55-year-old mother of three to be executed in Iran

NCRI – An Iranian woman in her fifties is at imminent risk of execution in a prison in the city of Varamin, south-east of the Iranian capital Tehran.

The mullahs’ regime has transferred Batool Karimi, 55, to solitary confinement in the notorious Qarchak Prison for Women in preparation for her execution.

Ms. Karimi, a mother of three, has been imprisoned for the past four years.

She is accused of a drugs-related offence.

Qarchak Prison, also referred to as ‘Qarchak Death Camp’, was used by the regime in Iran as a place to brutally torture and rape those arrested during the 2009 anti-regime popular protests. The deaths of at least four young protesters under torture in Qarchak turned into a scandal for the Iranian regime.

Iran’s regime hanged two other women at the end of July.

One of the women, identified as Pari-Dokht Molai-Far, was hanged in the notorious Qezelhesar Prison on July 29. The mother of one had been imprisoned in the notorious Qarchak Prison for the past three years and was transferred to Qezelhesar to face execution.

Another woman was hanged in Kerman's Shahab Prison, southeast Iran, on July 30.

"Iran has reportedly executed more than 600 individuals so far this year. Last year, at least 753 people were executed in the country," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said on Wednesday.

Detect new case of "blind mule" ( Drugs across border )

By the method known as "blind mule" which involves placing magnets packet with narcotics and paste below vehicles, this morning reported Saturday when a neighbor reported that three suspects placed 5.4 kilos of "glass" under his car .

According to the report of the Municipal Public Security Secretariat (SSPM), at 03:15 hours it was reported a drug bust without detainee in private fractionation Oak Hot Water Gardens in La Mesa delegation.

West Bank: father of Palestinian boy killed in arson attack dies of injuries

Dog on Front Lines of Bolivia Protests Gets Thousands of Facebook Followers

LA PAZ – The mixed-breed dog that accompanied grassroots leaders in the southwestern Bolivian city of Potosi during the recent wave of protests has become a star on Facebook, with more than 19,700 people following him on the social network.

The mutt, known as Petardo (Firecracker), joined the protests during the march by Potosi Civic Committee, or Comcipo, leaders to La Paz in early July, the organization’s president, Jhonny Llally, told EFE by telephone on Saturday.

The pooch appeared for the first time as the protesters were reaching Caracollo, a town located 193 kilometers (about 120 miles) from La Paz, Llally said.

“From there, he walked with us, but he appeared and disappeared. When we reached the La Paz stretch, he was with us permanently on the march and did not leave us until the end (of the demonstration),” the Comcipo leader said.

Petardo got his name because, unlike other dogs, he did not run away when firecrackers and dynamite charges were set off, a daily occurrence during the Comcipo street protests in La Paz over the past month.

The pooch participated in all the marches and endured tear gas and streams of water from the hoses used by riot police to disperse the crowds.

Petardo’s image was captured on the front lines in videos and photographs of the protests shot by media outlets, and pictures of the dog were shared on social networks.

The Comcipo delegation returned to Potosi on Thursday after failing to reach an agreement with President Evo Morales’s administration on 26 demands they were making for the region. And Petardo went home with them.

Comcipo is demanding major public works projects for Potosi, including the construction of a hydroelectric power plant, hospitals, highways, glass and cement factories, and an international airport.

The Facebook page “Petardo: Potosino y Federalista,” created in late July, had 19,797 “likes” as of Saturday and numerous comments praising the mutt for his loyalty to Potosi’s cause.

Police Seize 6 Tons of Marijuana in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES – Six tons of marijuana hidden in a truck were seized and two suspects arrested in an operation over the weekend in Entre Rios, a province in central Argentina, a police spokesman told EFE on Monday.

More than 7,000 bricks of marijuana weighing a total of 6,084 kilos were confiscated, said the police chief of the city of Villaguay, Carlos Fabian Perez.

This was “the largest (seizure) ever made in an operation in the province,” Perez said.

The seizure was made on Saturday, when officers from the Entre Rios provincial police force spotted an overloaded truck from the northern province of Misiones.

The truck, which was headed to Buenos Aires, was carrying two Argentine men, ages 34 and 24.

Officers stopped the vehicle “because the cargo it was carrying exceeded what is allowed,” Perez said, adding that “police personnel noted that the driver was a bit nervous and ready to go.”

Officers called the “Villaguay police department for assistance” and “drug enforcement officers and a dog were sent, confirming the presence of the drugs in the truck,” the police chief said.

Investigators found that the truck, which had been reported stolen, had a false registration and its engine and body had been modified.

The suspects were taken to the city of Concepcion del Uruguay, where they were turned over to judicial officials.

Iran regime amputates hand, foot of 2nd prisoner this week

NCRI - For the second time this week, Iran's fundamentalist regime has amputated the hand and foot of a prisoner.

Authorities in a prison in Mashhad, northeast Iran, on Tuesday amputated the right hand and left foot of Mehdi R. as other prisoners were forced to watch.

The sentenced was carried out one day after another man, identified only as Rahman K., had his right hand and left foot severed by the authorities in the same prison, the state-run daily Shahr Ara wrote on Wednesday.

Both men were accused by the regime of committing a bank heist and were pronounced by the authorities to be “moharebeh,” or “waging war on God.”

According to the state-run daily Khorasan both men will continue to serve an extended prison sentence as well.

Also on Tuesday, at least seven prisoners were hanged in the Iranian cities of Yazd and Rafsanjan.

At least 64 prisoners, including two women, have been executed in Iran, in some cases in public squares, within a two week period.

On Saturday, the mullahs' inhuman regime sentenced a 27-year-old man only, identified by his first name Hamed, to be blinded.

