Iran:Lord Maginnis: Italy’s Renzi is sending an ill-advised signal with Iran visit

Lord Maginnis: Italy’s Renzi is sending an ill-advised signal with Iran visit

While few will deny the principle that compromise is the essence of politics and that pragmatic solutions can be helpful within any democratic, pluralist society, this week's visit to Iran by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will, under the prevailing circumstances, send a totally inappropriate message to the ayatollahs, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass argues.

"Compromise at the cost of integrity should be not only shunned but guarded against, particularly when that compromise comes at the expense of dignity and freedom," Lord Maginnis wrote on Monday on the UK website Politics Home.

"In an attempt to underpin the Vienna Agreement of October 18th past rush we appear to have devised another 'de facto' compromise that is being made on the issue of human rights and democratic freedom for ordinary Iranians. That is a compromise that I, for one, am not willing to make. Many of my colleagues from both of Houses of the UK Parliament and other European parliaments share a similar opinion," wrote the Independent member of the United Kingdom's House of Lords."Recent coverage of Iran appears skewed in favour of a narrative surrounding reform and moderation, yet few seem to remember that this is not the first time the regime has played this card. During the Presidency of Mohammad Khatami, Iran played the moderate card to perfection and fooled many in the West. This not only alleviated pressure on the regime, but also gave it time to pursue its nuclear programme secretly, while notionally engaging in cordial relations with the West. Today is no different!"

"Under President Rouhani, Iran has recently reached a 25 year high for executions, despite his supposedly 'moderate' image abroad. The victims included political dissidents who are activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (the PMOI), the principal Iranian opposition movement, along with ethnic and religious minorities. In real terms, according to UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed, Iran has actually escalated its crackdown on human rights over the last few years, leaving little doubt as to the true nature of this government."

"If that were not evidence enough of the nature of this regime, one need look no further than its support of mass murder in Syria and its continual involvement in terror and instability throughout the region. This is not behaviour that warrants compromise or cordial relations. It is belligerence being rewarded by seemingly wishful thinking."

Iran:Persian New Year celebration with residents of Val d'Oise and French supporters of the Iranian Resistance

Maryam-Rajavi-Iran-New-Year

MaryamRajavi: Nowruz strengthens solidarity among people, by overcoming differences and improving friendship, therefore the mullahs are strongly against it

Auvers-sur-Oise, April 3, 2016 – The Persian New Year was celebrated with a number of residents of Val d'Oise and French supporters of the Iranian Resistance at the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Maryam Rajavi welcomed the Auvers-sur-Oise neighbors and supporters from nearby towns.

She elaborated on the philosophy of Nowruz as well as the situation in Iran today and pointed out: The philosophy of these feasts is to strengthen solidarity among people, by overcoming differences and improving friendship.

No wonder that the mullahs are so strongly against Nowruz. They made tremendous effort during their rule to ban Nowruz celebrations, to no avail. Under the mullahs, the Iranian people have celebrated Nowruz more enthusiastically than ever before to show that their culture is greater than what the mullahs advocate. They have thus expressed their hope for change of the mullahs' regime.

In her appraisal of the events of the past Iranian year, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect noted: Our compatriots staged over 6500 large and small demonstrations and protests. Teachers called off school and staged demonstrations in cities all across the country. Workers held numerous demonstrations.

Political prisoners repeatedly went on hunger strike. Families of martyrs and political prisoners held rallies and gatherings outside prisons. Nurses, students, government employees and farmers also held protests on many occasions.

With nearly 1,000 executions over the past year, the total number of executions under Rouhani amounts to 2300, despite his claims to moderation.

Iran- women: Temporary marriage ads

Iran- women: Temporary marriage ads

The misogynist laws of the Iranian regime have found their way on the walls of the capital.

This ad posted on a wall in Tehran reads: “A young, respectful woman is needed for temporary marriage”.

According to the constitution and laws of the Iranian regime, men are allowed numerous temporary marriages without obliging the man to provide financial support for his ex-wife or the child born out of such temporary engagement. The woman also does not enjoy any legal or government protection after being divorced.

Maryam Rajavi speaks in Women's Role in War against Fundamentalism conference Conference in the European

Maryam Rajavi speaks in Women's Role in War against Fundamentalism

 conference Conference in the European

Below is excerpts of the speech by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance at Conference entitled Women's Role in War against Fundamentalism held on 2 March 2016 in the European Parliament and chaired by Beatriz Becerra, member of EP’s Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality:

Maryam Rajavi:

Extremism under the banner of Islam is a fatal epidemic expanding throughout the world because it has not been confronted. To defeat this epidemic, a comprehensive approach is vital.

