Iran News ( Super Woman -Blogger -Human rights reporter in prison -Again and Again) Bold as a Lion

Shiva Nazar Ahari nominated for the Netizen Prize by RSF

Keywords : Political Prisoners , Women

Shiva Nazar Ahari, imprisoned member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters, was nominated by Reporters Without Borders for the 2013 Netizen of the Year, which has been awarded on March 12th every year to commemorate World Day Against Cyber-Censorship. Since 2008, this prize has been awarded to journalists, bloggers and other netizens for their distinguished contribution to the advancement of freedom of expression on the Internet. Shiva Nazar Ahari is one of 9 netizens worldwide who has been nominated for this award in 2013.

Shiva Nazar Ahari is a human rights activist, blogger, journalist, women’s rights activist and member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters, the One Million Signature Campaign, Right to Education Campaign, and Society for Defending Street and Working Children.

Shiva was born on June 10, 1984 and attended Islamic Azad University with a B.A. in Civil Engineering. A determined advocate for the rights of child laborers and women’s rights, Shiva was prevented from attending graduate school for her M.A. after receiving her engineering license because she received a “star” from the regime for her humans rights work.

Shiva has been arrested several times because of her commitment to human rights and online reporting. She was first arrested at the young age of 18 on September 11, 2002 after she had lit candles across Tehran University with others to commemorate the victims of the 9/11 attacks. She was held in Evin prison’s Ward 240 and endured 40 days of solitary confinement before being released on bail.

Shiva was arrested again on August 17, 2004 while she was taking part in a peaceful protest in front on the United Nations office in Tehran. The protest was to bring attention to the plight of political prisoners and the group was distributing pamphlets regarding prison conditions. Shiva was released on bail after enduring 20 days behind bars in Evin prison’s ward 209 controlled by the Ministry of Intelligence and she was later sentenced to one year in prison.

With a passion for the welfare of minors, Shiva began her volunteer work with children’s rights years ago. She stood up for the rights of child laborers and was a soldier for immigrant children mostly from Afghanistan, who were abused and forgotten. Working in a hostile climate, she and her friends managed to keep the Society for Defending Working and Street Children open even after the country’s security apparatus shut it down.

On June 14, 2009, days after the contested presidential election results, Shiva was arrested again. She spent 36 days in solitary confinement in Evin’s ward 209 before being transferred to the general ward. She was released on bail on September 24th. While in prison, Shiva befriended Atefeh Nabavi, another student-activist who had taken part in demonstrations. After Shiva was released she characteristically organized a campaign for the release of her friends despite the dangers it posed to herself.

On December 20, 2009, Shiva was arrested again while she was on a bus with other activists intending to attend the funeral of the late dissident cleric Ayatollah Montazeri. Kouhyar Goudarzi, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and Saeed Haeri were also among the arrested. Shiva immediately launched a dry hunger strike to protest her incarceration and was transferred to the infirmary at Evin prison due to her deteriorating health. She endured 2 months of solitary confinement and was released on bail after 9 months of detention in September 2010.

She was later handed a 4-year prison sentence and 74 lashes on the charges of “moharebeh” (enmity with God), “propaganda against the regime,” and “illegal gathering with the intent of disturbing national security.” On September 8, 2012 Shiva turned herself in at Evin prison where she is now serving her prison term.

Despite her many arrests and ceaseless harassment, Shiva never backed down from her conviction in standing up for human rights and her belief that no one should be discriminated against based on gender, ethnicity, religion or social class. She is a founding member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters formed in 2005 and later served as the group’s spokesperson. The organization was formed with the purpose of improving the human rights situation in Iran with a commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The group seeks to through online reporting, inform the public of abuses and violations while demanding that human rights be granted in all aspects of daily life.

Today three members of CHRR - Shiva Nazar Ahari, Saeed Jalalifar, Saeed Haeri, and one former member of the group, Navid Khanjani, are serving prison terms. The former head of the group, twice-imprisoned Kouhyar Goudarzi was handed a 5-year prison sentence in exile.

In a letter to another prisoner Shiva who has been at the forefront of the struggle for justice in a democratic Iran, described her compassion and yearning for the good of all her fellow beings. “When your heart trembles for the rights of another human, that is when you begin to slip; that is when the interrogations begin. When your heart trembles for another prisoner, a woman, a child laborer - that is when you become the accused. When you find faith in people and believe in humanity and nothing else, that is when you commit your first crime.”

