Esfahan July 30

Shiraz

Tehran

Iran Human Rights: Three people were hanged in the prison of Isfahan on July 29, according to a report published by the official website of Isfahan judiciary.

According to the report one of those executed was convicted of extramarital relationship and murder and he was sentenced to execution and lashes (number not mentioned). He was hanged after the flogging was carried out.

The two others were convicted of murder and drug trafficking respectively.

Name and age of none of those executed was mentioned in the report.

TEHRAN– A top Iranian cleric said the key to restoring calm in the country is to free the detainees arrested during post-election protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mehr news agency reported on Friday.

Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, who has regularly voiced concerns over the political turmoil gripping the Islamic republic, said: "In order to bring calm to society, the fate of prisoners must be decided as soon as possible."

"Those who are not at fault or whose fault can be ignored under Islamic laws, they must be freed. I hope by the time of the birth anniversary of the 12th Imam (Mahdi), we will have no prisoners in the prisons."

The birth anniversary of Imam Mahdi, a revered Shiite saint, falls on August 7 and even Ahmadinejad has urged the judiciary to release all the protesters by then.

Earlier this week, Iran's chief prosecutor Ghorbanli Dorri Najafabadi said a "considerable" number of protesters would be released on Friday.

About 250 protesters still remain behind bars, as most of up to 2,000 people arrested in the post-election unrest have been released.

Twenty alleged "rioters" are due to go on trial from Saturday on charges including attacks on government and military offices and contact with "enemies" such as exiled opposition group the People's Mujahedeen.

The Islamic republic is engulfed in its worst crisis in its 30-year existence with anti-Ahmadinejad groups refusing to acknowledge his victory in the June 12 poll and regularly launching protests against the election.

On Thursday, thousands of people who were mourning the protesters killed in the post-vote unrest clashed with riot police at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery and in central Tehran.

Police fired tear gas and use batons to disperse the crowds.

AFP

While journalists are banned from entering Ashraf, Iraqi forces bring in two TV crews from the Iranian regime

NCRI - This afternoon, Iraqi forces brought into Ashraf a number of agents from the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and terrorist Qods Force under the guise of reporters from Al-Alam and Press TV, the regime’s Arabic and English language channels.

The two TV stations, set up by the clerical regime’s MOIS and terrorist Qods Force are despised among journalists both in Iraq and European countries. They are viewed as the regime’s spies.

The people working in both stations are actually plainclothes agents and forces affiliated with the office of the mullahs’ Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in Iran. According to eyewitnesses, Press TV reporters were seen among plainclothes agents attacking protestors in various locations.

The Iraqi forces have brought the two crews into Ashraf while even today a number of reporters, including those from AFP, CNN, and al-Arabiya, who had come to the gates of Ashraf, were barred from entering and sent back.

Reporters Without Borders today issued a statement in which it “condemned the Iraqi government’s decision to bar journalists from entering Ashraf,” and stressed that Iraqi forces “prevent the entry of journalists to Ashraf” after their July 28 attack against the camp.

The Iranian Resistance warns about the clerical regime’s intentions for sending its agents and spies from the terrorist Qods Force and MOIS to Camp Ashraf, and calls on American forces to prevent this from taking place.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 30, 2009

Eleven residents of a camp housing Iran's main exiled opposition movement have died since Iraqi forces stormed the site, a local security official said on Thursday.

The toll was revealed as Amnesty International called for a probe into "apparent excessive use of force" by Iraqi forces when they took over Camp Ashraf, home to 3,500 People's Mujahedeen members and their families.

"According to our information seven died on Tuesday and four in the two following days," the source, a senior security official in Diyala province where the camp is situated, told AFP.

It is the first time Iraqi security forces have confirmed deaths among the camp's residents.

The official also said around 300 of the People's Mujahedeen were wounded and more than 50 have been arrested.

Iraqi police said earlier that they had set up a police station within Camp Ashraf and the situation was calm.

Some 800 Iraqi soldiers and more than 200 police officers are deployed inside the People's Mujahedeen base, police said.

"Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi government to investigate the apparent excessive use of force by its security forces," the London-based human rights group said in a statement.

"Eight people are reported to have been killed and up to 400 injured after Iraqi forces attacked unarmed Iranian residents of Camp Ashraf," it said.

Amnesty also called on Baghdad to "reveal the whereabouts of the 50 people detained and ensure that they are protected from torture or other ill-treatment, as well as from forcible return to Iran."

Iraqi soldiers are not allowing journalists to enter the camp, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Baghdad, meaning it is not possible to independently confirm tolls of the dead and wounded.

Iraqi provincial police Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim al-Karawi said that "there have been no clashes today (Thursday)."

The People's Mujahedeen said 12 camp residents died in the violence. The death of two police officers, announced by the hospital in the nearby town of Khales, was not confirmed by authorities in Baghdad.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said Camp Ashraf will be renamed "Camp of New Iraq".

"The government confirms it will continue to treat the inhabitants humanely and it will respect international conventions, but they must respect Iraqi law and the sovereignty of the state, which is in sole charge of security," he said.

"We call on the leaders of the Mujahedeen not to incite its people to violence and confrontation with Iraqi government forces.

"The government will use all its legal and constitutional powers to impose the state's authority against troublemakers," Dabbagh said.

Maryam Rajavi, head of the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran which includes the Mujahedeen, condemned the raid and accused Baghdad of doing Tehran's bidding.

The People's Mujahedeen, a Marxist and Islamic movement, was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah and has subsequently fought to oust the clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The group set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s -- when former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was at war with the Islamic republic -- as a base to operate against the Tehran government.

The Iranian government has accused the Mujahedeen of playing a key role in fomenting the protests which followed last month's disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
AFP

TEHRAN (AFP) — Riot police used tear gas and batons to break up a demonstration in Tehran on Thursday and clashed with mourners at a defiant graveside commemoration for people killed in election violence, witnesses said.

It was the first major violence between security forces and demonstrators in three weeks in Iran, where tensions are still running high over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election last month.

Police moved in as crowds massed around a major open-air prayer venue in central Tehran and a major thoroughfare nearby, defying a ban on a planned opposition mourning ceremony, witnesses said.

They used tear gas and batons against thousands of protesters marching on Vali Asr Street who were shouting "Death to the dictator!", "Free the political prisoners!" and slogans in support of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, they said.

Clashes had erupted earlier at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery south of Tehran, where hundreds of police with batons and belts beat some members of an estimated 2,000-strong who hurled stones at security forces, witnesses said.

Iranians were marking the 40th day since the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman who came to symbolise the public uprising over Ahmadinejad's June 12 victory which the opposition says was rigged.

Witnesses said dozens of policemen were deployed on Tehran's Kargar Street where Neda was killed on June 20.

A graphic Internet video of Neda bleeding to death was seen around the world and triggered an outcry over the sometimes brutal crackdown on demonstrators.

Some Iranian hardliners claim Neda's killing was "staged" to denigrate the regime and they seek to divert the blame from Islamist vigilantes cracking down on protesters.

Crowds at the cemetery shouted: "Today is a mourning day. Loyal Iranians are the mourners today."

People gathered around Neda's grave which was decorated with candles and flowers as police attacked demonstrators and arrested several mourners, including prominent film director Jafar Panahi and his family, a witness said.

Police forced Mousavi out of the graveyard just minutes after his arrival and although they initially surrounded fellow campaigner Mehdi Karroubi, he was able to give graveside readings from the Koran.

Mousavi and Karroubi, who both stood against Ahmadinejad in the election, have waged a defiant campaign since the announcement of the official results, which triggered the worst crisis in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic and created deep rifts among the nation's ruling elite.

Mousavi, a prime minister in the post-revolution years who was Ahmadinejad's main challenger, has consistently refused to acknowledge his rival's victory, saying it was a "shameful fraud."

In the latest show of defiance, thousands of people flashing victory signs gathered around Vali Asr street and the Grand Mosalla, an open-air religious venue which was to be the scene of a memorial ceremony banned by the authorities.

"Some protesters also set fire to roadside rubbish bins, while anti-riot police on motorbikes rode into the crowds in an attempt to disperse them," a witness said. "Police also smashed window panes of several cars."

A motorbike was said to have been set alight.

Hundreds of motorists sounded their car horns, a protest tactic regularly used by Mousavi supporters.

Witnesses said later that most demonstrators had dispersed from the Vali Asr area and the cemetery.

The foreign press remains banned from covering such demonstrations as part of tough restrictions imposed in the post-election turmoil.

Hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets after the election and in the ensuing violence about 30 people were killed, scores wounded and several thousand arrested, Iranian officials say.

The political crisis has also seen Ahmadinejad come under fire even from his own supporters and he has been warned to obey supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or face the consequences.

In recent days, the authorities have made gestures towards the opposition, including releasing about 140 protesters and promising to free more of the some 250 still behind bars.

But twenty "rioters" are to go on trial from Saturday on charges including attacks on government and military offices and contact with "enemies" including exiled opposition group the People's Mujahedeen.

We condemn, the U.S. green light to the Iraqi government.
we condemned brutal attack, criminal attack at Camp Ashraf by Iraqi forces.

Barack Obama and the U.S. government, are responsible for the massacre in Camp Ashraf.

U.S. government for the satisfaction mullahs in Tehran, said to the Iraqi government has destroyed Camp Ashraf.
Barack Obama for the change, but for now the Killing.

Silence of the International Association massacre Camp Ashraf residents, is a betrayal of humanity.

Europeans, Americans for trade and commerce with Iran, killing the residents of Camp Ashraf, it is easy for them.
Iraqi government is still the wife of America, when you were independent  it is time to decide.

Nouri al-Maliki, still not decide men.

EastKurd: 50-year-old man has been killed in shooting of Iranian forces.
That his name was "Mehyadin Jalali" was killed July 27 while crossing the border.
He has 7 children and his children were derelict.

Annual Turkey and Iran killing dozens of Kurdish.

This is the rule of justice Ali.This is the Islam Muhammad pure.
The Iranian government kills innocent people with the name of Islam.

In a fresh act of defiance, Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi will visit on Thursday the graves of slain protesters who opposed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The planned visit to a cemetery south of Tehran comes a day after Iranian authorities said they will put on trial 20 people accused of rioting in the violent aftermath of the bitterly disputed election.

Pages: 1 2

The Washington Times

Embassy Row

By James Morrison

Iranian activists Wednesday began a hunger strike across from the White House to demand that the United States defend disarmed Iranian rebels at a camp in Iraq, as Iraqi authorities continued to assert control over the former resistance fighters and their relatives.

"We will continue as long as necessary until we get guarantees from the Obama administration to protect the Iranians in Camp Ashraf," said Shirin Nariman, an Iranian-American activist in Washington. "The news is not good."

Citing reports from sources among the resistance, Ms. Nariman said Iraqi authorities have killed nine Iranians in the camp since they raided the facility Tuesday. Reports from Iraq confirmed seven deaths.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the senior Republican on the panel called on the Iraqi government to honor a commitment it made to U.S. forces to guarantee the safety of the 3,500 residents of Camp Ashraf and promise not to force them to return to Iran, where many of them fear they would be executed.

"The Iraqi government must live up to its commitment to ensure the continued well-being of those living in Ashraf and prevent their involuntary return to Iraq," Rep. Howard L. Berman, California Democrat, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican, said in a joint statement.

The Clinton administration listed the Iranian resistance as a terrorist organization to meet a demand from Tehran when the United States attempted to normalize relations in 1997.

Amnesty International now calls on the Iraqi government to reveal the whereabouts of the 50 people detained and ensure that they are protected from torture or other ill-treatment, as well as from forcible return to Iran. 

Eight people are reported to have been killed and up to 400 injured after Iraqi forces attacked unarmed Iranian residents of Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, on Tuesday. Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi government to investigate the apparent excessive use of force by its security forces.

Hundreds of armed security forces used bulldozers to force their way into the camp at around 3pm local time. They used tear gas, water cannons and batons against unarmed residents who tried to stop them from entering the camp.

Video footage, seen by Amnesty International, clearly shows Iraqi forces beating people repeatedly on different parts of the body, including the head. Of the 400 people injured, 13 are said to be in a critical condition.

In addition to the numerous casualties, camp residents say that around 50 people were arrested. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

In the last few months, the Iraqi government has publicly stated that it wants to seize full control of Camp Ashraf. On Monday, government spokesperson 'Ali al-Dabbagh told an Iraqi satellite television channel that the government "will take over the responsibility of internal security affairs of Camp Ashraf". The authorities are reported to be planning to establish a police outpost inside the camp.

Amnesty International now calls on the Iraqi government to reveal the whereabouts of the 50 people detained and ensure that they are protected from torture or other ill-treatment, as well as from forcible return to Iran.

Around 3,500 residents of Camp Ashraf are members or supporters of the People’s Mojahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), an Iranian opposition organization whose members have been resident in Iraq for many years. Until recently the PMOI was listed as a "terrorist" organization by the European Union and other governments, but in most cases this designation has now been lifted on the grounds that the PMOI no longer advocates or engages in armed opposition to the government of Iran.

The US forces provided protection for the camp and its residents, who were designated as "protected persons" following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but this situation was discontinued following the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Iraqi governments, although the SOFA makes no reference to Camp Ashraf or its residents.

Iraq's government is denying the crimes.
HANIF emami 20 his mother &sister at his side.

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) – Iraqi Kurdish president Massud Barzani was comfortably re-elected to his post on Wednesday and pledged quick action on disputes with Baghdad that threaten to spiral into wider conflict.

His announcement that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will visit the autonomous region followed a trip to Kurdish capital Arbil by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, who have both highlighted the importance of reconciling Arab-Kurd relations.

