The Latest from Iran (6 October): Go On, Fear Our Navy….

1025 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. The striking extract from

1025 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. The striking extract from CNN’s overview of the Ahmadinejad administration and the $2.6 billion bank fraud:

 

The size and nature of the fraud required “a trend inside the government to make this problem and this scandal,” said Tehran economic analyst Saeed Laylaz. 

A second economist points out that the main suspect in the case has ties to the Iranian president’s chief adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who used his influence in a bank business deal for the accused man, Amir Mansoor Khosravi.

Khosravi had opened a private bank known as the Bank Arya. Getting a license is usually difficult, but Mashaei used his political pull to help pave the way, said economist Dr. Behrooz Hady Zonooz from Tehran.

“More than ten times he has written letters to bank persons,” said Zonooz, who spoke with banking officials about the founding of the bank.

Eye on Iran: Ex-U.N. Inspector Sees No Iran Atom Bomb Before 2013

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Reuters: ”Iran is unlikely to be able to make atomic bombs before 2013, a former senior official of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, dismissing suggestions it could happen in months if Tehran decided to pursue such mass-destruction weaponry. Olli Heinonen, head of U.N. safeguards inspections worldwide until last year, said he believed Iran would need a couple of years to develop a capability to manufacture nuclear-armed missiles, based on what is now known about its activities. ‘Then you still have to build them and that will take time. I don’t think it is immediate,’ Heinonen told Reuters. ‘But Iran certainly has the elements in place and has built up its capabilities.’ … Heinonen, now a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said Iran was on the ‘way to no good’ with its nuclear work but it did not appear to have taken a political decision yet to actually build bombs.”http://t.uani.com/nNtu5u

Iran Feature: Limiting the Internet, Monitoring the Users (Farivar)

Cyrus Farivar, on The Internet of Elsewhere, considers the latest attempts by Iranian authorities to monitor computer users and limit access to websites. We add further information and comment from an analyst after Farivar’s article:

FARIVAR

Within the last few weeks, there have been reports that Iran has been blocking Tor, an online anonymizing tool, and PPTP and L2TP VPN protocols and most recently an Iranian general said that the Islamic Republic was ready to “reciprocate a cyber attack” by the US or its allies.

EU moves towards further sanctions on Syria, Iran

By David Brunnstrom and Sebastian Moffett | Reuters – 

(Reuters) - The European Union is set next week to consider blacklisting the Syrian central bank as well as imposing sanctions against more Iranian individuals, according to sources on Wednesday familiar with the situation.

A decision to impose sanctions on the Syrian central bank had been taken in principle, and would be presented to an EU foreign affairs committee on Monday, said a person familiar with the situation.

A written procedure for adoption could then follow, possibly in a week or so, the source said.

In addition the EU’s foreign affairs council was likely on Monday to add 29 people to the list of 32 Iranians targeted by asset freezes and visa bans because of serious human rights violations, an EU official said.

Amnesty URGENT ACTION: SORGE UM SICHERHEIT

• Iran

UA-347/2009-10

Index:

MDE 13/087/2011

01. Oktober 2011

KOUHYAR GOUDARZI, Menschenrechtsverteidiger
PARVIN MOKHTAREH, seine Mutter
Beging am 2. September Selbstmord:
BEHNAM GANJI KHAIBARI, 22 Jahre alt

Am 2. September nahm sich Behnam Ganji Khaibari das Leben. Er war am 31. Juli gemeinsam mit Kouhyar Goudarzi festgenommen, später aber wieder freigelassen worden. Die einen Tag nach ihrem Sohn verhaftete Mutter von Kouhyar Goudarzi musste sich am 6. September vor Gericht verantworten. Amnesty International fürchtet um die Sicherheit von Kouhyar Goudarzi.

Iran: Kurdish displaced families face disease

Iran’s shelling of Iraqi Kurdistan region border areas has displaced hundreds of Kurdish families, a migration group said Monday, voicing fears disease may spread in the camps where they are living.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said it was aware of 884 Kurdish families that had been displaced along the Iraq-Iran border in Iraq’s northern Kurdish province of Erbil, and said the families were being put up in temporary camps.

“The families are living without electricity in the camps and are suffering from a lack of food,” it said in a statement.

“There is also a fear that disease will spread due to families using nearby streams, which are highly polluted, as their source of water.”

“There have been numerous reports that children within the camps are suffering from acute diarrhoea as a result. Thus, the most pressing need for these families is health checks, medicine and water purification kits.”

The IOM noted that many of the families displaced had relied on farming to survive, and “were particularly affected by the destruction of their land and livestock by the shelling.”

Quelle: http://www.kurdsat.tv/news.php?id=236&type=kurdistan

Imprisoned Lawyer Tried and Sentenced Again on Same Charges

Ghassem Sholeh Sadi, lawyer, university professor, and former member of the Iranian Parliament, who is now serving time inside Evin Prison, was again tried by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court on the charge of “insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei” and was sentenced to two years in prison.

In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, his wife, Sahandej Sholeh Sadi, said: “He has been sentenced to two years in prison by Judge Moghisseh on the charge of ‘insulting the Supreme Leader,’ while Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court had previously tried this case. He objected to this decision in court, and the Investigative Judge promised that if after review they conclude the content of this file is the same as the one at Branch 15, the Judge will issue a cease order. After reviewing the case, he reached the conclusion that the charges in both cases were the same, and that a sentence was previously issued for this charge. Unfortunately, however, before he issued the order to cease proceedings, the Prosecutor sent the case out for prosecution to the Revolutionary Court, and he was sentenced to two years in prison again.”

EIL: Danish police illegally arrest 14 activists at a demonstration in support of political prisoners at the Embassy of Islamic Republic of Iran in Copenhagen

On October 5, 2011, a group of peaceful protesters who had gathered outside of the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Copenhagen, Denmark, were illegally arrested by the Danish police.

The demonstrators were peacefully and lawfully displaying placards objecting to the recent arrests and long prison sentences of worker activists in Iran when the police began to restrain the demonstrators and take them into custody, in clear violation of their civil and human rights.

Women’s Rights Activist in Prison Without Family Contact

An informed source close to 38-year-old women’s rights activist Fereshteh Shirazi told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that since her arrest on 3 September 2011 in the city of Amol, she has had very little contact with her family.

The source told the Campaign that Shirazi’s trial was held on 28 September, and despite promises made to her that she could see her son on 25 September, she was not allowed to do so and her visit was postponed.

Last week, security officials searached Shirazi’s home and seized some of her personal belongings. Since her arrest she has only been able to see her brother once and only for a very short period of time. She is prohibited from seeing other members of her family, including her son.