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MEAN STREETS MEDIA
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
IRAN: Homeless pregnant women forced to sell unborn babies at $585 out of poverty
NCRI – Some pregnant women living rough on the streets of Tehran are forced to sell their unborn babies in advance out of sheer poverty and destitution, an official of the mullahs’ regime in Iran has acknowledged.
Poverty among homeless people in 13 neighborhoods of District 12 of the Iranian capital has reached unbearable levels, university professor Dr. Chit Chian, who is a member of the 30-member Society Workgroup of the Tehran Municipality, said.
“Unfortunately in these neighborhoods we have witnessed the sale of children,” he said, adding that he had spent several nights among the homeless people in the capital to get a true picture.
“The situation is so critical that babies are being bought in advance while in their mother’s womb for the going rate of 1.75 million Tomans ($585),” Dr. Chit Chian added.
The shocking admission was made at the latest monthly session of the Society Workgroup of the Tehran municipality.
His remarks were published by the state-run Mehr news agency on Saturday. Other state-run dailies also published his account.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and a human rights activist, on Tuesday said the suffering of the Iranian people had nothing to do with international sanctions on the regime and everything to do with the regime’s policies.
“It’s wrong to see this as just another unfortunate news story. Iran holds one tenth of the world’s proven oil reserves and has the second largest global natural gas reserves. It’s also wrong to think that this disturbing news is related to international sanctions,” Ms. Karimi said.
“As economists have reported, from 2005 to 2008, Iran’s oil export revenue amounted to $244 billion, equalling the 13 preceding years from 1992 to 2004. That’s close to $500 billion in just 17 years. This windfall could have brought about an exceptional set of circumstances for Iran; if the money was spent properly today we would not be witnessing such harrowing examples. Unfortunately however, aside from the money pocketed by the mullahs and their Revolutionary Guards, the vast proportion of Iran’s revenue has been spent on export of terrorism and fundamentalism to the region and on the regime’s nuclear weapons projects,” she said.
“Even if international sanctions are lifted, we would not witness any improvement in the lives of ordinary Iranians. None of the money will go to the pockets of the Iranian people, just as it never went prior to the sanctions taking effect.”
Addressing the same Society Workgroup in Tehran on Saturday, Reza Mahboubi, the director of the Social Office of the regime’s Interior Ministry pointed out that throughout Iran more than 18 million people are living in shanty towns or are homeless on the streets.
“These figures are truly worrying. I can’t announce many of the figures here because there are journalists present,” he said.
Last week a senior official of the regime acknowledged that at least 20,000 homeless Iranians are living in cardboard boxes on the streets of Tehran, even as the real number of homeless people in the Iranian capital is believed to be several times the official figure.
“Ten percent of those who sleep in cardboard boxes suffer from contagious illnesses and another 10 percent are affected by aids,” the official state news agency IRNA quoted the spokesperson of the Social Services Organization of the Tehran Municipality as saying. Farzad Hoshyar Parsian added that these problems have “complicated” the situation in the Iranian capital.
One of the vice presidents in the cabinet of Hassan Rouhani said last month that women make up a third of homeless people living on the streets in Iran.
"Our research indicates that there are 15,000 people sleeping in cardboard boxes in the country, of who 5,000 are women," Shahindokht Mollavardi said.
The 20,000 figure provided by the Tehran Municipality of the number of homeless people in Tehran alone dwarfs the national figures provided by Mollavardi.
The true number of Iranians living on the streets is substantially higher than official records.
Last year, a deputy director of the Tehran municipality’s Welfare Organization announced that the average age of homeless women in Iran’s capital is 32.
The head of the Social Committee in Tehran’s city council, Fatemeh Daneshvar, said in June that the number of pregnant women and children living on the streets in the city is increasing.
Homeless women and street children live in dire conditions where they survive in abandoned buildings, containers, automobiles, parks, or even on the street itself.
Street children experience many social and psychological traumas on the streets on a daily basis.
Determining the numbers of street children in Iran is virtually impossible. In a 2005 report by the U.S. State Department, by the Iranian government’s own admission, 60,000 street children were accounted for in Iran.
Numerous child rights organizations suspect that the number is substantially higher, citing figures of 200,000 or more. Of this number, about 55 percent are the children of Afghan refugees.
The Iranian regime's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his family have amassed a huge fortune, amounting to billions of dollars, even as the people of Iran including a majority of the working class have been living in poverty and destitution.
Much of Khamenei's personal wealth is in the hands of his sons and daughters, large amounts of which are held in banks in the United Kingdom, Syria and Venezuela. Read the full report here.
Iran - Navy boats run over civilian man "killing him"?
