3 , June , 2011
His detention has taken place while he has a brain tumor and has undergone a surgery recently.
His family is concerned about his condition since any impact on his head could be dangerous enough to kill him.
Qazanfari,40, is a close friend of of Ezattollah Sahabi’s family.
On Thursday, Bastani was attacked by the guards when he took a minute longer to say goodbye to his mother during their prison visit. The prison guards attacked him and pushed him which resulted in his head hitting the wall.
The conduct of the guards affected the family to the extent that his mother fell unconscious and his wife Mahsa Amrabadi had a nervous breakdown and drop in her blood pressure.
Families of the political prisoners witnessing the event in Rajaei Shahr Prison began knocking the glasses in the meeting hall in order to object to the guards’ conduct.
In a phone call to his family, Bastani reported that he was briefly hospitalized after being severely beaten by a prison guard on June 2nd. He had undergone a CT Scan and transferred to another hospital since there was a possibility that he had suffered injury to his head.
He was later transferred back to prison and became nauseous several times due to the injury to his head.
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011
HRANA News Agency – On Tuesday, May 31, 2011, security forces raided Behnam Irani’s house in Karaj and arrested him. Behnam Irani is a Christian priest.
During the arrest, security forces assaulted and insulted Behnam Irani in front of his wife and two young children and placed him in handcuffs before taking him away. Previously, Behnam Irani had been summoned to report to Rajai-Shahr Prison in Karaj within twenty days in order to begin serving his one year sentence. It is not clear why this Christian priest was beaten and arrested before his deadline was reached.
According to a report by Rahsa News, judicial authorities have informed Behnam Irani that after he spends one year in prison, his five year suspended sentence will begin.
Behnam Irani is a Christian priest who was initially arrested in 2006 and sentenced to a five-year suspended prison term. Four years later, in 2010, he was detained again and released after posting a bail approximately equivalent to $9,500. Subsequently, Behnam Irani was sentenced to a year in prison, but this sentence was reduced by two months as a result of an objection filed by his attorney.
He was detained during the confrontations near the mosque where Sahabi’s funeral was taking place and was transferred to an undisclosed location.
Since his physical condition is poor, his family is concerned about him.
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011
RFE/RL – The U.S. State Department has condemned the death of an Iranian activist during her father’s funeral, saying the death was the result of “reprehensible actions” by Iranian security forces.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner issued a statement declaring the death of 54-year-old activist Haleh Sahabi “a killing” and calling for an independent investigation.
Sahabi died on June 1 while attending the funeral of her father, who had been jailed by the regime on several occasions.
Opposition sources and an eyewitness who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda claimed that Sahabi never got up after a scuffle with security officers who appeared to be trying to interfere in the ceremony.
Authorities later detained some of the mourners at the funeral, Farda reported.
Iran’s government-run media reported that she suffered a heart attack.
Haleh had been imprisoned following Iran’s presidential elections in 2009 for supporting allegations that the reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had been rigged.
She was temporarily released to attend the funeral of her father, himself a critic of the Iranian government.
Fri, 06/03/2011
Iran’s Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists has called on the Islamic Republic judiciary to investigate the death of Haleh Sahabi at her father’s funeral on Wednesday and the involvement of security forces there.
Mizan Khabar and several other opposition websites have published the council’s announcement accusing Islamic Republic security forces of causing the death of Haleh Sahabi, a prominent Iranian social activist and member of the Mothers of Peace. The announcement says: “We call for the establishment of a fair and open court and jury to prosecute the perpetrators of this shocking crime.”
On Wednesday, the funeral of Ezzatollah Sahabi, the leader of the Nationalist-Religious Coalition, was overrun by security forces trying to seize the body of the deceased. Eyewitnesses say Sahabi’s daughter, Haleh Sahabi, was beaten by the security officials at the scene and died of a cardiac arrest.
The government claims Haleh Sahabi’s death was bought on by the stress of her loss, the heat and her history of cardiac complications.
The announcement indicates that the Sahabi family intended to hold a traditional religious ceremony for the aged political dissident and did not want the affair to turn into a political gathering. For this purpose, they had agreed to all the restrictions laid out by security forces.
Despite their efforts, they add, after Mr. Sahabi’s coffin was carried from the house, both plainclothes and uniformed officials swarmed the mourners and began to beat them. One officer tore a photo of the deceased from the hands of Haleh Sahabi and ripped it to pieces.
