Free Republic

What would they do to JESUS?Militant "Muslims" seek to appeal to Christians by invoking the ancient blood libel of Jews as Christ-killers. It is not Jews, however, but militant "Muslims" who persecute and even kill Christians in the 21st century, and it is pretty easy to imagine what they would do to Jesus. ...Two young Iranian women, Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, suffered physical abuse and torture in Iran's notorious Evin Prison because they converted to Christianity. Iran had in fact threatened to put them to death, much as the depraved Roman Emperor Nero fed Christians to lions to...

Iran: Women Seriously Ill UPDATE: On Sept. 10, The Voice of the Martyrs received reports that Maryam and Marzieh’s health has deteriorated and urgent prayers are needed for God to encourage, and miraculously heal them. According to Elam Ministries, the women who have been in prison for more than six months are suffering from sore throats, irregular painful stomach aches and intense headaches. “Both have lost much weight during their ordeal, because of their sicknesses and lack of nutrition,” officials at Elam Ministries said. “Marzieh’s tooth infection is only being treated by painkillers and if the infection spreads (it) could...

Iran: Women: We Love Christ! UPDATE: On Aug. 8, Marzieh and Maryam were summoned to an Iranian court and ordered to deny their faith verbally and in a written statement, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts. Marzieh and Maryam were pressured to recant their faith after the chief interrogator recommended they be charged with apostasy. Praise God, they stood firm and replied, “We love Jesus. We will not deny our faith.” VOM contacts reported the deputy prosecutor, Mr. Haddad, aggressively questioned the women during the court proceedings. Haddad asked them if they regretted becoming Christians. They replied they...

Iran Human Rights, July 1: Six people were hanged in Tehran’s Evin prison early this morning July 1. reported the state run Iranian news agency ISNA. None of those who were executed today were identified by name, age or details around what they were convicted of. The state run news site "young journalist’s club" also reported that one man identified as Alireza (28) was hanged in Tehran’s Evin prison convicted of murdering his friend. Jerusalem Post , quoting a source in Iran, reported that six poeple were hanged in Tehran in relation with the recent pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran. Iran...

[video] This is a tragic story. But let it serve as a chilling warning that the internet must remain free. Let’s just let the people who broke the story explain it in their own words: Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, a 29-year old Iranian blogger and journalist died in Evin Prison in Tehran on March 18. In December, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam. According to the Human Rights activists in...

Five Hanged in Evin January 30, 2008 AFP Tehran -- Iran hanged five convicted murderers in Tehran's Evin prison on Wednesday, the Fars news agency reported, as curbs were imposed on executions being carried out in public. A man identified only by his first name of Faraz was hanged for killing his girlfriend Andia in February 2004. "This morning Faraz begged Andia's father to forgive him, but the father reminded him of how he had murdered his daughter and refused to pardon him," Fars said in the report. Ramezan, 29, was executed for stabbing his brother's wife to death after...

Night after night, from her cell in solitary confinement, Mehrnoushe Solouki could hear the anguished crying of fellow inmates in Tehran's Evin prison. When the French-Iranian filmmaker asked her guards about it, they were clear: The cries were not from hardened criminals but female activists, artists, and intellectuals locked up for nothing more than their political beliefs. Since January 18, Solouki has been back in Paris, safe in the warm embrace of family and friends -- and far from Evin prison. Yet it still haunts her. A doctoral film student at Canada’s University of Quebec, Solouki traveled to Tehran in...

May 9, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Iranian officials have jailed a prominent American-Iranian scholar after banning her departure from the country, according to the U.S.-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center in Washington, had undergone periodic interrogations by Iranian intelligence officials for four months before being taken to Tehran's Evin prison on May 8, according to center President and Director Lee Hamilton. Wilson Center Details The Case Iranian officials have not commented on Esfandiari's reported arrest, and it is unclear whether she has been formally charged with...

Behrouz Javid Tehrani is a 27 year old student activist struggling towards democracy in Iran. Mr. Tehrani has spent more than four years of his life in prison simply because of his belief in freedom and democracy. He was first arrested at the age of 22 during the July 9, 1999 student uprising. After his arrest he spent 10 months in solitary confinement inside cell block 209 of the notorious Evin Prison. This is the prison where political prisoners are taken to be tortured, have their spirits broken, and even murdered at the hands of the regime agents. It is...

Tehran, 16 Dec. (AKI) - The wife of Iranian journalist, Akbar Ganji, who is imprisoned in a Tehran jail has said that her husband has again received death threats in prison. "A representative of the chief prosecutor visited my husband in jail, and issued a new death threat saying that he will only leave the cell wearing a 'kaftan' [the traditional white blanket that is used to wrap those who die in Islamic countries]," said Massoumeh Shafii, the wife of the dissident journalist. She said she was told this by prison officials - who over the last four weeks have...

