NCRI: 10 prisoners hanged in Iran/Iran regime flogs woman in public/comments on recent spate of executions in Iran/Ex-Tehran Uni. President urges Iran’s youths to protest against dictatorship

10 prisoners hanged in Iran in new wave of executions
Wednesday, 27 April 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/NCRI

 Iran’s fundamentalist regime has hanged at least 10 people in prisons since the weekend, in what has been described as a new wave of executions. Earlier on Wednesday at least six other death-row prisoners in Ghezelhesar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, were transferred to solitary confinement for their imminent execution. The regime’s judiciary in Mazandaran Province announced that a 27-year-old prisoner identified by the initials Z. Ch. was hanged in a prison in Sari, northern Iran, on Sunday, April 24. Earlier in the week, the judiciary had announced that a second 27-year-old prisoner, identified only by the initials H. H., was also hanged in prison in Sari on Sunday. Elsewhere, the regime’s judiciary in Qazvin Province announced that an unnamed man was hanged in Qazvin Central Prison, north-west of Tehran, on Tuesday. At least five prisoners were hanged on Saturday in Zahedan Central Prison, south-east Iran. Another three prisoners were hanged in the same prison on Tuesday. Three of those executed in Zahedan were identified as: Jamshid Dehvari, 30; Sadeq Rigi, 35; and Mohammad Sanchouli, who is believed to have been 22 years old. Mr. Sanchouli had been behind bars for the past five years including time he served in the prison’s ward for juveniles. He is believed to have been under 18 at the time of his arrest.The hangi 3 that the increasing trend of executions “aimed at intensifying the climate of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society, especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates that the claim of moderation is othing but an illusion for this medieval regime.”Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with seven EU commissioners for discussions with the regime’s officials on trade and other areas of cooperation. Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: “This trip which takes place in the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime’s unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating.” Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: “Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before.” “Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded” in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said. There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of “God’s commandments” and “laws of the parliament that belong to the people.”The NCRI in a separate statement on Sunday warned that 10 death-row prisoners, transferred to solitary confinement in Ghezel-Hessar Prison in Karaj and Zahedan Prison, are at imminent risk of execution. It called on international human rights organizations to take urgent action to save their lives.

 Iran regime flogs woman in public 100 times
Wednesday, 27 April 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/NCRI – Iran’s fundamentalist regime has flogged a woman in public in Golpayegan, central Iran, it emerged on Wednesday. The woman, who was only identified by her initials S. T., was given 100 lashes, state media reported. The flogging was carried out as punishment over an affair she allegedly had with another man, according to Najafali Alyan, the regime’s prosecutor in Golpayegan. His remarks were carried by the state-run Serat News Agency on April 27. There haven’t been reports in state media of women being flogged in public in Iran in recent years. The woman is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for her alleged role in the murder of her husband in July 2012, although it is not clear if she had a chance to defend herself against the charges in the regime’s courts. Farideh Karimi, a human rights activist and member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), strongly condemned the public flogging in Golpayegan. “The public flogging of a woman in Iran is a new misogynist measure by the Rouhani government, which is extremely disturbing and abhorrent. The women politicians from the West who visit Iran should reconsider such outreaches and their impact in emboldening the regime in its attitude,” she said. She added: “In view of the new wave of suppression of women in Iran, we urge women’s rights activists and organizations to stand up and speak out against the mullahs’ misogynist policies.”Last week the mullahs’ regime launched a new plan to suppress women for “improper veiling.” It deployed some 7,000 so-called undercover ‘morality police officers’ in Tehran tasked with suppressing women on the streets and alerting official law enforcement agencies of instances of “mal-veiling” and other “violations” of the mullahs’ fundamentalist laws. The Iranian regime has hanged at least 66 women and 2,300 men since Hassan Rouhani took office as President in 2013.

NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee chief comments on recent spate of executions in Iran
Wednesday, 27 April 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/NCRI – Regarding the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran, which have numbered at least 46 since April 10, Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: “In the month of April, during and after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran. Among the latest cases was the execution of eight Iranian Baluchis in Zahedan Prison on Saturday and Tuesday. The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism. We say to European leaders, in particular to Mr. Renzi and Ms. Mogherini, that if you don’t want the Iranian people to consider you as accomplices to the suppression by the regime, raise your voices in protest to these executions and condition an improvement of ties with this regime to a halt in executions.”

 Ex-Tehran Uni. President urges Iran’s youths to protest against dictatorship
Wednesday, 27 April 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/NCRI – Dr. Mohammad Maleki, the first Chancellor of the University of Tehran following the 1979 revolution and a former Iranian political prisoner, has from his home in Tehran sent a message to the youths in Iran to “rise up and protest” against the mullahs’ regime in Iran. Dr. Maleki made the plea following a statement of support for Iranian physicist and political prisoner Omid Kokabee who underwent surgery last week to remove his cancerous right kidney. Mr. Kokabee, 34, and his relatives had repeatedly warned about his various problematic health conditions, but the mullahs’ regime systematically ignored their warnings in the five years that he has been behind bars. Human rights groups say Mr. Kokabee is held solely for his refusal to work on military projects in Iran. Iranian people, in particular the young generation, “must rise up,” Dr. Maleki said in his message which was recorded last Friday, April 22. “They must break the silence in the face of these criminal actions.” “They must put fear aside and protest.”“They must tell the oppressive rulers of this nation that they will not allow them to act in this inhumane and un-Islamic way and violate the human rights of the wise people and scientists, political opponents, protesters and writers of this nation.” “Dear students and professors, I urge you to rise up and protest.” “Until now they have executed many students of this nation. These brutal massacres continue [in Iran]. … I urge all Iranian youths, in particular students and professors, to protest against these despicable actions of the regime and prevent these criminal acts from continuing,” he added. Dr. Maleki, 83, is a human rights activist who has been arrested and imprisoned by the Iranian regime many times and is banned from leaving the country. Last November he publicly condemned a brutal rocket attack on October 29, 2015 against members of the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) in Camp Liberty in Iraq which left 24 people killed and dozens wounded. In December he publicly said that the victims of the Camp Liberty rocket attack would overcome all obstacles and continue with ever greater force their resistance against the clerical regime, adding that they “seek freedom from cradle to the grave.”