Five Engineers of Jam Petrochemical Complex in Assaluyeh Arrested

HRANA News Agency – Five engineers who were working for Jam Petrochemical Complex in Assaluyeh [Southern Iran, Bushehr Province] have been arrested by Iranian security officers.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the arrests took place at the beginning of the current Persian month of Farvardin [March 21- April 20, 2011].  The reason for the arrest and the whereabouts of five engineers are unknown.

Jam Petrochemical Complex is located at the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone and produces 1,321,000 tons of ethylene annually.  This petrochemical company also manufactures olefin, high density polyethylene, linear low density polyethylene, polypropylene, ethylene glycol / ethylene oxide, and butadiene.

[Following Ahmadinejad’s victory in 2005 presidential election, the 9th government of Iran after the revolution was established.]  Since the designation of Assaluyeh as a free trade zone by Mohammad Jahromi, Iran’s labor minister in the ninth government, workers and laborers in this region have been denied minimum protection under labor laws and social security benefits.  Instead, the entire workforce in the free trade zone is only subject to employers’ rules and regulations.

Earlier, the closure of manufacturing units and industrial crisis in Assaluyeh resulted in the dismissal of 52,000 workers in this region. 

 

Dr. Matin Fattahian Arrested

HRANA – Dr. Matin Fattahian, a Kurdish citizen residing in Tabriz, has been arrested by security forces.
Based on reports received by HRANA, a Kurdish doctor residing in Tabriz by the name of Matin Fattahian has been arrested over the past week by the security forces in this city and has been taken to an unknown location.
Reports indicate that security forces raided the doctor’s residence and in addition to searching the home, confiscated some of his personal belongings.
 

 

Two Executions in Urmia Prison, Iran

HRANA News Agency – Two prisoners were executed in Urmia prison on Friday, 16 November 2012.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), quoted  from Mukerian News Agency, two prisoners: Ghorbanali P. from Gojin and Fahim M. from Band, Urmia, were hanged on Friday morning.

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Prisoner committed suicide in Mahabad’s prison

HRANA News Agency – A prisoner convicted of murdering committed suicide by hanging himself.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Shouresh Aldo, 35, from Mahabad who had been arrested 4 months ago on charge of murdering, committed suicide on Saturday, November 10, 2012.
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After 1,000-plus days in jail, Iranian pastor Nadarkhani freed

HRANA News Agency – Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has been acquitted of apostasy and released, ending a saga that drew international attention and saw him spend more than 1,000 days in jail in the face of a death sentence — simply for being a Christian.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) (Sept. 8)  Nadarkhani, in jail since 2009, was acquitted of apostasy — that is, converting from Islam to Christianity — but found guilty of evangelizing Muslims.  Nadarkhani was sentenced to three years in prison for the latter charge but was released due to time already served.

 

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Fighting Continues in Kurdistan

HRANA News Agency – Since the fighting between PJAK (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane) and the Islamic Republic’s military forces began, the degree of violence seen in regions alongside Iran’s western and northwestern borders have been unprecedented in recent years.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), on July 13, 2011, the fighting broke out between PJAK and the Islamic Republic’s military forces.Although more than one week has past, the violent confrontation between two sides continues.During this time, a number of fighters on both sides of the conflict have been killed and wounded.
The mountainous regions of Shaho and kosalan have witnessed heavy fighting while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has maintained its heavy presence in these regions.
On Tuesday night, July 19, 2011, local residents reported that the two sides fought violently in a region called “hah Vari Sardasht” on a road between Kamyaran and Sarvabad.As a result, several individuals were killed.
Reports from Sardasht and Piran Shahr indicate hospitals and clinics in these two cities face shortage as the number of those injured increases.Meanwhile, several wounded patients were transferred to hospitals in Urmia.
One of the most important causalities of this fighting has been the amount of damage sustained to the environment and civilians’ residences.While evacuation of local residents from border towns have brought about the displacement of dozens of citizens in these areas, shelling of mountainous regions have caused forest fires and irreversible damage to the environment and rural farmland alongside the border.
Furthermore, nightly curfew imposed by the Islamic Republic’s military forces has disrupted lives and caused public discontent.