"He (Maliki) will visit Kurdistan soon, to discuss and to solve all pending problems between us and Baghdad," Barzani told AFP.

An official in Maliki's office, who declined to be identified, said no date had yet been agreed. Meanwhile, Iraqi television reported that Maliki had congratulated Barzani by telephone.

Kurdish demands to expand the boundaries of their region in northern Iraq to include the Kirkuk oilfields and other districts have triggered an increasingly heated war of words with the Shiite-led central government.

The two sides have also yet to reach agreement on the status of the Kurdish peshmerga fighters, the distribution of oil revenues and the sharing of power.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gates dangled the prospect of a faster withdrawal of US troops as he urged Iraq's Arab and Kurdish leaders to settle their feuds.

He told reporters after a two-day visit to Iraq that there was "at least some chance for a modest acceleration" of plans for the drawdown of American troops this year.

Gates spoke after meeting Barzani in Arbil, following talks with Maliki in Baghdad on Tuesday.

"He reminded his hosts that we have all sacrificed too much in blood and treasure to see the gains of the last two years lost to political differences," his press secretary Geoff Morrell said after the Barzani talks.

Gates told the Kurdish leader that it is vital both sides move quickly before US forces leave Iraq.

Odierno said on Tuesday that tensions between Iraqi Kurds and Arabs over boundaries and oil revenues represent the biggest threat to the country's stability.

Barzani, whose victory was widely expected, garnered 69.57 percent of the vote, more than twice the total of his nearest challenger, London-based university professor Kamal Miraudly, who had 25.32 percent backing.

In simultaneous parliamentary polls, the joint Kurdistania list composed of the region's two main parties -- Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Jalal Talabani -- chalked up 57.34 percent.

The Goran ("Change" in Kurdish) list won 23.57 percent, while the leftist-Islamist Services and Reform grouping secured 12.8 percent.

The long-dominant KDP and PUK -- former rebel factions that fought successive regimes in Baghdad -- had been firm favourites to win.

But the results for the two dissident lists raise the prospect of Kurdistan's first credible opposition in the 111-seat parliament.

Goran, largely made up of PUK defectors, and Services and Reform have condemned what they say was vote rigging.

They pointed a finger at Barzani, with Goran leader Nusherwan Mustafa, a wealthy entrepreneur and former PUK deputy leader, calling on the international community to put pressure on the president and on the Iraqi electoral commission to "stop the forged results."

Nearly 80 percent of the region's 2.5 million voters took part in what poll officials trumpeted as a transparent election.

However, Hamdia al-Husseini, head of the electoral department at Iraq's election commission, said on Wednesday that 651 complaints had been filed, resulting in 135,000 votes not yet having been counted.

Seats in parliament will be allocated once the complaints have been dealt with.

In the aftermath of the election, one person was killed and 12 others wounded when KDP supporters allegedly fired guns and shouted slogans outside the Arbil headquarters of the Islamic Kurdish Union, part of Services and Reform.

We condemn all forms of attack by Iraqi forces in Camp Ashraf.

Khamenei's order to attack, run by Nouri al-Maliki handyman.

EastKurd:Five young Kurdish Sunday week of the Revolution Court in Sanandaj on charges moharebe(fight with god) were tried.

Five young Kurdish village resident Negl - Sanandaj named "Houshyar Ahmadi, Bahman Sa'idi, Jahanbakhsh Ahmadi, Sirwan Mahmodi and Saywan Rahimi " that the late winter of last year Negl village were arrested by security forces, dated Sunday July 26 a branch chief judge of the Revolution Court in Sanandaj Babai, were tried on charges moharebe. Human rights activists reported.

Moharebe charge for the citizens mentioned that can also lead to death sentencing is a wave of concern among family and close friends has created them. Although the charges against the prisoners is not known, but always mentioned in the charge, have emphasized.

I have to add, among the prisoners mentioned, Ali Ahmadi because diabetes and needs medication and treatment is. In health status is bad, the central prison of Sanandaj him not enough medication.

Ashraf attacked - Statement 18

NCRI - A number of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), who were severely wounded in an attack by Iraqi police on Tuesday and whose situation is deteriorating, are in need of urgent medical attention by eye surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopaedic surgeons and ophthalmologists. At the time of reporting on Tuesday night at 23:00 local time, doctors are not accessible and the Diyala province hospital has refused to send doctors in view of the unsafe situation on the roads. American forces have the capability to use helicopters to transfer the wounded to the American forces’ hospital in Balad, 20 km from Ashraf, in a matter of minutes. Some of the severely wounded, whom Ashraf residents are calling on American forces to transfer to the Balad hospital, include:

• Farzaneh Kamani, injury: cerebral traumatism
• Siavash Nezamolmolki, injury: cerebral traumatism
• Amir Kheiri, injury: cerebral traumatism
• Payman Kord-Amiri, injury: cerebral traumatism
• Farah Sheybani, injury: cerebral traumatism
• Zahra Ghasemi, injury: bleeding due to blow to the eye
• Bagher Hamidi, injury: blow to the eye and burns from boiling water
• Esmaeel Gorji, injury: blow to the eye and burns from boiling water
• Ali-Asghar Amouzgar, injury: blow to the eye and burns from boiling water
• Mansour Haddad, injury: hit by bullets in the abdomen and chest
• Ghasem Bahrami, injury: hit bullet in the abdomen
• Asghar Yaghoub, injury: hit by bullet in the abdomen as well as a broken hand
• Sirous Morsali, injury: hit by bullets, and crushed thigh

A former deputy from the now-defunct Democracy Party (DEP) was sentenced yesterday to one year and three months in prison by a Diyarbakır court.

Leyla Zana, a former deputy from the DEP, was convicted by the Diyarbakır 4th High Criminal Court for disseminating “propaganda for a terrorist organization.” Zana was initially charged over a speech she delivered at a UK university at an earlier time.

Zana did not attend yesterday's hearing, but her lawyers Cebbar Leygara, Meral Danış Beştaş and Hayrettin Güzel were present.

The lawyers demanded acquittal, arguing that Zana's speech was not propaganda.

The panel of judges initially sentenced Zana to one-and-a-half years under Article 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, but reduced the sentence to one year and three months based on the good behavior of the suspect during the trial in the courtroom. The prosecution had demanded up to five years in jail for Zana on charges of spreading propaganda for the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

todayszaman

IRBIL, Iraq – Friction between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq is the greatest threat to security in Iraq, American military commanders said, overtaking the old Sunni-Shiite divide that threatened to push Iraq into civil war three years ago.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is visiting the semiautonomous Kurdish region Wednesday during a brief trip to Iraq that has included meetings with political leaders who are feuding with Kurdish leaders over the borders of the oil-rich Kurdish lands.

Pages: 1 2

BAGHDAD – Iraqi forces raided a camp housing members of an Iranian opposition group on Tuesday, sharply escalating tensions that have been on the rise since the U.S. military turned over responsibility for the camp to the Iraqis.

Iraq's government has stepped up pressure to get the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran to leave the country as it seeks to protect its friendly relations with Tehran. But the United States insists members of the group, which has provided it with intelligence on Iran, should not be forcibly evicted.

The conflict reflects the delicate task the Iraqis face in balancing ties between the U.S. and Iran, and Tuesday's incident could be an embarrassment to the United States since it coincided with a visit to Baghdad by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The top U.S. general in Iraq said the raid followed a dispute over whether Iraq could establish a police station inside the camp, which is located north of Baghdad in Diyala province. Iraqi forces entered the camp "using non-lethal force" to set up the police station without the consent of the People's Mujahedeen, according to Gen. Ray Odierno.

The Iraqi government did not inform the United States in advance of its plans to raid Camp Ashraf, he added.

"We have had promises from the government of Iraq that they would deal with the MEK in a humane fashion," Odierno said, using the group's Farsi initials. "Using non-lethal force is a good sign."

However, a video provided by the People's Mujahedeen showed Iraqi forces using batons and water cannons against the residents gathered at the camp's gates. Group officials said dozens of people were wounded.

The authenticity of the video couldn't be independently verified.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh confirmed that Iraqi troops had entered the camp to set up a police station as part of new measures to establish security, but he denied they used violence against the residents.

"We do not intend the worse for them and we will not force them to depart against their wishes, but they should cooperate with the governmental procedures," he said.

Some 3,500 people are thought to live in the camp, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

The raid came a day after the Iraqi government, which has maintained a security cordon around the camp's perimeter, said it would assume complete control of the camp but promised to protect the people inside.

Shortly afterward, the group's leaders announced they were willing to return to Iran if they were guaranteed immunity from prosecution. They insisted on guarantees in writing from Iran, the United States, the United Nations and Iraq.

A legal counsel at the camp, Behzad Saffari, said the Iraqis also opened fire in Tuesday's melee. He claimed American troops witnessed the event but did not intervene except to take pictures.

"They opened fire on the crowd and threw tear gas," he said. Two people were injured by gunfire and 150 by beatings, he said.

The U.S. State Department reiterated Tuesday the Iraqi government has assured it that no member of the group in Iraq will be forcibly transferred to a country where they fear persecution.

"We continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure the residents of Camp Ashraf are treated in accordance with Iraq's written assurances that it will treat the residents there humanely," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington. "This is really a matter for the government of Iraq to handle. This is completely within their purview. But we are closely monitoring it."

Iran has pressed for years to close the camp, but the issue came to a head after Iraqi forces took over security for Camp Ashraf on Jan. 1, under an Iraqi-U.S. security pact.

Saddam Hussein allowed the Iranian exiles to establish their base in Diyala in 1986 to launch raids into Iran during the two neighbors' eight-year war. At the same time, many Iraqi Shiites fled to Shiite-dominated Iran and some of them fought on the Iranian side against Iraq.

U.S. troops disarmed the Iranian fighters and confined them to Camp Ashraf after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The U.S. military in Iraq later signed an agreement with the militia, promising members would be treated as "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Founded by Iranian leftists, the group opposed Iran's U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and took part in the 1979 revolution that brought a clerical regime to power, but its blend of Marxism and secular Islamism eventually pitted it against the mullahs in Iran.

Many of camp Ashraf's residents have citizenship in a Western country, including some in the United States.

The European Parliament urged Iraq in April not to deport members of the group to Iran because they face possible abuse or torture in Iran.

The group is considered a terrorist organization by Iran and the United States, but it was taken off the European Union's terror list earlier this year after it won a legal battle in EU courts.

___

Associated Press Writers Anne Gearan and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

Some 2000 Iraqi soldiers participated in attacks against Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf residents go on hunger strike

Three members of PMOI killed in Ashraf by Iraqi police

PMOI member Farzin Zamani shot dead by Iraqi forces

Iraqi police beats and wounds Camp Ashraf residents - Report to Amnesty International

PMOI members residing in Camp Ashraf continue resisting attack by Iraqi police

Iraqi police beats and wounds Camp Ashraf residents - 49 wounded, one in coma

Iraqi police beats and wounds Camp Ashraf residents

Iraqi police attacking water and power stations inside Camp Ashraf

Iraqi police using boiling water to attack Camp Ashraf residents

Iraqi police force beating Camp Ashraf residents

Iraqi police force intensify attack on Ashraf

Iraqi police force moving in Camp Ashraf by buldozers

Iraqi police force attacks Camp Ashraf

Iraqi anti-riot police in full gear lined up outside Ashraf Camp

Iranian Resistance calls on the US forces to stop illegal and forceful entry of the Iraqi police int

On Sunday, July 26, a memorial service was held at the Science and Technology University in Tehran for Kianoosh Asa, one of the students slain during the nationwide uprising of the Iranian people. He was a graduate student studying chemical engineering at the university.

The regime’s notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) as well as the agents of the Security Office (an MOIS branch at the university) consistently threatened student activists and their families against holding the ceremony. Despite such attempts to prevent the ceremony, students managed to honour the memory of their slain colleague. They chanted, “My martyred brother, I will reclaim your right,” “Student dies, but will not accept humiliation,” “It is a day of mourning, Iranian students are mourning today,” “Death to dictator,” “You killed the country’s youth, Allahu Akbar; You took thousands to their graves, Allahu Akbar.”

The ceremony was held while the regime's officials at the Science and Technology University had tried to stage a sham ceremony at the university mosque in order to prevent the students from organizing their own independent ceremony replete with heated chants.

NCRI

By Dan De Luce

AMMAN (AFP) — US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned on Monday that tough sanctions will follow if Tehran fails to respond to Washington's offers of dialogue on its controversial nuclear programme.

"What is clear is if the engagement process is not successful, the United States is prepared to press for significant additional sanctions that would be non-incremental," Gates said in the Jordanian capital on a Middle East tour.

He added that in such an event Washington would "try to get international support for a much tougher position."

Iran is already subject to three sets of UN sanctions following its refusal to heed repeated ultimatums from the Security Council to halt sensitive nuclear work.

Gates said Washington's preferred option remained a negotiated resolution of Western suspicions that Iran's civilian nuclear programme is cover for a weapons drive, something that Tehran strongly denies.

"Our hope still remains that Iran will respond to the president's outstretched hand in a positive way but we will see," he said.

Gates arrived in Jordan from Israel whose new leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made plain he regards Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes as the biggest threat in his country's 60-year history.

He said Netanyahu indicated Israel was willing to wait to see the results of US diplomacy towards Iran, as long as the approach was not open-ended.

"I have every sense the Israeli government is prepared to let our strategy play out" through a combination of diplomacy and economic pressure," he said.

At a news conference in Jerusalem earlier with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak, Gates said Washington is hoping for a response from Tehran by September to overtures on its nuclear drive.

