Iran Update
Volume: 1 - Issue:  21 6 April 2010
Iran Update
Dear Friend,

We are delighted to present you with the current issue of Iran Update, a publication of International Solidarity for Democratic Change in Iran (ISDCI).    
Unserious about Iran
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook
5 April 2010
...President George W. Bush will share responsibility for a nuclear Iran given his own failure to act more firmly against the Islamic Republic or to allow Israel to do so, thereby failing to make good on his pledge not to allow the world's most dangerous regimes to get the world's most dangerous weapons. But it is now Mr. Obama's watch, and for a year he has behaved like a President who would rather live with a nuclear Iran than do what it takes to stop it.
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Iran criticized over executions
GlobalPost
Iason Athanasiadis
4 April 2010

Iran's human rights record began deteriorating after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Today Iran is second only to China in capital punishment - 270 people were hung in 2010 and another 12 so far in 2010. Total executions in the Persian year, which started on March 21, 2009, passed 440 according to the Mojahedeen-e Khalq (MKO) organization, a Paris-based opposition group whose tally is based on executions reported by state-run media.
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Dissident Iranians take refuge in Turkey
Associated Press
SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
4 April 2010

NIGDE, Turkey -- Light snow was falling when the two young men set out on horseback for the border to flee Iran. By the time they were deep in the mountains, it had become a blinding blizzard, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and they were barely alive.

Hesam Misaghi and Sepehr Atefi were joining what has become an exodus of dissidents fleeing Iran's political turmoil. For them that meant a harrowing journey through the country's rugged northwest in the dead of winter, with the help of Kurdish smugglers.
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Iran nuclear ring probed
The Wall Street Journal
PETER FRITSCH AND DAVID CRAWFORD
3 April 2010

An Iranian firm closely linked to Tehran's nuclear program acquired special hardware for enriching uranium, despite sanctions intended to keep such equipment out of Iran, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.
In recent weeks, the officials said, an Iranian procurement firm obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges made by a French company that until December was owned by U.S. industrial conglomerate Tyco International. The French and U.S. firms said they knew nothing of the case.
Western authorities are still struggling to understand precisely how the valves and gauges in question reached Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating the matter, according to a Vienna-based diplomat, and Western intelligence agencies also are investigating, The Wall Street Journal has learned.
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Another Ashura day protester condemned to death in Iran
ISDCI
3 April 2010

Human Rights Activists reported on 29 March that Abdolreza Ghanbari, a school teacher and a university lecturer for over 14 years, has been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court. According to HRANA, judge Salavati issued the execution order due to accusations of mohareb for suspicious ties with various groups. The evidence for the accusation was emails and connection to foreign television stations.
According to the report, Ghanbari was arrested 13 January 2010 by security forces.
In recent months, branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court has sentenced several people to death under the orders of judge Salavati. So far two of the execution orders have been carried out (the death of Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour).
ISDCI condemns the use of the death penalty particularly against political prisoners and calls on all human rights and democracy defenders around the world to denounce the Iranian regime for continued gross violations of human rights and politically motivated killings. ISDCI believes the only effective way to end state-sponsored atrocities in Iran is to heed the Iranian people's call for an end to the illegitimate rule of clerical dictatorship in Iran.

 
Thank you for your reading Iran Update. We welcome your comments. 
 
 
Sincerely,
 
ISDCI News Group
In This Issue
Unserious about Iran
Iran criticized over executions
Dissident Iranians take refuge in Turkey
Iran nuclear ring probed
Another Ashura day protester condemned to death in Iran
Quick Links
 
 
 
Putting Human Rights
First
We invite you to write to your national government officials to ask them to freeze all commercial and diplomatic ties with the Iranian regime until there is a full stop to repression of protests in Iran, release of political prisoners and respect for human rights as demanded in the recent UN Human Rights Council session.