with several advanced European countries. However, the PKK still believes in the right of the Kurdish people to an independent state. But the PKK’s political strategy at present does not aim to establish an independent state that requires a particular atmosphere that we lack at present, especially as an independent state does not necessarily mean freedom for nations. What is more important to us is that the Kurds gain their freedom, enjoy real democracy and human rights. Only then can the Kurds decide themselves the nature of the political identity they want,” said Deniz.

As for the renowned Kurdish-Syrian writer Nouri Brimo, he said that “the [establishment of the] Kurdish state is not a dream but a political course and its supporters increase as it gains strength through the sacrifices of its people. In all cases, the Kurds have been able to prove throughout history that they have always been rational in their political discourse and presentation and that they have always respected their neighbours.”

But Sami Davood, a renowned researcher at the Syrian Sardam cultural institution, stated that the establishment of the Kurdish state is related to geographical factors first and foremost. In other words, the issue requires the liberation of Kurdistan’s geographical region before an independent identity can be built.

Due to the geographical nature of the Kurdish areas in Syria, there cannot be any armed struggle unlike in the Kurdish regions in Iraq, Turkey and Iran in addition to the population density of each of the four regions. Therefore, Davood believes that any attempt by the Kurds to establish their own state will be confronted with strong opposition from the regional states not so that they can keep the Kurds within the boundaries of their own countries by force, but because the majority of water and energy resources are situated in the Kurdish areas of the four countries.

Delara Darabi faces imminent execution.  Like many sentenced to death in Iran, she was convicted of a crime committed when she was a child.  Almost no other country in the world executes juvenile offenders, yet Iran has put 16 of them to death since the beginning of 2007.  Iran’s death row continues to house scores of young men and women facing the noose for crimes that took place when they were under 18 years old.  These include Abumoslem Sohrabi and Abbas Hosseini, whose executions may also be imminent.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child forbids the death penalty for crimes committed by underage offenders, and the CRC is the most universally accepted human rights treaty there is.  (Only Somalia, and the good ole USA have failed to ratify this no-brainer of a human rights instrument; thankfully the US Supreme Court found executing child offenders unconstitutional - by a 5-4 vote - back in 2005).  Iran has accepted this treaty, so why is this still happening?

That is the question a strong human rights movement inside Iran is asking, as they seek to end the execution of juvenile offenders.  We can support this courageous effort by taking action on behalf of people like Delara Darabi, Abumoslem Sohrabi and Abbas Hosseini.
blog.amnestyusa.org/deathpenalty/stop-these-executions

ISFAHAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran Thursday declared major advances in its controversial nuclear drive as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened an atomic fuel plant and announced the testing of two high capacity centrifuges.

Ahmadinejad's announcements at a function in central Isfahan province marking national nuclear day are likely to trigger fresh concerns among world powers, who fear Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at making atomic weapons.

Tehran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Ahmadinejad said Iran had notched up two achievements -- the manufacture of nuclear fuel and "testing of two kinds of new centrifuges having greater capacity (to enrich uranium) than the existing ones."

He was speaking after cutting the ribbon at the fuel facility in Isfahan, which the Iranian news agency Mehr said can produce 10 tonnes of nuclear fuel annually to feed the heavy water 40-megawatt Arak reactor as well as 30 tonnes for light water reactors such as the Bushehr nuclear plant.

The opening of the fuel plant indicates that Iran has now mastered the complete nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to enrichment, even as world powers urge the Islamic Republic to halt its programme completely.

"Today the nuclear fuel cycle has been practically completed and there is no room for the idea of halting (uranium) enrichment in the negotiations" with global powers, the head of Iran's parliamentary commission of national security and foreign policy, Alaeddin Borujerdi said after the plant was opened.

Speaking at the same function as Ahmadinejad, Iran's atomic chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said Iran had reached a "new phase (generation) of acquiring the technolgy of uranium enrichment."

"Today in Natanz there are around 7,000 centrifuges installed," he told the gathering.

Iran has a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in Isfahan province.

In its February 19 report, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency said 3,964 centrifuges were actively enriching uranium in Natanz.

It said another 1,476 were undergoing vacuum or dry run tests without nuclear material, and an additional 125 centrifuges had been installed but remained stationary.

Uranium enrichment is at the heart of global fears that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons because the process can be used both to make nuclear fuel and the fissile core of an atom bomb.

World powers fear that Iran could configure the Arak plant in a way that it can be used to help make an atom bomb, but Tehran says the reactor is planned to make isotopes only for agricultural and health purposes.

Iran has defied five UN Security Council resolutions calling for a freeze in its enrichment activities, including three resolutions imposing sanctions.

In a bid to defuse tensions, six world powers led by Washington on Wednesday invited Iran for direct talks on the programme which Tehran insists is civilian and purely peaceful.

In a joint statement, the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France, and Germany said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has been tasked to invite Iran for direct talks on its nuclear plans.

"We reaffirm our unity of purpose and collective determination through direct diplomacy to resolve our shared concerns about Iran's nuclear programme, in line with the package proposals for cooperation with Iran," they said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington will participate fully in the talks.

"There's nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its effort to obtain nuclear weapons," Clinton said.

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a top advisor to Ahmadinejad, in response said on Thursday that Tehran will study the "constructive proposal" which "shows a change of approach (from the world powers)."

"We hope that this proposal means a change of approach to a more realistic attitude. The Islamic Republic of Iran will examine (it) and give its response."

Asharq al-Awsat

By Lord Corbett

The UK is not the only one contemplating the future of Iraq now that our troops have handed over formal responsibility for Basra last week. Next door, Shiite Iran is busy working out its next move. Tehran has long been chief trouble-maker in the country, making use of roadside bombs in the hope that more Coalition casualties inflicted will see a quicker departure of foreign troops.

But Iran has suffered a major setback. In the January provincial elections, the slate allied to it failed to win in any of the provinces, even in the south where it believed it had the most amount of Shiite support.

This was partly due to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's successful reining in of rogue militias and a decision by Sunni leaders to end their boycott of the polls. (The 2005 polls were largely deserted by Sunnis who felt any vote at a time of occupation would be illegitimate.)

Bitterly divided because of factional feuding, the Sunnis and even some secular nationalist and democratic parties were pulled together with the unexpectedly help of Iran's main opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) which has been based in Camp Ashraf in Iraq's Diyala Province for over two decades.

Having firsthand experience of the result of fundamentalist forces taking control of their own country, PMOI members have worked hard ever since the 2003 invasion to convince Iraqis that their main enemy is not the US or its allies; but Iran's fundamentalist theocracy.

After the pernicious blow in the January polls, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is trying to eliminate the PMOI before Iraq's Parliamentary elections in December reshape the Iraqi government's political make-up.

In late February, Khamenei told Iraq's visiting President Jalal Talabani in Tehran: "The bilateral agreement on the expulsion of the PMOI from Iraq must be implemented". This set the stage for pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi government to step up pressure on the residents of Camp Ashraf and attempt to expel them.

Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said in March: "These individuals have been brainwashed, and we must liberate them from this poison. When we carry out a process of detoxification, if this assumption is correct, this act will at first be painful. There is no alternative than to begin this painful act."