"The president is certainly anticipating or hoping for some kind of a response this fall, perhaps by the time of the UN General Assembly (in September)," Gates said.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana warned that the current political turmoil in Iran meant it was unlikely talks on the nuclear programme would start up again soon.

The six major powers involved in the talks -- the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany -- called in April for a resumption of nuclear negotiations with Iran, which had stalled in September.

But Solana said: "I don't think at this time there is going to be a reply to the offer made late April.

"I don't expect a response rapidly, I don't see it until the situation settles," he said.

In April, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran would present a new package to the world powers in a bid to solve various contentious issues, including its sensitive nuclear work.

Iran reiterated on Monday it has no plans to build nuclear weapons and said it was still preparing the package.

"We are a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and it is our right to have peaceful nuclear activities. Nuclear weapons have no place in our defence structure," foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told reporters.

Iran has been in crisis since Ahmadinejad's bitterly disputed re-election in a June 12 poll triggered the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama appealed to fellow Security Council permanent member China to work with the United States on resolving concerns over Iran's nuclear programme.

"Make no mistake: the more nations acquire these weapons, the more likely it is that they will be used," he said at the opening of a two-day US-China forum.

He said the United States and China needed to "be united in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and urging the Islamic republic to live up to its international obligations."

During Gates's talks in Jerusalem, Israel made clear its own intense concern over Iranian ambitions.

"Israel remains in its basic position that no options should be removed from the table, despite the fact that at this stage a priority should be given still to diplomacy and sanctions," the Israeli defence minister said.

Israel has the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal but Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that any move by Iran to match it would be the greatest threat to the Jewish state in its 60-year history.

 

By Farhad Pouladi

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on Monday grappling with a fresh political crisis that has weakened his standing even among hardline supporters as he prepares to unveil a new government.

Ahmadinejad has come under fire over the sacking of his intelligence minister on Sunday and was dealt another blow when his culture minister quit over what he said was a weakened government.

Iran has been in turmoil since Ahmadinejad's bitterly disputed re-election in a June 12 presidential poll triggered a wave of mass public protests and the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The post-election chaos has also exposed deep divisions within the ruling elite in the Islamic republic and led to open criticism of not only Ahmadinejad but also supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"A chaotic day for the government," thundered the front-page headline of the conservative Tehran Emrouz newspaper after the weekend cabinet drama.

The Mehr news agency quoted an "informed source" as saying Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie was sacked following a "verbal quarrel" with Ahmadinejad at a cabinet meeting over his controversial pick for first vice president.

Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie finally stepped down as first vice president on Saturday after the all-powerful Khamenei intervened in the crisis and personally ordered Ahmadinejad to dismiss him.

Ejeie's dismissal has set off a chorus of criticism even among the conservative wing in Iran just days before Ahmadinejad is to be sworn in again on August 5 and then set about forming a new cabinet.

MP Ali Motahari urged Ahmadinejad to "control his nerves."

"It looks as if he is intentionally bringing tension to the country. If the removal of the minister is because of this (objections to Rahim Mashaie's appointment) it is an ugly act because then it becomes a personal matter and has nothing to do with the country's interests."

The appointment of Mashaie, who last year provoked controversy by saying Iran was a "friend of the Israeli people," had angered hardliners even in Ahmadinejad's own camp.

"Dismissal -- the consequence of objecting to Ahmadinejad," was the headline in the hardline Khabar newspaper.

MP Mousalreza Servati said 200 MPs had written to Ahmadinejad asking him to "correct his behaviour so that he follows the leader's opinion seriously."

In another humiliating blow to Ahmadinejad even before his new government takes office, Culture Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi quit on Sunday.

"Unfortunately due to the recent events which shows the esteemed government's weakness, I will no longer consider myself the minister of culture and will not show up at the ministry as of tomorrow," Saffar-Harandi said in his resignation letter.

The departure of the ministers has compounded Ahmadinejad's woes, with some suggestions he might need to seek a new vote of confidence in his present cabinet, even though his new line-up is likely to be announced any time after August 5.

Iran's constitution stipulates that if half of the 21-member cabinet is changed during its four-year term, a new vote of confidence is required. Ahmadinejad has changed 10 ministers, including Ejeie, in his current mandate.

"This action was suicidal," lawmaker Heshmatollah Fellahatpishe said of Mohseni Ejeie's dismissal, while another MP Mousa Ghorbani branded the cabinet changes "illogical."

MP Mohammad Reza Malikshahi said a new vote of confidence would be required only if Ahmadinejad accepts Saffar-Harandi's resignation.

But Mohammad Jafar Mohammadzadeh, communications director at Ahmadinejad's office, said the president had rejected Saffar-Harandi's resignation and "the government does not need to secure a vote of confidence."

In a new move to try to contain the crisis, powerful cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani denied he was locked in a power struggle with Khamenei.

Rafsanjani, the head of Iran's main political arbitration body and the council which oversees the work of the supreme leader, has accused the regime of losing the trust of the people over the election.

But on Sunday he said: "The propaganda by the foreign media who try to suggest there is a power struggle at the top level of the regime is unfair injustice to the Islamic revolution."

EastKurd:A few days ago  four Turkish soldiers attacked the home city of Amed, soldiers inside the house  the mother in family sex abuse.
Sex rape girls the Kurdish people is angry. Turkish Prime Minister long ago ordered the Kurdish people should hardly be suppressed.
Prime Minister ordered the way is easy for soldiers to children, youth, old to rape.
Turkish security forces in prisons for women political sex is rape. Turks are racist people who think they should only be the head of the world. They are denial, millions of Kurdish.

Two men who were allegedly members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) were found dead on Sunday in the Beytüşşebap district of the southeastern province of Şırnak.

The two men were found dead around Günyüzü village near the car that they had been driving. The men were apparently hit on the head with stones and shot in the chest. The police reported that the victims were Necman Ölmez, 35, and Ferhat Ediş, 35.

The bodies were taken to Beytüşşebap State Hospital for autopsies, and the Beytüşşebap Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into the incident. While news reporters claimed the victims were members of the DTP, no official statement was released concerning the issue.

todayszaman.com

EastKurd: Professor Hassan Amini one prominent religious Kurdistan, the scholars participate in the ceremony had gone to Zahedan, when returning to the airport was arrested in Zahedan.

Mr. Amini is Professor prominent religious in Kurdistan.

Plainclothes transferred him to an unknown location.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked four ministers just days before he is due to announce his new cabinet line-up, several local news agencies reported on Sunday.

Those sacked are Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi, Labour and Social Affairs Minister Mohammad Jahromi, Health Minister Kamran Baqeri Lankarani and Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie, the agencies said.

Ejeie was sacked "following a verbal quarrel between the intelligence minister and the president in Wednesday's cabinet meeting over the appointment of (Esfandiar Rahim) Mashaie," the Mehr news agency quoted an informed unnamed source as saying.

The Mehr agency also reported the sacking of the other three ministers.

Rahim Mashaie stepped down as first vice president on Saturday after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Ahmadinejad his decision to appoint his controversial aide as his new deputy would cause "division and frustration."

The sacking of the Saffar-Harandi, Ejeie and Jahromi was reported by state owned English language television station Press TV.

The Fars news agency too reported the sacking of Saffar-Harandi saying it came just days after the minister had hosted an official farewell function with his staffers.

Ahmadinejad was re-elected president last month but opposition leaders claim the vote was rigged and say they will refuse to recognise his new government, which is due to be appointed by next month.

Saffar-Harandi was editor-in-chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper before being appointed as culture minister by Ahmadinejad.

Agencies also said that Mohammad-Ali Khajehpiri has been appointed caretaker minister in the place of Saffar-Harandi.

Khajehpiri is director of the ministry's Koran Activities Centre, Fars said.

"This decree has been given to me newly and I will serve in this position (caretaker) until new minister of culture and guidance is appointed," Khajehpiri told the ISNA news agency.
AFP

EastKurd:Mr. "H Aqapouri" in his home was arrested by security forces. he transferred to Central Prison in Boukan.

last week a seamster also was arrested.
Regime's extensive arrests in Kurdistan has started.

from Monday July 13, hundreds have been arrested in Kurdistan.
detained in poor conditions and under torture.

An Iranian student arrested in protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election has died in jail, a newspaper said on Sunday, the second such death reported in recent days. Skip related content

Amir Javadifar, "a student of industrial management in Qazvin (city) died in prison," the reformist Etemad newspaper said, adding that his family has been asked to come for the body Sunday morning.

Etemad said Javadifar had been arrested in July 9 protests and had injuries in his arm and nose but it did not elaborate on the cause of death.

Newspapers reported on Saturday that Mohsen Ruholamini, 25, who had also been arrested on July 9 when thousands of protesters took to the streets on the anniversary of a bloody student uprising in 1999, also died in custody.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians poured into Tehran streets after the disputed June 12 re-election of Ahmadinejad to protest their "stolen votes" before a crackdown by security forces.

Iranian official reports say at least 20 people died and more than 1,000 were arrested in the protests. Dozens of reformist leaders, journalists and human rights activists have also been jailed in the wake of the disputed election.

Iran's opposition leaders have warned against mistreatment of the detainees and called for their unconditional release.
AFP

Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have applied for interior ministry permission to hold a mourning ceremony for demonstrators killed in protests over last month's election, the ISNA news agency said on Sunday.
"We request permission to hold a ceremony to commemorate the 40th day after the deaths of our citizens who lost their lives following the start of the saddening events," the two leaders said in a letter to Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli.

The report did not say when the mourning ceremony was to be held, but said the organisers planned to hold it in central Tehran's Grand Mosalla, an open prayer venue where religious ceremonies are often held.

"The ceremony will have no speeches. It will consist only of recitals from the Koran and participants will be asked to pay their respects in silence," the letter carried by ISNA said.

Iran witnessed massive street protests over the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Official reports said at least 20 people were killed and scores wounded.
AFP

A new dissident party in Iraqi Kurdistan said Sunday it won most votes in the region's second city in weekend elections, raising the prospect of a strong opposition in parliament for the first time.

Shwan Mohammed

The success of the Goran (Change) list in Sulaimaniyah threatens the long domination of Iraqi Kurdish politics by the two main former rebel factions -- the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of regional president Massud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

The party said in a statement on its website that it had won the most votes in Sulaimaniyah, long a PUK stronghold, after a preliminary count, a claim confirmed by a senior KDP source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We have won the city and the province of Sulaimaniyah," the Goran statement said.

The KDP source said the KDP-PUK list won 59 percent of votes across the region, equating to around 55 seats in the regional assembly.

In the autonomous Kurdish region's other two provinces of Arbil and Dohuk, party representatives at the count said the KDP-PUK joint list was ahead, although Goran was coming second in Arbil province.

After the preliminary count in the regional capital Arbil, ballots are to be sent to Baghdad for an official tally and full results are not expected for several days.

Victory for Goran in Sulaimaniyah province would mean the list could secure as many as 30 seats in Kurdistan's 111-seat parliament, making it the first credible opposition to KDP-PUK dominance that the region has seen.

The KDP-PUK joint list held 78 seats in the outgoing parliament elected in 2005.

Goran is led by Nusherwan Mustafa, a wealthy entrepreneur and former deputy leader of the PUK.

Nearly 80 percent of the region's voters turned out in what election officials trumpeted as a transparent poll.

No opinion polls were carried out in the run-up to Saturday's election, which had made the outcome difficult to predict.

Seats in the regional parliament are awarded by a form of proportional representation.

Kurds exhibited increasing concern over corruption through the course of the campaign, with many voicing support for change after decades of dominance by the two main parties.

Also looming over the election were disputes with Baghdad over territory and oil, which diplomats and analysts have warned could lead to renewed conflict.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki described the election as "another step in building a democratic Iraq" and and "an opportunity to resolve all problems".

Barzani told reporters: "We hope that these elections will be a first step to solving issues with Baghdad."

But he also insisted: "I will work to get back the disputed areas."

He was referring to longstanding Kurdish demands to incorporate the oil province of Kirkuk and historically Kurdish-majority parts of three other provinces into their autonomous region.

The Kurdish claims are strongly opposed by Arab and other non-Kurdish populations of the disputed areas and have led to mounting friction with Baghdad.

On June 1, the Kurdish region began exporting oil for the first time, triggering another row with Baghdad, which disputes its right to sign contracts without central government approval.

In Washington on Thursday, Maliki acknowledged that the disputes with the Kurds were among "the most dangerous issues" facing his government, but said he expects to resolve the standoff.

AFP

EastKurd:Islamic Republic regime yesterday in zones of Orumieh fifty people arrested. Predominantly Kurdish areas in the city inspection is. Regime the Kurdish people in the streets at night with inspections. Kurds and Turks people in Orumiyeh living. Government, the Kurdish persecution is more.

People arrested has been transferred to unknown location.
Two days ago the government had killed the father and son 9 years old.
They were innocent and killed, their only sin was being Kurdish.
The Iranian government, with the slightest excuse killed Kurdish.

EastKurd: Demonstrations opposite the Embassy of Islamic Republic of Iran in the uk and Dozens of countries.

EastKurd:Iran hanged on Saturday two members of a Sunni rebel group blamed for unrest in southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province and a drug trafficker, the state news agency IRNA reported.

The men hanged in a prison in the city of Zahedan were identified as Ayoub Rigi and Masoud Gomshad Zehi convicted of "membership and effective activity in the terrorist group of Abdolmalek Rigi," IRNA said.

The drug trafficker hanged in the same prison was identified as Ahmad Eshagh Zehi.

The Sunni insurgent group Jundallah headed by Rigi has claimed repeated attacks against Iranian government targets in Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan and of which Zahedan is the capital.