CAIRO, Egypt -- In the aftermath of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ascendancy to the presidency of Iran, the country's opposition is beginning to show signs of unifying as the clerical regime wages a war against internal dissent. Yesterday, the regime closed all schools in Tehran, citing poor air quality, after word leaked of the first major demonstrations since the summer. Nonetheless, a rally at Tehran University attracted 300 demonstrators amid a heavy police presence on campus. Of note is that before the rally against the new president, a coalition of Kurdish students also signed on to the call. In Brussels on Monday,...

It all started as a rather pleasant, if not exciting evening. We had heard a speech from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw once again trying to "explain" the evil of Islamofascim in pseudo-theological, rather than political, terms. But that had been compensated for with a poem from the great mystic poet Roumi recited by Iranian journalist Nazanin Ansari. Apart from the usual contingent of "the great and the good" most of the 800 or so people present were media people and their friends, come to cheer or boo as the Foreign Press Association in London distributed its annual prizes. The...

A conversation with Amir Abbas Fakhravar. Iranian Amir Abbas Fakhravar is a hunted man. A former medical student and journalist for the now-banned reform newspapers Moshareka and Khordad, Fakhravar came to prominence with the publication of his book This Place Is Not a Ditch, in which he criticized Iran’s rulers and called on the Iranian people to reject the mullahs’ regime. For doing so, he was sentenced in 2002 to eight years in prison. His status as a political prisoner and his mistreatment while incarcerated — he was reportedly denied medical care, and suffered frequent physical attacks — brought international...

LONDON, September 27 (IranMania) - Iranian dissident student leader Ali Afshari has been sentenced to six years in jail for "attacking national security", a source close to him said. He was also sentenced to five years deprivation of civic rights, which bars him from holding any official post, such as teaching, as well as public speaking. Afshari can appeal both Revolutionary Court verdicts, according to AFP. The activist, a member of a pro-reform student movement known as the Office to Consolidate Unity, has spent three years behind bars since 2000 including one year in solitary confinement. In 2001, Afshari appeared...

The following statement was issued today by the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Ambeyi Ligabo: "I wish to express again my deepest concern regarding the situation of journalist and writer Akbar Ganji whom I met on 8 November 2003 at the Evin prison, while visiting the Islamic Republic of Iran in my official capacity as Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. On that occasion, relevant Iranian authorities...

Washington, Aug 10 (DPA) The US has called for the release of Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji, whose health has deteriorated severely during his eight-week-old hunger strike. "Akbar Ganji is still in jail and he shouldn't be in jail, and it's wrong, and the time is long overdue to release this valiant defender of human rights and fundamental freedoms," US state department spokesman Adam Ereli said. Ereli could not confirm reports that Ganji ended his hunger strike. The US has regularly called for his release and says his detention demonstrates Iran's lack of commitment to human rights. "It's telling what...

Iranian authorities have raided the house of the country's best-known dissident, Akbar Ganji, supporters and relatives of the jailed writer say. His daughter telephoned a family friend during the raid who described her as being "very terrified". Mr Ganji has been on a hunger strike for 59 days and both his lawyer and his wife have urged him to end the protest. He was jailed in 2001 over articles linking Iranian leaders with a series of political killings in the 1990s. The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says it is not clear why the authorities raided the house when Mr...

Al Muhajiroun (Khavarej) is referred to a clandestine group of four who cooperated to assassinate four leaders at promptly the same time: Imam Ali who was a religious leader (the fourth Suni's Khalif and the first Shiite's Imam), Moavieh who was the leader of the land, Amro Aas who was a canning politician and a senior advisor to Moavieh, and - Of the four only one, namely Ibn Moljam, successfully carried out his assassination by wounding Imam Ali with a poisonous sword, during the Imam's pray. Imam Ali died of his wound on the third night, the 21st, of Ramadan....

One of my favorite reporters called late last week, saying he had learned that Coalition forces in Iraq had captured an Iranian vehicle entering Iraq with large quantities of shaped explosives, obviously headed for the terrorists. "So what?" was my reply. It happens most every day. But he was baffled. Why would the Iranians be supporting terrorist actions against Shiites? After all, didn't they want the Shiites to prevail in Iraq, so that there could be an Islamic republic there? His question — and he's a good reporter — shows once again how totally false stereotypes distort our ability to...

Kurds in Iran's western city of Mahabad are rioting against the Iranian government after the torture and brutal death of activist, Shovaneh Ghaderi, at the hands of the police. Shovaneh was a member of the Revolutionary Union of Kurdistan. His crime evidently was to call for autonomy in Kurdistan. Reports are that Shovaneh was shot by police and tied to a car. He was dragged by the car to the police station, suffering severe lacerations. At the police station, he was allegedly tortured until he died. Shovaneh was 25-years old at the time of his murder. The police brutality came...