Last month al-Rubaie ordered Iraqi forces, who took over responsibility for protecting Ashraf from the Americans at the start of the year, to prevent the transfer of basic commodities including medicine and fuel into Ashraf. For the past three weeks, relatives of the PMOI members, Iraqi doctors and foreign journalists have been denied access to the camp. It seems as though, under Iranian pressure, the Iraqis are creating a Guantanamo of their own. This surely cannot be the legacy that we leave behind as we exit Iraq.

Since 2004 the Coalition has recognised all Ashraf residents as 'Protected Persons' under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The International Committee of the Red Cross says that the residents are also protected by the Principle of Non-Refoulement under international law which forbids Baghdad from extraditing them.

If al-Rubaie is allowed to carry out his plan the UK will have to shoulder the blame for sitting back as a humanitarian tragedy occurs. Expulsion would remove the one group that is a strong barrier to the expansion of the mullahs' fundamentalism to this nascent democracy, allowing Iran to reverse much of the progress that has been made.

Iraqi Sunni leaders such as Saleh Mutlaq who heads the National Dialogue Front in the Iraqi Parliament and even some powerful Shiites such as Ayatollah Ayad Jamaleddin who sits on the Iraqi Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee have suggested that US forces take back responsibility for protection of Ashraf since that would relieve some of Tehran's pressure on the Iraqi government to suppress the group.

As a major partner to the Coalition that went to war in Iraq, the British government has a duty to put this proposal to the Obama administration. Mr Gordon Brown can use Britain's 'special relationship' to get President Obama listening.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale chairs the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom. He is a former chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is calling Iranian charges of espionage against an American journalist "baseless" and "without foundation."

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Thursday that the United States is "deeply concerned about the Iranian announcement" of the charge against Roxana Saberi.

Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation on Wednesday, charging her with spying for the United States.

The new charge this week was a setback at a time when President Barack Obama has expressed a willingness to talk with Iran after many years of rocky relations under the previous U.S. administration.

Published: Human Rights Activists in Iran

Political prisoner and activist Behrooz Javid-Tehran’s appeal to the people of Iran

Today, I take refuge from the prison torturers of the horrific Rejai-Shahr prison, with you, the people of Iran. Dear People, these monstrous executioners have stepped over all possible bounds of humanity. There are no other avenues available to me other than to go on hunger strike and to take refuge with you. Today, Tuesday, the 17th of of Farvardeen, 1388 (April 7th, 2009) during my sister’s visit, the inhumane way I was treated by the security agents, really surpassed all limits; not only did they abuse and berate me during the inspection, in the end they took everything, even the smallest piece of paper that had a telephone number on it, from me. They did the same to my sister. The visitor hall monitors, Mr. Eslami, Ahmadi, Khossravi and Ms. Shahbazi treated my family, who had come to visit me, so abusively; my sister who after a month, was finally able to make it to the prison in Karadj, was only allowed to spend three minutes with me due to the authorities’ harshness. On top of that, our complaints only met with their rage. Of course they had their orders from the warden all the way down.

The day that poor Heshmat Saran, suspiciously died (was murdered) the prison authorities specifically told us not to discuss the situation with anyone otherwise it would have far-reaching consequences for all of us but as you all see, I have acted in direct opposition to this and have exposed their crimes without holding back.

The one comment made by one of the agents today, in the presence of my family was: “Counter-revolutionary scum, we’ll send you to join your friend Saran.”

Dear People of Iran, it has been a long time since I have received proper medical treatment in the prison infirmary even. Most of the illnesses that I suffer from, are as a direct result of the endless torture I have withstood at the hands of the agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. I am the last of the students arrested during the student uprising, on that 9th of July of 1999, who remains in prison and there is no other choice left to me but to go on hunger strike. At this point, here, on this day, the 17th of Farvardeen I announce that I will give the authorities one week and then I will begin my hunger strike. All I ask is that the guards properly apologize and the other prison guards cease and desist from any further abusive behavior.

iranpressnews

Stop Child Executions - Thursday, April 09, 2009 - Delara Darabi, the young artist who has been in Rasht prison for the last 5 years in Iran, is at great risk of execution at any moment.

A few days ago, she was told by prison authorities to prepare herself as she would be executed any day. Her lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, is convinced that if she were to be given a new trial whereby they could re-enact the scene of the crime, it would be easily proven that Delara is innocent of the alleged murder she was convicted of. Khoramshahi has said many times that he has new evidence including the crime being committed by a right handed person whereas Delara is left-handed. Many attempts have been made by human rights groups and celebrities to try and get a pardon from the victim's family, however they have said that they want her execution to be carried out.

Stop Child Executions has been documenting Delara's case for several years and informing members of parliament worldwide, human rights group, the United Nations and the general public about her condition.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam
International Human Rights Activist
President and Co Founder of
Stop Child Executions
www.stopchildexecutions.com

-----------------------------------------------

Latest Amnesty International Report:

UA 98/09
Fear of imminent execution
9 April 2009
IRAN

Delara Darabi (f) aged 22, juvenile offender

Delara Darabi's lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, fears that his client is at imminent risk of being executed. This follows a telephone call he received from Delara Darabi on 21 March in which she said that she had heard rumours in Rasht Prison that she would be executed. Delara Darabi has been detained at Rasht Prison, in northern Iran since her arrest in 2003 and sentenced to death for murder for a crime she committed when she was 17.

Normal legal avenues in her case have been exhausted, though domestic and international concerns about her situation appear to have resulted in repeated and slow-moving legal reviews. To ensure that she will not be executed however, all the members of the victims family must agree to accept diyeh, or payment, sometimes called blood money in exchange for her pardon. One relative is said to be undecided as to his wishes.

In September 2003, a then 17-year old Delara Darabi and her 19-year-old boyfriend Amir Hossein Sotoudeh broke into her fathers 58-year-old female cousin Mahins house to commit a burglary. Amir Hossein allegedly killed the woman during the burglary. Delara Darabi initially confessed to the murder in order to protect her boyfriend from execution, claiming that he had told her that as she was 17 she could not be executed. She subsequently retracted her confession.

Delara Darabi was initially sentenced to death by Branch 10 of the General Court in Rasht on 27 February 2005. In January 2006, the Supreme Court found "deficiencies" in the case and sent it to a childrens court in Rasht for retrial. Following two trial sessions in January and June 2006, Delara Darabi was sentenced to death for a second time by Branch 107 of the General Court in Rasht. Amir Hossein Sotoudeh was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for complicity in the murder. Both received sentences of three years imprisonment and 50 lashes for robbery, and 20 lashes for an "illicit relationship". Delara Darabis death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court on 16 January 2007.

In March 2007, her lawyer filed an appeal against her death sentence. In April 2007 her death sentence was confirmed following a further review by Branch 7 of the Supreme Court, after which the verdict was sent to the Head of the Judiciary for consideration. In December 2007, as a result of procedural flaws having been identified, the Head of Judiciary reportedly returned the case to Rasht for a further review. In February 2008, human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaie was reported to have visited Delara Darabi in prison. She was said to be very depressed and told Mohammad Mostafaie that she was tired of the waiting and of her unbearable life in prison. For further information please see: UA 04/06, MDE 13/001/2006, 6 January 2006 and follow-ups.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Iran has executed at least 42 juvenile offenders since 1990, eight of them in 2008 and one on 21 January 2009.