In the latest major strike, Jundallah claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a Shiite mosque in Zahedan in May that killed 25 people, saying it was a revenge attack for the hanging of members of the Baluch minority.

In mid-July Iran hanged 13 rebels from the group in a mass prison execution.

Iraqis headed to the polls Saturday in the country's self-ruled Kurdish north, a region mired in a bitter dispute with Baghdad over oil and land that threatens Iraq's stability.

The election for the region's president and 111-seat parliament will test a political establishment that has kept the semiautonomous region relatively safe but faces allegations of corruption.

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EastKurd:At least 17 people were killed when a passenger plane caught fire during its landing in northeastern Iran on Friday, 17 people have been killed and nineteen injured.

The plane from Iran's Aria Air airline with 153 passengers on board caught fire and skidded into walls near the runway during its landing in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad.

a few days ago  170 people were killed. Airlines is the second accident in less than 10 days. iran's air fleet is worn, they wear old Russian aircraft use.

A monthly magazine in print and broadcast is in Mahabad  owned in the prison.

Plainclothes, yesterday attacked the office gazetteer "Ahmad Bahri" arrested.

Last week dozens of kurds people were arrested in Kurdistan.
a few days ago of journalist "Hassan Shaykh aqaie" was arrested.

arrests for twentieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. qasemlou.
anniversary of the assassination of Dr. qasemlou  general strike was in Kurdistan. prisoner are tortured hardly.

EastKurd:Mercenaries regime in the city of Mahabad, with the Peugeot, carline kill, they wanted carline breathless to leave the street, where young sixteen years of fighting with the plainclothes.

Mercenaries regime by knife killing young Kurdish.

Thursday Kurdish young has lost their lives in the hospital. young Kurdish name of Arman Resalat.

Forces of the Islamic Republic killing poor Kurdish people. unjust forces Kill young and old, children, adolescents they do not have mercy. Kill all.
Young Kurdish because carline defense has lost their lives.

from 1979 untill now the British government supports the Islamic Republic. British Prime Minister in the media supports the Iranian people,But the secret supports mullahs government.This is shameful for the British nation because such a deceitful government.
freedom4persia.blogspot

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – Soldiers and the sick cast early votes Thursday ahead of weekend elections that will determine the leadership of Iraq's Kurdish region, which is locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with the central government over oil-rich land.

A coalition of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, two parties that have dominated the self-ruled region for decades, faces a challenge from new opposition alliances that seek to capitalize on complaints about authoritarian conduct and alleged corruption.

About 2.5 million eligible voters in the region's three northern provinces — Irbil, Dahuk and Sulaimaniyah — will on Saturday elect their 111-seat parliament and next president. Prison inmates, sick people in hospitals and members of the Kurdish security forces known as "peshmerga" were among those allowed to vote early.

"I have the right to vote, to feel no different from anyone outside the prison," said Nisreen Muhammad, an inmate who voted in a Sulaimaniyah prison. "We all have the same right."

Some Kurds voted in polling stations in cities outside their region. At a voting center in Baghdad, one Kurdish military official joyfully waved a finger stained with the purple ink used to mark ballot papers.

The Kurds had hoped to simultaneously hold on Saturday a referendum on a proposed constitution, but national authorities scuttled that plan. The draft constitution lays claim to disputed areas outside the three Kurdish provinces, and Iraqi Arabs view it as an effort to expand Kurdish authority.

Tension between Kurds and Arabs, particularly around the oil-rich northern region of Kirkuk, is considered a major threat to Iraqi stability despite big security gains after years of war.

In Washington on Wednesday, President Barack Obama pressed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to be more flexible about sharing power and allowing provincial governments a greater role in decision-making. Al-Maliki, who has been accused of trying to gain political capital by playing up sectarian divisions, said his Shiite-led government would work hard to unite Iraq.

Iraq's parliament has not yet produced a law outlining how Iraq's oil wealth should be divided among the country's religious and ethnic groups, and Kurds seek to sign oil deals with foreign companies without approval from Baghdad.

Much of the campaign rhetoric in the Kurdish region has highlighted Kurdish nationalism, a theme with strong emotional appeal. Still, Kurdish leaders say they are committed to working within a unified Iraq, and recognize that any push for independence could alienate neighboring Iran, Syria and Turkey, which worry about their own Kurdish minorities.

Campaigning ended on Wednesday with a vehicle procession by thousands of supporters of regional President Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, who is favored to win another term, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

However, Nosherwan Mustafa, a former top official in Talabani's party, has emerged as a popular reformist candidate with a group called "Change." Thousands of his supporters held a rally near his headquarters on the last day of campaigning.

The election features a proportional representation system in which voters select a party's list of candidates for parliament rather than individuals. Eleven seats are allotted to minorities, including five Turkmen, five Christians and one Armenian.

The Kurds separated from the rest of Iraq after rising up against Saddam in 1991, aided by a U.S.-British no-fly zone that helped keep the dictator's armed forces at bay.

 

Associated Press writer Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this

The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi says her 62-year-old brother was among those detained after last month's disputed election in what she called a futile attempt to pressure her husband and herself.
Zahra Rahnavard's comments, in an interview published by a pro-reform Iranian news agency Thursday, were the latest in a series of defiant statements by Mousavi and his allies, who insist the June 12 presidential poll was rigged.

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Amnesty International UK
IRAN Global Day of Action: 25 July 2009

A global day of action for Iran is being organised by a coalition of civil society activists and concerned citizens to demand respect for the human rights of the Iranian people and to demonstrate worldwide solidarity with the civil rights movement in Iran.
In the UK, people will be meeting outside the Iranian embassy in London but actions are also due to be taking place across the world in solidarity with the Iranian people.

Amnesty International is lending its support to the event and members of the International Secretariat will be attending. If you are interested in taking part the details are as follows:

When: Saturday 25th July 2009, 1pm - 4pm
Where: Outside the Iranian embassy, 16 Princes Gate, London, SW7 1PT (Nearest tube stations: Knightsbridge (Piccadilly line) and South Kensington (circle, district and Piccadilly lines)
Other information: Anyone attending has been asked to wear BLACK rather than any other colour .
iranianwomenuk.blogspot.com

Arab Human Rights Organizations’ Statement
On the International Day of Solidarity with the Iranian People.

We, the undersigned human rights organizations and advocates from the Arab region, express our utter condemnation of all forms of brutal repression undertaken by the Iranian authorities against large masses of the Iranian people involved in peaceful demonstrations and protests against the course and outcome of the Iranian presidential elections.

Pages: 1 2

 

To support the Iranian people, these all together in New York alongside people inside Iran.

LONDON (AFP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown voiced support for protestors' rights in Iran on Wednesday, and reiterated the arrest of some of Britain's embassy staff in Tehran was "not unacceptable."

Speaking three days after Iran released on bail the last of nine arrested British embassy staff, he voiced concern at the clampdown by Iran after the hotly disputed June 12 presidential election.

"We have to be concerned if individual rights of citizens are being affected," he told reporters.

Referring to the embassy staff arrests and to the expulsion of two British diplomats last month, he said: "We have had to make it absolutely clear to the Iranian regime that this is not acceptable."

The re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered a wave of street protests in the Islamic Republic, which died down after a crackdown by security forces.

Then last Friday defiant opposition supporters held fresh protests in Tehran, after powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for detainees held in a post-election crackdown to be freed.

Brown underlined the importance of basic rights including freedom of expression.

"We've ... had to make it clear that we respect the rights of freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. And it's important that the world tells Iran that that is how we feel. And that is exactly what we've done," he added.

Iran has repeatedly accused the West, and Britain in particular, of stoking unrest following the disputed June election. Tehran expelled two British diplomats last month, triggering tit-for-tat expulsions by London.

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stuck by his controversial appointment for a key top deputy on Wednesday in an unusual defiance of Iran's supreme leader who reportedly ordered the man's removal. His move deepens the dispute among the country's hard-line leadership.

Ahmadinejad's defiance will likely outrage his fellow conservatives and could cause an outright rift between him and his close ally Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The wrangling within the hard-liners' camp comes as Khamenei is trying to keep them all together in the face of a strong opposition challenge after the disputed June 12 presidential election. Khamenei's order for the removal of Esfandiar Rahim Mashai was a stinging humiliation for Ahmadinejad — seen as the leader's protege — but Khamenei appeared to judge it necessary to preserve hard-line support.

A chorus of ultra-conservative clerics and politicians denounced Mashai since Ahmadinejad announced him as his choice for first vice president last week.

Mashai is a relative by marriage to Ahmadinejad — his daughter is married to the president's son. Mashai angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were "friends of all people in the world — even Israelis." He was serving as vice president in charge of tourism and cultural heritage at the time.

Iran has 12 vice presidents, but the first vice president is the most important because he succeeds the president if he dies, is incapacitated, steps down or is removed. The first vice president also leads Cabinet meetings in the absence of the president.

After days of controversy, Khamenei ruled. "The view of the exalted leader on the removal of Mashai from the post of vice president has been given to Ahmadinejad in writing," the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Wednesday.

But later Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said he wanted time to explain his appointment and fervently defended Mashai

"There is a need for time and another opportunity to fully explain my real feelings and assessment about Mr. Mashai," Ahmadinejad said in a speech at a farewell ceremony for Mashai at the tourism organization he headed in his previous vice presidency post.

"One of virtues and glories God has bestowed to me in life was to get aquainted with this great, honest and pious man," Ahmadinejad said, according to the state news agency IRNA. "Some are questioning why am I so interested in Mr. Mashai and I respond that it is for a thousand reasons. One is that when one sits and talks with him, you feel you are talking to yourself, you feel no distance. His heart is clear like mirror."

As supreme leader, Khamenei has ultimate say in state affairs. But his order for Mashai's removal was an unprecedented extension of his powers. The supreme leader is believed often to informally vet top government appointments behind the scenes, but he does not have a formal role in approving them or an official power to remove them. Even under Iran's pro-reform government from 1997-2005, which Khamenei is believed to have opposed, he never overtly ousted any of its officials.

The deputy speaker of the parliament, Mohammad Hasan Aboutorabi-Fard said late Tuesday that Mashai's dismissal was a decision by the system of ruling clerics, which stands above the elected government and is headed by Khamenei.

"Removing Mashai from key posts and the position of vice president is a strategic decision of the system ... Dismissal or resignation of Mashai needs to be announced by the president without any delay," he said, according to the semiofficial ISNA news.

In his first term, Ahmadinejad had several tussles with his own hard-line camp over appointments, some of whom were seen as not qualified for their posts. In most cases, Khamenei stayed on the sidelines of those disputes.

Last year, the supreme leader rebuked Mashai, calling his Israel comments "illogical," but he also demanded that the flap over the comments be put the rest and expressed support for Ahmadinejad. Mashai remained in his position.

Mashai also angered many of Iran's top clerics in 2007 when he attended a ceremony in Turkey where women performed a traditional dance. Conservative interpretations of Islam prohibit women from dancing.

He ran into trouble again in 2008 when he hosted a ceremony in Tehran in which several women played tambourines and another one carried the Quran to a podium to recite verses from the Muslim holy book.

By Lachlan Carmichael

PHUKET (AFP) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday stirred Israeli fears that Washington would accept a nuclear armed Iran when she raised the idea of a US "defence umbrella" for Gulf allies.

However, Clinton, during a visit to Thailand for an Asian security conference, said later that she was not announcing a new policy and simply wanted to turn Iran away from pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Clinton told Thai television in Bangkok that President Barack Obama's administration was still open to engage Iran in talks about its nuclear programme but warned that Tehran would not be safer if it obtains a bomb.

"We will still hold the door open" to talks over its nuclear program Clinton said.

"But we also have made it clear that we will take action, as I've said time and time again, crippling action, working to upgrade the defence of our partners in the region," she said.

Her previous references to "crippling action" have referred to sanctions.

"We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the US extends a defence umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it is unlikely Iran will be any stronger or safer," Clinton said.

"They won't be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon."

In Jerusalem, Israeli Intelligence Services Minister Dan Meridor criticised her remarks.

"I heard without enthusiasm the American declarations according to which the United States will defend their allies in the event that Iran uses nuclear weapons, as if they were already resigned to such a possibility," he said.

"This is a mistake," Meridor said. "We cannot act now by assuming that Iran will be able to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, but to prevent such a possibility."

Clinton made her initial comments during a recording for a Thai television show before heading to Asia's largest security forum in the Thai resort island of Phuket, where talks were expected to focus on possible nuclear links between North Korea and Myanmar.

Speaking at a press conference in Phuket later, Clinton suggested her remarks were misunderstood.

"I'm not suggesting a new policy. In fact we all believe that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable, and I've said that many times," she said.

"I'm simply pointing out that Iran needs to understand that it's pursuit of nuclear weapons will not advance its security or achieve its goals of enhancing its power regionally and globally," she said.

"The focus that Iran must have is that it faces the prospect -- if it pursues nuclear weapons -- of sparking an arms race in the region," she said.

"That should affect a calculation of what Iran intends to do and what it believes is in its national security interest because it may render Iran less secure, not more secure," she said.

US lawmakers on Monday stepped up pressure on Obama to ready tough new economic sanctions on Iran in the event Tehran fails to freeze its uranium enrichment programme by late 2009.

Iran, labouring under UN sanctions for its defiance, has rejected the West's charges that it seeks nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program.

Obama has said he wants a diplomatic solution to the standoff but has repeatedly warned that he has not ruled out the use of force.

EastKurd:Brutal regime forces, destroyed in the poor person's home.

Orumiyeh: the regime's forces were informed that members of PJAK are home, but they attacked the home without warning.
Moment of the first attack on the family's father, and son 9 years old were killed.