On March 11, 2011, Shiva Nazar Ahari was awarded the Theodor Haecker prize for "courageous internet reporting on human rights violations". The prize is named after Theodor Haecker, a philosopher, writer and anti-Nazi cultural critic. At age 28, Shiva Nazar Ahari is serving her 5-year prison sentence stemming from her human rights efforts, online journalism, and standing up for the rights of women, the under privileged, minorities and children.

Shiva Nazar Ahari is nominated for the 2013 Netizen award, which will be cast by the Internet public for the first time this year. Internet users can vote until March 5 on the RSF YouTube channel. The winner will be announced on March 7.

To cast your vote for Shiva please click on link below to Reporters Without Borders website, watch the video about Shiva and on the left hand side and click on “vote.”

http://bit.ly/XCahSv

Iran News ( Iran road workers protest because they go 7 months without a paycheck ) SMH?

Iran: Workers stage protest for non-payment of wages

 

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Published on Sunday, 03 March 2013 11:47

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NCRI - Workers from the Iranian regime's Roads and Urban Development Office staged a demonstration on Friday over non-payment of their salaries for seven months.

This is the second time in a month that the workers who are under extreme pressure due to the harsh economic conditions have staged demonstration for not receiving their wages.

More than 230 workers of the office have not received their wages for the past seven months.

Also in the city of Ahwaz the workers in the sugar processing factory have declared that they will stage their third demonstration in front of the municipal office this week.

One of the labor organizers said; “there has been no effort to solve our problems. It seems that there is no real effort to solve the workers issues.”

CHINA ( America's " Friend or Foe " Sales missiles to Iran ) Sanctions ?

Antiaircraft weapons found on Iranian regime’s dhow for Yemen

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Published on Sunday, 03 March 2013 17:05

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NCRI - An Iranian regime’s dhow seized in January off the Yemeni coast was carrying at least 10 sophisticated Chinese heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles.
The shipment, which US officials portray as an attempt to introduce sophisticated new antiaircraft systems into the Arabian Peninsula, has raised concerns in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, as the weapons would have posed escalated risks to civilian and military aircraft alike, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they had been assembled at a factory represented by a state-owned corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Iranian regime.

The analysis of the weapons’ markings and origins was based on photographs taken when Yemeni officials briefly displayed the weapons to journalists.
The latest discovery of Chinese weapons came after the United States Navy detected the dhow, the Jeehan 1, as it took on cargo in an Iranian regime military-controlled port. The vessel then embarked on a high-seas smuggling run, according to accounts by Yemeni and American officials.
The military cargo, which included many ammunition crates that had been painted over with white or black paint, was found in hidden compartments, American officials said.
That cargo also included 316,000 cartridges for Kalashnikov rifles, nearly 63,000 cartridges for PK machine guns or the Dragunov series of sniper rifles, more than 12,000 cartridges for 12.7-millimeter DShK machine guns and 95 RPG-7 launchers.
The vessel also carried 10 SA-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles with two gripstocks for firing them, nearly 17,000 blocks of Iranian-made C-4 plastic explosives, 48 Russian PN-14K night vision goggles, and 10 LH80A laser range finders made, according to their placards, by the state-run Iran Electronics Industries, also under American sanction.
An American official called the shipment “deeply disturbing” and said it “clearly appeared to violate” Security Council resolutions prohibiting Iran from exporting arms, The Times report said.

Yemen ( Dozens of children on death row in Yemen ) 15 yr old girl executed on 12-3

Dozens of children on death row in Yemen

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Dozens of juvenile offenders below the age of 18 continue to face the death penalty in Yemen, in violation of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.
The latest victim was a girl named as Hind Al-Barti who was executed on the 3rd of December this year.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child says although it was not aware of the nature of the crime committed, information gathered indicates that Hind Al-Barti was about 15 years old at the time of the offense.
Chairman of the committee Jean Zermatten says the executions were a serious infringement of the commitment undertaken in 2005 and 2009 by the Government of Yemen to abolish the death penalty, torture, and other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to offenders below the age of 18.
"What is important for us is the moment of the commission of the offense, not the moment of the judgment. We have information that 14 children have been executed between 2006 and 2010. Yemen came before the committee in 2005 and we made recommendation to Yemen to stop the execution and to ban death penalty. I don’t know why they continue to execute children because they were also before the Human Rights Council where they assured to observe and respect the obligations under the convention."
The committee says it has information that 21 juvenile offenders, all under 18 years at the time of the commission of the offenses, have been condemned to death.
Another 186 young offenders are threatened with execution.
Patrick Maigua United Nations radio Geneva.

