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Iran news in brief, 20 February 2015

Drug money is used in Iran’s politics, Interior Minister admits

‘Dirty money,’ including money obtained from drug trafficking ‘has entered the political life in Iran and used in elections and decision making,’ the Iranian regime’s Minister of Interior has admitted.

Abdolreza Ahmadi-fazli was quoted by official news agency IRNA as saying: “A large part of the moral corruption in this country comes from the introduction of dirty money into politics.”Speaking during a seminar of police officials on Monday he said: “Part of this money is now in politics.”

According to Rahmani Fazli money both from drug trafficking and from contraband amounted to the equivalent of nearly $20 billion (17.5 billion euros) every year.

Iran was in 136th place out of 175 last year in an index of nations seen as corrupt by Transparency International, a non-governmental organization.

Recently it was disclosed that 170 members of mullahs’ parliament had received bribes.

This bribery was revealed during the trial of the first deputy of regime’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the power struggle between the ruling cliques, Ahmadinejad’s deputy Mohammadreza Rahimi has been prosecuted and sentenced to five years in prison.

In an open letter, Rahimi revealed that he has bribed 170 parliamentarians for a total of 1200 billion tomans which was equivalent to $4.5 billion at the time.

The clerical regime affiliated gangs are the main distributor of drugs in the country as its agents intentionally propagate the use of drugs among the youth and teenagers, particularly high school and university students, in order to divert their attention from getting involved in anti-government activities.

The members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have seized control of drug trafficking throughout the country, using the multi-billion-dollar trade to establish links with a global crime network and further its goal of undermining the West.

The mullahs' regime has also counts on the illegal drug trade as an important source of badly-needed hard currency, some of which is spent on the regime's export of terrorism and fundamentalism abroad.

The bulk of the narcotics is sent abroad through international drug trafficking rings.

A member of the Iranian regime's  Quds Force, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard, that had plotted to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US in 2011, had tried to hire a Mexican drug cartel to blow up a Washington restaurant

Men in miniskirt protest against student death in Turkey

U.S. Woman Accused of Assisting Al-Qaeda Detained in Germany

BERLIN – A U.S. woman has been arrested in the southwestern German town of Heilbronn accused of providing members of the al-Qaeda terror group with clothing, first-aid equipment and donations.

Police in the federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg and Stuttgart prosecutors said in a joint statement issued Friday that the arrest took place Feb. 10, in compliance with an order issued by authorities in the United States.

U.S. investigators accuse the woman, aged 42, of providing support to al-Qaeda from mid-2013 until earlier this year, in collaboration with others.

The detainee has already appeared in court, where a provisional arrest warrant issued against her was upheld.

Political Activist Murdered in Central Mexico

MEXICO CITY – The local chairwoman of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the central town of Lagunillas was murdered, her party colleagues said Friday.

Cecilia Izaguirre Camargo was attacked while driving in the nearby community of Pinihuan.

The PRI leader in San Luis Potosi state, Joel Ramirez, condemned the killing and demanded an “exhaustive and expedited investigation” to find those responsible.

Ramirez also expressed concern about an increase in violence against political activists as the state prepares for elections.

Besides representing the PRI, Izaguirre Camargo was coordinator of Social Development in Lagunillas.

One of her relatives, Guadalupe Castillo Olvera, is the PRI candidate for mayor of Lagunillas.

Mexicans will go to the polls July 7 to select federal lawmakers, 1,487 municipal officials and governors in nine states, including San Luis Potosi.

A prospective congressional candidate for Mexico’s center-left PRD and two other members of that party were slain earlier this week in the southern state of Oaxaca.

Iran: Two Kurdish political prisoners executed

NCRI – The Iranian regime's henchmen in the central prison in the city of Orumiyeh have hanged two political prisoners.

Habibullah Afshari, 26 and his brother Ali Afshari, 34, hanged on Thursday, had been sentenced to death for supporting Komala, an Iranian Kurdish opposition group.

They were among the group of six political prisoners including Saman Naseem who were transferred to isolation on Wednesday. There is no information on the fate of the other prisoners.

Mrs Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, has called for urgent action to save the life of political prisoners in Iran.

She urged the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and all human rights organizations to take urgent measures to save the lives of the political prisoners facing death in Uromiyeh prison.

She also called on UN Secretary General and Security Council, the United States and the European countries to take urgent and effective measures to save political prisoners in Iran, particularly these six prisoners, who are facing imminent execution.

Mrs Rajavi demanded that the dossier of the clerical regime's crimes including the execution of 120,000 political prisoners be referred to the International Criminal Court by the United Nations Security Council.