Neighbors to see crime scene, and were angry with the fighting forces in the regime. Three guards were injured. Fars News Agency reported this news was false. People are angry,Orumiyeh mode of military rule.

EastKurd:shaker bagi resident and citizen of Turkish Kurdistan alleged membership in a Kurdish party opposed to thirty years in prison and exile and the sentence confirmed by the appeals court was to tender.

shaker bagi from two years ago to head the Central Prison of Sanandaj being present and no meeting with his family.
hrok

The Daily Mirror

More than 300 people have died in the Iranian riots which have swept the country since June, MPs were told yesterday.

A report said thousands more had been injured and 10,000 arrested.

Labour peer Lord Corbett said: "If we allow these people to die without being noticed we will lose a huge opportunity for change."

The riots followed claims last month's Iranian elections were rigged.

Protests are continuing in Tehran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the government.

Iran Human Rights: Four men were hanged in the prison of Qom, south of Tehran, reported the government newspaper "Iran", today.

The men were identified as Reza, Gholamhossein, Reza and Hossein, and were convicted of sexualt assault of a girl identified as "Narges" in 2007, said the report.

The report didn’t say when exactly the hanging took place. But it is believed that the men were hanged yesterday July 20.

Five other young men were executed in relation with the same case in May 2008.

All together 9 people have been hanged convicted of murder and sexual assault of Narges.

"Ali", the only surviving person in this case is waiting for the final verdict.

With a projected capacity of about 40,000 barrels a day, the new oil refinery inaugurated Saturday by the Kurdish regional government of northern Iraq on Saturday is modest even by the standards of Iraq's dilapidated oil industry. But its significance shouldn't be underestimated: In Kurdish minds, the region's ability to refine the oil it pumps is a vital step towards deepening its autonomy from the Arab-majority remainder of Iraq. (Read "The Reasons Behind Big Oil Declining Iraq's Riches.")

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Important day on Kurdish, July 25
Kurdish people in northern Iraq or southern Kurdistan, after 18 years freedom participate in the elections.

Gorran is one of the list. Means to change.

People can change to a better life. This is a regional election. we can change All together.

 

57  Change on the way

EastKurd

Security forces and pro-government militiamen clamped down in the Iranian capital to prevent protests Tuesday as the country's police chief warned his forces would take a tough line if the opposition tries to take to the street.

Plainclothes Basiji militiamen hit passers-by with batons on a crowded main Tehran street to ensure they wouldn't gather, according to video from the site posted on line. A young woman in a headscarf can be seen arguing with the Basijis, who shove her.

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EastKurd:Confiscated goods, and draw fire machines Sardasht region villages by the regime forces.

six car full of goods confiscated , the confiscation or draw fire.
three cars were set on fire goods confiscated the driver was beaten.

other three cars were confiscated. After this the people fighting in the village with the criminal regime forces.

The Iranian government, the Kurdish most basic human rights denied.
Does not work for the people in Kurdistan, not any factory.

Religious discrimination or because Kurdish, is deprived of all services.

Because to be alive, to the border to work, some people have been injured or killed in mine explosion.

A top Iranian hardliner on Tuesday denounced a call by leading reformists for a referendum to resolve the nation's deepening political crisis, branding it a Western plot to trigger more "havoc" in the Islamic republic.

The Association of Combatant Clerics, a reformist clerical group led by former president Mohammad Khatami, on Monday urged a referendum to resolve the turmoil gripping Iran since the June 12 disputed presidential election.

"They have suggested a yet another Western plot to raise havoc by proposing a referendum," said Hossein Shariatmadari, managing director of the hardline newspaper Kayhan who is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The main idea of this plan is to trigger tension. Their proposal is illegal amd impractical," Shariatmadari wrote.

He also said that if the referendum did take place, the result would be "more crushing" for the reformists than the presidential poll which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected by a landslide.

Khatami's group voiced concern that "public confidence in the system has been damaged" by the election and its aftermath, which exposed deep divisions among Iran's elite in the worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Khatami himself was a strong supporter Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who lost to Ahmadinejad in a vote he charged was marred by widespread fraud.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in the immediate aftermath of the vote but at least 20 people were killed in the ensuing violence and hundreds of protesters and reformists arrested by the regime.
AFP

DEATH TO DICTATOR

EastKurd:UK government policy for self filthy with Iran, our most basic human rights denied.

British Home Office, oppression to kurdish asylum sekeer. Refugee Action, Refugee Council, Refugee Center office for all commercial National Asylum Support Service (NASS).

Kurdish asylum is extremely suppressed. Can not eat, can not work, not outdoors, not medical services,not to study and more. ...... Where is democracy? Where is human rights? British rule by brutal mercenaries is our mental torture.

Old dictatorship of the Islamic Republic, but the UK government has advanced and modern dictatorship. Physical torture in Iran but in England Mental torture.

Images Archive of asylum

EastKurd:Iranian forces toward a village shooting in the border of Turkey.

Three people were injured shooting of Iranian forces.

They were working on agricultural land. the Iranian government not to explain now.

Governments of Turkey and Iran are happy being killed Kurdish

EastKurd:Human rights activists in Iran, the Kurdish cities of suicide is more.
Man,names Sadiq Sabori from the village of "kodare" functions Kamyaran economic reasons and family problems with bullets fired to his head will end his life.

Unfortunately, because of his hunting gun suicides for the use of his face had been completely dismantled and non-identification is allowed.
Is reminded that due to social, economic, political Kurdish regions, statistics on suicides in these regions significantly increases .

process but unfortunately suicides among men has increased more.
Photo Archive

TEHRAN - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned senior officials on Monday not to help Tehran's enemies after two former presidents expressed defiant opposition to the result of June's disputed presidential poll.

Clashes erupted between police and reformist protesters for the first time in weeks in Tehran on Friday after former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani declared the Islamic Republic in crisis and said there were doubts about the election result.

That statement was a clear challenge to the authority of Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure whose endorsement of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory was meant to be the final word on the fairness of the June 12 poll.

Reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, on Monday weighed in, calling for a referendum on the legitimacy of the government and defeated reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi called for the release of hundreds arrested in widespread June street protests against the election result.

"Elites should know that any talk, action or analysis that helps (the enemy) is a move against the nation. We should be very careful," Khamenei said in a speech to Iranian officials in a clear reference to recent statements questioning the poll.

"People regard with hate anyone, in any position, who wants to move society towards insecurity," Khamenei said. "There are things that should not be said. If we say them, we have moved against the nation. This is now a test for the elites and failing in this test . . . means falling down."

Mousavi said it was wrong to accuse those detained in the protests of being linked to plots by foreign powers. It was unclear whether he made the comment in response to Khamenei's remarks.

Khamenei normally mediates above the political fray, but backed Ahmadinejad's victory soon after the poll while reformists cried foul and said the result was rigged.

Rafsanjani, a veteran insider who heads a body that can in theory dismiss the supreme leader, is now fighting for political survival because Khamenei ignored pleas to rein in Ahmadinejad after he accused the former president of corruption.

On top of the June protests, the biggest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the public battle within Iran's clerical establishment poses an unprecedented challenge to the authority of Khamenei who came to power in 1989.

Reformers, aware of the rising expectations of a population mostly born since the revolution, argue the Islamic Republic must become more open and accountable to its people to survive.

"The only way out of the current situation is to hold a referendum," websites on Monday quoted Khatami as saying.

"People should be asked whether they are happy with the current situation . . . If the vast majority of people are happy with the current situation, we will accept it as well."

Hardliners condemned Rafsanjani's Friday sermon. One cleric said Iran's government drew its legitimacy from "almighty God."

The election dispute has further strained ties between Iran and the West, already at odds over Tehran's nuclear program, with Western powers criticizing the crackdown. Iran's government accused them of plotting the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

At least 20 people died in the violence before riot police and Islamic militiamen suppressed the daily June protests and, rights groups say, arrested hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers.

Defeated reformist presidential candidate Mousavi said mass arrests would not solve the dispute.

"Let people freely express their protests and ideas," Mousavi was quoted as saying by the reformist Mosharekat website. "Our dear ones in prison have no access to lawyers and are under pressure to make confessions."

Mousavi was critical about linking those detained with plots by foreign countries. "Isn't it an insult to 40 million voters . . . linking detainees to foreign countries?," he asked.

"Who believes these people, many of them prominent figures, would work with the foreigners and to endanger their country's interests? . . . They should be immediately released."
Reuters

EastKurd:Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, is warning Iranian politicians against supporting any further street protests.

He was speaking after former President Mohammad Khatami called for a referendum on the legitimacy of the new government.

The presidential election on June 12th sparked huge street demonstrations, during which 20 people were killed.

EastKurd:Tuesday last week, a woman in prison was hanged in Qazvin. This woman executed for murder of husband's father.(father-in-low).

She passed for 4 years in prison, she failed to obtain the consent of the victim's family.
because she was poor, can not give money to a lawyer.

EK

EastKurd:Iran Human Rights reported  "Shadi Sadr is not going to be released soon" said judge Rasekh, according to the women’s rights website "Meydaan".

Ms. Sadr’s family were earlier today told that she could be released on bail. But after having been at Tehran’s revolutionary court and later outside the Evin prison, they were told by the judge (Rasekh) that Shadi Sadr is not going to be released today. When they asked whether she is going to be released on Tuesday? they were told " She is not going to be released".

Shadi Sadr, a lawyer, women rights defender and co-fonuder of the campaign "Stop stoning forever", was abducted by the plainclothes agents on Friday July 17. when she was on her way to the Friday prayers.

According to the websiet Meydaan, she was "hit badly and dragged so badly that her scarf and manteau was removed from her".

Since then she has been able to talk with her family a couple of times without mentioning where she is and why she has been arrested.

However it is believed that she is being kept at the Evin prison. In a comment to Meydaan, her lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei, expressed concerns about Ms. Sadr’s situation and said that she might be kept in solitary confinement.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights said "we condemn arrestation of Shadi Sadr and ask the international community to put pressure on the Iranian authorities for immediate release of Ms. Sadr and all others arrested unlawfully in the past few weeks".

Iran, plunged in post-election turmoil, is also grappling with ethnic and religious tensions in a volatile southeastern province where the authorities have responded to attacks by Sunni rebels with a spate of hangings.

The executions last week of 13 men accused of membership of Jundollah (God’s soldiers), an obscure ethnic Baluch Sunni group, followed the bombing of a Shi’ite mosque on May 28 that killed 25 people and wounded over 120 in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan.

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Iran's reformist former president Mohammad Khatami called on the authorities to hold a referendum on the legitimacy of the government after the country's disputed June presidential vote, a website reported.
"The only way out of the current situation is to hold a referendum (on the government's legitimacy)," Khatami was quoted as saying by a website close to him.

"People should be asked whether they are happy with the current situation? ... If the vast majority of people are happy with the current situation, we will accept it as well," he said.

Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi along with Khatami and some other officials say the June presidential vote, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a second-term, was rigged. Authorities deny the charge.

Reuters

EastKurd:According to news agency "Fars" belonging to the IRGC regime, the Islamic judicial system in Sistan and Baluchestan in the future that 3 people will be executed in Zahedan.

"Ibrahim Hamidi" President's judicial regime in Sistan-Baluchestan province said the next few days the death kill 3 people runs.

One of these 3 cases Rigi's brother is chief Jundallah.
_____

A few days ago 13 people were executed, because they were sunni Muslims were executed.

EastKurd: Pressure against Kurdish political activists. The name of a young Kurdish Ramadan Saeedy, which charges residents Orumiyeh cooperation with PJAK, four years ago was arrested and tortured, after receiving eight-year prison sentence, now transferred to Evin prison in Tehran and take over the individual.

Ramadan Saeedy political activist in "Margawer" functions is Orumiyeh. He had declared that when under arrest for several months to severely tortured and confessed lack of evidence and the least, to eight years in prison was sentenced.

Now after four years, he transferred to Evin prison in Tehran and the individual is tortured again. Now his family is concerned. But the government did not reply. Photo Archive

TEHRAN (AFP) – Hardliners opposed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's appointment of a controversial confidant as first vice president on Sunday, signalling difficulties ahead for Iran's re-elected president in forming a new government.

On Friday, Ahmadinejad announced Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie's appointment, replacing Parviz Davoudi.

"It is imperative to terminate the appointment of Mashaie as first vice president in order to respect the wishes of the majority of the people," said Hossein Shariatmadari, managing director of the hardline Kayhan newspaper who was appointed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"When people found out about the appointment, they viewed this move as one taken not just in bad taste... but as one which shows indifference (towards them)," he wrote in an editorial.

Shariatmadari said Ahmadinejad is expected to "reconsider his decision as for him the view of the people is very important."

The appointment of Mashaie, a close Ahmadinejad aide, had been expected to ruffle feathers among hardliners and clerical groups that heavily influence politics in the Islamic republic.

Mashaie, whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad's son, is a controversial figure who last year was rapped by hardliners and Khamenei for saying Iran is a "friend of the Israeli people."

Tehran has repeatedly vowed never to recognise Israel, which was an ally of pro-US shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ousted by the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Ahmadinejad himself has spearheaded an anti-Israel campaign during his first four-year term, even saying that the Holocaust was a "myth."

Mashaie had also provoked the ire of MPs for reportedly watching a group of women dance at a tourism congress in Turkey in 2007.

Ahmad Khatami, a leading hardline cleric and a Friday prayer leader in Tehran, also slammed Mashaie's appointment.

"This appointment has been made in defiance to the members of the Assembly of Experts, the majlis (parliament) and several elite who have often mentioned that the post is a sensitive one," Khatami was quoted as saying in Jam-e Jam newspaper.

He urged Ahmadinejad to reconsider.

