There has been a significant deterioration in the health of Mohammad Reza Pour-Shegera, the blogger imprisoned in Karaj central prison. He is suffering from bleeding from the kidney, but prison authorities are refusing to grant him medical leave.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
Reporters Without Borders is very worried about opposition leader and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, the owner of the suspended newspaper Kalameh Sabaz, who was hospitalized two days ago in Tehran after suffering a heart attack. Mousavi has been under house arrest in an unknown location for more than 18 months.
“The conditions of Mousavi’s house arrest have damaged his health and he must be released at once,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to act quickly to avoid exposing him to further danger. We will hold Khamenei responsible for anything that happens to Mousavi or to the many other journalists who are being kept in detention despite their poor health.”
Mousavi, 72, was hospitalized under close surveillance by many intelligence ministry agents and Revolutionary Guards after suffering the heart attack on 22 August. The lack of information about his state of health is disturbing. His family is being pressured by the authorities and is unable to say anything.
Mousavi and his wife, the best-selling writer Zahra Rahnavard, were arrested and placed under house arrest on 24 February 2011. Former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karoubi, the owner of the suspended newspaper Etemad Melli, was also placed under house arrest the same day.
They have been denied all of their rights ever since. Karoubi also has many health problems. His wife, Fatemeh Karoubi, the editor of the magazine Iran Dokhte, was also arrested but was released in September 2011.
“Holding political prisoners incommunicado is tantamount to enforced disappearance and violates international law,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Iranian authorities nonetheless resort to such methods systematically with journalists and netizens.”
Source: Iran Green Voice
Iran Daily Brief: Security forces followed Akbar’s brother for several days, summoned him for questioning and conditioned his release upon Akbar arriving for questioning.
After reports hit the media that opposition leader MirHosein Mousavi had undergone surgery in hospital, his brother was quoted as saying that the Mousavi family cannot give out information about his health.
The Kaleme opposition website reported today that following MirHosein Mousavi’s angiography procedure, his brother Mir Mahmoud Mousavi told Kaleme that the Mousavi family is not free to discuss the opposition leader’s health with the media.
He was quoted as saying that while the public had the right to know about the situation, that information cannot be disseminated through his family because security considerations have tied their hands.
Radio Farda reported today however that Ardeshir Amirarjomand, a spokesman for the Coordination Council for the Green Path of Hope has infromed them that Mousavi has already been returned to house arrest following his heart treatment.
Iranian state media have been completely silent about MirHosein Mousavi’s recent health complications; he had been under house arrest together with his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, since February of 2011.
Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two candidates in the 2009 Iranian presidential elections, challenged the announcement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s victory with allegations of vote fraud. This triggered mass protests, and led to the state targeting protesters, the two candidates and their families in a severe crackdown.
After Mousavi had endured more than 500 days under house arrest, reports from Iran yesterday indicated that he had been hospitalized under strict security measures for the treatment of heart complications.
Source: Radiozamaneh
Mustafa Sabti, head of the Central Council of the Islamic Iran Participation Front in Golestan Province received the order banning him from leaving Iran when he was at the airport about to go on a trip abroad.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
Nazanin Zarin Kolah applied to the courts only to be told that she is forbidden to leave Iran, because of her husband’s anti-revolutionary activities. She was later summoned for questioning by Intelligence Ministry agents who threatened to arrest her and to charge her with heresy.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
Iran Daily Brief: Minister of Oil, Rostam Qassemi, announced the signing of a USD 1 billion contract with Khatam al-Anbia, the IRGC’s engineering arm, for construction of a gas refinery.
That’s the question people have been asking in the Islamic republic in recent days.
While officials have acknowledged that signal jamming is taking place, and even warned of potentially negative consequences, no one in the government has stepped up to assume responsibility.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Reza Taghipour denied his department’s involvement in jamming satellite signals, and said the ministry was “seriously” pursuing the case.
