Potkin Azarmehr

Iran is holding hostage the wife of prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei in an effort to get him to return from Turkey, where he fled after interrogation in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison — where his wife is now detained. Mostafaei’s crime was to defend Sakineh Mohammadei Ashtiani, who had been sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of adultery.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week hosted a conference in Tehran for ‘elite’ Iranians abroad, selected by Iranian embassies in foreign countries, including Canada.

Nargess Kalhor has applied for asylum in Germany. Potkin Azarmehr has the story.

This time the victim was a young woman named Saeedeh Pour Aghayee. It appears she was gang-raped after being arrested for chanting “God is great!” from her rooftop during protests against the stolen June 12 presidential election. Her captors burned her body from knees to chest to cover up their crime. See, once again, Potkin.

Show trials are underway in Iran for those arrested for protesting the June 12 rigged presidential election.

Some Iranian ex-pats living in London aren’t too happy with their fellow Brits who work for Iran’s propaganda arm either. They are distributing the following leaflet to Press TV employees later this afternoon. A copy of the leaflet was sent to me by British-Iranian blogger and pro-democracy activist Potkin Azarmehr.  

Press TV Employees, Do You Have a Conscience?

Seventy Iranian students have been arrested during protests against the reburial of troops who died during the Iran-Iraq war on the grounds of a Tehran university. Others were beaten up by the semi-official paramilitary goons of Ansar-e-Hizbullah.

Since visiting Iran in 2004 to secretly meet with former political prisoners who had been jailed with Canadian Zahra Kazemi – who was murdered in custody – I’ve written several times about Iran’s democratic dissidents.