The execution of juvenile offenders is prohibited under international law, as stated in Article 6(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Iran is a state party, and so has undertaken not to execute anyone for crimes committed when they were under 18.
In Iran a person convicted of murder has no right to seek pardon or commutation from the state, in violation of Article 6(4) of the ICCPR. The family of a murder victim have the right either to insist on execution, or to pardon the killer and receive financial compensation (diyeh).

Iran Human Rights: Delara Darabi, the young artist who has been on death row for the last 5 years in Rasht prison may not have much longer to live. According to her lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi who was recently interviewed by Rooz online, said that soon after the Persian New Year, he had a phone conversation with Delara who relayed to him that there were rumours in prison that she was going to soon be executed soon

Mr. Khoramshahi said that his client has reason to be worried because her file has gone beyond any kind of legal recourse and that the only option is for the family of the victim pardon her. He said that one of the children of the victim has neither approved nor disapproved her execution. Because the Judiciary has already approved her execution, once the family of the victim also approve , Delara’s execution will be carried out.

Mr. Khoramshahi explained in the interview that out of deep love for the man that committed the crime, Delara took the blame in the first trial and had confessed to the murder of her father’s cousin. He said that she even went so far as justifying that she was capable of such a crime because she was an athlete and was strong in Karate.

Later, when she understood that juveniles still face the death penalty for such crimes, she retracted her statement. By then it was too late and the court did not accept the retraction.

Branch 107 (juvenile court) confirmed her execution in her second trial and yet again in Branch 33 of the Supreme Court. Khoramshahi said that at this stage it is too late to try and repeat the same evidence over and over again.

He said “She is on the verge of execution and no legal institute can save her, unless the victim will forgive her”.

Iran is the only country executing minors in 2008. So far in 2009, at least one minor offender has been executed.

U.S. President Barack Obama in his historical visit to Turkey met with leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) Ahmed Turk.
In the meeting U.S. President Barack Obama supposed that violence or armed struggle will not solve the Kurdish problem.

The Turkish media reported that the two sides discussed together several issues and U.S. president Barack Obama, argued that the problems in Turkey does not resolve with violence and force, he also expressed his support for solving Kurdish issue and asking Ankara to provide more educational and democratic rights for Kurdish population in Turkey

Obama met briefly with opposition party leaders yesterday at Parliament and spoke with each of them for several minutes. He met with Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People‌s Party (CHP), Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the DTP.
"I told him that we also denounce the violence. But I informed him that more than 17,000 extra judicial killings have happened in -southeastern Anatolia- over the years," the leader of the DTP said.

He said he handed Obama a dossier that includes the DTP‌s views on the solution of the problem. Turk also gave the U.S. president cufflinks and a brooch for Michelle Obama as presents.

By David Lawder and Edith Honan

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a Chinese metals company and six Iranian companies suspected of collaborating on a scheme to transfer missile and nuclear technology from China to Iran.

A New York grand jury also indicted the Chinese metals company, LIMMT Economic and Trade Co Ltd, and its manager, Lee Fangwei, on 118 counts including suspicion of shipping 33,000 pounds (15,000 kg) of specialized aluminum alloy used for long-range missile production from China to Iran.

Lee was charged with the suspected misuse of Manhattan banks employed to transfer money between China and Iran by way of Europe and the United States.

The actions by the U.S. Treasury Department and a grand jury convened by the New York state prosecutor in Manhattan come as the United States has sought tougher U.N. sanctions against Iran to halt its nuclear program, which Western nations believe is designed for making weapons.

Tehran says the program is aimed at increasing its civilian power capacity.

China is bound by three U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions forbidding support for or contact with individuals or companies linked to Iran's missile and nuclear programs.

China and Russia reluctantly backed all three resolutions and say they are complying with sanctions. But U.N. diplomats say a number of Chinese, Russian and Western firms have continued to try to skirt the restrictions on selling sensitive technology to Iran.

"Materials may be dual-use, but when they are sent to front companies set up by the Iranian military, and the defendants use false end-user certificates and dummy names, there's not much doubt that the use is for weapons," Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau told reporters.

Morgenthau also said he would request the arrest and extradition of Lee, also known as Karl Lee and by several other aliases, from the Chinese government. He is believed to be at large in China.

SUSPECTED FIRMS BLACKLISTED

The sanctions designate the firms and individuals as proliferators of weapons of mass destruction under an executive order and seek to freeze any assets they have under U.S. jurisdiction. They also prohibit Americans from doing any business with the firms and individuals.

The Treasury said it added Lee and eight aliases for LIMMT to its weapons proliferation blacklist. The company itself was put under Treasury sanctions in 2006.

The Treasury named the Iranian firms Khorasan Metallurgy Industries, Kaveh Cutting Tools Co, the Amin Industrial Complex, Yazd Metallurgy Industries and Shahid Sayyade Shirazi Industries for their connection to Iran's Defense Industries Organization (DIO).

The Niru Battery Manufacturing Co was named because of its connection to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL).

The U.S. State Department has named DIO and MODAFL for having engaged in activities that materially contributed to the development of Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

The U.S. banks employed by Lee were innocent of any wrongdoing because Lee and other suspects had concealed their identities, Morgenthau said.

Morgenthau identified the U.S. banks as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia Bank/Wells Fargo Standard Centered Bank, Bank of America and The Bank of New York Mellon but he declined to identify the European banks.

"We may not be able to shut down Mr. Lee's factories, but we can shine a spotlight on his conduct and the conduct of the foreign banks that permit these types of operations to flourish," Morgenthau said. (Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Vicki Allen)

By MATTI FRIEDMAN

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel successfully tested an anti-missile system designed to protect the country against Iranian attack, the Defense Ministry said, perfecting technology developed in response to failures of similar systems during the 1991 Gulf War.

The intercept of a dummy missile was the 17th test of the Arrow system, a U.S.-Israeli joint venture. Israeli defense officials said the interceptor was an upgraded Arrow II, designed to counter Iran's Shahab ballistic missile.

Israel has identified Iran as its biggest threat, citing the country's nuclear program and its development of long-range ballistic missiles. Those fears have been compounded by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons that could pose a threat to its existence. Iran denies that and says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes such as energy production. Israel has threatened military action, and Iran has said it would strike back, warning last month that Israel's own nuclear facilities were within missile range.

Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of up to 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel well within striking distance. Iranian officials were not available for comment on the Israeli test.

In a statement, the Defense Ministry said the interceptor shot down "a missile simulating a ballistic threat in especially challenging conditions." It called the test "an important step in the development program and the development of operational abilities to counter the growing threat of ballistic missiles in the region."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak watched Tuesday's intercept from a military helicopter, the ministry said. According to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Pentagon representatives also were present.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the Iranian threat a top priority of his administration, congratulated defense officials for the successful test. "While we are for peace, we will know how to defend ourselves," he said.