Since the 1990s we have been warning that Islamic fundamentalism is the new global threat.

Today, there is a real concern about Daesh, but it should be noted that its expansion is a product of two developments in the region:

The Iranian regime's occupation of Iraq after the war in 2003 and the brutal crackdown on Sunnis by the mullahs' puppet government in Iraq.

Suppression of Syrian people and dissidents by Bashar Assad's government, backed and led by the mullahs' regime.

Therefore, if it was not for the Iranian regime's domination over Iraq and Syria, if the Sunnis were not suppressed in Iraq, if Bashar Assad's dictatorship did not exist, Daesh would not have emerged as a threat.

With the inception of the mullahs' rule in 1979, a concrete, practical model was created for all fundamentalist groups. The history of the past 37 years proves that no other factor has been as effective as a ruling government acting as a role-model for the expansion of fundamentalist groups. Particularly that the mullahs actively try to create these groups and guide them ideologically.

NCRI Iran News - Iran Resistance

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, - Rt. Hon. David Jones MP

British parliamentarians present Ms.Rajavi a declaration on adoption of a decisive Iran policy

People of  Iran have never surrendered. They R determined 2 turn this dark page&build their future.

More than 200 cross-Party MPs and Peers today called on the UK government to adopt a firm policy towards Iran and make any improvement in bilateral relations conditioned on an end to human rights abuses and regional meddling. The announcement was unveiled at a meeting attended by a delegation of eight MPs and one member of the House of Lords with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, north of Paris at the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The meeting on Friday and the policy recommendations come as Iran’s regime has faced scrutiny by United Nations bodies over its abysmal human rights record and exactly two weeks before Iran's Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts sham elections, whose candidates are strictly filtered and unrepresentative of the people’s desires.

Iran has the highest per capita execution rate in the world. Political suppression has intensified over the past two years under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani. Iran continues with its destructive meddling in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Iran: Low income families resort to sale of their children

Iran: Low income families resort to sale of their children

Dspreading tragedy of selling newborns due 2 extreme poverty in Iran is D outcome ofD mullahs' crimes against women

An Iranian MP, Abass Gha'ed Rahmat, revealed that sale of infants is turning into a common practice in Iran but the government has neglected it.

Rahmati also admitted that the government has not allocated enough budget to social ills. He said: “Lack of jobs and housing as well as addiction (of parents) are the main elements leading families towards selling their children and infants”.

Continued Russian bombings of civilians blamed for jeopardizing the fragile peace talks

Residents carry banners and opposition flags as they march during a protest in Aleppo

Syria’s main opposition bloc has given warning that attacks by government forces in Aleppo province could stand in the way of the peace talks under way in Geneva.

The warning was sounded by the Higher Negotiations Committee (HNC), which sent a 17-strong opposition team, including three rebel leaders, to the Swiss city for talks.

Salim al-Muslet, HNC spokesman, said the opposition was waiting for reaction to the developments in Aleppo and other provinces.

'It is important for us to see the lifting of sieges of children starving to death,' she said.

'Since last night, big massacres have taken place in Syria and nobody is doing or saying anything.

'We do not know if the international community is completely blind or they do not want to do anything. We are here to know if they are keen to do anything - then we are waiting for them.'

Iran-linked groups focus of Baghdad kidnapping probe: U.S. sources

Iran-linked groups focus of Baghdad kidnapping probe: U.S. sources

U.S. intelligence agencies investigating the kidnapping of three Americans in Baghdad, Iraq last week are focusing their probe on three groups closely affiliated with the Iranian regime, U.S. government sources said on Thursday.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are the principle focus of the investigation into the armed kidnapping of the three Americans in the Dora neighborhood, south of Baghdad, the sources said.

The three men are employed by a still-unidentified small company doing work for General Dynamics under a larger contract with the U.S. Army.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are Shi’ite militia groups that are part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Front, a group closely tied to Iran, according to the Counter Terrorism Project, a New York-based advocacy group.

IRAN - Women’s rights activists in Iran increasingly face jail time amid cultural crackdown

Women’s rights activists in Iran increasingly face jail time amid cultural crackdown

“I don’t think it’s anticipated that drawing cartoons or writing poems would get you 15 to 20 years in prison”

Atena Farghadani told advocates she was beaten, held in solitary confinement, verbally abused and forced to strip naked by prison guards. (AtenaFarghadani/Facebook)

Twenty-eight year-old Atena Farghadani felt a sense of outrage when her government, the conservative legislators of Iran, tried to criminalize voluntary sterilization in 2014. It was the latest move to restrict women’s reproductive choices, and Farghadani, a talented painter and budding activist, decided to speak out.

