Associated Press – 11.19.2013 – BEIRUT, Lebanon — Twin explosions went off next to the Iranian embassy in southern Beirut Tuesday, killing 23 people and wounding 147, Lebanon’s state news agency reported. Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam called the blasts “a terrorist crime which would aim to strike [at] stability and national unity,” reported the agency.
25 NGOs Urge UN to Pass Iran Human Rights Resolution
(November 18, 2013) – As the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee prepares to vote on the resolution on the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran on November 19, 25 human rights organizations—including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran—have joined together to urge member states to vote in favor of the resolution.
New Sanctions Would Sabotage Nuclear Talks and Stymie Human Rights in Iran
(November 14, 2013) – The United States Congress should not impose further sanctions on Iran while the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries are ongoing as adopting new sanctions will seriously jeopardize all efforts to end Iran’s nuclear standoff and worsen their impact on ordinary Iranians, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today.
“Assets of the Ayatollah” (Part 3)
LIFE AND TIMES: Khamenei during the Iran-Iraq war. He was president for most of the 1980s. Click above to see a video of his rise to power and his career as Iran’s second supreme leader. REUTERS/Leader.ir/Handout
The economic empire behind Iran´s supreme leader Reuters – To expand Khamenei’s grip on the economy, Iran stretched its laws
Part 3: On the supreme leader’s watch, Iran conducted a systematic campaign to legalize and safeguard the seizure of assets on which Setad’s wealth was built.
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Assets of Ayatollah (Part 2)
MARKET MOVER: Khamenei’s image and stock-price displays at the Tehran Stock Exchange in 2010. Setad now owns stakes in companies worth billions of dollars. REUTERS/Stringer
Khamenei’s conglomerate thrived as sanctions squeezed Iran
Part 2: An organization controlled by Iran’s supreme leader generates billions of dollars a year, helping to solidify his control over a country hobbled by sanctions.
Assets of Ayatollah (Part 1)
SUPREME LEADER: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Reuters – Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures
Part 1: A Reuters investigation details a key to the supreme leader’s power: a little-known organization created to help the poor that morphed into a business juggernaut worth tens of billions of dollars. The 82-year-old Iranian woman keeps the documents that upended her life in an old suitcase near her bed. She removes them carefully and peers at the tiny Persian script.
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Political Prisoners Embark on Hunger Strike on Behalf of Sick Prisoners
Abdolfattah Soltani
November 6, 2013 – iranhumanrights – Abdolfattah Soltani, an imprisoned lawyer and human rights activist, embarked on a hunger strike together with three other political prisoners on November 2, his sixtieth birthday, to protest the conditions of sick prisoners who need medical treatment and have been refused transfers to a hospital, his daughter told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Executed Prisoner Did Not Know He Would Be Hanged Until He Saw the Gallows
Shirkoo Moarefi
November 6, 2013 – iranhumanrights – A human rights activist with knowledge of the details of the Monday morning execution of Shirkoo Moarefi, a Kurdish political prisoner, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that Moarefi did not know he was to be executed until his final moments.
Iranian Government Official Dismayed at Rise in Executions
November 6, 2013 – iranhumanrights – According to a former reformist Member of Parliament, President Rouhani’s Special Assistant in Ethnic and Minority Affairs Ali Younesi expressed his dismay at the recent executions in Kurdistan and said that “extremist elements” were responsible for them.
Iran’s Ebadi Criticizes Rouhani’s Rights Record
November 6, 2013 – abc News – NEW YORK (AP) By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press
Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi strongly criticized the human rights record of President Hassan Rouhani, citing a dramatic increase in executions since he took office this year and accusing the government of lying about the release of political prisoners.