The Arrow project is being developed by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. at a cost of more than $1 billion. It was spurred largely by the failure of the U.S. military's Patriot missiles to intercept Iraqi Scud rockets that struck Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

Several batteries of Arrow missiles are already operational. But Israel has been working to perfect the system to deal with increasingly complicated threats, such as missiles that strike at extremely high speeds from high altitudes and could split apart as they approach their targets.

Iran has worked hard to increase the accuracy of its missiles. In November, it successfully test-fired the Sajjil, a solid fuel high-speed missile with a range 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers). Solid fuel is considered a significant breakthrough because it increases accuracy.

Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said the Arrow is meant to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.

"This was the most advanced version of the Arrow weapons system in terms of the ability to perform the type of intercept that would be necessary to destroy a ballistic missile target," he said. He said that in conjunction with Patriot missiles, which strike at a lower altitude, Israel has "deployed a layered defense."

Israel is also developing a system to counter short and medium range rockets of the kind possessed by Palestinian and Lebanese militants. The system, called the Iron Dome, is set to be deployed next year.

The U.S. military has conducted separate tests in recent years of different components of the defensive shield, which is slated to include Patriot air defense batteries, anti-ballistic missiles launched from Navy ships and lasers mounted in planes designed to shoot down incoming missiles.

Last month, the U.S. military's ground-based mobile missile defense system successfully shot down a medium-range ballistic missile during a test in Hawaii.

It was the first time the military fired two interceptors at one target using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, a program designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in their last stage of flight.

The drill followed up on a test that was planned for last September but had to be aborted when the target malfunctioned shortly after launch.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is calling on Iran to release an aid worker for a U.S. organization who has been accused of trying to overthrow the country's government.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Monday that charges that Silva Harotonian was trying to promote a so-called "Velvet Revolution" in Iran are "baseless" and that her health is deteriorating in prison. Harotonian is an Armenian citizen of Iranian descent who worked in Iran for the Washington-based International Research & Exchanges Board.

She was arrested in Iran last June and in January was sentenced to three years in prison. Her employer and family say Harotonian is an administrative assistant and not a political activist. They have appealed to Iranian authorities for her release.

ASTANA (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out on Monday at capitalism as a "false" economic system and called for the creation of a new global financial order.

"I want to say that capitalist economics is false economics. Now they are trying to reform the system, the very system that caused the crisis," Ahmadinejad told reporters during a visit to Kazakhstan.

"We are interested in a new financial system based on justice. A real economic system."

In a fiery speech, the Iranian leader, speaking through a translator in Kazakhstan's capital Astana where he is on a state visit, blasted the world's main economic powers for burdening the world with their economic mistakes.

In a surprise move, Ahmadinejad became the first major world leader to back a plan put forward by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev last month to create a single world currency.

"It's a wonderful proposal. We consider it a good and correct idea. The world needs a single currency, a real currency."

Nazarbayev first called publicly for the creation of a new global currency, the "acmetal," in an article published in Russia's official daily Rossiskaya Gazeta in February.

At a conference in March, Nazarbayev argued the world required "an absolutely new global currency system."

His idea immediately won support from Robert Mundell, the Nobel prize-winning Canadian economist and a key intellectual architect of the euro currency, who said he was "right on track" with the scheme.

Ahmadinejad blamed Western immorality and shady financial instruments -- he described their use as "selling paper" -- for the global economic crisis.

"I want to say that this is a moral crisis and not a crisis of finances," the Iranian leader said.

TEHRAN (AFP) — The parents of US journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been held in Iranian custody since January, visited her at a notorious Tehran prison on Monday, her lawyer and a family friend told AFP.

"I was with them (Reza and Akiko Saberi) and took them to prison to see her," Saberi's lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi said. "I am waiting for them to call and tell me about the meeting."

The Saberis arrived in Tehran on Sunday to pursue the case of their daughter who has been detained in Evin prison on charges still to be revealed by Iranian authorities.

A family friend said the parents met Saberi for 20 minutes in the presence of a prison guard.

"They told me that she was okay and has been given access to a television and books in the prison," said the friend, who asked not to be named.

The Iranian foreign ministry said in March that Saberi had been working "illegally" in the country after her press card was revoked in 2006.

Khoramshahi said on Sunday that Saberi has been indicted and her case will be dealt with in a Tehran revolutionary court following completion of a preliminary investigation, although he did not know the charges.

Tehran's revolutionary court tries prisoners accused of acting against national security. The presiding judge will decide whether to put Saberi on trial.

US-born Saberi, who also holds an Iranian passport, was arrested for allegedly buying alcohol, which is prohibited in the Islamic republic.

Last month her parents appealed to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for her release, saying the 31-year-old reporter was in a "dangerous" state of mental health.

Washington has repeatedly called on Tehran to release the 31-year-old journalist who has reported for National Public Radio, the BBC and Fox News, living in Iran for the past six years.

Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality and has had no ties with the United States for three decades, has detained several Iranian-Americans, including academics, in recent years.

Committee of Human Rights Reporters reports: Article 3 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” The consecutive deaths of two political prisoners in Iran, within a short span of two weeks is a clear indication that the judiciary and prison management will never abide by the necessary code of conduct in place to properly safeguard the lives of prisoners.

Amir-Heshmat Saran and Omid-Reza Mirsayafi, were the two political prisoners who lost their lives in the Evin and Rejai-Shahr prisons. As a result of each having lingering illnesses, they were both in critical need of medical care at hospitals outside the prison, in professional medical facilities. As a result, due to the relentless refusal of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the Revolutionary Court to allow the two political prisoners to seek outside medical attention, the lack of the proper facilities inside the prisons, as well as the dereliction of the prison doctors, the two lost their lives.

In the last two years at least five political prisoners have died in this way in Iran.

Akbar Mohammadi was the first case. The diagnosis of the regime’s own medical examiner who stated clearly that “he did not have the strength to serve his sentence” and the fact that he had been given medical furlough from prison did not stop MOIS agents from showing up at his house to rearrest and return him to prison. The previous year, Mohammadi had been given medical furlough and was planning on receiving proper physician-monitored care outside the prison. Despite his health issues, in order to protest his inexplicable forced return to prison, he went on a hunger strike. The prison authorities who willfully neglected his frail health continued to refuse him all his requests. Ten days after his return to prison, he died. The regime’s judiciary simply refused to respond to questions surrounding the nature of his rearrest and return to prison, leading up to his death.

Shortly after Mohammadi’s death, Valiollah Fayz-Mahdavi died under similar conditions in the Rejai-Shahr prison. Judiciary authorities claimed he committed suicide; Fayz-Mahdavi too had gone on hunger strike in order to protest the regime’s refusal to grant him medical furlough.

Abdol-Reza Rajabi is the third political prisoner who died due to unknown circumstances, following his transfer to Rejai-Shahr prison. His fellow political prisoners in Evin prison have stated: “He was in critical condition and he desperately required serious professional medical attention.” So not only did he not receive the necessary care but he was essentially exiled, from Evin prison to Rejai-Shahr prison where he perished.