Farghadani drew a cartoon depicting legislators who supported the bill as monkeys and cows and posted it to Facebook. Shortly after her post, the Revolutionary Guard showed up at Farghadani’s doorstep, searched her home, arrested her, and charged her with insulting the government, disseminating propaganda, and colluding against national security. They alleged that her meetings with the families of political prisoners constituted a crime in itself, and quickly made her a political prisoner, too.

Farghadani has told advocates that she has been beaten, held in solitary confinement, verbally abused, forced to strip naked, and forced to undergo virginity and pregnancy tests by the prison guards, according to advocates and experts with Movements.org, a human rights organization that helps digitally connect activists in closed societies and has been compiling stories of political prisoners like Farghadani.

Farghadani, who appeared in a YouTube video criticizing her arrest in 2014 and was subsequently re-arrested, for “illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery” and indecency charges after shaking hands with her lawyer, also posted an open letter to Facebook addressed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2015, criticizing the Revolutionary Guard for her maltreatment.

Interview with Tahar Boumedra: Iran regime is not reformable

Dr. Boumedra appealed

The former head of the United Nations human rights office in Iraq, Dr. TaharBoumedra, on Wednesday rejected claims that the Iranian regime’s president Hassan Rouhani is a moderate and said that Iran’s fundamentalist regime is “not reformable.”

In an interview with ncr-iran.org, Dr. Boumedra appealed to European leaders to focus on the appalling human rights situation in Iran in light of Rouhani’s planned trip to France and other European countries at the end of January.

“Moderation under the current Iranian constitution is meaningless because it is a constitution program that adopts violations of human rights, including torture, and the ‘export of the revolution’ as a means of governance in Iran,” Dr. Boumedra said.

“It is impossible to qualify a member of the current Iranian government as a moderate,” added Dr. Boumedra, who last September published a 50-page report on the human rights situation in Iran in 2015.

He pointed out that Rouhani and all the members of his administration are “committed to a regime with a constitution that is based on Sharia [Law] as interpreted by a group of mullahs under the leadership of the Supreme Leader. This interpretation is not the mainstream Shia or Sunni Islam. It is an interpretation that does not belong to this era.”

Iran: 65.5% of educated women unemployed

Iran: 65.5% of educated women unemployed

The state-run Aftab News website wrote on women’s employment and education conditions in Iran:

Statistics indicate that unemployment among educated women has reached 65.5%. Experts say unemployment among women and educated women shows two fundamental issues.

First, women’s enthusiasm to take part in economic activities and participate in the job market have tremendously increased over the past two decades to the point where the number of women currently admitted to universities and receiving education is greater than men; this reminds us of the duty of the government and policy makers to provide suitable conditions and adequate grounds for women’s economic participation and employment as many women have abandoned the traditional viewpoint of remaining at home.

There are 5,305,000 educated women, 1,282,000 of whom are employed and 546,000 are seeking employment.

The general unemployment rates among] college educated men and women in Iran is currently 18.5%. Unemployment rate for men is 13%, while it is 65.5% among educated women. In the meantime, the number of educated women seeking jobs is currently higher than men who do the same.

54.3% of the total number of college graduates are men, of which 61.6% are economically active (87% employed and 13% unemployed), and 38.4% are considered inactive.

46.6% of college graduates are women, of whom 34.5% are economically active (70.1% employed and 29.9% unemployed), and 65.5% are considered economically inactive.

Iran: Courageous mother stands for her son’s cause

Ms. Gohar Eshghi is the mother of dissident blogger, Sattar Beheshti

Ms.Gohar Eshghi is the mother of dissident blogger, Sattar Beheshti, who was arrested by the Iranian regime’s internet police and killed after a few days under torture on November 3, 2012.

Her daughter, Sahar Beheshti, was stopped on the way from her son’s kindergarten on December 28th and threatened at gun point to go with the police for posting her brother’s photo on her car’s window shield. She refused to go with the police but was stopped on the street for a few hours.

Her mother subsequently declared, “As long as I am alive, I will be the voice of Sattar. After me, it is Sahar who is his voice. If anything happens to Sahar, I will hold the government responsible. Sattar was a worker. They killed him and did not give me any answers why but I will not allow them to kill Sahar. We are not afraid of anything. We are not afraid of their guns.”

