US slams Iran on treatment of religious minorities

The Hill - The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on Wednesday criticized Iran for its increasingly poor treatment of its religious minorities.
“Since assuming office in 2013, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has not delivered on his promises to improve conditions for religious minority communities,” USCIRF Chair Katrina Lantos Swett said in a statement.
 “In fact, the Iranian government has imprisoned more than 350 people, including 150 Sunni Muslims, 100 Baha’is, 90 Christians and at least a dozen Sufi Muslims, for their beliefs.”
USCIRF’s scathing remarks hit Tehran prior to its appearance Thursday before theUnited Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Iran will announce which, if any, of the UNHRC’s recommendations it will follow for improving its human rights.
The UN has offered 291 recommendations – 26 of which concern religious freedom – to Iran on its human rights this year. USCIRF said Wednesday that Iran has rarely implemented any of these proposals in the past.
“The number of Christians imprisoned has nearly doubled over the past year,” Swett said of Iran’s recent actions regarding freedom of faith. “The United States and international community should call for the release of all prisoners of conscience in Iran, including: Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor and U.S. citizen; Ayatollah Mohammed Kazemeini Boroujerdi, a Shi’a Muslim cleric; and Mahvash Sabet, a Baha’I leader held since 2008.”
“These brave people, among many others, are suffering solely for exercising their fundamental right to freedom of conscience or belief,” Swett added.
A report released Feb. 20 by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also found that Iran’s religious minorities “continue to face persecution there.” Tehran is a hard-line Shia Islamic theocracy under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Tehran is already facing scrutiny over its quest for nuclear arms. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland on Monday in an attempt to negotiate a deal with Iran over its nuclear production capabilities.

Iran faces dangerous water crises

Iran's reservoirs are only 40 percent complete according to official figures, and nine cities which includes the capital Tehran are threatened with water restrictions after dry winter.

Several major bodies of water in the region have all but dried up, including the Zayanderud River and Orumiyeh Lake.

Lake Orumiyeh, a close to 145-kilometre-long (90-mile), 48-kilometre wide salt lake close to Iran's northwest border with Turkey, is just about empty.

In the city of Isfahan, an ancient jewel extended dubbed "half the planet" for its wonderful palaces, boulevards, bridges and mosques, the Zayanderud river that runs via it is often bone dry.

The water that disappeared – a result largely of mismanagement and overuse rather than drought – is stored at the Zayandeh Roud dam and diverted for domestic and industrial consumption, leaving the city’s 11 river bridges standing as symbols of what is missing.

The damage in Isfahan province has been substantial. Analysts say tens of thousands of hectares of farmland have turned to desert. More than 500m trees have died over the past four years and land has subsided – a byproduct of draining groundwater supplies – in some areas by as much as one metre, threatening the city’s historical sites.

Some regime officials have admitted that “mismanagement has been far more damaging than drought.” Aliahmad Keikha, deputy head of the state-run department of environment for natural environment and biodiversity told Financial Times. “We could cope with drought if there was a more efficient management.”

But Isfahan’s plight is just one example of water crisis in Iran.

The dilemma is extra critical in Sistan-Baluchistan where a Sunni minority is centred in towns and villages that border Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Only 15 years ago, Hamoun was the seventh largest wetland in the planet, straddling 4,000 square kilometres (1,600 square miles) involving Iran and Afghanistan, with water rolling in from the latter's Helmand river.

Issa Kalantari, a former agriculture minister in the 1990s said last year: “Iran, with 7,000 years of history, will not be liveable in 20 years’ time if the rapid and exponential destruction of groundwater resources continues,” he warns, adding that the shortages pose a bigger threat to Iran than its nuclear crisis.”

Source: AFP, Financial times

Nowrouz : le peuple iranien balaiera hors d’Iran les ténèbres du régime (Maryam Radjavi)

Nouvel an iranien : message de Nowrouz de Maryam RadjaviLe peuple iranien et sa résistance balaieront hors d’Iran la vétusté et les ténèbres du régime du guide suprême

Maryam Radjavi, Présidente-élue de la Résistance iranienne, a adressé ses meilleurs vœux au peuple iranien à l’occasion de la venue du Printemps et de la Nouvelle Année iranienne. Elle lui a souhaité une année pleine de réussite contre le fascisme au pouvoir en Iran. Il ne fait aucun doute, a-t-elle assuré, que très bientôt la vétusté et les ténèbres du régime du guide suprême seront balayées hors d’Iran et le printemps de la liberté, de la souveraineté populaire, de l’égalité et de la justice vaincra.