"Although this is his last time as two-time consecutive president, his choice should not challenge the movement to which he belongs," Khatami said.

"I therefore urge Mr. Ahmadinejad to reconsider his choice before the wave of criticism spreads."

Hardline opposition over Mashaie is a sign of the difficulties Ahmadinejad may face in forming his new cabinet.

Several clerical groups have openly spoken out over his disputed June 12 presidential victory when street protests against the result triggered the worst crisis in Iran since the revolution.

Hamid Reza Katouzian, chairman of the parliament's energy commission, said Ahmadinejad made a "mistake" in appointing Mashaie.

"I am of the opinion that this choice will have repercussions," he told the Mehr news agency. "Mr. Ahmadinejad has always showed us that he is 100 percent heedless of advice in situations that are highly sensitive."

Two hardline student groups also opposed Mashaie's appointment.

"The people and university students expect the president not to include in in his inner circle those who favour friendly ties with Israel," the Justice Seeking Students Movement said in a statement in Khabar newspaper.

The Islamic Society Students Union called for Mashaie's resignation.

"It is in your best interest to resign as soon as possible from this post... since your staying in the post will create a chasm between the people and officials," it said in a statement, also in Khabar.

Announcing Mashaie's appointment, Ahmadinejad praised him as a "pious and dedicated" man who believes in the principles of the Islamic revolution.

Mashaie is currently vice president in charge of tourism. There are several other vice presidents in Ahmadinejad's current line-up.

Kurdish rebels have killed four Iranian policemen in West Azarbaijan province, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Skip related content.

Members of PJAK, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, raided a police station in Targovar near Orumieh city and killed four policemen including, three officers, Sarmayeh newspaper said.

It said the raid took place on Saturday night in Targovar, which is close to the Iraqi and Turkish borders in northwestern Iran.

In April, 18 policemen and eight rebels were killed in fierce gunbattle in Kermanshah province. Iran hit back promptly with helicopter attacks on three Iraqi Kurdish villages in a cross-border raid.

Western Iran, which has a sizeable Kurdish population, has seen deadly fighting in recent years between Iranian security forces and PJAK rebels operating out of rear-bases in neighbouring Iraq.

The group is closely allied with the Turkish Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey all have significant ethnic Kurdish minorities.
AFP

EastKurd:Ali Mehrneya, a teacher in the prison of Orumiyeh cartridge was killed.

Kurdish news agency reported, on July 15 , he killed by unknown people and inanimate body he is hanged.

Ali Mehrneya Piranshahr teachers that had been retired three years ago. His killing is unknown.He was a good teacher

EastKurd:Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Friday 17 July an hour Kurdistan border areas in the brutal bombing.

Is called the Islamic regime forces in villages "Soran" in the heavily bombed. During an attack on the civilian villages have been severely injured.

News from other border regions of Kurdistan, the Islamic regime's armed forces artillery in mountainous regions "Pshdar" in the heavily bombed.

EastKurd:Regime security forces, "Hassan Salehzadah" teacher and active member of the Kurdistan Teachers Association after his visit to the city office hidden forces have arrested.

"Hassan Salehzadah" when referring to the regime's forces Saqez Office aware of the following reasons for the regime forces and go home, arrested and transferred to Central Prison Saqez.

Is called the regime's security forces arrested one day before the home visit those in detention, he succeeded, but were not.

Present the charges to "Hassan Salehzadah" news is unavailable.

The burnt corpse of Taraneh Mousavi, a 28-year-old woman who was arrested during a demonstration a month ago, was found yesterday between Karaj and Qazvin, west of Tehran.

The regime’s henchmen have threatened Taraneh’s family not to hold a funeral ceremony for her and not to tell anyone the way she was killed.

Taraneh was arrested by the suppressive forces in Tehran’s Shariati Street and was immediately taken to one of the secret torture center known as “Safe houses.” Two weeks after her arrest, an unidentified person called her mother and told her that Taraneh’s corpse was in a hospital in Karaj but the hospital authorities denied it. Only one employee at the hospital said that the plainclothes agents brought in a woman with similar description to those of Taraneh while she was unconscious and she was taken away from there in the same state.

By GEORGE JAHN

VIENNA (AP) — Iran is blocking U.N. nuclear agency attempts to upgrade monitoring of its atomic program while advancing those activities to the stage that the country would have the means to test a weapon within six months, diplomats told The Associated Press Friday.

The diplomats emphasized that there were no indications of plans for such a nuclear test, saying it was highly unlikely Iran would risk heightened confrontation with the West — and chances of Israeli attack — by embarking on such a course.

But they said that even as Iran expands uranium enrichment, which can create fissile nuclear material, it is resisting International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to increase surveillance of its enrichment site meant to keep pace with the plant's increased size and complexity.

For Iran to amass enough fissile material to conduct an underground test similar to North Korea's 2006 nuclear explosion, it would likely have to kick out monitors of the IAEA — the U.N. nuclear agency — from its one known uranium enrichment site at Natanz. Technicians then could reconfigure the centrifuges now churning out nuclear-fuel grade enriched uranium to highly enriched, weapons-grade material.

Iran is unlikely, however, to want to do that. Such a move would immediately set off international alarm bells and could bridge rifts on how strongly to react — Russia and China, which have resisted Western calls to increase pressure on Iran over its nuclear defiance, would likely endorse more sweeping U.N sanctions and other penalties.

With the U.N. nuclear agency strictly limited in its nuclear monitoring of Iran, the existence of a hidden enrichment site that could supply the weapons-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapons test is also possible.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed Elbaradei has repeatedly warned that his agency cannot guarantee that Iran is not hiding nuclear activities. Iranian nuclear expert David Albright on Friday put the chances that such a secret site exists at "50-50."

But even a hidden enrichment plant meant to upgrade material to weapons level would likely have to be fed with low-enriched uranium from the Natanz site. So transporting that material would not escape the agency's detection.

In any case, international action — and possible Israeli attack — would be triggered at the latest by a nuclear test explosion.

Iran is still considered years away from developing a reliable nuclear warhead delivery system. So tipping its hand with a nuclear test, should it want to own such weapons, would make little sense.

"We are talking here not of intent but capability," said one of two western diplomats accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Like his colleague from another country, this diplomat — who has access to intelligence on Iran's nuclear program — demanded anonymity in exchange for discussions of the highly confidential issue.

Since its clandestine enrichment efforts were revealed more than six years ago, Iran has steadily increased activities at its cavernous underground facility at Natanz, a city about 300 miles (500 kilometers) south of Tehran.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report circulated last month said nearly 5,000 centrifuges were now enriching at Natanz — about 1,000 more than at the time of the last agency report, issued in February — with more than 2,000 others ready to start enriching.

Iran says it is interested in producing only low-enriched uranium for fuel use, not highly enriched material for the fissile core of nuclear weapons, and the U.N. nuclear agency has detected no effort at Natanz to contravene that assertion.

Still, if Iran decided to risk an international crisis, it has the means to make weapons-grade uranium.

Most experts estimate that the more than 1,000 kilograms — 2,200 pounds — of low-enriched uranium Iran had accumulated by February was enough to produce enough weapons-grade material through further enrichment for one nuclear weapon.

And as Iran expands its operations at Natanz, its potential capacity to produce highly enriched uranium is also growing.

Albright's Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security last month estimated that with the nearly 5,000 centrifuges then operating Iran could accumulate enough material to produce weapons-grade uranium for two warheads by February 2010 — or sooner, if it brought the more than 2,000 additional machines on line immediately.

But one of the diplomats said Iran had already brought more centrifuges into full operation. And the other said that in any case, a test explosion could occur even sooner.

The six-month time frame confirmed to the AP Friday was first mentioned last week by the German magazine Stern, which cited Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst, its main intelligence branch.

Albright said Friday six months are "in line with our estimates."

Iran steadfastly refuses to stop enriching despite the imposition of three rounds of economic, trade and financial sanctions by the U.N. Security Council. And worries have been heightened by the country's refusal to grant the U.N. nuclear agency broadened monitoring rights of its steadily increasing Natanz operations.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report last month touched on those concerns.

It said the agency had informed Iran that, due to the growth in enrichment capacity and output, it was seeking "improvements to the containment and surveillance measures" it now had at hand. And a senior U.N. official said expansion at Natanz "makes it increasingly difficult to do the surveillance" needed to ensure none of the material produced is being diverted.

To do its work at Natanz, the agency relies in part on monitoring by cameras and on inspections meant to give the Iranians a minimum of time between the announcement of the visit and the arrival of the inspectors — methods the agency would like to expand.

Diplomats last month told the AP that Iran's refusal to allow any additional cameras was a setback, along with its recent delay of an unannounced International Atomic Energy Agency inspection.

Since then, Iran has refused to grant broader monitoring rights, said one of the diplomats Friday.

He said it has also refused agency requests to separate operations at Natanz, where enrichment occurs in the same space as centrifuge repairs and setups of new chains of linked centrifuges, creating chaotic scenes that are difficult to monitor.

"It is really difficult for them to figure out what's happening, given the mix of different things going on," said the diplomat. He said that as of a week ago "Iran was not cooperating."

iaea.org

By Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A hardline editor seen as close to Iran's top authority accused a powerful cleric on Saturday of backing "law-breakers," in comments highlighting deepening divisions in the Islamic Republic after a disputed election.

Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the Kayhan daily, also criticized former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani for saying in a sermon on Friday Iran was in crisis.

In apparent defiance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Rafsanjani said many Iranians had doubts about the official result of the June 12 vote and he also took issue with the way the authorities had handled the poll and its aftermath.

As he led Friday prayers at Tehran University for the first time since the election, tens of thousands of protesters outside used the event to stage the biggest show of dissent for weeks.

Clashes erupted near the university between police and followers of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, who came second and still contests official results that showed President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had been re-elected by a wide margin.

The government has portrayed post-election mass protests last month as the work of local subversives, or "rioters," and Western powers seeking to topple the Islamic establishment.

"Most certainly Mr Rafsanjani is familiar with the definition of a crisis ... The most meaningful word to describe the current conditions is a conspiracy," Shariatmadari said in an editorial.

He said Rafsanjani, a moderate who backed Mousavi's election campaign, had done nothing to prevent the gathering of Mousavi supporters inside and outside Tehran University, where prayers are held each Friday and broadcast live on state radio.

CLERICAL CHALLENGE

"At the same time he used every opportunity available to challenge the outcome of the election," wrote Shariatmadari, who earlier this month called for Mousavi and another leading reformist to be put on trial for "terrible crimes."

Noting Rafsanjani had urged everybody to abide by the law, the editorial added in a clear reference to Mousavi supporters who have continued to defy a ban on demonstrations:

"Mr Rafsanjani ... not only disregarded what he had said but openly supported the law-breakers."

The election stirred the most striking display of internal unrest in Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, since the 1979 revolution and exposed deep rifts in its ruling elite.

It has also further strained ties between Iran and the West, already at odds over Tehran's nuclear program. Western powers criticized the crackdown. Iran accused them of meddling.

Rafsanjani, who heads the Assembly of Experts -- a powerful body that can in theory dismiss the supreme leader -- in his sermon also demanded the immediate release of people detained in the unrest and called for press curbs to be relaxed.

He did not go as far as Mousavi in denouncing the conduct of the vote, but his remarks still posed a clear challenge to Khamenei, who has upheld the election result and accused foreign powers of fomenting the unrest.

At least 20 people died in post-election violence. Mousavi and the authorities blame each other for the bloodshed. Riot police and religious Basij militia eventually suppressed June's street demonstrations, but Mousavi has remained defiant.

(Editing by Sophie Hares)

TEHRAN (AFP) – Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi was attacked by men in plain-clothes on his way to Friday prayers at Tehran university, the website of his Etemad Melli political party reported.

Etemad Melli quoted Karroubi's son Hossein as saying the reformist cleric was attacked when he got off the car in front of the university.

"When my father got out of the car in front of the university, some plain-clothes forces standing by the door attacked and assaulted him," Hossein said.

"His turban fell. They insulted him using very abusive and outrageous names."

Karroubi, a former parliament speaker, nevertheless attended the weekly prayers, along with Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and thousands of the two men's supporters.

Amnesty International News Flash For Immediate Release Friday, July 17, 2009

Women's rights activist and lawyer violently arrested in Iran, says Amnesty International

(Washington, DC) Amnesty International fears the wave of arrests of civil society activists in Iran is intensifying after lawyer and human rights activist, Shadi Sadr, was violently arrested in Tehran this morning on her way to Friday prayers.

Shadi Sadr was walking with a group of women's rights activists along a busy road when unidentified plain clothed men pulled her into a car. She lost her headscarf and coat in the ensuing struggle but managed briefly to escape. She was quickly recaptured and beaten with batons before being taken away in the car to an unknown location.

"This was an illegal, arbitrary and violent arrest in which no attempt was made by the authorities to show identification or provide any explanation for their action," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program."

"This is the latest of a continuing series of high profile arrests of Iranians - students, journalists, intellectuals, political and civil society activists – in the wake of protests over the disputed outcome of the presidential election."

Amnesty International is calling for Shadi Sadr to be immediately and unconditionally released.

Shadi Sadr is the defense lawyer of Shiva Nazar Ahari, a human rights defender and member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, who was arrested at her home in Tehran on June 14, 2009, shortly after the presidential election, by security officials who searched her house and took away personal items. She is now believed to be held in Section 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison where Shadi Sadr, her lawyer, had not been able to gain access to her.