She added, “This is not the first time they are threatening Sahar. They have done so several times but even if they take Sahar from me, I will not stop and will not remain silent. Sattar told me: ‘What we are doing is not living. This is humiliation. Dying is better than the life we have.’ Now I say the same thing. This life is nothing but humiliation and death.”

A woman appointed as Commonwealth secretary-general

Baroness Patricia Scotland

BaronessPatricia Scotland, the first woman to be appointed Commonwealth secretary-general, says she will "put the women's agenda very strongly on the table".

Commonwealth leaders meeting in Malta chose Scotland on Friday, November 27, 2015, after a fraught and extended meeting to choose between three candidates.

She is to take over from Kamalesh Sharma, who has served in the role for eight years.

Scotland, a lawyer who has dual British and Dominican citizenship, served as minister of state, deputy home secretary and attorney-general under the previous Labour government in the UK.

She was the first black woman to be appointed as a Queen's Counsel in the UK and at the age of 35, was also the youngest woman.

After Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced her appointment to reporters, she said she was "incredibly proud" to be the first woman to hold the post.

Iran: Political prisoner sentenced to two years behind bars

Afsaneh Bayazidi

AfsanehBayazidi was sentenced to two years imprisonment by the court of Mahabad, Iranian Kurdistan. This student from Bukan is charged with “anti-government propaganda” and “insulting the leader (of the clerical regime)” and was banished to Kermanshah’s Prison.

Ms. Bayazidi was deprived of having a defense attorney of her choice. She had been arrested on October 8, 2015, by the Guards Corps Intelligence.

Women in History

Nancy Astor

-1919- Nancy Astor was elected a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She was the first woman to sit in the House of Commons.

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964), rallied the supporters of the incumbent government, moderated her Prohibition views, and used women's meetings to gain the support of female voters. A by-election was held on 28 November 1919, and she took up her seat in the House on 1 December as a Unionist (also known as "Tory") Member of Parliament. Astor's friendship with George Bernard Shaw helped her through some of her problems, although his own nonconformity caused friction between them. They held opposing political views and had very different temperaments. However, his own tendency to make controversial statements or put her into awkward situations proved to be a drawback for her political career. Astor was challenged by the rise of Nazism. She criticized them for devaluing the position of women, but was strongly opposed to the idea of another World War. Lady Astor died in 1964 at her daughter Nancy Astor's home at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire.

UN must urge Iraq to grant visa to families of Iranians in Camp Liberty.

campliberty-map

As a group of Camp Liberty residents' families residing in Europe and the , we are gravely concerned about the lives of our children, especially after the rocket attack on October 29 that killed 24 of the residents.

During 2003-2009, when the US forces held the responsibility of security of Camp Ashraf on the ground, many of us had the opportunity to travel to Ashraf and stay there for an unlimited period of time and see our children. But since the time the US Camp Ashraf unlawfully turned the security of our children over to the Pro-Iranian regime government of Maliki, despite our repeated application for entry visa to Iraq through various embassies in countries of our residence, Iraq has refused granting permission to enter that country.

This is while our children and relatives are recognized as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and have been interviewed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and they are recognized as people of concern protected under international law.

Our loved ones were transferred from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, supposedly a Temporary Transit Location, to be relocated to third countries within few months. Yet, after 3.5 years they are under unbearable pressures in the camp and they have not been resettled. The Iraqi Government has virtually turned the camp into a prison.

In these circumstances, dispatched teams of the mullahs’ Intelligence Ministry to Iraq and to Camp Liberty under the cover of so-called families of the residents have no problem entering Iraq and get through to the Camp.

Maryam Rajavi strongly condemns Paris massacre and extends condolences to French President and people

14 November 2015

MaryamRajavi has strongly condemned the massacre of innocent people in Paris, describing it as savage terrorism and a crime against humanity. She expressed her condolences to the President, government and people of France over this great tragedy and offered her most sincere sympathies to the families of the victims.

She added that tonight humanity's conscience is in a state of shock and disbelief on how such crimes can be committed in the name of God and religion. The Iranian people, who for the past 37 years have been under the yoke of the mullahs' religious dictatorship and the rule of terror by the 'Godfather of Daesh' (ISIS, ISIL, IS), have experienced such crimes and fully comprehend the French people and their feelings in these hard moments and share their agony.

Maryam Rajavi reiterated that fundamentalism in the name of Islam - whether under the banner of Shia and velayat-e faqih or under the banner of Sunni and Daesh – and their inhuman crimes have nothing to do with Islam, and this evil phenomenon, wherever it may be, is the enemy of peace and humanity.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

November 13, 2015