Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz, who had been missing for nineteen days was released by the Iranian government on May 18.
Parvaz left Doha on April 29 to cover the escalating anti-government protests in Syria. Upon arrival in Damascus, she was immediately detained by an unidentified security service.
Until May 4, the Syrian government did not acknowledge that she was in their custody. But on May 10, it released a statement stating that it had deported Parvaz to the Iranian consule in Tehran.
Iran
Sequences to freedom is a book of short poems written in February by Iranian poet Ali Abdolrezaei that has been translated into English by Abol Froushan.
Abdolrezaei, from Gilan province, is now a refugee living in London.
Abdolrezaei said: 鈥淚 never thought that one day I would write purely political poetry, but the inhuman atrocity dealt by the Iranian regime nowadays is so beyond proportion that it is politics that is writing these poems.鈥
Below are two of the translated poems published in Sequences to Freedom.
* * *
The following is a letter by the Stop the War Coalition Sydney to Prime Minister Julia Gillard
* * *
We are concerned with the growing threat of a new United States-Israel strike against the people of Iran and are writing to ask you to distance your government from any measure that could lead to an attack on Iran.
The media is currently filled with reports of an alleged nuclear threat posed by Iran and the assumed need for the US, or Israel, to take military action.
Threats of a military attack against Iran by the US and Israel have increased after new sanctions were imposed by the United Nations Security Council on June 9, under pressure from Washington.
On July 1, US President Barack Obama signed legislation passed by Congress in June that imposed new US unilateral sanctions targeting foreign companies that sell petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel, to Iran. This would include producers, insurers and those involved in transportation.
One week after Israel massacred peace activists on the high seas, the United Nations Security Council decided to implement sanctions 鈥 not against Israel, but rather Iran. Iran鈥檚 nuclear program, which was the reason for the sanctions, doesn鈥檛 include nuclear weapons nor the capacity to produce them.
The resolution adopted by the Security Council, with 12 votes for, two votes against and one abstention, imposes new restrictions on trade with Iran, as well as an expanded arms embargo.
Reza Shahabi and Saeed Torabian, two executive committee members of the Trade Union of the Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company, have been arrested and are held at unknown locations.
Shahabi, treasurer of the union, was arrested on June 12 as he clocked in at work. Four security agents then took him to his home. After a search, they confiscated his computer. Torabian, the union鈥檚 public relations officer, was arrested at his home in Tehran on June 9.
Security agents also tried to arrest union member Habib Rezapoor but he was not at home.
BRISBANE 鈥 Fifty people, Iranians and supporters, rallied in Queens Park on May 22 to protest against the execution in early May of five Kurdish nationalists by the Iranian regime.
The protesters held photos of people disappeared and killed during the movement for democratic rights over the past year.
Community representative Fazil Rostam said: "Kurds are 10% of the Iranian population, but make up 50% of the prison population. Fifty percent of executions are of Kurdish people."
鈥淏reak the war alliance鈥 is one of the key messages anti-war groups will send to US President Barack Obama when he visits Australia in June.
Protesters plan to focus on the stepped-up US war drive in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They will also demand of Obama and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that the occupying troops leave.
Compared to the Bush administration, total US defence spending is projected to rise from US$534.5 billion in 2006 to $663.7 billion in 2010 according to Congressional budget papers.
Members of the Iranian community and their supporters protested outside the NSW state parliament on May 13 after the executions of five union activists in Evin prison in Tehran on May 9.
Shirin Alam-Houli, Ali Heydarian, Mahdi Islamian, Farzad Kamangar and Farhad Vakili were hanged after being convicted of Moharebeh 鈥 鈥渨aging war on God鈥. Four of the activists were members of Kurdish opposition groups.
Workers in Iran face massive repression when attempting to organise to defend their rights.
From the Iranian Workers聮 Solidarity Network, http://iwsn.org.
Despite a new report by the UN聮s nuclear 聯watchdog聰 agency stating that Iran is in compliance with its legal obligations to the agency under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), the UN Security Council voted on March 3 to punish Iran with a third round of financial sanctions.
- Previous page
- Page 9
- Next page