Arizona ( Sheriff Joe Arpaio claimed ICE refused to pick up illegal immigrants )

Late last week, Sheriff Joe Arpaio claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement "refused" to take custody of two suspected illegal immigrants that MCSO deputies found in the desert.

Arpaio suggested that he saw this was coming, and had discovered a back-up plan to keep turning over immigrants to federal agents.

See also:
-Joe Arpaio Tells Tale About Fooling the Feds; ICE Calls Sheriff's Bluff
From MCSO's press release:

Sheriff's detectives were unable to gather enough evidence on the remaining two suspects to charge them with a state crime of human smuggling and attempted to turn the suspects over to ICE as has been the practice during the last six years. ICE agents, after asking a series of questions, refused to take the suspects from Sheriff's detectives.

"I expected that it would happen eventually, so I had a back up plan in place which was to take these illegal immigrants not accepted by ICE to the Border Patrol," Sheriff Arpaio said. So as directed by the Sheriff, last night deputies took the two suspects to the Border Patrol.

Not so fast, said ICE, which turned over its own version of events.

"...ICE agents referred the sheriff's office to the Ajo Station of the U.S. Border Patrol. Border Patrol is the primary DHS agency responding to recent border crossers encountered in the Gila Bend desert area," an ICE spokeswoman said in a statement. "Agents from the Ajo Border Patrol station responded to the scene in Gila Bend and took custody of the individuals. ICE and Border Patrol work closely together to ensure a coordinated response to our state and local law enforcement partners, in accordance with our enforcement priorities."

Iran News ( Iran sends secret troops into Yemen acting like syrian refugees ) Wink we won't tell

Iranian regime’s IRGC members entered Yemen as Syrian refugee - report

 

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Published on Sunday, 03 March 2013 14:27

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NCRI - Local security sources in Yemen have stated that some 100 members of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) including officers, managed to cross into Yemen via Lebanon while claiming to be Syrian refugees, National Yemen website reported on Saturday.
According to the source, the Iranian regime’s guards entered Yemen using Syrian passports and they have gone to Sana’a, Aden and other Yemeni governorates.
“They formed secret cells and were assigned to carry out devastating operations in Yemen’s south and north,” the report quoted the source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The source said that Yemeni security forces were currently tracking one of the most dangerous cells, composed of six IRGC members, in Sana’a.
A security source stated that the UN-affiliated team which was assigned to investigate the matter of the suspected Iranian arms shipment to Yemen had concluded their mission, which included investigating the eight sailors who were onboard the ship in question.
“The eight sailors admitted that the weapons had arrived from Iran and also that they had been involved in other similar operations before,” said the source.

New Delhi Update ( Principal and 4 teachers suspended- At School where 7 yr old was raped ) Crowd Trashes buses at school

New Delhi: Even though there has been no breakthrough in the Mangolpuri rape case so far, the principal and four other officials of the school where a 7-year-old child was raped have been suspended by the Muncipal Corporation of Delhi.
On Saturday, the police claimed to have recovered vital clues and ruled out the role of an outsider in connection with the incident.

Angry locals damaged buses as it emerged that a school girl was raped in Mangolpuri. IBNLive.

Teachers including 13 female and two male were called in for questioning again in the morning. Four people including two teachers were questioned on Friday meanwhile, the rape survivor has been discharged from the hospital. Dr Puneeta Mahajan, medical Superintendent, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital said, “The patient was discharged in a stable condition yesterday at 4 pm. Prima facie medical tests confirmed sexual assault. We are awaiting final reports.”
There was heavy deployment of police and Rapid Action Force in the area, especially outside the hospital where the girl was being treated. This came after locals clashed with the police on Friday evening.
Angry protesters, including neighbours and local residents clashed outside the hospital with the police, accusing them of taking no action for three hours post the incident. The family of the rape survivor has claimed that the child was threatened with dire consequences if she told anyone about the incident. “The girl told us that she was gagged, tied and told that she would be killed if she told anyone,” said the survivor’s family member.