Iran seeks to stage vote protest

TEHERAN – IRAN’S two main opposition leaders on Monday sent a written request to Teheran’s governor general to hold a rally on June 12, the first anniversary of last year’s disputed presidential election. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi held a meeting after which they signed a ‘joint letter and sent it to the governor general’s office in Teheran with a request to hold a rally on the …

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Iran seeks to stage vote protest

Iran executes 5 people for anti-revolutionary activities

Source: Reuters TEHRAN, May 9 – The Iranian state news agency said that Iran sentenced to death five members of “anti-revolutionary” groups who had been involved in a series of bombings.

Ali Haydarian, Farzad Kamangar, Farhad Vakili, Mehdi Eslamian and Shirin Alam Houli were hanged at Evin prison on Sunday morning, IRNA said.

Iran accused the five in involvement of “terrorist operations”, including planting bombs in both public and government places over several years.

This incidents has taken place as a result of last year’s Iranian Protests that put President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a second term in office. Iranian government cracked down on all the protesters harshly. The phrase “where is my vote” was chanted by many protestors and became a symbol of the protests.

Iran’s video exhibit hits Paris

PARIS – IRAN’S so-called ‘Twitter Revolution’ came to a Paris shopping street on Wednesday, in an exhibition that takes some of the thousands of mobile phone videos shot by anti-government protestors and turns them into art. International and local Iranian media were banned from freely covering the massive wave of protest sparked by the disputed re-election last June of President Mahmoud …

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Iran’s video exhibit hits Paris

Javad-Larijani: ‘Torture is against Iran’s policy’ (EuroNews)

Mohammad Javad-Larijani, critics say, is one of the Iran’s main advocates of a hardline interpretation of Islam. He is a top adviser to the supreme leader, and also the head of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights.

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Javad-Larijani: ‘Torture is against Iran’s policy’ (EuroNews)

Iranians Protest Bill on Rights of Women (New York Times)

A statement against a bill that would curb women’s rights appeared to be the Iran’s first burst of activism in months not related to the disputed presidential election last summer.

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Iranians Protest Bill on Rights of Women (New York Times)

Iran cuts ties with British Museum (Straits Times)

TEHERAN – IRAN is cutting ties with the British Museum in protest at repeated delays in the loan to Teheran of an ancient Persian treasure, the Cyrus Cylinder, local media reported on Sunday.

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Iran cuts ties with British Museum (Straits Times)

Iran hangs 2 men accused of treason Group accuses Hamas of targeting civilians (Washington Post)

IRAN Iran executed two men Thursday accused of involvement in an armed anti-government group as the public prosecutor announced that new death sentences have been issued against opposition activists involved in protests over June’s disputed presidential election.

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Iran hangs 2 men accused of treason Group accuses Hamas of targeting civilians (Washington Post)

Iran Nuclear Standoff

Albert Einstein once remarked, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. Ever since the dropping of the atom bomb (which abruptly ended World War II) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one can conclude that the ‘arms race’ will lead to the eventual destruction of humanity.

With the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, one hoped that the imminent threat to humanity’s survival could be stemmed by preventing the possession of nuclear warheads. While India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have publicly declared nuclear capability, Iran is a party to the NPT but has been in the news recently because of failing to comply with the NPT Safeguards Agreement, based on a report filed by the International Atomic Energy Agency on November 16, 2007, which expressed their doubts about Iran’s nuclear program.

With the discovery of a second secret plutonium plant that manufactures nuclear fuel, the G20 summit witnessed a tough stand by the United States urging Iran to come clean with its nuclear program, which Iran claims, is solely for peaceful purposes.

In this ongoing battle since 2003, the latest developments include Iran rejecting the December 31 2009 deadline to accept an UN-drafted proposal to swap its low-enriched uranium for fuel exported from the West, thus indicating how seriously the nuclear program is being taken.

To make matters worse, with domestic turmoil intensifying in the country, and talks of imposing economic sanctions by the UN still underway, it seems that Iran has their work cut out for them both internationally and from within their own ranks.

One only hopes that Iran will clear up its act, and make the necessary compromises that will end heightened tensions in the Middle East.

Iran Protests

When one thinks of the word coup d’état, one would think that this sort of thing only existed when a need arose to overthrow a regime, such as Tom Cruise’s performance in the movie ‘Valkyrie’ in an effort to overthrow Adolf Hitler. Yet in the world that we live in only as recent as 2009, did we see yet another instance (or at least claims of such of an instance) due to the Iranian Presidential Elections in June 2009 which was rigged to favor the candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of the neoconservative party of Adabgaran.

With one of the candidates dubbing the controversial Presidential Elections as ‘the end of the Islamic Republic’ (and the beginning of the Adabgaran Regime), peaceful demonstrations and rioting were met with stiff resistance while several universities were closed and websites, text messages, cell phone transmissions and text messages were blocked.

It has been about six months now since the conclusion of the Presidential election but the protests have taken an ugly turn, with almost 4000 protestors arrested apart from torturing and raping the prisoners that have been detained. The International community is considering the imposing of sanctions on Iran for its outrageous acts towards the protesters.

Absurdly enough, the Iranian President has blamed Western governments for inciting these protests, while threatening to treat the demonstrators as ‘enemies of God’ who are punishable under Islamic law by death.

According to the latest report by BusinessWeek, Iran hanged two demonstrators out of the eleven that are sentenced to death that were detained from the January 28 protests, stating that the reason for this was because of an act that displayed the ‘enmity towards God’.

Yet another heinous act committed in the name of religion?