Iran news in brief, 1 March 2015

IRAN: Maryam Rajavi hails protesting teachers, calls on students and youth to support

NCRI - Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, hailed the noble teachers who have staged protest gatherings in cities across the country to attain their lawful rights and to protest the oppressive and criminal measures by the mullahs’ regime. She called on the nation, especially the students and their parents and the youth throughout the country to support and express solidarity with teachers.

Mrs. Rajavi said: In circumstances where the clerical regime spends most of the Iranian people’s wealth on suppression, export of terrorism, massacre of peoples in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, the bottomless and anti-patriotic nuclear projects, or funnels this wealth to the bank accounts of regime’s leaders and their families, the hardworking and noble teachers of the country that play the greatest role in building the future of Iran are living in poverty and face the most hardship in their lives.

The teachers’ protests that have been ongoing in various cities since long time, today, were held on a national scale in Tehran and many provinces, including Khorassan Razavi, Fars, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Qazvin, Ardebil, Lorestan, Hormozgan, Yazd, Kermanshah, Alborz, Central, Bushehr, and Zanjan. They chanted, “The hardship has reached our bones, when will discrimination and injustice end?”, “Teacher has no bread, teacher has no home, teacher has debt”, “Teacher’s nobility trampled over by inflation and high prices”, and “We moan of poverty and detest poverty”.

While the budget of the revolutionary guards (IRGC) consistently increases, millions of children and teenagers are deprived of education and no budget is allocated to provide the minimum buildings needed for schooling. In the current Persian year (1393), the official budget for the military and suppressive organs and for export of terrorism is three times the budget for education with one million teachers and 13 million pupils. This is despite the fact that the actual budget for the military and suppressive organs and for export of terrorism is far beyond the official budget and billions of dollars beside the official budget is left at the disposal of the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence through Khamenei’s Office and tremendous economic provisions are provided to them with no supervision over them.

Mrs. Rajavi addressed the teachers, pupils, students and those working in the education sector throughout the country and said: The gift of the religious fascism is nothing but death, annihilation and destruction for the Iranian people and as long as this regime is in power, there will be no improvement in the livelihood of teachers, laborers and students, country’s education will get nowhere, and there will be no decline in torture and execution. Solely the overthrow of this anti-human regime and the establishment of democracy and the rule of the people will end this great catastrophe that has cast its shadow over our country and throughout the region for 35 years.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 1, 2015

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More Than 25,500 Egyptians Have Left Libya Following Beheadings

CAIRO – More than 25,000 Egyptians have fled Libya since the beheading of around 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians by the Libyan branch of the Islamic State jihadist group, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced Friday.

The massive exodus of Egyptian citizens living or working in Libya began on Feb. 16 following the release of a video in which jihadists loyal to IS showed the beheadings of the Copts who had been kidnapped in the northern city of Sirte.

A Foreign Ministry statement said that a total of 21,407 of those Egyptians returning home entered Egypt through the border crossing of Al Salum in the northwest of the country.

Another 4,122 arrived by air at Cairo International Airport from Tunisia, where they arrived through the border crossing of Ras Ajdir, linking Libya and Tunisia.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel Aty told Efe earlier this week that there was no evacuation operation organized by the government and it was a voluntary decision by those citizens who decided to return home.

Following the release of the video of the beheading, the Egyptian Air Force bombed jihadist targets in Libya.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi ordered his government to ban Egyptians from traveling to Libya, as well as to facilitate the return of citizens to Egypt.

Argentine Judge Rejects Cover-Up Charges against President

BUENOS AIRES – An Argentine judge on Thursday dismissed the charges late prosecutor Alberto Nisman brought against President Cristina Fernandez of trying to conceal Iranian involvement in a 1994 attack on a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires that left 85 people dead.

The evidence does not provide even minimal support for the accusations against Fernandez, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and six other people, magistrate Daniel Rafecas wrote in a ruling that is subject to appeal.

On the contrary, according to the judge, the evidence “categorically contradicts” Nisman’s notion of a conspiracy.

Nisman, the special prosecutor for the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish organization, was found dead Jan. 18, four days after he announced the charges against Fernandez.

The prosecutor died of a single shot to the temple, fired from a gun he had borrowed from a colleague. The case remains under investigation as a “suspicious death.”

Another prosecutor, Gerardo Pollicita, took up the accusation following Nisman’s death and filed a brief with Rafecas two weeks ago asking the judge to approve formal charges against Fernandez and the others.

Nisman’s accusation against Fernandez cited the Memorandum of Understanding her administration signed with Iran in 2013 to facilitate the AMIA investigation as the principal instrument of the purported cover-up.

The late prosecutor said that intercepts of telephone calls among some of the prospective defendants – though not Fernandez or Timerman – showed the outlines of a plan for Argentina to get Interpol to rescind the red notices the international police agency had issued for the arrest of Iranians accused in the AMIA bombing.

Yet the man who headed Interpol for 15 years until last November rebutted Nisman’s key accusation.

“I can say with 100 percent certainty, not a scintilla of doubt, that Foreign Minister Timerman and the Argentine government have been steadfast, persistent and unwavering that the Interpol’s red notices be issued, remain in effect and not be suspend or removed,” Ronald K. Noble said last month.

Many in the Argentine Jewish community believe the AMIA bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by Tehran’s Hezbollah allies.

Both the Iranian government and the Lebanese militia group deny any involvement and the accusation relies heavily on information provided by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Prosecutors have yet to secure a single conviction in the case.

In September 2004, 22 people accused in the bombing were acquitted after a process plagued with delays, irregularities and tales of witnesses’ being paid for their testimony.

U.S Blogger hacked to death " Killed , VIDEO