THE EYERANIANS

                    A version of this column appeared in the Nov. 10 edition of UT-Austin’s Daily Texan newspaper. Manny Babbitt was a Marine, a Vietnam War veteran whose demonstrated courage earned him a Purple Heart. Babbitt was a survivor of the battle of Khe Sanh where 737 [...]

Further Information on UA 151/08 (30 May 2008) and follow-ups (11 June 2008; 17 September 2008) – Prisoners of Conscience/Death Penalty IRAN Mahmoud Matin (m), aged 52, civil engineer Arash Basirat (m), aged 44 Mahmoud Matin and Arash Basirat have been acquitted of the charge of apostasy by Branch 5 of the Fars Criminal Court [...]

Reporters Without Borders welcomed with great relief the ruling by the Tehran Supreme Court overturning a death sentence against Kurdish journalist Adnan Hassanpour in Iran, because of a procedural error. The court decided that the journalist, convicted of ‘subversive activities against national security’, could not be considered as a ‘mohareb’ (an enemy of God) and [...]

August 23, 2008: the Iranian government hanged a man convicted of murder in the northeastern town of Bojnourd, a press report said. The man, only identified as Ali, was executed in a prison in North Khorasan province for killing his friend in 2005, the reformist Etemad newspaper said. (Sources: 7 Days, 24/08/2008) August 25, 2008: [...]

rooz – Nader Irani In an unprecedented measure, the Iranian judiciary froze a joint bank account that had been opened by three of the country’s most prominent movie directors and actors with the purpose of collecting money to pay the “Diye” (i.e. blood money) set for a man currently on the death row. The three [...]

“…Yaghoub Mehrnahad was executed on the morning of August 4, 2008, in Zahedan Central Prison. His only crime was the expression of his thoughts and his efforts to promote basic human rights to the deprived people of Baluchistan. His voice will never be silenced. We Iranian bloggers will put down our pens during a one [...]

Further Information on UA 08/08 (09 January 2008) and follow-up (21 May 2008) – Death Penalty IRAN        Saeed Jazee (m), aged 21, juvenile offender Saeed Jazee is no longer under threat of execution: he was pardoned on 24 July by the family of the man he was convicted of killing. He had been convicted of the [...]