Iran:Struan Stevenson explains why he supports the “Free Iran” rally in Paris

Struan Stevenson

Struan Stevenson, former Conservative MEP representing Scotland in the European Parliament from 1999 until his retirement in 2014, is the current President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA).  Mr. Stevenson, also chaired the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (Caucus) in the European Parliament, and was President of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq from 2009 to 2014.

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IRAN:44th anniversary of execution of Iranian MEK founders

IRAN:44th anniversary of execution of Iranian MEK founders

 

بنیانگذار کبیر محمد حنیف نژاد ودو یار قهرمانش  شهیدان بنیانگذار سعید محسن  وعلی اصغر بدیع ذادگان 

 This week marks the 44th anniversary of the execution of the founders of Iran’s main opposition group.

On 25 May 1972, the founders and leaders of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), were executed by death squads after months of imprisonment and torture from the regime of the Shah.

The MEK, a group which sought, and still seeks, a secular Iranian government, was considered one of the main threats to the regime of the Shah.

The Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, arrested all MEK leaders and most of its members in a series of raids in 1971.

The founders, Mohammad Hanifnejad, Said Mohsen, and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan along with two other leaders, Mahmoud Askarizadeh, and Rasoul Meshkinfam stood firm in the face of the Shah’s regime and paid with their lives.

The origins of the MEK

The MEK was founded on September 6, 1965, by engineers; Hanifnejad, Mohsen, and Badizadegan. All three were once members of the Liberation Movement; created by Medhi Bazargan in 1961 and outlawed, along with other pro-democracy groups, in 1963 following the June Uprising in which opponents to the Shah’s regime were gunned down in the streets.

The men wanted to create a new path to democracy and began by meeting with like-minded friends for a twice-weekly discussion group focusing on religion, history, philosophy, and revolutionary theory.

They sought to discover the true interpretation of Islam which, they have shown, is incredibly democratic and compatible with modern ideals. The MEK views freedom, human rights and the equality of people regardless of gender, race or religion as commitments that were set out in the Quran, in teachings from the Prophet Muhammad and by other senior members of the faith.

Iran: Negar Haeri, former political prisoner is deliberately ran over

Iran: Negar Haeri, former political prisoner is deliberately ran over

The news has just got out that Negar Haeri, a lawyer and former political prisoner, was deliberately ran over by unidentified persons on December 17, 2015.

She had previously been threatened time and again and finally on December 17, she was chased by a black Peugeot 405 with dark windows and hit after she got out of her car in Shahrara district. The Peugeot then sped away and disappeared.

Ms. Haeri was subsequently transferred to hospital. She suffered a broken right arm and a broken left leg and bruises all over her body.

Ms. Haeri had been summoned on phone to Evin’s Prosecutor’s Office on May 18, 2015, where she was insulted and arrested in front of her mother. She was held in the Evin’s women’s ward for one day and transferred to solitary confinement for another nine days where she was interrogated under torture. She was ultimately released on May 27, 2015.

Before this, she spent eight months in Varamin’s Qarchak prison and was released only after much efforts and on a 2billion-touman bail.

Ms. Haeri’s license for law practice was annulled and she was not banned from giving legal advice to her clients. Security and intelligence officers have instructed her not to leave Tehran in any circumstances.

Tell me, tell me he was the Assistant Say those without heart, he was Dldarky?

Tell me, tell me he was the Assistant

Say those without heart, he was Dldarky?

“Tell me, tell me he was the Assistant

Say those without heart, he was Dldarky?

The small stature of a girl

Say what he was commander Stvt?

Teenager guerrillas Srsyan

What was true in democratic garb?

As a gift, he gave the Pleiades

The vault of the sky was the dark?

Medal of Honor and win

Who's efforts and actions?

Tnavr poet hatred chokes

That was the target Tshbarky?

Inscriptions on stone Bistoon

Ill-head, the tone of the Who?

The stone fortress Hzardyv

That goal was the thirty thousand grade?

The final words of torture

Hi larynx was the Dark?

The song echoes N.

Who was crushed beneath the current one?

Looking at the world, innocence

Was full of shame and sorrow Who?

The picture of those who have

Samad was the face of repeated?

The same that smiled on pain and Vector

Sheikh cannibal who was in prison?

And without his armor Delaware

Muon Tractors was the enemy?

Send to stand to the end

When was the butt of fever?

Because fragrance caravan East

Which hit the market was the tent?

Tell me, tell me he was the Assistant

Say those without heart, he was Dldarky?

Iran: Female prisoner writes about prison

Manizhe Sadeghi

Manizhe Sadeghi, a prisoner who spent some time in the Iranian regime’s prisons, recently wrote to explain the conditions of women in the Iranian regime’s prisons.

“I am a hardworking woman and mother, and I was in prison for a few months with my newborn child. I taught my child to walk in prison. I am

a hardworking mother and seeing my child grow up in prison was like death for me,but I didn’t give in.

“They used the cry of my newborn child to harass me and torture my ill father, who was in the adjacent cell to force us to succumb. However, state agents were never able to make us succumb to their demands.

“They didn’t even show any mercy to my children. They would beat my children before my own eyes. They beat my pregnant daughter before me!

“I am a worker without much income and now a political prisoner, and I have experienced being beaten, tortured and insulted in the dungeons of the Islamic republic while blindfolded.