Depuis 37 ans, a-t-elle ajouté, avec la torture et les massacre, les mollahs ont pris le véritable Nowrouz (Nouvel An) des Iraniens en otage, mais malgré l’avalanche d’exécutions, d’arrestations et de terreur persistante tout au long de ces années, le peuple iranien ne s’est pas soumis. Il n’a cessé de manifester sa volonté de renverser ce régime.

Dans l’année qui vient de s’écouler, avec 5700 grèves, sit-in et manifestations, notamment des enseignants et des infirmières, des travailleurs de l’industrie, de la population d’Ispahan contre les agressions à l’acide des femmes, de la population d’Ahwaz contre l’assèchement du fleuve Karoun, de la population contre le niveau catastrophique de la pollution de l’air dans diverses villes, des miséreux comme Younes Assakereh, le vendeur de pacotilles d’Ahwaz qui s’est immolé par le feu en guise de protestation contre la répression et la tyrannie des mollahs, le peuple iranien a insisté sur le rejet de ce régime dans sa totalité.

Maryam Radjavi a salué la grande résistance des prisonniers politiques et déclaré : l’an passé, des milliers et des milliers de prisonniers ont mené 226 grèves de la faim.

Les détenus Moudjahidine du peuple, les prisonniers sunnites, kurdes, Derviches Gonabadi, chrétiens et les autres prisonniers courageux de toutes les religions se sont unis dans leurs protestations contre le régime du guide suprême.

La Présidente élue de la Résistance iranienne a déclaré que durant l’année écoulée, le programme nucléaire qui devait garantir la survie du régime est devenu la corde qui va le pendre. Le grand schisme au sommet du pouvoir, l’effondrement de l’économie et la propagation affolante de la corruption et des activités criminelles ont englouti le régime.

Pour résumer, a-t-elle mis en avant, le régime du guide suprême ne pourra échapper au peuple iranien et à sa Résistance quelle que soit la direction qu’il prenne et la politique qu’il adopte.

Iran: 17 coal miners, fired for the second time

17 coal miners of Koushk, Bafgh were fired by the mullah’s anti-labor regime only 2 days after the last round of workers protests. These workers were dismissed a month ago for their active participation in the protest, but were returned back to work after 400 workers protested their dismissal.  

Maryam Rajavi condemns terrorist crime in Tunisia and expresses solidarity with Tunisian President

NCRI - Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, strongly condemned the brutal and repulsive terrorist attack on Bardo Museum and expresses the deepest sympathies of the Iranian people and resistance with the people and President of Tunisia.

She stressed that those who planned this atrocity are taking revenge on the Tunisian people for their resolute rejection of fundamentalism and extremism under the veneer of Islam. She added that slaughter of innocent civilians of any nationality on whatever pretext is a crime against humanity and even more unacceptable when committed in the name of Islam, a religion of compassion and emancipation.

Mrs. Rajavi emphasized that terrorism and fundamentalism have turned into a pressing global threat when the religious dictatorship came to power in Iran. Through its growing meddling and unparalleled slaughter in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen in recent years, this regime has inflamed the plague of terrorism and fundamentalism in the region. The eviction of this anti-Islamic and anti-Iranian regime from the region is the foremost measure to rein in fundamentalism and terrorism under the banner of Islam; and the overthrow of this regime is the final solution in defeating this ominous phenomenon and ridding the region and the Islamic World of it.

Iran, Arak: People and youth clash with state security forces

Reports from Iran, as its coming following a jubilant and active night of celebration on the traditional Fire Festival, indicates that youth and residents of Davaran St. in Arak, central Iran, clashed with state security forces as they attacked the revelers on the street. The youth in response used their firecrackers and bonfires and blowing up sound bombs to confront the guards. When residents went to help the youth in their scuffle with the police, they close the street, setting tires and trash bins on fire. People also threw bonfires and sound grenades from the balconies forcing the riot police to back off.

IRAN (Graphic images): Two more hanged in public

 

NCRI - Two men have been hanged in public in the Iranian city of Jiroft ahead of the regime's New Year celebrations.

The executions were carried out using a crane and mechanical fork loader in one of the city's main squares, with armed men guarding from rooftops around the area.

The death sentences took place on the day after Fire Festival - known as Charshanbeh Souri - used by many Iranians to defy the clerical regime.

Fearing of public protests, prior to the Fire Festival, a senior cleric described it as 'religiously forbidden' and warned people about 'crossing God's red lines'.

In Tehran, people lit bonfires in public places, set off fireworks and launched wish lanterns as part of an annual ritual.

Elsewhere, people threw portraits of the regime's Supreme Leader into fire and chanted 'death to the dictator'.

The Iranian opposition and international rights groups have repeatedly stated that the regime is using public hangings as a way of suppressing public protests by inspiring fear in society.