Background Shadi Sadr, lawyer and journalist, was the director of Raahi, a legal advice center for women until it was closed down. She founded Zanan-e Iran (Women of Iran), the first website dedicated to the work of Iranian women's rights activists (http://www.raahi.org) and has written extensively about Iranian women and their legal rights. She has represented activists and journalists, several women sentenced to execution, whose convictions were subsequently overturned. She is also involved in Women's Field, a group of women's rights activists who have launched several campaigns to defend women's rights, including the "Stop Stoning Forever" campaign.

Shadi Sadr was among 33 women arrested in March 2007. Most had gathered outside a Tehran courtroom to protest peacefully against the trial of five women – Fariba Davoudi Mohajer, Shahla Entesari, Noushin Ahmadi Khorassani, Parvin Ardalan and Sussan Tahmasebi – who were accused of “propaganda against the system”, “acting against national security” and “participating in an illegal demonstration” in connection with the June 12, 2006 demonstration. Four of those on trial were also among those arrested, along with Shadi Sadr, a lawyer. Initially held in the Vozara detention center, some were later transferred to Evin Prison. Most were released after several days, but Shadi Sadr and Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh – who is also involved in the "Stop Stoning Forever" campaign – were held for over two weeks before being released on bail.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian police used tear gas and batons to try to disperse tens of thousands of supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi who had flocked to Tehran University for Friday prayers, a witness said.

Influential cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, leading the weekly ceremony for the first time since the disputed June 12 election, said many Iranians had doubts about the official result in favor of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

"We are all members of a family. I hope with this sermon we can pass through this period of hardships that can be called a crisis," he said in a sermon broadcast on state radio.

Mousavi, a former prime minister, attended the ceremony in his first official public appearance since the vote, which he says was rigged. The authorities deny any fraud.

Rafsanjani, a key backer of Mousavi's election campaign, also demanded the immediate release of people detained in post-election unrest and called for press curbs to be relaxed.

"In the current situation it is not necessary for us to have a number of people in prisons ... we should allow them to return to their families," he said.

Earlier the crowd inside the hall could be heard on live state radio chanting "Mousavi, Mousavi, we support you," interrupting Rafsanjani's sermon.

The chants died away after he quietened the crowd, urging them "not to contaminate the position and the sanctuary of Friday prayers by comments and slogans."

The pragmatic former president is one of four senior clerics who lead Friday prayers, but he had not done so for two months.

Outside the university grounds, police fired tear gas at Mousavi supporters chanting slogans demanding the release of detainees. It was the biggest anti-government protest since those that erupted in the week after the contested election.

At least 15 people were arrested, the witness said.

The prayer ceremony in downtown Tehran attracted greater numbers than usual. Worshippers can listen to the sermon through loudspeakers outside the university grounds.

A senior cleric earlier called for calm during the prayers, state radio said, in a sign of the clerical establishment's concern about possible unrest. Iran's ILNA news agency said mobile phones did not work in central Tehran.

LARGE POLICE PRESENCE

There was a large police presence near the university a few hours before the prayers began, a witness said. Scores of policemen were on guard at the central Enqelab square. Many Basij militia members with batons were also seen in the area.

June's election stirred the most striking display of internal dissent in the oil producing country since the 1979 Islamic revolution and exposed deepening divisions in its establishment.

At least 20 people died in post-election violence. Mousavi and the authorities blame each other for the bloodshed. The security forces have managed to largely quell last month's street demonstrations, but Mousavi has remained defiant.

"I've never been to Friday prayers but me and my friends will go to this one," one female Mousavi supporter said.

Reflecting concern that the event would turn into a show of strength by Ahmadinejad's pro-reform opponents, Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said on Thursday:

"The vigilant Iranian nation must be aware that tomorrow's sermon should not turn into an arena for undesirable scenes."

Ahmadinejad, who enraged Rafsanjani by accusing him of corruption during the election campaign, criticized him again on Thursday. Some of Rafsanjani's relatives, including his daughter Faezeh, were arrested briefly for joining pro-Mousavi rallies.

Mousavi says Ahmadinejad's next government will be illegitimate, even though Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has endorsed the victory of his fiery protege.

The election has further strained ties between Iran and the West, already at odds over Tehran's nuclear program. Western powers criticized the protest crackdown and Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, accused them of meddling.

(Additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian, Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl; writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Peter Millership)

Shame for Russia

Political prisoners must be released.

NCRI - On Wednesday, July 15, the Iranian regime hanged a follower of Sufism, after he spent five years at the central prison in Orumieh (northwestern Iran). Younes Aghayan, originally from the town of Miandoab, was arrested along with four other Sufi dervishes in 2003 when the regime’s suppressive forces raided the village of Ojtappeh. He was later sentenced to death by hanging for “waging war” against the clerical regime through his alleged involvement in an armed conflict with State Security Forces (SSF).

On February 28, 2009, another Sufi dervish, Mehdi Ghasemzadeh, was executed by the clerical regime’s henchmen in relation to the same case.

By stepping up hangings in recent days, the clerical regime intends to instill fear and terror in Iran in a bid to fend off the growth of popular uprisings in cities around the country.

The Iranian Resistance condemns the hangings and calls on all relevant international authorities, especially human rights organizations, to investigate the deteriorating conditions of human rights in Iran, including the dreadful situation of religious minorities and in particular the suppression of dervishes.

PARIS (AP)– Media monitor Reporters Without Borders says seven photographers and a cameraman have been detained in Iran, most of them over the past week.

The Paris-based group listed five Iranian photographers seized Saturday, nearly a month after the June 12 presidential elections that prompted a wave of opposition protests. It says French-Iranian cameraman Said Movahedi was detained July 9.

The reason for the arrests is unclear.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Thursday that "The Iranian government fears images" of the protests.

The group says at least five other photographers or cameramen have been injured by police or militias during the crackdown on opposition protesters. It says 41 journalists are behind bars in Iran.

TEHRAN (AFP) – Thousands of supporters of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, chanting his praises, gathered for the weekly Friday prayers at Tehran university, witnesses told AFP.

One witness said the supporters had gathered in the eastern section of the university and were chanting slogans "Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein!".

They were also shouting "Free political prisoners" and chanting slogans in support of powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was due to lead the prayers, the witness said.

Some of the Mousavi supporters were wearing green bands, the signature colour of Mousavi's election campaign, another witness said.

EastKurd:The Government mullahs police arrested six young Kurdish .
The youth were wearing Kurdish clothes because were arrested.

Monday was a general strike in the cities of iranian Kurdistan.

Day 13 July 1989 Dr ghasemlou in Vienna was assassinated.I do not know the location of their detention were arrested as illegal.

EastKurd:Kurdish news agency reported, the regime's police force, the night of July Twelve at the border "Bashmakh" Marivan workers attacked.
Workers escape from the regime's Revolutionary, led to involve them in mine and land mine field, two of them names, "Saman" and "Hussein" killed immediately.

Kaveh another village from "kani kozale" the next day (July 13) the severity of injuries in the hospital has lost their lives and die.
To report human rights activists in Iran, the regime's security forces in the border region Nvdshh workers in the name of Saleh Rahimi attacked and killed him.

Yearly many residents Kurdistan border areas due to lack of work and providing livelihoods, high risk job borders on trade and brought dozens of them killed by the regime's security forces.

TEHRAN, July 15 (Reuters) - A passenger aircraft crashed in northwestern Iran on Wednesday and up to 169 people on board were feared killed, ISNA news agency reported.

"153 passengers along with 16 crew were on the plane that crashed," ISNA said, without giving a source.

Earlier Iranian state television said that all 150 people on board had been killed.

The Caspian Airlines aircraft was travelling from Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia when it came down at 11:33 a.m. (0703 GMT) near the city of Qazvin, the official IRNA news agency said.

Iran's English-language Press TV said in a scrolling news headline, "150 people on board crashed Iran plane believed dead".

A fire brigade official earlier told IRNA that everyone on board was killed. IRNA quoted an Iranian aviation spokesman a the plane crashed 16 minutes after take-off from the capital's Imam Khomeini International airport. (Editing by Louise Ireland)

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jul. 15 – Some 150 people are believed to have died as a plane travelling from Tehran to Yerevan, capital of Armenia, crashed in north-western Iran on Wednesday.

The plane crashed near the city of Qazvin at 11.33 am local time, the official news agency IRNA said, adding that the incident occurred only 16 minutes after the plane had taken off.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jul. 15 – Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF) are once again confiscating satellite dishes in the capital Tehran.

SSF agents were spotted raiding houses in Amir Abad and Seyed Khandan districts in Tehran on Saturday, rounding up satellite dishes and equipment.

Further patrols have continued in recent days.

The SSF said in May it had confiscated 84,000 satellite dishes during the Persian calendar year that ended March 20.

SSF agents routinely go up rooftops in Tehran and other major cities removing satellite dishes which are banned in Islamic Iran.

The Islamic Republic banned satellite dishes in 1995. The crackdown on satellite dishes was prompted by broadcasts from Iranian opposition groups whose television programs reportedly have a large audience in Iran.

Dr abdul rahman ghassemlou prophet of peace and reconciliation.

Thirteen July 1989 is the day, the prophet of peace and reconciliation, was assassinated by the mullahs.

Terrorists of the Islamic Republic in Vienna, Dr ghassemlou kill on negotiation table. Fanatical regime in Iran killing ghassemlou thinking Kurdish Democratic Party will be defeated.

The Islamic Republic's Revolutionary years 1979 until now, the Kurdish nation is barbaric severe repression.

Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran crisis ghassemlou die, but Tehran blind hearts were fixed in their brutality.

Twentieth anniversary of the assassination ghassemlou with greatness and glory, and in despair to the enemy.

Hope to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
hope to overthrow The terrorists
EastKurd

The Times

Bronwen Maddox: Analysis

It was clever of President Obama to tell Russia’s leaders that US missile defence in Europe was intended to counter a threat from Iran. That puts the burden on Dimitri Medvedev, the President, and Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, to pitch in and try to persuade Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions.

You help with that and maybe we drop our missile shield plans — that was Obama’s barely coded offer. It would be a good deal for the US if the Russians take it: surrendering something that does not work yet and which the US only half wants to keep, but which Russian leaders really dislike.

In return, the US would get help with Iran, its biggest foreign worry.

Too good to be true, probably. That apart, the summit brought an odd package of remarks from the US President — some surprisingly provocative, others easily dismissed. He said that a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. Perhaps he had Georgia in mind, but surely this is better directed at President Bush and his Axis of Evil, not to mention the Iraq war.

Obama also said that old assumptions that the US and Russia were antagonists vying for spheres of influence were wrong. Not completely wrong, surely. That is not how it looks to Georgia. Or those in many countries in Central Asia. Or, most to the point, to the Russian leaders.

Obama also added, directing his remarks at Russian students, that they had the privilege of determining what comes next. “You get to decide.” Eventually, maybe, but not now given the increasingly authoritarian hand of Putin and Medvedev.

That will be needling to the leadership duo, given the spectacle of the Iranian elections and the inspiring challenge that the younger generation has presented to the clerics. That is worth saying — as was his criticism of Russian corruption and suspicion of democracy — but not without cost.

Other remarks by Obama appeared to contradict US policy. He maintained that the future did not belong to those who gathered armies or planted missiles. But the US military is the anchor of Nato and has been the most active in the world in recent years.

By the standards, say, of his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, it was an off-hand and not particularly well-crafted set of remarks. It used the Cairo formula — a claim of common interests, a bit of self-criticism used to support a bit more criticism of the host — but with less subtlety about Russia itself. In itself that may have carried a message, and one that has been hinted at by his advisers in advance: that he can be bothered only so far with courting Russia before turning to bigger problems.

Given all that, Obama’s best pitch in Moscow was the narrow one on Iran: that Russia and the US share a clear interest in stopping it getting close to nuclear weapons capability, and that the US might be open to a trade on its missile defence if Russia gets on board quickly.

That is clear enough to be the foundation of a deal. The rest created as much opportunity for misunderstanding and irritation as it did to make peace.

By Jay Deshmukh

TEHRAN (AFP) — A French woman academic detained in Tehran's notorious Evin prison was able to contact the French ambassador in a brief telephone call on Wednesday, a diplomatic source told AFP.

It was believed to be Clotilde Reiss's first contact with the outside world since she was arrested a week ago at Tehran airport on what French officials say were charges of spying.

"It was a short conversation," the source said of the discussion between French ambassador Bernard Poletti and the 23-year-old Reiss, a lecturer at Isfahan university in central Iran.

"It was a very brief talk which lasted only a few seconds. It was actually a telephonic contact rather than a conversation. The call was made from the prison to the embassy," the source added.

Reiss has been accused of spying for taking part in opposition protests over last month's disputed presidential vote and of sending an email to a friend in Tehran that contained information on the rallies, French officials said.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said earlier that Pelotti was trying to meet Reiss in Evin and that he had discussed her case with his Iranian counterpart Manounchehr Mottaki on Tuesday.

In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy dismissed as "pure fantasy" any suggestion that Reiss had been involved in espionage and called for her release.

"Let me say in the clearest and simplest way possible: we demand the release of our compatriot," Sarkozy told a news conference in Paris.

"No one can accept that French nationals are kidnapped and detained on the pretext of espionage. All of this is not a good sign."

Kouchner told French radio France Info that in a long telephone conversation with Mottaki on Tuesday, he had again denied Reiss was involved in spying.

Mottaki had asked him what she had been doing at a demonstration against newly re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where she had been taking photos.

"But she was not in the demonstration," said Kouchner. "She took photos with her mobile phone like hundreds of thousands of other people."

The text messages she had sent out to friends and family had been entirely innocent -- along the lines of "Don't worry about me," Kouchner added.

