Rome, May 27 - Shiva Nazar Ahari, 26, journalist, human rights activist, blogger and reporter of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters was put on trial on 23 May on a charge that could lead to a death sentence. Another member of this committee, Kouhyar Goudarzi, remains imprisoned without trial, the Italian Peace Reporter said. Amnesty International described the two as "prisoners of conscience, detained for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and association." Both have been detained since December 2009.
Iran's state news agencies have accused Ahari of being affiliated with the main opposition group People's Mojahedin (PMOI). Goudarzi faces the same charge.
Goudarzi told his family last February that he had been put under pressure by Iran's intelligence service to confess to having links with the PMOI. He has been put in solitary confinement after he had protested the treatment of other prisoners.
 ...
Read More 

NCRI - Majid Tavakoli, a political prisoner, who is on his fifth day of dry hunger strike, has fallen critically ill. In a show of solidarity for his action, his mother along with number of other political prisoners have joined in with their own hunger strikes.
On May 23, Majid Tavakoli, a student activist from Tehran Polytechnic University, started a dry hunger strike to protest against his transfer to solitary confinement. His move follows pressures by the regime's prosecutor Jaafari Dowlatabadi on 100 political prisoners forcing them to repent in writing and appeal to the regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to pardon them. Majid and most of the prisoners have refused to give in to their outrageous demands. Angered by his refusal, the henchmen transferred him to solitary confinement.
 ...
Read More 

An exhibit in Paris brings together some of the thousands of mobile phone videos shot by anti-government protesters after last June's disputed presidential election.
Tehran largely banned international and Iranian media from freely covering the massive wave of protests over alleged fraud in the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
But Iranians overcame the reporting ban by using their cell phones and social-networking and image-sharing websites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
The Paris exhibit, "Action 1," gives visitors a firsthand look at the demonstrations and the crackdown that seem to have changed the lives of millions of Iranians.
 ...
Read More 

DOHA, Qatar - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says work on a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program will continue because Tehran is still not being transparent.
Western powers, including Germany and the U.S., worry that Iran is seeking to develop atomic weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program only seeks energy-producing reactors.
Merkel said Thursday in Qatar that Iran has failed to show transparency over its program so far so "the joint work on the sanctions will be continued."
 ...
Read More