“A plainclothes official, ordered by a plainclothes colonel, hit Haleh Sahabi on her side in front of security and intelligence cameras. Haleh Sahabi fell to the ground after the beating,” the announcement relates. “Since there were no emergency personnel at the scene, the mourners took her body and carried her to a car. She was still only half inside the car when officials began pressing the door shut on her body.”
The Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists adds that officials later seized Haleh Sahabi’s corpse and forced the family to bury it immediately —the only nighttime burial in the history of Lavasan cemetery.
Prior to this announcement, Hojjatoleslam Ahamd Montazeri and his son Hamed Montazeri, who were both present at the funeral, have publicly stated that Haleh Sahabi was in effect “murdered” by the government forces that swarmed the ceremony and beat her.
The Coalition of Green Path of Hope, the group that speaks for incarcerated opposition leaders MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. has also called for “a fact-finding probe into the recent crime.”
Several other opposition groups and human rights organizations have called for an investigation into the death of Haleh Sahabi, but the Islamic Republic government has yet to respond.
Fri, 06/03/2011
The family of jailed Iranian lawyer Mohammad Seifzadeh is gravely concerned about his well being and claims no information is available on his judicial case.
The Campaign for Human Rights in Iran quotes Seifzadeh’s wife, Fatemeh Golzar, saying: “A month after the arrest of Mr. Seifzadeh in Orumiyeh [a city in northwestern Iran], he was transferred to Evin Prison. He has been held there for more than a month, and we are hoping that on Thursday we will be allowed to visit him in person.”
Golzar says her husband, one of the founders of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, was arrested on the charge of “leaving the country with the intent to act against national security.” She says her husband has denied the charges.
Seifzadeh was arrested in April by intelligence officials in Orumiyeh. Marzieh Nikara, his defence attorney, said last month that her client is under pressure to make a false confession and that his life was in danger.
Nikara added that she had not been allowed to read her client’s legal file, and no evidence of Mr. Seifzadeh’s alleged intent to leave the country had been presented in court.
Last November, Seifzadeh was sentenced to nine years in prison and a 10-year ban from practicing law for the charge of “collusion and assembly with the intent to disrupt national security, propaganda activities against the regime and establishment of the Human Rights Defenders Centre.” The sentence is now being appealed.
Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace laureate who is also a founding member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, has called on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran to pursue by any means the release of Seifzadeh and all other jailed Iranian lawyers.
06/03/2011
Britain has called on Iran to launch an immediate investigation into the death of Haleh Sahabi, the daughter of a veteran Iranian dissident who died during scuffles with security forces at her father’s funeral on Wednesday.
Sahabi was leading the procession at the ceremony by holding a picture of her father, Ezatollah Sahab. She died from a heart attack after reportedly being attacked by an agent and falling down.
The Foreign Office (FCO) has joined the US state department and human rights organisations in urging Iran to carefully look into the case.
“We call for an immediate and transparent investigation into her death and call on the Iranian authorities to allow her family and friends to mourn her father and her deaths without interference,” an FCO spokesperson said.
Her funeral was held within hours of her death by authorities fearing popular protest. She was reportedly buried late at night in contrast to Islamic customs. Her relatives said her body was “confiscated” and her family were deprived of performing normal religious rituals.
Iran’s opposition has blamed a security agent for Sahabi’s death, but authorities said she was already suffering from “high blood pressure and blood sugar”.
“We are particularly disturbed by reports that her death followed heavy-handed action by the Iranian security forces at the funeral and by reports that the Iranian authorities rushed her burial that night with a limited traditional funeral,” an official spokesperson said.
Haleh Sahabi, a women’s rights activist, was serving a two-year prison sentence but was allowed out temporarily to attend the funeral of her father, a highly respected dissident who was jailed before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution and spent a total of 15 years in prison.
He headed an alliance of politicians whose activities came under scrutiny in recent years especially after the disputed presidential election in 2009 which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in the office.
June 3, 2011
CAIRO, June 2 (UPI) — Evidence is growing that Iran is helping the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, Tehran’s key Arab ally, to suppress a 10-week-old pro-democracy insurrection.
Syria is of vital importance to the Tehran regime, not least because it’s the conduit for missiles and other weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in the Levant and its spearhead against Israel, as well as the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
It is also the gateway for Iran’s plans to expand its influence westward into the Arab world all the way to the Atlantic and bolster its growing influence in Arab affairs.
If the Syrian regime collapses it would be a major geopolitical setback for Iran and for Hezbollah.
Syria’s alliance with Shiite Iran, forged by Assad’s father in 1980 at the start of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, has never sat well with the Sunni-dominated Arab world and its demise would be applauded in most Arab capitals.