“It is essential to trace and identify the source of jamming as the practice has many negative consequences,” he said in an August 21interview with the Iranian parliament’s Icana website.
The head of the Iranian parliament’s health committee, Hossein Ali Shahriari, then reacted to Taghipour’s comments by saying that the communications ministry was “very well” aware of the source of the jamming.
“But [the ministry] doesn’t want to announce it,” Shahriari said in an August 22 interview with the Asr-e Iran website, which is said to be close to Tehran’s mayor, Mohammad Ghalibaf.
Shahriari also said the source of the jamming is inside the country but wouldn’t say anymore.
According to Icana, Iran’s Communication Regulatory Authority, which is the country’s sole radio and communications regulator, has also denied knowing anything about the source of the jamming.
The Iranian regime has long used signal jamming to disrupt the free flow of information.
It routinely jams the signal of international broadcasters, including BBC’s Persian TV and RFE/RL’s Persian Service, Radio Farda, in an attempt to prevent media coverage critical of Tehran from reaching Iranians.
The government seems to intensify its jamming efforts during sensitive times, like 2009’s antigovernment protests and the Arab Spring revolutions.
While officials are saying that the source of the current jamming is a mystery, some opposition sources have reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Force (IRGC) is behind it.
Meanwhile, there are growing concerns about the impact jamming has on people’s health.
Massoumeh Ebtekar, a member of Tehran’s city council, said recently that jamming is dangerous for the health of Tehran’s residents. (He also said no one in the government is admitting to being behind the jamming,)
“What we know is that these signals have an impact on people’s health and the body’s cells. As an immunologist and researcher, I’d say that these signals could be the source of many illnesses.”
Other lawmakers, and some physicians, have also warned about the health dangers posed by signal jamming.
The media has reported on Iranians, especially in Tehran, who felt dizzy and ill for no apparent reason.
Jammers work by emitting signals at the same frequency as the device they’re attempting to block.
When Belgian soldiers in Afghanistan showed symptoms of electro-hypersensitivity — nausea and headaches – the source was believed to be the cell-phone jammer installed in their armored vehicle, which was there to protect them from explosions detonated by mobile telephones.
Satellite channels are very popular among Iranians, but there are no reliable figures on the number of Iranians who have access to satellite television.
Estimates are that 40-60 percent of people living in the capital can receive satellite broadcasts.
Source: RFE/RL
Negin Teybi was transferred to intelligence headquarters in Kermanshah, following a period of four days during which there had been no news of her condition or whereabouts. Her family, who had feared for her life, had tried to find out her condition by approaching various authorities, without success. On the day of her arrest, her home was also searched and her personal computer confiscated. According to reports on Kurdish websites, another woman whose identity has not been yet released was arrested on Quds Day. Negin has a bachelor’s degree in political science.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
Iranian opposition leader MirHosein Mousavi was taken to the hospital on Thursday for “serious heart complications”, reports from Iran indicate.
Neday-e Sabz Azadi, an opposition website reported that Mousavi who has been under house arrest since February of 2011 with his wife Zahra Rahnavard, had to undergo a three hour angiography and is currently under observation in the CCU.
Security officers had reportedly been deployed in the hospital building a night before the arrival of the ailing opposition leader and the hospital staff involved in providing for his care was not allowed to leave the hospital until now.
Mousavi is announced to be faring well after the treatment but he cannot be visited by anyone. His wife, Zahra Rahnavard is reportedly with him at the hospital.
MirHosein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard as well as Mehdi Karroubi, another Iranian opposition leader have been under house arrest since February 2011 because they refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the 2009 elections.
Widespread protests were triggered with allegations vote fraud in the presidential elections which many claim was in fact won by MirHosein Mousavi.
Although the Islamic Republic establishment keeps referring to the opposition leaders as head of sedition, Mousavi, Rahnavard, and the other presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi have been held under house arrest without any official charges being brought against them.
Source: Radiozamaneh