Amir-Heshmat Saran also, is one of the most recent political prisoners to die due to the prison authorities and prison infirmary's deliberate neglect of his condition. He was finally transferred to a hospital, only to die there, moments after arrival. Saran was arrested in 2004 and charged with the illegal establishment of a party which carries a heavy 16-year sentence. During his initial five years in prison, though he had several heart attacks, he too was refused medical furlough and was not provided proper medical care.

Finally, blogger, Omid-Reza Mirsayafi is the last person to die under such circumstances. According to his fellow political prisoners, of all of the above-mentioned prisoner, Mirsayafi was in fact the one whose death could have absolutely been prevented, had the prison authorities in fact transferred him to a hospital in time.

At this rate, it appears that the refusal to provide prisoners the proper medical care will produce more victims.

The fact that the judiciary has refused to comment and has not permitted the lawyers of the deceased political prisoners to follow-up on the cause of death, has given rise to more and more questions and suspicions.

Below are the names and conditions of the three other political prisoners who are in desperate need of immediate medical attention at hospitals outside the prison. The judiciary’s lack of attention to these cases and their continued refusal to grant these three individuals their medical furloughs will be construed as deliberate endangerment of the political prisoners health, on the part of the regime’s judiciary and the revolutionary court.

Mohammad-Sadigh Kaboudvand, is the director and founder of the Defense of Human Rights Organization in Kurdestan, who has been charged with “the establishment of an illegal organization” and has been issued a heavy sentence by the Revolutionary Court. Kaboudvand who was recently awarded the 2009 British Press International Journalist of the Year Award suffers from various illnesses and so far has not been allowed to leave prison on a medical furlough in order to receive the appropriate treatment.

Kaboudvand was arrested on July 1st, 2007 (10th of Tir, 1386) and taken to Evin prisons' notorious solitary ward, known as ward 209 which is controlled by none other than agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Kaboudvand was held in solitary for five months. During the last year Kaboudvand has suffered several heart attacks and though the prison doctors have clearly stated that he requires hospital care, the judiciary’s spokesman has determined his condition to be normal. According to various activists of the Defense of Human Rights Organization in Kurdestan, during the last two months Kaboudvand has been rushed to a hospital outside of prison twice. Despite this, prison officials refuse to issue his permit to continue his treatment outside of prison.

Abbas Khorsandi, founder of the Democratic Party of Iran, Abbas Khorsandi; like Kaboudvand has been charged by the Revolutionary Court as also “having established and illegal organization” and he has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Khorsandi who prior to his arrest and detention had been diagnosed with a heart condition, suffers from hypertension, migraines and digestion problems; he too has been deprived of the proper medical care. Khorsandi who prior to his arrest was under the medical care a physician has not only not received the required attention, he has only had access to the minimal facilities in the prison infirmary. His family has continued to request that he be allowed to leave prison on a medical furlough but has so far been refused.

Mansour Osanloo. the Director of the Executive Committee of the Syndicate of Bus Drivers (VAHED), was sentenced to five years in prison. At the time of his sentencing Osanloo was suffering from a severe eye condition and required immediate Cornea surgery. Like all the rest of the above-mentioned political prisoners, since his arrest, Osanloo was prohibited from receiving the proper medical care until the point where he was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. After the surgery however, the authorities did not permit him to spend his required recovery period at the hospital under the care of the surgeon. He was therefore transferred to the prison infirmary.

The Committee of Human Rights Reporters and the families of the above-mentioned political prisoners call upon freedom-lovers around the world to continue to write and publish information about these political prisoners who need their assistance to prevent their deliberate deaths.

Iranpressnews

Human Rights Watch Kurdish News reports: Kurdish Human Rights activist, Mahiuldin Azadi, resident of the town of Saghez was arrested by security forces of the township of Sanandadj two weeks ago and was driven away with several personal items and his computer to the regional offices of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security; he was then transferred to the Sanandadj Central Prison. His charges are as of yet unknown.

Human Rights Organization in Kurdestan
Press Release

As it was previously reported by this organization, Mohammad-Sadigh Kaboudvand was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of having established and managed the Human Rights Organization in Kurdestan. During the last 700 days in detention, since his arrest, he has been under continued physical and psychological torture and has been troubled by persistent heart problems. As a result, during the winter, on two sequent occasions, while Kaboudvand was having heart attacks, the prison authorities were forced to transfer him to a medical facility outside the prison in order to perform tests. The cardiologists who performed the angiogram recommended immediate cardiovascular surgery. Now three months have passed since the mentioned occurrence and the prison authorities claim that they have submitted the request for such an operation but that the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as the judiciary have refused any further medical treatment for all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and that it is ultimately out of their hands.

Based on existing information, regarding the condition of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who remain committed to their convictions, refuse to change their stance and continue to persist on their “positions”, authorities in the public prosecutors office and the Revolutionary Court have decided to refuse their medical treatment.

It is worth mentioning that other than suffering from these heart conditions, has also recently been suffering from skin disease as well.

 

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — President Barack Obama says the U.S., Europe and Russia have an interest in keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

During a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Strasbourg, France, Obama said Friday that the world "cannot have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East." He also said it's important for NATO to talk to Russia.

Obama said there's "great potential" to improve U.S.-Russian relations, but he cautioned that Russia can't go back to its "old ways." He cited the Russian invasion of Georgia last August and said despite Sarkozy's efforts to broker a cease-fire there, the region still has not stabilized.

Sarkozy echoed Obama's sentiments, saying the last thing the world needs is a "new cold war."

Mohammad Sadegh Kaboudvand was awarded the International Journalist of the Year award at the The Press Gazette British Press Awards. Winning a British Press Award is seen as the crowning achievement of any journalist’s career – and just being shortlisted is to be set among the elite of the profession. International journalist of the year recognises the courage of an overseas journalist who has battled against oppression.

The category considered as one the Premier three awards of the evening was voted on by the entire academy of the British Press, comprising 100 senior journalists and media representatives. The other two Premier awards were Journalist of the Year and the Newspaper of the Year.

Kaboudvand, former editor of Payam-e mardom-e Kurdistan, closed by the Iranian authorities is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Tehran for his writing and is in a critical medical condition and in need of urgent care.

In a statement smuggled out of Evin prison, Kaboudvand offered his “sincere thanks and gratitude to the British Press Awards and everyone associated with it for making it their business to stand up and speak for all the suffering writers and journalists around the globe. “ He said, “In Iran, journalists are pursued, harassed, arrested and imprisoned for merely being true to their profession by seeking to reflect the truth or urging their rulers to simply respect the dignity and god given human rights of their citizens.”

He added, “Fifteen percent of the population, comprised of Kurds, faces a situation in which their whole identity and existence has become threatened, and individuals are severely punished whenever they speak for their trampled rights, even though they are one of the three co-founding people of our great nation. The ruling establishment speaks in support of religious minorities in other places when they, themselves, brutally suppress all religious minorities.”

He said, “Today, in our land no journalist, no critic of the regime or no human rights activist is able to pursue any of the issues pertaining to the kind of gross violations of basic human rights. There is no question that whenever, in such circumstances, any one should dare to openly discuss issues such as justice in its true sense, human rights, democracy, basic freedoms and other popular demands, that their path will inevitably lead to ultimate arrest and imprisonment. It is possible to suggest that these are issues that can best be dealt with by political parties. But what are we to do in the absence of such free and independent institutions in our country?”