 

Political Prisoner of 60’s, Ali Moezi, Arrested

HRANA News Agency – Ali Moezi who is one of the surviving political prisoners from the 60’s has been arrested by the Iranian Intelligence Agency and taken to an unknown location.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), during the early hours of Saturday, June 18, 2011, [Tehran local time], intelligence agents raided Ali Moezi’s house and after seizing his personal belongings, arrested him.

Ali Moezi suffers from kidney problems and must be under a physician’s care.In 2008, Ali Moezi was also arrested because of his son’s membership in one of the opposition groups.

 

A Message from Farzad Kamangar’s Mother for Global Day to Support Political Prisoners

To break this lock, solidarity is essential!

I have said it numerous times in my messages and will say it again that we must think of our beloved prisoners and don’t allow them to be kept in prison, tortured and killed.No prisoner will be set free without our efforts because the cruelest and the most apathetic individuals are tasked to decide the prisoners’ fate.To break this lock, solidarity is essential.

There must be solidarity between families, and people must help them.Certainly, this assistance does exist.We must ask why our loved ones are imprisoned when they are innocent; we must ask what gives the authorities the right to kill our children.Although many years have passed, a large number of families still don’t know in which prison their children are locked up or even whether they are still alive or already slaughtered.Those families whose children are slain don’t know where they are buried.

Thousands of families similar to me are wandering from town to town.What law, which God and which human can accept this?What was my Farzad’s crime?He only said that a human being must live like one.The authorities imprisoned my son for this reason and executed him.

For sure, there are other young individuals who wish to live like a human and state the same desire similar to my son.Why should they be imprisoned?How long must these mothers suffer, weep and wear black for mourning?I am a mother who has suffered immensely both when my Farzad was in prison and now that the authorities have taken him from me.I understand what other mothers go through for their loved ones day and night.I neither wish grief nor pain even for my enemies’ mothers because I am a mother myself.I want no mother wail for her child.

I say this to all the families of political prisoners and to all human beings.The only solution out of the current situation is solidarity.We must become united as one in both inside the country and abroad.From all the defenders of human rights organizations, I request not to forget this country’s youth and not to permit the authorities to imprison our young and murder them.It is enough.

I kiss your all.

Tehran University Student Mojtaba Hashemi Convicted

HRANA News Agency – Mojtaba Hashemi, a student activist in Tehran University School of Law, has been suspended from school for 3 years and sentenced to one year imprisonment and 74 lashes.

According to a report by the Center to Defend Families of Those Slain and Detained in Iran, Mojtaba Hashemi, a key member of student council during the protests on December 7, 2009, was convicted by Tehran Revolutionary Court.

This report also indicates that Mojtaba Hashemi was preparing a program to commemorate Student’s Day and during a gathering for this occasion, his efforts were hindered by the university’s Basij militia and Herasat, [Iran’s semi-secret police tasked to monitor all educational institutes].At the end, Mojtaba Hashemi was expelled from the university because of pressures from these security forces.

Mojtaba Hashemi is waiting to serve his one year prison term.In addition to imposing suspension and imprisonment, security forces are preventing him from journalistic and civic activities.Mojtaba Hashemi is also under pressure and has been threatened.

 

 

Summoning of an Art Student to the Ministry of Intelligence

HRANA – Vahid Akbari Sharghi, Student of Sound Engineering & Cinema in India was summoned by intelligence ministry agents after returning to Iran.

According to The HRANA reporters, News organizations for Human Rights Activists in Iran, on April 15 intelligence Service agents went to house of this artist’s father in order to arrest him and after searching his home and seizing computer and some sound mix equipment summoned him to the Office of the Ministry of Intelligence.

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