U.S. officials in recent days have confirmed reports that Iran is providing equipment and training to help Assad crush widespread opposition to the Damascus regime that began March 15 and in which about 900 people have been killed.
Both Tehran and Damascus are notorious for their secretiveness, so the reports are difficult to verify since Damascus bars foreign journalists.
“There is no smoking gun yet,” Israeli analyst Jonathan Spyer wrote in The Jerusalem Post May 21. “But the circumstantial evidence is accumulating and the variety of sources from which it is emanating point to there being at least something to it.”
The Iranians have every reason to want to help Assad hold onto power because of the foothold it gives the Islamic Republic in the eastern Mediterranean right up to Israel’s northern border.
If the Assad dynasty, dominated by the minority Alawite sect, which has ruled Syria with an iron hand since 1970, is brought down the Iranians would likely face a new regime led by the majority Sunnis who would almost certainly severe the alliance with Tehran, a major strategic setback for Iran.
“Syrian regime survival would be a glowing advertisement to regional leaders that, unlike the U.S., Iran will do all it can to keep its friends from overthrow,” Spyer observed.
Iran has long had a military presence in Syria, largely a contingent of the al-Quds Force, clandestine arm of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. This force, based at Zabadani, the IRGC’s main support facility for Hezbollah, is several hundred strong.
Whether those personnel are involved in operations against Syrian protesters is unlikely, given their mission.
But U.S. officials and Arab diplomats say other al-Quds operatives have been deployed for that purpose, training Syrian forces in how to contain the kind of large-scale street protests that the Tehran regime has in recent years put down with overwhelming force.
The Syrians’ recent move to carrying out wide-ranging mass arrests of suspected dissidents and troublemakers reflects tactics used by the IRGC and its militia, the Basij, in Iranian cities.
In the last few weeks, Syrian forces, primarily the widely hated Mukhabarat, or secret police, have rounded up an estimated 10,000 people, a tactic they haven’t employed before.
Until the uprising began in March, Syrian authorities had little experience in dealing with mass street protests.
Iran also appears to have supplied Syria with sophisticated electronic equipment to monitor Facebook and Twitter to identify protest organizers and their supporters, just as Tehran did during mass protests following the 2009 presidential elections.
These tactics presumably led to the recent wave of mass arrests, with up to 10,000 people seized, human rights groups claim.
In recent days, there have been persistent reports that Brig. Gen. Mohsen Chirazi, considered to be the third-ranking leader in the al-Quds Force, is in Syria.
The U.S. administration included Chirazi in a recent list of key figures in the Syrian regime it hit with sanctions over the violent crackdown.
Chirazi, a heavyweight clandestine operator, was captured in Baghdad by the U.S. troops in December 2006 for allegedly organizing Iraqi insurgents and supplying them with Iranian arms but was later released.
His reported presence and Iran’s increasing presence in Syria underlines Tehran’s growing anxiety about the prospect of Assad’s falling from power.
Activist Haleh Sahabi, who died yesterday at the funeral of her dissident father, was buried Wednesday night by Iranian security forces.
Opposition websites report that the Sahabi family had intended to hold their own ceremony, but security forces took possession of her remains by force and transferred her to Lavasan, northeast of Tehran, for a swift burial.
Jaras website reports that Sahabi was laid to rest at 10PM with 2,000 mourners in attendance, along with a substantial number of police and security force personnel. Jaras reports that several participants were arrested once the ceremony ended.
Haleh Sahabi died during an altercation with security forces at the funeral of her father, the prominent dissident Ezzatollah Sahabi.
The government has announced that Haleh Sahabi died from a cardiac arrest brought on by the stress of losing her father, the heat and her history of heart disease. However, a number of her relatives report that her death was the result of being beaten by security forces.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner has called on Iran to investigate her death.
While the Sahabis are reportedly being pressured to announce that Haleh Sahabi died from natural causes, opposition websites call her death a “martyrdom” and hold senior Islamic Republic officials responsible.
Ahmad Montazeri, the son of the late dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, has told Persian BBC that he witnessed Haleh Sahabi being pushed and beaten by the security forces, and he was certain they caused her death.
Haleh Sahabi, a prominent social activist and a member of the Council of Mothers for Peace, was arrested during the protests that broke out in 2009 after the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. She began serving a two-year prison sentence last February for her invovlement in the protests.
Her father, the leader of the Nationalist-religious Coalition, was a prominent government critic both before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He died on Tuesday at age 81, after spending several days in a coma.