This was the second time that the award was won by an Iranian journalist. Last year, Emaddedin Baghi won the International Journalist of the Year prize.

Kaboudvand is a prominent human rights defender, journalist, and founder in 2005 of a group that seeks to protect the rights of Iranian Kurds, the Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan (HROK). The group grew to include 200 local reporters throughout the Iranian Kurdish region, allowing it to provide detailed and timely reports from throughout the region, published in the now-banned newspaper Payam-e Mardom (Message of the People) for which Kaboudvand was the managing director and editor. Through his human rights and journalism work, Kaboudvand was instrumental in creating a civil society network for Kurdish youth and activists. He is also the author of three books, Nimeh-ye Digar ("The Other Half," a book on women's rights), Barzakh-e Democracy ("The Stuggle for Democracy"), and Jonbesh-e Ejtemaii ("Social Movements").

Other nominees International Journalist of the Year category were: Abdulkarim Al-Khaiwani, Former Editor-in-chief, Al-Shoura of Yemen, Anastasia Baburova, Journalist on the bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta of Russia, Eynulla Fatullayev, of Azerbaijan, Haci Bogatekin, Owner and editor of the local fortnightly Gerger Firat of Turkey and Jestina Mukoko of Zimbabwe.

Nazenin Ansari, London

(AFP) — Iran and Venezuela on Friday inaugurated a joint bank to finance their development projects, during a visit by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran, state media reported.

The Iran-Venezuela Joint Bank, based in Tehran, has an initial capital base of 200 million dollars, with each nation providing half of the funds, the state broadcaster said.

The Export Development Bank of Iran, which is under sanctions from the US Treasury, was tasked with creating the joint bank with the Venezuelans.

"The capital will be raised to 1.2 billion dollars with the aim of supporting joint economic, industrial and mining projects as well as speeding up the current projects," the report said.

"What happened today represents a strong will to build a new world," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, attending the opening ceremony with Chavez.

Iran is under international banking sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme, which the West suspects to be a cover for atomic weapons development although Tehran insists it is purely peaceful.

Chavez, a vocal cheerleader in Latin America for Iran and its nuclear ambitions, was quoted as saying that the two countries should "further strengthen their trade cooperation."

The creation of the bank was announced in May last year, following up on an agreement which the two countries signed in March 2007.

The joint bank will work within Iran's banking regulations and its activities will be overseen by the Islamic republic's Central Bank, Iranian news agencies said.

The board of directors comprises four Iranians and four Venezuelans, reports said, adding that a joint investment fund will also be launched in Venezuela.

The United States has also imposed sanctions on three large Iranian banks -- Mellat, Melli and Saderat, accusing them of financing weapons proliferation.

The US Treasury said in October it has imposed sanctions on the Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI), alleging the bank helped with the country's nuclear programme.

The sanctions mean any assets held by the bank under US jurisdiction are frozen and US citizens are barred from dealing with the institution.

Iran and Venezuela, whose outspoken president has become a hero figure to many in the Middle East, have forged increasingly strong ties based on their opposition to the United States.

Both are members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and have vowed to further strengthen ties and find common ways to cope with the global economic crisis.

Chavez on Friday denounced a decision by the Group of 20 in London to commit one trillion dollars to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other global bodies to help struggling economies.

"They have decided to strengthen the main culprit, the IMF, while this fund should be eliminated," he was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster.

The leftist leader's visit to Tehran is his sixth, and comes after an Arab-South American summit in Doha.

Venezuela expelled the ambassador of Iran's arch-foe Israel from Caracas in January in protest against the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.

PARIS,  (Reuters) - French oil major Total sees the investment terms offered by Iran for developing gas fields as "not attractive enough", the group's Chief Executive told a conference on Thursday.

"It is very important to reduce the costs of energy projects, we will see if we can get acceptable terms, but frankly today the terms offered today (in Iran) are not attractive enough," Christophe de Margerie told delegates. "Because of the unsatisfactory conditions, Total was never able to strike a real deal for the South Pars project," de Margerie said.

Last month Iran accused Total of wasting time and said that a new partner would enter the South pars project with a leading share.

Total has a memorandum of understanding with the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company to develop Phase II of the South Pars field but the project has been overshadowed by haggling over contract terms.

But Yves-Louis Darricarrere, Total's head of exploration and production, said "slow" negotiations were ongoing with Iran.

"I am not dragging my feet but we need to work on those agreements as the terms needs to be attractive enough to work," Darricarrere told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

Many agreements were needed for such huge projects, which were complex and sophisticated, he said.

"You need an agreement for the upstream plant, on the plant itself and you need to know under which condition the gas will be supplied from upstream to downstream," Darricarrere said.

Many western majors such as Total had come under pressure to stay out of Iran from the French governemnt and the previous U.S. administration, which sought to isolate Tehran over its nuclear programme. (Reporting by Muriel Boselli and Ikuko Kao, Editing by Peter Blackburn)

NCRI - According to reports received from the women's ward of infamous Evin prison in Tehran, Ms. Kobra Amirkhizi, 56, who had suffered from bleeding in one of her eyes in ward 209 of this prison, is in serious danger of losing her eyesight.

Ms.  Amirkhizi, from a well known family in Tehran that has had a number of its members executed by the mullahs’ regime, is mother to a resident of Camp Ashraf in Iraq, home to the nearly 3,500 members of the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

Ms. Amirkhizi, denied medical treatment in Evin prison has been told by a staff of prison’s clinic, "you still have time before you can see only under your feet".

On Friday afternoon, January 16, 2009, dozens of family members of Ashraf City residents, including Ms. Amirkhizi, were traveling to Iraq in order to see their relatives. They were arrested at Tehran airport. The majority of those arrested were women between 60 to 80 years of age, and have been violently beaten by Intelligence Ministry henchmen.

The arrested families were placed in solitary confinement in Evin’s Ward 209. Their homes also were raided and searched by the regime’s suppressive forces. Their belongings were seized and even their children were threatened by armed men.

Ms. Amirkhizi’s family has gone to the first branch of the so-called Revolutionary Court to follow up on her case. In their last meeting on February 27 with the head of this branch, they were told, "Our superiors ordered that we do not release her because many of her close relatives are in Camp Ashraf".

 

MIAMI (AP) — A second man has pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to charges of scheming to illegally export military aircraft parts to Iran.

Traian Bujduveanu (Tray-'ANN Booj-doo-'VAY-nu) pleaded guilty Thursday to a single conspiracy count. He acted as his own lawyer and faces up to five years in federal prison when sentenced June 11. He's a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Romania.

Iranian-born Hassan Keshari previously pleaded guilty. Prosecutors said both men were illegally helping Iran obtain parts for such aircraft as the F-14 Tomcat fighter, C-130 cargo plane and AH-1 attack helicopter. The parts were shipped from South Florida to Dubai and on to Iran.

Keshari also faces up to five years in prison.

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi minister blamed Iran and Turkey as well as a dry winter for the country's growing water shortage and urged its neighbors on Wednesday to share more water with Baghdad.

