Iran news in brief, January 14, 2019

Iran news in brief, January 14, 2019

1- Iran Regime Publicly Executes Three Men

Iran Regime on Sunday hanged 3 men sentenced to death, all of them executed in public in front of a crowd of onlookers, Iranian judiciary’s website Mizan reported.

It took place on January 13, in the city of Yasuj, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province.

2- Women Prisoners of Conscience Object to Increasing Pressures in Prison

Women prisoners of conscience Nasrin Sotoudeh and Azita Rafizadeh objected to the restrictions on telephone calls to families for women prisoners in Evin Prison.

Since Sunday, January 6, 2019, Nasrin Sotoudeh and Azita Rafizadeh stopped their telephone calls to their families to demonstrate their protest and announced that they would refrain from calling anyone outside the prison until the restrictions are lifted.

3- Man Forces Children to Eat the Flowers They Are Trying To Sell

Iran’s State Welfare Organization, the minister of labor and Kerman’s city administration have reacted to a video showing a man forcing two children to eat the flowers they are trying to sell.

This is not the first incident of violence used against children peddling in the streets and other street vendors in Iran.

In June 2018, a welfare official to ISNA that “73 percent of child vendors on the streets” face various forms of physical and verbal abuse.

4- Rape Victim Who Died Suspiciously Was Secretly Buried Without Autopsy

Iranian security forces secretly buried the body of Zahra Navidpour at a cemetery in a small village.

The lifeless body of Zahra Navidpour was discovered January 6 in her mother’s house.

Zahra Navidpour, 28, had been repeatedly raped by Salman Khodadadi, the so-called parliamentary deputy of the people of Malekan, a small city in East Azerbaijan Province, in northwestern Iran.

Khodadadi had previously told her in the parliament, “I will order to have you and your family killed overnight without anyone knowing.”

The handwritten notes, documents and complaints that Zahra Navidpour has left reveal that she had been pursuing her rights in a legal process.

5- Nuclear Chief Says Iran Exploring New Uranium Enrichment

The head of Iran Regime's nuclear program said Iranian regime has begun "preliminary activities for designing" a modern process for 20-percent uranium enrichment for its 50-year-old research reactor in Tehran, signaling new danger for the nuclear deal.

Salehi said "we are at the verge" of being ready, without elaborating in his remarks.

6- Interview with Mike Pompeo by CBS's Face the Nation

In an interview on January 13, the U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo stated:

Many Americans are being held there today that were taken by the Iranian regime. These are a group of people who are among the worst terrorists in the world and who have the least respect for human rights in the world, and it’s why this administration has taken the very hard line you just described against Iran.

7- British-Iranian woman’s health deteriorates in Iran prison

The head of the Thomson Reuters Foundation said Monday she’s “sincerely worried” about a detained British-Iranian national going on hunger strike to protest her treatment in Iran.

 “This is slow and cruel torture, yet one more injustice inflicted upon her,” Villa said.