Archive for November 2013

Mansour Farhang: Zarif and the Pursuit of Rights and Respect (Commentary)

Dr. Mansour Farhang

(November 22, 2013) – “An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” The endurance of this remark by Sir Henry Wotton, a 17th century English diplomat, is due to the fact that it contains an element of truth. Politically astute diplomats, however, know the limits of such practice.

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Witness: Iran, Where Your Shoes Can Get You Deported

November 20, 2013 – In the end, the family was deported to Afghanistan over pink sneakers and platform sandals. Zohrah, 17, and her sister Hasina, 15, sounded furious, in a teenager kind of way, when they talked about their arrest and how it led them, their father, and Zohrah’s boyfriend to a dusty reception center on the Afghan side of the Iran-Afghanistan border.

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UN Shows Strong Support for Human Rights in Iran with 83-to-36 Vote

(November 19, 2013) – The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran welcomes the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee vote today overwhelmingly supporting human rights in Iran, and urges the Iranian government to comply with UN human rights mechanisms and take concrete steps to address the ongoing violations in the country.

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Twin blasts strike near Iran’s embassy in Beirut

Associated Press – 11.19.2013 – BEIRUT, Lebanon — Twin explosions went off next to the Iranian embassy in southern Beirut Tuesday, killing 23 people and wounding 147, Lebanon’s state news agency reported. Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam called the blasts “a terrorist crime which would aim to strike [at] stability and national unity,” reported the agency.

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25 NGOs Urge UN to Pass Iran Human Rights Resolution

(November 18, 2013) – As the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee prepares to vote on the resolution on the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran on November 19, 25 human rights organizations—including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran—have joined together to urge member states to vote in favor of the resolution.

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New Sanctions Would Sabotage Nuclear Talks and Stymie Human Rights in Iran

(November 14, 2013) – The United States Congress should not impose further sanctions on Iran while the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries are ongoing as adopting new sanctions will seriously jeopardize all efforts to end Iran’s nuclear standoff and worsen their impact on ordinary Iranians, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today.

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“Assets of the Ayatollah” (Part 3)

LIFE AND TIMES: Khamenei during the Iran-Iraq war. He was president for most of the 1980s. Click above to see a video of his rise to power and his career as Iran’s second supreme leader. REUTERS/Leader.ir/Handout

The economic empire behind Iran´s supreme leader Reuters – To expand Khamenei’s grip on the economy, Iran stretched its laws
Part 3: On the supreme leader’s watch, Iran conducted a systematic campaign to legalize and safeguard the seizure of assets on which Setad’s wealth was built.
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Assets of Ayatollah (Part 2)

MARKET MOVER: Khamenei’s image and stock-price displays at the Tehran Stock Exchange in 2010. Setad now owns stakes in companies worth billions of dollars. REUTERS/Stringer

Khamenei’s conglomerate thrived as sanctions squeezed Iran
Part 2: An organization controlled by Iran’s supreme leader generates billions of dollars a year, helping to solidify his control over a country hobbled by sanctions.

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Assets of Ayatollah (Part 1)

SUPREME LEADER: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Reuters – Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures

Part 1: A Reuters investigation details a key to the supreme leader’s power: a little-known organization created to help the poor that morphed into a business juggernaut worth tens of billions of dollars. The 82-year-old Iranian woman keeps the documents that upended her life in an old suitcase near her bed. She removes them carefully and peers at the tiny Persian script.
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Political Prisoners Embark on Hunger Strike on Behalf of Sick Prisoners

Abdolfattah Soltani

November 6, 2013 – iranhumanrights – Abdolfattah Soltani, an imprisoned lawyer and human rights activist, embarked on a hunger strike together with three other political prisoners on November 2, his sixtieth birthday, to protest the conditions of sick prisoners who need medical treatment and have been refused transfers to a hospital, his daughter told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

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