Water Resources Minister Abdul-Latif Jamal Rasheed said both countries had built a large number of dams and reservoirs on the tributaries of Iraq's two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates.

He said Iraq was seeking a "sufficient and fair share of water" from the rivers — the largely desert country's two main water resources — through water-sharing agreements with Ankara and Tehran.

"We have been asking them to sign such agreements, but the other sides are not ready," Rasheed said. He refused to say whether the two countries' water policies were politically motivated.

"We have an ongoing coordination with Turkey ... and it has released convincing quantities recently," he told a Baghdad press conference. "But we have not held any meeting with Iran despite sending at least one or two letters each month to start meetings."

The general director of the ministry's water resources center, Aoun Thiab Abdullah, said the Iraqis have asked neighboring countries to double the flow into the two rivers.

Iranian and Turkish authorities were not immediately available to comment. Last month, Turkish President Abdullah Gul promised during a visit to Baghdad to increase the amount of water released into the Tigris as it flows through Turkey.

Water shortages are likely to affect Iraq's electricity availability because low water levels mean the country's hydroelectric dams cannot run at full capacity. The drought will also cut into crop production, forcing the country to import more foodstuffs.

Rasheed also said that the levels of water in Iraq's marshes have decreased to between 40 percent and 50 percent of what they reached soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

In retaliation for a failed Shiite uprising in the south in 1991, Saddam diverted the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to dry up the marshes. That turned the area into a desert and forced hundreds of thousands of inhabitants to move.

Since 2003, efforts to restore the marshes have gradually revived the area, and former residents began returning. Last month, the Iraqi government and U.N. agencies launched a $47 million plan to restore the marshes.

Libyan authorities have recovered the bodies of 100 migrants trying to reach Europe who drowned after their boat sank off Libya, officials said yesterday.
"Seventy seven bodies of the migrants washed up in the beach west of Tripoli late on Tuesday and 23 more bodies were found between Sunday night and Tuesday," an official told Reuters.

He and other officials believed the migrants were among 365 people who boarded the ship, which was supposed to hold only 75 people. The migrants were Kurds, Somalis, Nigerians, Eritreans, Algerians, Moroccans, Palestinians and Tunisians, officials said.

The ship was one of four migrant boats which had sailed from Libya between Saturday and Sunday, apparently heading to Italy, Libyan officials said.

A mass grave has been unearthed on Thursday in the city of Sulaimani expected to belong to the time of former dictator regime during the eighties of last century, when the Kurdish people were subjected to a genocide campaign.
Sources said a number of human bones and skulls have been unearthed in one of the neighborhoods of Sulaimani, where Bulldozers and employees working on a project.
They said the area was previously a security emergency unit of former dictator regime’s security forces.
Investigations have started on the findings and officials believe that Saddam’s forces could have executed them and buried the in the area.
Kurdistan people have lost up to 200 thousand civilians during a systematic genocide campaign that included Anfal and Halabja chemical bombardment.

By Tony Capaccio

Bloomberg -- Israel might choose to attack Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said today.

Army General David Petraeus told Congress that “the Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it.”

While Iran insists its nuclear program is intended for peaceful power generation, Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said “Iranian officials have consistently failed to provide the assurances and transparency necessary for international acceptance and verification.”

Iran refuses to suspend uranium enrichment, in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and won’t give international inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities.

Iran’s “obstinacy and obfuscation have forced Iran’s neighbors and the international community to conclude the worst about the regime’s intention,” Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, media adviser to Iran’s President Mahmound Ahmadinejad, responded to the general’s comments.

“Iran’s position as a powerful country that is a proponent of logic and peace, the Zionist regime’s chaotic situation, and the state of the world’s economy are realities that do not make this possible,” Javanfekr said in a telephone interview.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on Petraeus’s remarks.

Netanyahu’s Threat

Israel has signaled impatience with the international diplomatic effort to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with the Atlantic magazine given shortly before he became prime minister yesterday, said President Barack Obama must act quickly to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb or Israel might be compelled to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,” Netanyahu said of Iran’s leadership, according to an excerpt posted on The Atlantic’s Web site.

Petraeus appeared before the Senate as Obama began talks with world leaders in London on the economic crisis and political issues. Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced agreement on a new round of arms control talks aimed at shrinking their nuclear arsenals and curtailing the spread of such weapons to Iran and North Korea.

‘Extremely Significant’

Ken Katzman, a Middle East military analyst for the non- partisan Congressional Research Service in Washington, said Petraeus’s assertion on Israel “was extremely significant, particularly for what he did not say -- that the United States would act to restrain Israel or talk it out of conducting such a strike.”

The U.S. has begun a public effort to reach out to the Iranian government and public to find common ground, such as exploring joint efforts to fight the flow of narcotics from opium-producing Afghanistan. Iran borders western Afghanistan.

Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Aliasghar Soltanieh, said on March 4 that his government is ready for direct talks about its nuclear program with the U.S., Russia, China and leading European nations as long as negotiations also include regional security and economic issues.

Petraeus said Iran pursues policies that “frustrate U.S. goals” in the region: providing “material, financial and political support” to the Islamic militant movements Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran has undermined efforts to stabilize Afghanistan by “providing opportunistic support to the Taliban” insurgency, Petraeus said.

Iran’s ‘Setback’

“In Iraq, however, the Iranian regime has experienced a recent setback,” he said. “Iraqi and coalition forces have succeeded in degrading Iranian proxies operating in southern Iraq, and during January’s provincial elections, the Iraqi people voiced a broad rejection of Iranian influence.”

Petraeus testified on the first of two days of congressional hearings on the U.S. strategy in the Middle East and Central Asia, with a strong focus on the new U.S. strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Petraeus said that U.S. forces would “aggressively and relentlessly” pursue al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“We will continue to target, disrupt, and pursue the leadership, bases and support networks of al-Qaeda and other transnational extremist groups operating in the region,” Petraeus said.

Rising Attacks

The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan has become a base for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, and both nations face rising terrorist attacks. Civilian deaths last year caused by the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan hit a record level, while suicide bombings and other attacks have left more than 4,000 people dead in Pakistan in the past two years.

Petraeus said that Pakistan faces “a truly existential threat” from al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups. “Additionally, the possibility, however remote, of serious instability in a nuclear-armed Pakistan would pose a serious danger to the U.S.” and its allies, he said.

The general said it was important to turn Pakistan’s attention toward the internal extremist threat and away from its traditional focus on an attack from India.

Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, praised the administration’s new approach as “the right strategy” while noting “the road ahead will be long and costly.”

Still, Levin questioned whether the administration was correct to suggest that success in Afghanistan is linked so closely to success in Pakistan.

Levin said he remained “skeptical” whether Pakistan “has either the will or the capability to secure their border.”

“We should not tie Afghanistan’s future totally to the success of efforts in Pakistan or to Pakistan’s governmental decisions,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — China's "sophisticated and multi-layered" efforts to censor and control the Internet earned it a "not free" rating by a US rights group in a report released Wednesday.

Freedom House, which examined web freedom issues in 15 countries, listed Cuba, Iran and Tunisia as three other nations it considered "not free" due to government control of online activity.

