HRANA News Agency – (Beirut) – Iranian authorities should investigate the death of a 35-year-old blogger in custody and immediately provide his family with information about the circumstances of his death. Initial reports suggest that he may have died from ill-treatment or torture.
Continue reading “HRW – Iran: Investigate Detained Blogger’s Death”
HRANA News Agency – Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Iran on Saturday to lift restrictions on women attending university and enrolling in certain academic fields. Thirty-six universities across Iran have banned women from 77 different majors, including accounting, counseling, and engineering, for the school year that begins on Saturday, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported in August.
There was no official reason given for the move, but Iranian officials have expressed alarm in recent months about the country’s declining birth and marriage rates, seen as partially caused by women’s rising educational attainment in the last two decades. In a statement released on Saturday, Human Rights Watch urged the Iranian government to immediately reverse the more restrictive policies, and said they were a violation of the international right to education for everyone without discrimination.
“As university students across Iran prepare to start the new academic year, they face serious setbacks, and women students in particular will no longer be able to pursue the education and careers of their choice,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. Women in Iran make up a majority of college students. Sixty percent of those who passed this year’s national college entrance exam were women, said Hossein Tavakoli, an official at Iran’s National Education Assessment Organization (NEAO), according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA.
Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi argued in a letter to the United Nations in August that the closure of certain academic fields to women was part of a push by the Iranian government to stifle “women’s presence in the public arena”. Human Rights Watch said some of the banned majors include high-paying fields where women have had a greater presence in recent years, like engineering and applied science.—Reuters
HRANA News Agency – Security forces arrested five underground musicians and three political Activists.
According to the reports by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), three political civil activists: Ayat Mehr Ali Biglu in Soufian, Eastern Azarbayjan, Sirvan Hossein Panahi in Dehgolan and Mohammad Khatibi in Tabriz, were arrested by security forces.
And also,Iranian police have arrested five members of an underground band suspected of producing music for Farsi-speaking, dissident satellite channels based in the U.S.
Continue reading “Iran: Five Underground Musicians and Three Political Activists Arrested”
HRANA News Agency – (New York) – Amnesty International today urged the Iranian authorities to investigate the circumstances that led to the death of a blogger in detention in the capital Tehran who was reportedly tortured in custody.
Continue reading “Amnesty – Iran Must Immediately Investigate Blogger’s Death in Custody”
HRANA News Agency – Mehdi Tahaghoghi, member of the Iranian reformist party Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution, was arrested in his home by security forces to serve his one year in prison verdict in exile, yesterday.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), quoted from Kalame, Mehdi Tahaghoghi, member of the Iranian reformist party Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution – Official of former president Mohammad Khatami, was arrested by security forces and sent to prison.
Continue reading “Mehdi Tahaghoghi Arrested to Serve One Year in Prison in Exile”
Mother and Sister of Satar Beheshti at his memorial ceremony
HRANA News Agency – Attendees at Sattar Beheshti’s 40th day passing away memorial ceremony were beaten and several were arrested.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the 40th day passing away memorial ceremony of Sattar Beheshti at the Imam Mohamad Taghi Shrine in Robat Karim, Tehran, was raided by security forces resulting in beatings and arrests of Sattar’s family and a number of attendees.
Following the request by Sattar Beheshti’s mother and sister for the participants to go from the Shrine to Sattar’s sister’s home for the services, security forces and Plainclothes forces attacked the participants.
Five security officers also attacked and beat Sattar’s elderly mother causing her to sustain leg and knee injuries.
One of the participants at the ceremony told HRANA’s reporter that the agents were dragging Sattar’s mother on the ground by her hair.
Sattar’s brother, Asghar Beheshti, was also arrested while he was inviting people to his sister’s home. He was kept in detention for two hours.
Another participant in the ceremony has reported that Ahmad Taghavi was arrested. The exact number of people arrested at the ceremony is not yet known.
HRANA News Agency – The United States sanctioned 17 Iranian individuals and entities for their alleged roles in the Iranian government’s human rights abuses and support of terrorism, the Treasury and State departments announced Thursday.
Continue reading “U.S. sanctioned Iranian human rights violators”
HRANA News Agency – Yalda celebrations organized by youth groups and social activists in Gorgan, Golestan Province, was cancelled after police and security agents raided the ceremony.Yalda is the Persian Winter Solstice Celebration observed on the longest night of the year.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), more than one hundred young citizens and social and cultural activists from Golestan Province planned Yalda celebrations which was ultimately cancelled after security agents raided the ceremony.
Prior to the celebrations, all the expenses were paid and preparations were made for a modest ceremony planned to be held in the garden of a restaurant.Guests intended to recite poems, read stories and eat dinner.
One of the organizer of Yalda celebrations in Gorgan told HRANA, “This ceremony was not political in nature at all.It was a small and simple gathering to observe Yalda, a thousand-year-old Iranian tradition.Before the celebrations began, police raided the restaurant and threw all the guests out.Then security agents cut off the electricity and prevented us from carrying out the program.”
Copyright © 2009-2011 All Rights Reserved
HRANA News Agency – Iranian state media closed to security sources informed 30 individuals have been arrested for collaboration with “anti-Revolutionary network”.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), quoted from YJC, Tehran’s Prosecutor General said on Tuesday that 30 individuals have been arrested for collaboration with “anti-Revolutionary networks.”
Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi announced today that the 30 individuals have been arrested by Islamic Republic Ministry of Intelligence forces.
He told reporters that the detainees were “working in various parts of the country, were organized, and their arrest has been a heavy blow to the anti-Revolutionary [movement].” He added that some of the networks “collaborated with the Baha’is.”
He did not give details about the identities of these detainees, but an earlier report by state news agency Reporters Club indicated on Monday that following the arrest of the “director of a satellite network”, at least 30 people have been arrested and charged with activity in “underground studios” and “collaboration with satellite networks.”
The report indicated that the individuals “collaborated with foreign satellite networks… enemies of the Iranian people, and were linked to the Baha’i sect.”
Iranian authorities consider foreign satellite programs as a potential threat to national security and have made numerous efforts to block them from Iranian viewers.
HRANA News Agency – On the website “Webgardi” (browsing), a part of “20:30 News”, one of the most viewed and watched websites and News broadcasts of Iranian state TV, there was a report about the free VPN of HRA’s Pillar Fourth Committee.
According to a report by HRA’s Pillar Fourth Committee, the report of Webgardi says: “Pillar Fourth Committee, related to HRA, which is financially supported by western sources, has begun free VPN service for internet users in Iran to bypass governmental internet filters.”
Continue reading “Iranian State TV reacts to the HRA’s Free VPN”
