At the unveiling of a new bomber, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran “should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat,” while also saying it would “never strike first.”
An Iranian court sentenced seven Baha’i leaders to 20-year prison terms on charges of espionage, propaganda activities against the Islamic order, and cooperation with Israel.
Iranian political prisoners have an issued an appeal for support of the demands of 17 hunger strikers at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, who have refused food for the past two weeks.
Rallies have been held in London, Paris, New York, and other cities around the world to support Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic for adultery.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the State Department to reconsider the status of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran.
The Jundallah militant organization claimed responsibility for coordinated suicide blasts that killed at least 27 during an evening prayer ceremony at the Grand Mosque in Zahedan.
Saeed Torabian, a board member of the Tehran bus drivers’ union (Vahed Syndicate), was arrested by Iranian security forces and is being held incommunicado, whereabouts unknown.
Iran's government has unleashed a wave of arrests in western Khuzestan province since the Sept. 22 deadly attack on a military parade in the city of Ahwaz, with sweeps targetting dissidents, journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists and members of the Ahwazi Arab minority generally. Some 1,000 Ahwazis have been detained in the weeks since the attack, with at least 600 still being detained. Many of the detained have been taken to unknown destinations, with their families denied any contact or even information on their whereabouts. Local rights groups report that security forces have raided activists' homes, and the detained include women and the elderly. Karim Dahimi, an Ahwazi human rights worker based in London, said that the Iranian government has been systematically detaining Ahwazi activists in clandestine torture facilities known as "black sites." Ahwazi Arabs in the international diaspora have been holding demonstrations at Iranian consulates demanding an end to the regime's anti-Arab racism and repression (Image: The Herald Report)
On the holiday marking the birth of Fatima, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned or commuted the sentences of 81 protesters arrested following the disputed 2009 presidential election.
Reports in the London Times and Israeli press say Israel is to deploy three submarines armed with nuclear-equipped cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.
Iranian teacher, trade unionist and human rights activist Farzad Kamangar was among five executed by hanging at Tehran's Evin Prison on charges of "moharebe," or enmity against God.
Iran will lodge a complaint at the UN against remarks by President Obama that Washington could use nuclear weapons against Tehran.