Seven countries studied -- Egypt, India, Georgia, Kenya, Malaysia, Russia and Turkey -- were considered "partly free" while four others -- Brazil, Britain, Estonia and South Africa -- were labeled "free."

Freedom House, which monitors political rights and civil liberties around the globe, said the rights of Internet users were increasingly at risk as governments expanded their ability to control online activity.

"More than a billion people look to the Internet and mobile phones to provide a new freedom frontier, where they can exercise their right to freedom of expression without repercussion," Freedom House executive director Jennifer Windsor said in a statement.

"But as access grows, more governments are employing diverse and sophisticated methods to monitor, censor and punish Internet users."

In its report, "Freedom on the Net," to be formally released later Wednesday at a conference of bloggers in Berlin, Freedom House evaluated the 15 countries based on barriers to Internet access, limitations on content and violations of users' rights.

The Washington-based group said Cuba received the lowest score in the study.

"Cuba is one of the world's most repressive environments for Internet freedom, despite a slight relaxation of restrictions on computer and mobile phone sales in 2008," it said.

"There is almost no access to Internet applications other than e-mail and surveillance is extensive. Cuba is one of the few countries with laws and regulations explicitly restricting and outlawing certain online activities."

Freedom House also said that China and Cuba were tied for curbing the most users' rights.

China has the world's most Internet users, an estimated 300 million, but "also has the world's most highly-developed censorship apparatus," it said.

The report cited "sophisticated and multilayered system" used by Chinese authorities to censor, monitor and control Internet and mobile telephone activities.

It also mentioned the "hundreds of thousands" of people authorities and private providers employ to "monitor, censor and manipulate online content."

But "due to the egalitarian nature and technical flexibility of the Internet, the online environment remains more free than traditional media," Freedom House said.

Iran, the report said, "uses a complex system of nationwide content filtering, intimidation, detention and torture of bloggers, and restriction of broadband access to subvert freedom of expression online."

Freedom House was created in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of then US president Franklin Roosevelt, among others. It receives funding from the US government and private organizations.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's foreign ministry on Wednesday denied reports that US and Iranian officials held a meeting on the sidelines of an international conference on Afghanistan, the Mehr news agency said.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi also denied that the Iranian delegation had received any letter from the US officials asking about the whereabouts of three American nationals reportedly jailed or gone missing in the Islamic republic.

"No meeting or talks... be it formal or informal, official or unofficial between Iran and US officials took place on the sidelines of this conference," Ghashghavi told Mehr.

"We categorically deny the reports published in this regard. As no meeting or talks took place, naturally no letter was handed to Iran from the American side."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said senior US and Iranian officials met on the sidelines of the conference on rebuilding Afghanistan held in The Hague on Tuesday.

"In the course of the conference today, our special representative for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, had a brief and cordial exchange with the head of the Iranian delegation," she told a press conference.

Clinton said the meeting had been unplanned, but Holbrooke and Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoondzadeh agreed to "stay in touch".

Clinton said she also delivered a letter to the Iranian delegation about three US nationals in Iran who are unable to return to the United States.

"In the letter we ask Iran to use all of its facilities to determine the whereabouts, and ensure the quick and safe return, of Robert Levinson" and release Roxana Saberi, while giving her and Esha Momeni permission to travel, she said.

Former FBI agent Levinson has been missing for two years since vanishing on the Gulf island of Kish, and no information has been forthcoming from Tehran on his plight.

Dual US-Iranian national Saberi was arrested on the orders of an Iranian revolutionary court, which handles security charges in Iran, and has been kept in Tehran's Evin prison since January.

Iranian-US student Esha Momeni, who was released on bail in January after being held on security charges, has been banned from leaving the Islamic republic.

Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic ties following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.

It is expected the American President Barack Obama will arrive in Ankara on April 6, present a speech in the Turkish parliament.

On his part, the Turkish Parliament speaker Koksal Tuptan revealed the news during a meeting in the Turkish Parliament and.

"Before his speech in the parliament, the U.S president wants to meet with the heads of the three parties who have a parliamentary representation in the parliament together," Turkish Parliament speaker said.

These major parties in Turkish parliament with whom President Obama is going to meet are Justice and Development Party (AK), Republican People's Party (CHP), the National Movement Party (MHP) and the Democratic Society Party (DTP), they have not responded a positive answer to this request except for the first one and Democratic Society Party.

KurdishMedia.com

The University of Exeter’s Centre for Kurdish Studies is the only British research centre that focuses solely on Kurdish society, culture and politics by placing the Kurds at the core of its research. The first international conference in the UK to focus on Kurdish issues and is being held at the University 1 – 3 April to explore new directions for research.

The rapidly growing area of Kurdish studies reflects the pursuit for greater academic examination of Kurdish culture past, present and future. The Kurds constitute the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, yet remain relatively unknown in Western academic circles. As they are the largest group of people in the world without a nation state and divided between Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and the former Soviet Union, the study of their situation raises important questions pertaining to nationalism, identity politics, international relations, and social and cultural studies.

As part of the conference, world famous film director Bahman Ghobadi will be screening clips from his award winning films like Turtles Can Fly’, ‘Half Moon’ and ‘A Time for Drunk Horses’ to be followed by a Q&A with the director. Renowned Kurdish academics Professor Amir Hassanpour, a linguist at the University of Toronto,and political and social scientist Professor Hamit Bozarslan, L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Socials, Paris will be giving keynote speeches.

At this pivotal moment in Kurdish history, Dr Hashem Ahmadzadeh, Director of the University of Exeter’s Centre for Kurdish Studies explains the significance of hosting the international conference, he said ‘Four years after the establishment of our Centre for Kurdish Studies we are pleased to draw together some of the most significant scholars to discuss the important topics related to Kurds and Kurdistan from an academic point of view.’

Illustrating the convergence of literary studies, nationalism, and international relations is the research work of Ozlem Galip. A PhD student at the University of Exeter, she is speaking at the conference on the importance of Kurdish literature. She said ‘Kurdish novels exist in the main to pursue national identity and the aspiration for a homeland. The Kurdish language has been suppressed at different times by the dominant states which is why Kurdish literature is being used as a tool towards the creation of identity. The novel has joined newspapers as the major vehicle of national print media, helping to standardise language and encourage literacy.’

PhD students at the University of Exeter are making an impact on Kurdish Studies, such as James Harvey who has identified gaps in academic research he said, ‘I am interested in questions surrounding sovereignty and legitimacy in unrecognised states like Iraqi Kurdistan, and what kind of political space these territories occupy. I found that there was a significant gap in the analytical treatment of the ethno-political situation in Iraqi Kurdistan and a need to examine concepts of power and ideology in unrecognized states from a theoretical perspective.’

The Centre for Kurdish Studies has recently benefited from generous donations from the Ibrahim Ahmed Foundation and the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq which has enabled the Centre to expand and also support MA and PhD students with scholarships. The MA in Kurdish Studies, the teaching of Sorani Kurdish, introduction of Kurmanji and development of BA degrees in Middle Eastern Studies with Kurdish and Arabic and Kurdish are all unique degree programmes in the UK. The University of Exeter is recognised as a leading centre of research in Kurdish research in the UK and a global centre of excellence in the field.

Esther White, Press Officer, University of Exeter