Residents of Afghan city protest executions in Iran
NCRI - The Iranian regime’s henchmen have hanged four Afghan prisoners on Monday (March 4) in Vakil Abad Prison in northeastern city of Mashhad in Iran.
Dozens of Afghan prisoners have been executed in the previous months in Iran.
400 other Afghan prisoners are under death penalty and awaiting their execution. Last week, Hundreds of angry residents in the western province of Herat blocked the Herat city’s highway to protest against the execution of Afghans in Iran.
The protesters also called on the Iranian regime to hand over the dead bodies of the Afghans to their families and urged the Afghan government to follow the issue of execution of Afghan citizens in Iran.
Barack Obama 'has authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans on US
soil'
President Barack Obama has the authority to use an unmanned drone strike to
kill US citizens on American soil, his attorney general has said.
Eric Holder, left, testifies
before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Code Pink demonstrator Medea Benjamin
protests against the use of drone strikesPhoto: Getty
Images
Eric Holder argued that using lethal military force against an American in
his home country would be legal and justified in an "extraordinary circumstance"
comparable to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"The president could conceivably have no choice but to authorise the military
to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland," Mr Holder said.
His statement was described as "more than frightening" by Senator Rand Paul,
a Republican from Kentucky, who had demanded to know the Obama administration's
position on the subject.
"It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans,"
said Mr Paul, a 50-year-old favourite of the anti-government Tea Party movement,
who is expected to run for president in 2016.
Mr Holder wrote to Mr Paul after the senator threatened to block the
appointment of John Brennan as the director of the CIA unless he received
answers to a series of questions on its activities.
A Chinese man who allegedly strangled an infant after stealing a car with
the child inside has handed himself in to police in the north-eastern province
of Jilin in a case that has shocked the nation.
Zhou handed himself in to police
on Tuesday and made a full confessionPhoto: Rex
Features
By Harry Alsop and agencies
5:13PM GMT 06 Mar 2013
Zhou Xijun, 48, has confessed to stealing an SUV in Changchun city on Monday,
which had been left with the engine running and the doors unlocked. The father,
Xu Jialin, had wanted to keep the baby warm whilst he ran into the shop where he
worked, according to the South China Morning Post.
According to a police statement, Zhou “discovered a baby in the back seat of
the stolen car, stopped at the side of the road before strangling the baby to
death and burying it in the snow.”
Changchun police said they had sent the entire force, more than 3,500
officers, on a manhunt for the suspect and the missing baby. Local media
reported that thousands of residents and taxi drivers joined in the search after
hearing the news.
Police found the car abandoned near a school 40 kilometres outside the city
but with no sign of the child.
The baby’s father told Xinhua: “Early Wednesday morning, my wife and I
identified the body of our son.”
Chinese media have reported that the baby’s mother had to receive treatment
in hospital after learning of the death of her son, with at least one report
claiming she suffered a heart attack.
Zhou handed himself in to police on Tuesday and made a full confession,
although witnesses have claimed that the man they saw was much younger, leading
to rumours that Zhou is covering for someone else.
The case has sparked considerable outrage online in China, which had a murder
rate of 1.0 per 100,000 people in 2010, according to the United Nations, among
the lowest in the world.
Wang, a taxi driver who joined the hunt for the baby, told China News: “I
cried when I heard about the killing on the radio.”
“I would never have imagined that what people most feared would actually
happen... the killer should be severely punished," wrote one user of Sina Weibo,
China’s equivalent of Twitter.
“Killing him would not be enough,” said another.
Users of the site also posted photos of candle-lit vigils being held in
Changchun on Tuesday.
A fierce debate has begun in China on whether the parents should be punished
for negligence.
"What happens when you take away the child from negligent parents in China?”
one user commented. “Do we have foster homes to send them to like in the US? Or
do you want to fine the parents who are often poverty-stricken?”
“Defending [such parents] is akin to murdering more babies,” argued another.
Further anger was triggered after photos of a list of government guidelines
for media coverage of the case emerged on Weibo.
The list, which was swiftly deleted, called for the media to avoid criticism
of the police or sky-net, the city’s surveillance grid, whilst limiting reports
to no more than half a page of a newspaper.
“Isn’t this like murdering the baby for a second time?” asked several users.
NCRI - The agents of Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested spouse and daughter of slain political prisoner Mansour Radpour and transferred them to MOIS branch in Karaj on February 26.
Political prisoner Mansour Radpour, an activist of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), 44, father of two, was slain on May 21 in Gohardasht prison, after enduring five years detention in the mullahs’ dungeons and standing up against all sorts of tortures and pressures in order to make forced confessions.
A few months after travelling to Ashraf, Mansour Radpour was arrested on May 17, 2007 for filming a workers’ protest in Iran. He was put under pressure and torture. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment for propaganda against the regime and supporting the PMOI, which subsequently was increased to 8 years imprisonment after making further bogus charges against him.
Mrs. Radpour had already been arrested in 2007 two weeks after her husband’s death. The henchmen threatened her with physical and psychological torture to stay silent over killing of her husband by mullahs’ henchmen in prison.
Over the past month, a large number of members families PMOI supporters and Camp Liberty residents have been arrested by MOIS including Mrs. Akram Sanjari and her 15 year old son, Milad Misagh nejad, Mrs. Dina Karami and her 16 year old son, Hanif, Hassan Sadeghi, his wife Fatemeh Mossana and her 17 year old son, Nima, Asef Rezaian, 19, son of Teymour Rezaian, a political prisoner of the 80’s.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran March 3, 2012
Colombia's prosecutor general is preparing arrest warrants for the leaders of the ongoing coffee strike in the south-central Huila department, a local ombudsman told Colombia Reports Wednesday.