Iran’s navy murdered a defenseless civilian on Saturday, August 22 in Chabahar, southern Iran. This individual has been identified as Shah Bakhsh Gargij.
Authorities deliberately ran over this civilian with a Golf navy boat. Despite his wounds Navy forces kept this individual and did not transfer him to a hospital for a few hours, resulting in him losing his life. (Baloch Campaign website – August 24, 2015)
Chinese Woman Downs a Bottle of Cognac She Couldn't Carry on the Flight
BEIJING - A Chinese passenger at Beijing airport's security check-in downed an entire bottle of cognac when she was not allowed to board her flight with the bottle in her hand luggage on Aug. 21.
Zhao, 40, did not want to hand over the $200 bottle of French Rémy Martin cognac - which she apparently bought at a U.S. airport - to the security officials and instead polished it off, Beijing Times newspaper reported Tuesday.
A few minutes later, airport personnel found her lying on the floor, crying and shouting.
"She was so drunk she couldn't even stand up herself. We took her to a room in a wheelchair so she could rest," said an officer who attended to her.
The captain of the flight, which she was supposed to board between Beijing and Wenzhou, refused to allow her on board, fearing she will pose a security risk to other passengers in her inebriated condition.
The woman recovered hours later, thanked the officers who attended to her and contacted her relatives, who took her home.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Iran - Student in prison with no trial or charges ( 9 months ) ?
Amir Amirgholi in the 9th Month of Detention with no Trial
HRANA News Agency – Amir Amirgholi, political prisoner in ward 8 of Evin prison is spending his 8th month of detention with no trial, neither any changes have been considered about his detention order.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Ali (Amir) Amirgholi political prisoner in ward 8 of Evin prison, after eight months of detention has not been tried yet.
This former student activist was supposed to have a trial in Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, on 23rd May, which was not held due to his transfer, and the new trial date has not been announced yet, by judge Salvati.
Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court and earlier Branch 6 of Evin, despite the peaceful nature of Amirgholi’s activities, has kept him in an uncertainty.
Amir Amirqholi, former student activist was arrested on 1stDecember last year and was held in solitary confinement for about two months in ward 209 of Evin prison under interrogation and after his interrogations he was transferred to ward 8 in Evin prison.
He was charged with gathering and collusion against the national security, propaganda against the regime, blasphemy and insulting the leadership, by Naseri in Branch 6 of persecution, in Evin.
According to one of his relatives; “Allegation of collusion and propaganda against the regime are because of his participation in a gathering to support Kobani, and blasphemy and insulting the leadership allegations are because of what he had posted on his personal Facebook page.”
Amir Amirgholi was arrested earlier in September 2008 because of his political and student activities, and was subsequently expelled from the university.
Iran - Banned female lawyer Summoned to the Court
HRANA News Agency – Nasrin Sotoudeh, jurist, charted solicitor and member of the Association of Human Rights Defenders, was summoned to the Court, Branch 2 in Evin.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Nasrin Sotoudeh, with announcing this news, said: “Last Sunday, I was notified by a judicial letter from court that was precisely the same as when a court summons a charged person, just it was not titled as “Summons Letter”.”
She continued: “Presenting some explanation about the allegations in the case, was mentioned as the reason for this summon, and evocative branch, is the second Branch of the Evin Court, which is formed adjacent to the Evin prison.”
She continued: “Presenting some explanation about the allegations in the case, was mentioned as the reason for this summon, and evocative branch, is the second Branch of the Evin Court, which is formed adjacent to the Evin prison.”
She also added: “It was also mentioned that in accordance with the provisions I can have a solicitor with me. I’m not going to put my colleagues in danger, because lawyers are going through difficult days in Iran, but I wish this right to be respected as well for all citizens who do not have legal information.”
Nasrin Sotoudeh, at the end, added: “As always such news can trigger concerns, I had no hurry to announce that news, I just want to say to my friends who are concerned, do not worry, I am a lawyer and I do know how to defend myself.”
It should be noted, Mrs. Sotoudeh, had been sentenced to six years imprisonment, earlier in 2010, for her peaceful and human rights supporting activities, and was sentenced to 10-year ban from practicing law, She was held in prison from 4thSeptember 2010 till 18th September 2013 on charge of “Acting against national security”, in Evin prison and after being released, according to Lawyers Disciplinary Court order, her attorney license was cancelled from October 2014, for 3 years.
Nasrin Sotoudeh Langroodi (born 1963) is a jurist, lawyer and social activist, a member of the Association of Defenders of Human Rights, the campaign to change discriminatory laws against women, Association of Supporting Children, and solicitor of many cases of human rights activists, women’s rights activists, victims of child abuse and the children at risk of execution. She praised the 2009 Human Rights Award by “International human rights organization”.
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