Relations between the West and Iran have been particularly tense since massive street protests erupted over Ahmadinejad's bitterly-disupted re-election on June 12 in the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The regime swiftly cracked down on opponents, rounding up hundreds of leading reformists, political activists, journalists and protestors and accusing foreign powers of inciting the unrest.

Sarkozy has taken a hard line on Iran, saying the election was a "fraud" and questioning Ahmadinejad's legitimacy.

In a television address on Wednesday, the hardline Ahmadinejad insisted his victory was fair, saying: "This was the most beautiful and cleanest election." But he pledged: "The structure of government should change, the changes in the government will be considerable."

EastKurd:Today, July 8 The police entered Advocacy Office Mohammad Ali Dadkhah lawyer and member of the Defenders of Human Rights ,he and his colleagues present in the office were arrested.

One of the attorneys with the announcement of Change for Equality said: 4 hours of the afternoon with several of the lawyers meeting with Mr. Dadkhah But when we reached the place did not allowed us and asked us to leave the place We and our insistence for ineffectual was.

Two colleagues and then came Mr. Dadkhah emphasizing that there was work to office.

After one of the local security police car was deployed and all the people present were their office with. This lawyer and others who control a little far from the matter that officers had seen Mr. Dadkhah addition, Maliheh Dadkhah, Sara Sbaghian,  Amir Raesian and bahare dolu with his office and was locked in.

EastKurd:A few days is about the regime's war planes bombed the mountains around are Orumiyeh.

Regime aircraft bombing tents nomads and cattle farmers that are paid for the region as this enter the heavy casualties and damage in animal husbandry has been.

Pretext of the Kurdistan Workers Party(PKK), the government of Iran, Turkey, the border areas are bombarded.

EastKurd:Oppressive regime forces in the border village of Marivan young worker named Kamal Dehqan was in the shooting.
He has lost his life and was killed.

Annual regime dozens of the frontiersman of the cartridges.
He killed in the village "Khanm Shekhan".

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer warned on Tuesday that time is running out for dialogue with Tehran to avoid either a nuclear-armed Iran or a possible military strike against the Islamic Republic.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it is critical for diplomatic efforts to reach a solution before Iran develops a nuclear weapon or faces an Israeli or U.S. strike to turn back its nuclear program.

"That window is a very narrow window," Mullen told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

"There's a great deal that certainly depends on the dialogue and the engagement," he said. "I'm hopeful that that dialogue is productive. I worry about it a great deal if it's not."

Mullen noted that some forecasters believe Iran could be as little as a year away from developing a nuclear bomb, adding: "The clock has continued to tick."

The Obama administration hopes to coax Tehran into negotiating over its nuclear program. Washington and its allies say the program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, but Iran insists it is a civilian electricity program.

Israel has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence and points to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

That has raised concerns that Israel could ultimately carry out a military strike against Iranian nuclear sites.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview the United States had "absolutely not" given Israel a green light to attack Iran over its nuclear program, but he said Washington cannot "dictate to other countries what their security interests are."

"It is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels," Obama told CNN during his trip to Russia.

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC's "This Week" program on Sunday that Israel had a sovereign right to act in its best interest in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The comment was seen by some as giving Israel a green light to attack.

Mullen told his audience that Washington must keep all options on the table as it pursues dialogue with Iran, "including certainly military options."

But he said a military strike -- like the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb itself -- would be "very destabilizing" for the Middle East and pose unpredictable consequences for U.S. allies and interests.

"It (a military strike) is a really important place to not go, if we can not go there in any way, shape or form," the admiral said.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Cynthia Osterman)

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian opposition leaders urged the authorities to release people arrested following a disputed presidential election last month, and criticised the "security state" imposed in Iran, a website said on Tuesday.

"Mehdi Karoubi, Mirhossein Mousavi and (former president Mohammad) Khatami met on Monday and underlined the importance of ending the imposed security state in the country and also demanded the immediate release of detained protesters," defeated candidate Mousavi's website reported.

Pages: 1 2

By AP AND JPOST.COM

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi made his first public appearance in a week on Monday, and vowed that his campaign against a government that he said lacks legitimacy would go on.

Nevertheless, his comments indicated that he was abandoning massive street protests after they were quashed by a tough crackdown.

Mousavi's statements, reported on a pro-opposition news Web site, reflect his movement's struggles to survive after a wave of arrests that netted protesters, top pro-reform politicians and journalists. Hard-liners have called for Mousavi himself to be jailed. Since the crackdown, the dramatic marches that filled main streets after the disputed June 12 presidential elections have vanished.

Pages: 1 2

To support the Iranian people, the protection of students, all for freedom of Prisons, on Thursday 9 July (18تـیـر ) to the front of the mullahs Embassy.

All together the international communities that want more than this because of the economic interests of the victim do not.

European governments because trade with the mullahs, people have been ignored.

the British government more than this not support the Iranian government.

Princes Gate, Kensington, London SW7
Thursday 09/07/2009 4 PM

simultaneous demonstrations across Europe against the mullahs Embassy.

simultánea en toda Europa las manifestaciones contra la Embajada de los mulás.
manifestations simultanées dans toute l'Europe contre l'ambassade des mollahs.
simultanea manifestazioni in tutta Europa contro l'Ambasciata mullah.
gleichzeitigen Demonstrationen in ganz Europa gegen die Mullahs Botschaft.

EastKurd:More shooting and unreasonable forms of forces regime to ordinary people Salmas region, a person named Said hmdallh Hosseini killed and one person the name Armin Shahini was severely injured.

Kurdish news agency reported , regime forces in the village checkpoint "Qaseryak" located at the border of Turkey, a person named Said hmdallh Hosseini 25 years, from the village "Shinatall" the purpose of the bullets were. The shooting of those will lose their lives.

The regime forces also a few days ago, someone named Armin shahini in the car with the weapons of attack that was it, those were severely injured.

Armin Shahini and 24 years old from the village "Glbrabaghy" Salmas, now admitted to the hospital Orumiyeh. Pressure on the regime's forces have increased in this region Salmas routinely forces people to defend the region without the barrage closed due to them being killed or injured is.

EastKurd:2 that the fate of Kurdish student during recent unrest in Tehran and Assault Forces "Ansar Hezbollah," the dormitory had been arrested, is still unknown.

Kurdish news agency reported in this field, the two students now in prison, "Evin" Tehran are confined.

The names of 2 people Sohrab Ahmadian, Saman.from their cities Oshnavieh, and Piranshahr.the Italian language student at Tehran University.

EastKurd:Shooting of two anonymous person in the region "Bysarany" Marivan, three members of the terrorist organization "Ansaralaslam" were killed.

Kurdish news agency reported, the fifth night of July 21:30 hours, Saadi Shirzad 33 year old son Friday prayer Marivan, Abdul Karim Kohnaposhi 38-year-old son of Sheikh Reza (from village bayawe) and 41-year-old Hadi Shirzadi Friday prayer nephew in the way home by two unknown armed individuals attacked the arms were unknown.

Of the shooting, Saadi Shirzad, A. Khnhpvshy in there were killed. Hadi Shirzad also was severely injured, in the hospital will lose their lives.
The 3 people in addition to membership in terrorist organization Ansaralaslam cooperation with the al-Qaida terrorist organization had.

Translated by EastKurd

Tonya daughter head of the organization allowed the occasion of July tenth anniversary of his father's detention letter written and addressed them on current developments in the country has criticized.

Secretariat Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan

Text of letter mentioned in the following.

Dear father, today is the third year that we took you from us and we hope you still have.

father Your was not Iranian! Iranian citizen was not you! Iranian citizen liquidation if the Iranian president for freedom you strive to prison. I do not know if U.S. citizens, perhaps it was better liquidation! The time the crime was espionage after a few days free to look but you being a citizen of a country of citizenship rights most vacuous word that can Find. Kurdish existence that you considered the second-class citizenship and crime ever defend the rights of humanity, equality and freedom policy politics highest mittimus to you and you are even denied the rights of a prisoner to. Perhaps you remember the speech that won liquidation of human rights and human rights in Iran is a crime unforgivable. The crime that the skirt was one of candidates

Yes, you like all Kurdish Kurdish liquidation and that their land as a refugee to see them! Was more than a stranger. You sin, of Kurdish nationality was being! Perhaps, if non-Kurdish death eleven years of liquidation shower not shamefully abandoned like all human rights activists because of the non-Kurdish points not being in prison.

Sentenced to prison you go, like all Kurdish! Innocent guilty to a crime! Like other ethnic groups in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and other parts of the world!

If you do not even Kurdish Kurdish crime to be guilty was open!

Today is the third year you in a mass of innocent prisoners. Today, one of you being in prison, thousands of people are. Perhaps they can in their oppression and aggression against the Kurdish rights will be quiet, they might be able to ignore us and take our rights, maybe they know their separate us and create categories, but I like them I do not think I graduated from the Kurdish Kurdish and non-being can not only be watching sit, all, get their facts today to 3 years ago that you and the sentence unjust in thy silence the vertebra were caught today, it too inward looking, not that part of the rule but also it was only asked to rights and human rights, not national or other things!

Three years passed and July 10 this year not only arrest the tragic memory for me because I brought the people of Iran but mournful.

Father, not only my but over thousands and millions of dependence such as Kurdish, and I think in the first and last voted for change. By appointment we read them we had the elections! Our mistakes and we mistake our mass shavings and straw and rag and read disturbance. Yesterday and today were election epic maker fistic patsy and acting against national security and, as participation in elections thanked forces trained in Lebanon and outside of us with tear gas and beaten to entertain.

Is called the law of the circuit and is based on law! The same law that allowed holding of peaceful assembly and to march to, but because they are protesting the patsy and the foreign agent and is not protesting the right subject! Right to freedom of press, right to freedom of expression and thought are not protesting, including both open! Only the government have the right.

Say absolute freedom in Iran is near! Thousands are arrested! Prevent political parties and organizations, they are! Civil rights activists, political, human rights, journalists, reporters and artists are prisoners! Some lose their lives to learn the course of foreign enemies and bogus! Students and faculty are prisoners! Censorship of newspapers, websites are filtered! Communication equipment is the people! National media, the government is! Just wrong!

Here every cry, every whimper and any protest will be silent. Other streets are reminiscent of life and mobility. Evin prison is greater than here.

I remember the evening went really tell if the sound heard Allah Akbar means that these same employees of foreign embassies that they are velvet revolution cast the way!

Thanks to God that my dear father in nearly absolute freedom is absolute, if we are what was. Due to the proximity to absolute freedom is a pious man like you are imprisoned, but on the best lessons we can.

When the guilty and innocent prison over presidential power and might be when .....

translated by EastKurd
Her father, in the same page eastkurd

EastKurd:the name of five Marivan Houshyar Ahmadi, Sirwan Ahmadi , Jahanbakhsh Ahmadi, Sirwan Mohammadi Bahman Sa'idi about 3 months ago that prisoners are still detained and indefinite Sanandaj prison being lived.

5 citizens that this village from County "Negel" functions are Marivan cooperation and advertising to benefit the opposition have been accused.

These people are called, one month long detention and the rest of his detention in prison Sanandaj have elapsed.
mukrian News Agency

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Four workers were killed and nine were injured when a roadside bomb destroyed the vehicle in which they were travelling in southeastern Turkey, the provincial governor of the region said Monday.
The vehicle was carrying workers in the province of Sirnak heading to a road construction site, he said, when it hit an improvised explosive device laid by the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), he said.

Some 40,000 have died since 1984 when the PKK picked up arms to carve out an ethnic homeland in predominantly Kurdish southeast Turkey.

Similar explosive devices have been planted frequently in the past by PKK guerrillas in the 25-year-old conflict.

EastKurd:Two Kurdish students from Marivan names of Salam Nabati and Jamshid Bahrami charges collaboration with Kurdish political parties to national security, and each were sentenced to six months.

Jamshid Bahrami students at Tabriz University and Salam Nabati payam nour University student in Marivan

Reminded that two of them 17 February 2006 were arrested by security forces.

Eastkurd:Those forces that the regime of the past from different parts of the mountains "Shaho" had been transferred, the villages in recent days in "marble we "Tileko" functions Kamyaran crisp and are based in mosques.

Kurdish news agency reported in this field, forces the regime shrine "Akash" village "Kashter" to improve their occupation of a military base use.

The shrine of the holy places, with people of the region and the presence of regime forces a kind of insult to the beliefs of the region. Regime forces currently allowed to visit this place people do not.
The regime of Lorestan province, to transfer troops and military  to Kamyaran in the region has dominant.

Military regime, the people from going to farms and farm and stop the self see if the farms, they are to be punished.

Seconds to transmit  report, due to space region dominated by military and military Degrading treatment and harassment by their people, daily lives of people suffering and disturbing problem .

EastKurd Kurdish news agency reports, the village of farms "Mawian" functions Kamyaran region, the afternoon of June 09 upon your tenth day the fire was.

Of this fire, the village suffered heavy damage and material Gardens, farms and grain fuel their fire.    

So far the exact identity of the person or people who committed this act are not available.

EastKurd:Governor regime in Kurdistan province, during a meeting with union representatives and Marketers Saqez given on request and to request them to testify in the 13 July anniversary of Dr. ghassemlou, drag from the holiday market should avoid. Kurdistan News Agency reported

despite the general application regime in Kurdistan people Saqez and its surrounding areas, beforehand for its glorious presence of the strike in the last few years around 13 July and celebrate worthy of Martyrs "Vienna" especially leaders in the nation, Dr. Abdul Rahman ghassemlou should be ready.

Committee commemorating Dr ghassemlou remember, the twentieth anniversary of his testimony to the Islamic Republic's diplomats terrorists, the declaration has asked the people of Kurdistan on July 13 shops and markets shut down and  
Brutal regime condemned the act should.