Saturday, February 6, 2010

Saturday February 6th, 2010 Newsletter

Student Information Center (SIC)

Newsletter Issue 168 - Saturday February 6th, 2010

FUTURE PLANS
--Preparation for 22nd of Bahman demonstration and the "ten-day civil residence".
--Efforts focused at increasing non-violent civil disobedience in the society.
--Allah o Akbar during the nights until 11th of February
--Writing slogans on the walls and bills
--Gathering in front of Evin prison every night at 8:00 pm to demand release of political prisoners
--Jaras/United4Iran: Iranians across the UK, US and other countries have planned solidarity events on the eve of 22Bahman (February 11). For a complete list of upcoming events visit http://united4iran.com/2010/01/call-to-action-events-worldwide-for-22-bahman/.

NEWS
--Kalameh: Recent technical difficulties in accessing internet inside Iran [which seems to be the intentional tactic of the Regime before Feb 11 protests] made one of the anchors of the popular 'Good Morning Iran' program on IRIB 1 to react. As reported by AsrIran, the anchor of 'Excess Talk' of 'Good Morning Iran' openly criticized and mocked the officials for internet slowdown in his political satire program.

--Kalameh: "We, the members of the caucus intend to visit some senior figures of the Islamic Republic" said Dariush Ghanbari, a leading member of the Reformist Caucus in Iranian Parliament "we, in the caucus, will pay visits and have conversations with figures such as Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ali-Akbar Nateq-Noori, Mahdavi-Kani, Seyyed-Mohammad Khatami, Mahdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi."

--VOA Persian: Permits have been issued by the Iranian Government for foreign journalists to enter Tehran and cover the government-sanctioned rallies of Feb. 11. At the same time, some Iranian journalists wrote a letter to their foreign colleagues and asked them to cover the anticipated opposition protests as well. (Their letter is attached to this newsletter.)

--Radio Zamaneh: Catherine Ahston, the Foreign Commissioner of EU asked Iranian officials to stop the execution of nine post-election detainees who have been sentenced to death by the revolutionary court.

--JARAS: Some sources have revealed parts of Regime's comprehensive plan to face opposition protests on Feb 11. According to these sources, the main rally venue in Tehran has been divided between different Basiji units coming from cities all over Iran; each of these units will be responsible to fill the assigned space early in the morning [so that the opposition protestors can have no access to the main venue.]

--JARAS: Webna, an Iranian website containing a directory of all Iranian websites, was blocked inside Iran a few minutes ago.

ANALYSIS
An article by Akbar Ganji has been attached to this newsletter. This is the first part of a three-part series about "transition to democracy" which are going to be published in Radio Farda.

NEWS OF THE ARRESTED
--JARAS: Forough Mirzayi and Bahareh Hedayat are still denied visitors.

--Norouz: Mehdi Karoubi paid a visit to the household of Mohammad Javad Mozaffar, the deputy chair of "protecting the rights of prisoners", stated his sympathy for them and criticized the way the prisoners and their families are being treated.

--Rahana: On January 2nd, security forces arrested Mr. Mehrnia at his home. At the time of arrest, his family members were told that he was going to be asked a couple of questions and that he would be released shortly. However, after a fortnight, his family members are still waiting for a phone call.

--Rahana: Mohammad Yousef Rashidi, a student who was deprived of continuing his studies at Amir-Kabir University, after spending 70 days in the section 209 in Evin prison, was transferred to the section 7 together with 40 other detainees.

--Radio Farda: The family members of the detained members of the Liberation Front of Iran have sent a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, asking for the release of Ebrahim Yazdi, the general secretary of this organization, and other political detainees. The relatives of Bazargan, Basteh-Negar, Tavassoli, Sahhabi, Shariati, Sabbaghian, Sadr Haj Seyyed Javadi, Taleghani, Ghoravi, Yazdi and other members of this political party signed this letter.

--Rahana: The body of Arash Rahmanipour, who was executed last week, was given to his family on Saturday. The security forces have not allowed the family members of Arash Rahmanipour , the recently executed political prisoner, to commemorate himby a shrine in front of his house. They have also been banned from arranging any memorial ceremonies.

--Rahana: on the 40th night after the night of Ashura, an invitation had been sent to the public to gather in front of Evin prison to join the families of the political detainees and protest against the arrest of the post-election activists who are in captivity with no clear charges. According to Jaras, all the streets leading to Evin had been blocked and occupied by security forces, preventing the gathering from happening.

--Kalameh: The mother and father of Mehrdad Rahimi, the vice-president of Karroubi's committee to defend the citizens' rights and a member of the Human Rights's reporters, who had been detained since 11th of Dey (beginning of January), have sent a letter to Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi, the general prosecutor of Tehran. In this letter they have described the situation of their son.

--Kalameh: Masoud Noor-Mohammadi, the brother of Saeed Noor-Mohammadi, the detained member of the Participation Front, who had been arrested 2 weeks ago, contacted his family yesterday and let them know that he is healthy. According to Nowrooz, he mentioned that the reason for his arrest is sending mails and text messages. I emphasized that had not sent any illegal email or text-messages, in his conversation with his parents.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND WARNINGS
On his video broadcast on Saturday, Mohsen Sazegara mentioned the following points:
1- It is reported that Azadi Ave has been divided up between Basijis of different provinces so that each can occupy the space allocated to their unit by their forces. It seems that these Basijis want to show up with green symbols and join the ranks of the green movement to pretend that everybody has come to streets in support of the current government. However we, the Green Movement, have experienced similar situations in the past and we know how to separate our ranks from theirs (e.g. by using green symbols and showing V sign etc). Furthermore we should remember that we outnumber Basijis significantly therefore there is no need for us to do violence; we should instead show the maturity of the green movement. What is important is to make sure that we all come to streets in peace and we should all try to encourage our friends and acquaintances to take part in the protests.
2- Despite the fact that people's gathering in front of Evin prison as well as the event for the commemoration of Green Movement martyrs in Behesht-e-Zahra [Tehran's biggest cemetery] were held under the strong presence of security forces, people chanted anti-government slogans in these events.
3- The laborers of the Avangan factory came to the streets once again yesterday despite the clashes between them and the security forces the day before. The situation has not calmed down and there are still reports of tension on the ground.
4- We can confront the activities of the so-called Iranian Cyber Army [a group of hackers sponsored by Iranian Government and attack opposition websites] by taking a few precautionary steps; First of all, if you are already using GMAIL and you have secured it, they can never access the contents of your account directly unless you open suspicious attachments you receive through email; those attachments might contain key-logger programs which will install on your computer, will record your password and send it to them. Therefore if you do not know the sender of an email, do not open it. Also try to change your password regularly. Do not use Internet Explorer [since it is known to have security vulnerabilities] and try to use Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari instead.







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