"The Prosecutor General is preparing arrest warrants to capture the leaders of the strike," said the ombudsman of Neiva (capital of Huila) Jesus Elias Meneses. According to the ombudsman, riot police continued to commit "arbitrary acts" against protestors in various municipalities across the department. Meneses said that police have indiscriminately lobbed tear gas grenades and restricted the protestors' right to free movement. "We know they sent a big squadron [to Garzon, Huila]...to evict them... yesterday [Tuesday] they continued throwing [tear] gas...and today they are throwing gas from helicopters and continue to intimidate the protestors," said the ombudsman.
Demonstrators were on their way back to Neiva from a Tuesday protest, said Meneses, when police arbitrarily stopped them "for almost an hour in the middle of the road."
The coffee strikes in Huila and other southern departments have been marred by violence. Several videos showing what appears to be excessive police force have been shared on several social media websites.
Colombia's prosecutor general on Wednesday ordered investigations into 70 alleged "disturbances" committed by protestors at various times during the coffee strike. According to preliminary reports, 30 formal investigations had been opened in the departments of Antioquia, Cauca, Huila, Caldas, Tolima and Valle del Cauca. One person had already been apprehended Wednesday for "obstructing public roads." Meanwhile, Meneses said that his office was getting ready to receive a slew of complaints from strikers about the tactics employed by riot police. "We are [getting ready] to begin receiving complaints and formal denunciations with video material [from demonstrators]," he said. Approximately 90,000 coffee farmers have been protesting since February 25 in departments all across the country over what they perceive is a lack of financial support from the government during this tough time for one of Colombia's iconic industries. On numerous occasions, the government expressed an eagerness to sit down with the protestors to iron out an agreement, but claimed that a prerequisite to do so was that the strikers had to stop blocking roads. However, as of Wednesday afternoon, a government envoy led by vice president Angelino Garzon, was meeting with protest leaders in the central Risaralda department. "Today, there has to be a solution to the coffee strike," said the Vice President.
President Barack Obama could order the use of deadly force against an American inside the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released Tuesday.
Paul and other senators had asked various administration officials whether deadly drones strikes like the ones the U.S. carries out in Pakistan, Yemen and other foreign countries could ever be used in the U.S. Paul said he would seek to block the confirmation of John Brennan as Central Intelligence Agency director if the question was not answered. (Brennan's nomination was endorsed by the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon in a 12-3 vote.)
In the one-page letter dated Monday, Holder said: "The U.S. government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so." The attorney general argued that law enforcement is best suited to resolve such threats "in this country."
However, Holder says that in situations akin to the 1941 assault on Pearl Harbor or the September 11, 2001 attacks, the president might have to order the use of deadly force in the U.S.
"The question you have posed is entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no President will ever have to confront," Holder wrote. "It is possible, I supposed, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the President could concievably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001."
Paul said in a statement that he was deeply disturbed by Holder's views.
"The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,” Paul said.
(WATCH: Rand Paul: Drone strike during dinner?)
Police, of course, regularly and lawfully use deadly force inside the U.S. in cases where criminals are presenting a imminent threat to others. They can also use lethal force under the so-called "fleeing felon" rule to stop a dangerous individuals.
However, the Obama Administration has claimed authority to use armed drones abroad under a more relaxed standard of imminence, embracing situations where an individual has organized terrorist attacks in the past and has not renounced such activity. In addition, the administration has carried out so-called "signature strikes," where a group of suspected terrorists is attacked based on their pattern of activity even though the U.S. lacks specific intelligence about their identities
Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Moments ago another 3 journalists, Nasrin Takhoyori, Saba Azarpeik and Sasan Aghayee were released on bail.
According to CHRR, Nasrin Takhayori, editor of the social affairs section of Etemad newspaper and Sasan Aghayee, editor of the Saturday supplement section of this newspaper were detained on January 28th when security officials conducted a simultaneous raid on the offices of 5 media outlets in Tehran. Saba Azarpeik, a former reporter for Etemad newspaper and staff at Baztab Emrooz website was arrested at the same time while at her home.
Of the 19 journalists detained during the wave of arrests aimed at cracking down on the press, 17 have now been released on bail - Motehareh Shafiee, Ali Dehghan, Javad Daliri, Hossein Yaghchi, Fatemeh Sagharchi, Keyvan Mehregan, Emily Amrayee, Narges Joudaki, Reyhaneh Tabatabai, Akbar Montajebi, Pourya Alemi, Milad Fadai Asl, Soleiman Mohammadi, Pejman Mousavi, Nasrin Takhayori, Sasan Aghaee and Saba Azarpeik.
Two journalists, Ehsan Mazandarani and Mohammad Javad Rouh remain in custody. Ehsan Mazandarani, reporter at Etemad was arrested on February 20th and Mohammad Javad Rouh who in the past years worked at the banned newspapers Norouz and Yas and also at ILNA news was detained on March 2nd across from the offices of the weekly, Aseman. Both journalists were transferred to Evin prison
NCRI - The agents of Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested spouse and daughter of slain political prisoner Mansour Radpour and transferred them to MOIS branch in Karaj on February 26.