Hamed had told the regime's court that in March 2011, when he was 23 years old, he unintentionally caused an eye injury to another young man in a street fight, according to the official state-run Iran newspaper.

On June 28 this year the fundamentalist regime amputated the fingers of two prisoners in Mashhad.

The Iranian regime's judiciary officials have publicly defended limb amputations, eye gouging, and even stoning to death as a very real part of their judicial law.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the head of the Iranian regime's 'Human Rights Council', said on April 10, 2014: “The problem is that the West does not understand that Qisas (law of retribution) is different from execution. We are not ashamed of stoning or any of the Islamic decrees.”

“No one has the right to tell a judge to avert some sentences because the United Nations gets upset. We should firmly and seriously defend the sentence of stoning.”

He has also said: "Retaliation and punishment are beautiful and necessary things. It’s a form of protection for the individual and civil rights of the people in a society. The executioner or the person administering the sentence is in fact very much a defender of human rights. One can say that there is humanity in the act of retaliation."

Since Hassan Rouhani took office as president of the clerical regime in 2013, more than 1,800 people have been executed and hundreds more have been subjected to degrading and inhumane punishments such as amputation, flogging in public and being paraded in streets.

A statement by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Wednesday said: "Iran has reportedly executed more than 600 individuals so far this year. Last year, at least 753 people were executed in the country."

In May 2015, a high ranking Iranian cleric, who is the representative of the regime’s Supreme Leader in Hormozgan province (southern Iran), called for more inhumane punishments of hand amputations to be carried out.

While visiting Mashhad, Ghulam-Ali Naeem Abadi said: “If the hands of a few of those who commit theft in society are cut off, they would serve as examples for others and security will be restored.”

“Security would be restored in society by amputating a few fingers; why then are such punishments not being fully implemented?” he asked.

Last December, the United Nations General Assembly slammed the flagrant violations of human rights by the Iranian regime. The resolution criticized the Iranian regime's use of inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputations. The UN’s 61st resolution on human rights abuses in Iran also censured the mullahs’ dictatorship for the rise in executions, public hangings and the execution of juveniles.

The Iranian regime unveiled a terrifying device in 2013 which is uses to chop off fingers. The device that looks like something devised for a grisly horror movie operates as a circular saw that guillotines prisoners’ fingers.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has repeatedly condemned the medieval punishments carried out by the clerical regime in Iran and has called for the referral of the regime's appalling human rights record to the UN Security Council.

Gen. Hugh Shelton: Don’t empower Iran’s tyrants

BY HUGH SHELTON

hughshelton.com

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Immediately after the nuclear deal with Iran was concluded, the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, declared that Tehran’s policies would remain “180 degrees” opposed to those of the United States. Even Secretary of State John Kerry, the deal’s handmaiden, described the ayatollah's latest remarks as “deeply troubling”.

The administration ignored the voices of its Middle East allies, a large swath of American citizens, and even Ayatollah Khamenei, who gave many ominous warnings in advance of the deal that the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism would not simply defang in exchange for economic and political concessions. But the most important voices the administration chose to sideline are of the Iranian people.

SHELTON

The educated and well-organized Iranian opposition says the deal will pave Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. In fact, prior to the final announcement, more than 100,000 Iranian expatriates gathered in Paris, joined by hundreds of prominent international dignitaries, to express their opposition to the emerging deal.

No reasonable person questions whether President Obama actually wants the Iranian regime to take possession of a nuclear weapon. He clearly does not. But it is sensible to suggest that he may have an interest in kicking the can down the road. In fact, much of the administration’s Iran policy seems to hinge on the calculation that the regime will moderate its behavior once it is welcomed into the community of nations, including the voluntary surrender of its nuclear ambitions.

The Iranian people know better. It was the Iranian opposition after all that provided key intelligence to the world that identified previously unknown Iranian nuclear facilities and programs, starting in 2002. It was the opposition that supplied U.S. battle commanders with key information about Iran’s political and military meddling in Iraq.

Moderation in the Iranian regime is simply not a viable expectation as long as the ayatollahs’ power structure remains in place. The only long-term solution to Iran’s nuclear aspirations, meddling in regional affairs and human-rights abuses, is a totally new system of governance based on democracy and secularism.

The Iranian people — and the people of the region and beyond — do not have the luxury to kick the can down the road and hope for a later solution. After all, virtually every Iranian exile who attended the Paris rally still have friends and family members living under the thumb of the clerical regime. Virtually every one of them has lost friends and relatives as a result of the regime’s criminalization of dissent, torture of political prisoners, mass public executions and its extrajudicial killings and sponsorship of terrorism.

The main opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and its many supporters in Western countries — myself included —understand that a regime that can’t be trusted with the lives of its own people can’t be trusted with a weak nuclear deal. The deadly consequences of such an agreement will not come 10 years from now when Iran has the acknowledged ability to launch a nuclear weapon; they will come as soon as the current regime is granted legitimacy on the international stage and gains economic or political leverage over democratic nations, which will happen as soon as their coffers are filled with unfrozen assets and the oil flows unfettered.

If the administration can’t be bothered with the voice of the over 75 million Iranians, there is no shortage of American former officials, military officers, and academics who can attest to the power and legitimacy of the Iranian people and opposition working towards democracy. Former CIA Director James Woolsey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and retired General George Casey are among them. All are men of unimpeachable integrity.

President Obama would do well to heed the serious, thoughtful and constructive criticisms about the nuclear deal. While the president’s focus on his legacy in Iran is understandable — Tehran is an existential challenge to the region and a menace to the world — the ultimate measure of his success there is whether or not he ennobles Iran’s people, or empowers its tyrants.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article30348126.html#storylink=cpy