“They kicked and torture my entire body, but to reach freedom and a better world I became stronger, and I will never rest until we realize our humanitarian values.”

In a case of RETRIBUTION IN KIND in Iran, the life of a prisoner was spared at the last minute before being hanged by a couple whose son was murdered by him

In a case of RETRIBUTION IN KIND in Iran, the life

The National Observer, Dec. 18, 2015 – Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Dion joined the United Nations in calling on Iran to improve its human rights record in a resolution passed by the General Assembly.

The UN resolution expressed “serious concern” at Iran’s high and increasing use of the death penalty without respect for any international safeguards, which resulted in the execution of 694 prisoners between Jan. 1 and Sept. 15 of this year. In addition, the resolution called on Tehran to ensure that prisoners received a fair trial with proper legal counsel and were not subjected to torture or other forms of harsh punishments such as sexual violence for forced confession.

“The text of the resolution reflects both the areas where human rights violations continue and those areas where Iran is taking steps to improve the human rights situation,” said Dion.

According to the United States Institute of Peace, Iranian authorities executed 753 people in 2014, noting that executions carried out by the Islamic Republic “have been rising at an exponential rate since 2005.”

Under Iranian law, a wide range of offences carry the death penalty, including murder, drug trafficking, political opposition, espionage, blasphemy or apostasy, adultery, and homosexual acts.

The most common method of execution in Iran is hanging, which is often carried out in public at the scene of a prisoner’s supposed crime. Other methods of execution include stoning to death, shooting and pushing the victim over from a height. Shooting the victim is no longer commonly employed, but in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, thousands of prisoners were shot dead by revolutionary firing squads. There have also been a few cases of prisoners being thrown from cliffs in years past.

“Canada and the international community remain deeply concerned about Iran’s human rights record. We call on the government of Iran to implement its human rights obligations to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights for all people in Iran,” said Dion.

In addition to executions, the UN resolution condemned the Islamic Republic’s ongoing persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. It also noted that Tehran continues to restrict freedoms of expression, assembly and association by harassing, prosecuting, and detaining anyone deemed to be an opponent of the Islamic regime.

“Canada will continue to speak out about issues of concern such as human rights violations or Tehran’s regional policies,” Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Rachna Mishra said.

Under Stephen Harper’s former Conservative government, Ottawa severed diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2012 and declared Iran to be a state sponsor of terrorism. This policy remained in place even as Iran negotiated with the Americans and Europeans to resolve its nuclear crisis.

Iran: Kurdish woman may lose eyesight in prison

Zeinab Jalalian

ZeinabJalalian, a Kurdish woman imprisoned in Khuy Prison, suffers from serious eye problems and her conditions are reported as critical. The damages inflicted on her eyes has been a result of the torture and blows she has endured from interrogators.

This prisoner had suffered internal bleeding and intestine infection prior to this and after being transferred to Kermanshah’s Diesel Abad Prison (western Iran) in 2012. However, at that time prison officials and the public prosecutor refused to provide adequate medical care and send her to a hospital. Her internal bleeding began after suffering severe beatings in the Kermanshah intelligence department detention center. She has been deprived of medical leave for the past 8 years.

Iran’s political prisoners write to EU Parliament chief

EU Parliament

As political prisoners in Iran’s prisons, we urge you not to victimize human rights of the political prisoners and those executed for trade and economic deals. Your relations with Iran without taking into account and condemning the grave human rights violations in Iran would make the sword of the regime’s executioners sharper over our head and would encourage the mullahs to increase the daily executions of the youth in this country.

As political prisoners, we wouldn’t welcome you shaking hands with the dictatorship ruling our homeland. However, if this is your decision to come to Iran, would you be kind enough to come to the prisons and torture chambers of this regime and visit us too so that we could inform you of the latest appalling situation of human rights violations in this land? We call on you to condemn the blatant human rights violations and arbitrary executions in Iran in your press conferences.

Why is the world silent when juveniles are executed in Iran?

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi: Our plan is an Iran without the death penalty

Ourplan for future is an Iran without the death penalty and devoid of torture. Our plan is putting an end to torture and all forms of human rights abuse in Iran.

The Iranian Resistance declared years ago that it calls for abolition of death penalty and an end to torture and all forms of rights abuses in Iran.

Our plan is to revive friendship, conciliation and tolerance.

Our plan for future is to put an end to the mullahs’ religious decrees. We reject the inhuman penal code and other abusive laws of this regime. We believe Retribution is an inhuman law.

We advocate laws that are based on forgiveness, compassion and humanity.

The Iranian Resistance Leader Massoud Rajavi ordered the release of thousands of Khomeini’s agents arrested in the battles of the National Liberation Army of Iran --many of whom had committed murder against the PMOI-- without the slightest violation of their human rights.

The murderous mullahs have executed more people this year than they did last year. While a single execution is enough to torment everyone’s conscience, world powers have remained disgracefully silent over the situation in Iran, especially as they were engaged in the nuclear talks and were busy striking a deal that would open the path to doing business with the regime. Sacrificing human lives at the altar of commercial interests have never been a good investment for anyone.

If Western governments had stood up to the abuse of human rights in Iran, the mullahs could have never expanded their barbarity to Syria and Iraq.