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Entries in Yahoo (2)

Saturday
Oct102009

The Latest from Iran (10 October): The Death Sentences

NEW Nobel Peace Prize Shock: Ahmadinejad Wins!
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Iran: Karroubi Reply to Ahmadinejad’s Appearance on US TV (9 October)
Now, for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize: Mehdi Karroubi
The Latest from Iran (9 October): Almost Four Months

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KARROUBI 41920 GMT: A Bit of Official Hesitation? Press TV's website posts an article confirming the death sentences on three post-election detainees: "two are responsible for a deadly bombing and the remaining convict is a member of a terrorist organization". It names only Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani.

Some of the article is repetition of the very thin pretext for conviction: Zamani and the other member [Arash Pour-Ramani] of the "Iran Royal Association" are not tied to any criminal incident; however, "the group is responsible for a deadly bombing in the southern city of Shiraz back in April 2008, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds were wounded". The third detainee [Naser Abdul Hosseini] will die simply because his alleged membership in the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, the armed wing of the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran.

Yet, if you read closely, there are a couple of chinks in the article's open-and-shut case. You'll notice in the headline, "In Iran, three 'terrorists' are placed on death row", the quote marks of uncertainty. And the text notes that Ali Zamani's case has been highlighted by Amnesty International.

1630 GMT: A report by AUT News names the three post-election detainees sentenced to death: "monarchists" Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Pourrahmani (both of whom are in the mid-August "confession" video run by Press TV, posted in a separate entry) and Naser Abdol Hosseini, alleged to be a member of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

1530 GMT: Yahoo! Makes It into State Media. It looks like the allegation over Yahoo! passing 200,000 usernames to Iran authorities will now die down, as there is no verification of the Iranian Students Solidarity Organization's claim of a source inside the Iranian Government. Still, the Islamic Republic News Agency gave the story several paragraphs today.

1520 GMT: Radio Netherlands has posted an English summary of the condemnation by the Dutch Foreign Minister (noted in comments below) of the death sentence for Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani.

1505 GMT: Minutes after we told a BBC radio reporter of the death sentences for post-election detainees, the BBC website adds, from the judiciary official who spoke to the Iranian Students News Agency, that "MZ" (probably Mohammad Ali Reza Zamani) and "AP" had been convicted for ties with the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, a banned monarchist group, and "NA" for links with the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran, which has sought the overthrow of the Islamic government since 1979.

On Thursday, an Iranian reformist website reported that Mr Zamani, 37, had been sentenced to death. It is unclear whether he is the "MZ" mentioned by Isna.

1445 GMT: Parleman News reports that Mir Hossein Mousavi met Thursday with the representative of Grand Ayatollah Mousavi-Ardebili in Tehran. The description of the discussion is vague, saying that it apparently centred on senior clerics' input into Mousavi's plans for a "social network" for the Green Path of Hope.

1435 GMT: The original Iranian Students News Agency report says only that three post-election detainees have received death sentences. The three cannot be named, according to the newspaper, because appeals are ongoing.

1410 GMT: More Death Sentences? Al Jazeera English, claiming information from Iranian Students News Agency, says a total of three post-election detainees, including Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, have been sentenced to death by the Tehran Revolutionary Court.

Caution is needed here. We've been following this assertion, first posted by Twitter activists, for several hours. Those reports say three death sentences in addition to Ali Zamani. With the help of readers, we have now found the original ISNA story (see 1435 GMT), but there is no other verification.

0920 GMT: The Persian2English blog has published the English text of a new post-election movement, The Green Thinkers’ Network. Considering "What Is True Freedom For Iran?", the Network writes, "Are we liberal democrats? Is it even necessary to label ourselves with these names? Each name has a history. Why should we carry the history of liberalism on our shoulders? Maybe we can have new customs. In our custom we have religion, but also freedom."

0755 GMT: The Washington Post's alternative to Barack Obama for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize? Neda Agha Soltan.

0630 GMT: Another quiet start after a relatively gentle Friday, but no doubt that there is one development of significance.

Mehdi Karroubi's letter, posted in the name of his son, to the head of Iran state broadcasting may not seem that dramatic. On the surface, it restates Karroubi's charges of detainee abuse, made since late July, to counter the message of President Ahmadinejad put out on American television. It returns to the battleground of the "enquiry" by the three-member judiciary panel, which unceremoniously threw out Karroubi's claims last month.

But there is a broader message here, both symbolic and very practical. Ahmadinejad might be posing himself on the international stage as Iran's leader, but Karroubi's letter is a reminder that the President has very clay feet. And it comes after weeks in which the Government appeared to have cut off Karroubi's communications. The Etemade Melli newspaper was closed and the website of Karroubi's reformist party was taken down, shutting off the daily drip-drip of allegations that was wearing away the Government authority.

Now the cleric is back, with a resurrected website and the certainty that he is still noticed. He is not mincing words --- Ahmadinejad's "[US] interview was pure lies"; "traitors have viciously attacked me" --- and telling the authorities that he will not be stopped: "The late Imam [Khomeini] said that he would sacrifice his life for the people of this nation."

And the last line of the letter contains pages of meaning, after all the Government attempts to bottle up the opposition in a vacuum of news: "Despite all the efforts, borders have been broken and people have access to information."
Friday
Oct092009

UPDATED Iran: Did Yahoo Give Names of 200,000 Users to Authorities?

The Latest from Iran (9 October): Almost Four Months

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YAHOOUPDATE 1900 GMT: Yahoo! has issued a further statement: “The allegations in the story are false. Neither Yahoo! nor any Yahoo! representative has met with or communicated with any Iranian officials, and Yahoo! has not disclosed user data to the Iranian government. Yahoo! was founded on the principle that access to information and communications tools can improve people’s lives, and Yahoo! is committed to protecting and promoting freedom of expression and privacy. To learn more about our human rights efforts, please visit: http://humanrights.yahoo.com.”

The original source of the claim, the Iranian Students Solidarity Organization is very active with a blog --- the story is 3rd or 4th on the current page. It has about 30,000 members. In this case, the ISSO is claiming that it had a source inside the Iranian Government who was at the meeting between Yahoo! and the Iranian authorities.


UPDATE 1300 GMT: Yahoo! has posted this denial on Twitter: "The...allegations are false. No Yahoo! representative met w/ any Iranian officials or disclosed user data to Iranian government."

--
Normally we do not feature uncorroborated stories, but the allegations of the Iranian Students Solidarity movement are so serious that we think they merit attention. The post was translated and sent to lawyer Richard Koman:


On 27th of Shahrivar [Qods Day, 18 September], when Iranians demonstrated again on the streets, the Iranian authorities, in addition to blocking many Internet sites all over Iran, blocked or severely limited access to Yahoo and Google. Google did not react and its problem was resolved with 48 hours, but Yahoo sent a representative to Iran’s telecommunications ministry, to resolve the issue.

During the meeting with Iranian Internet and telecommunications authorities, Yahoo representatives were asked to provide Iranian authorities with the names and data on all Iranian Internet account holders in exchange for removing the block/filter on the Yahoo website.

The Yahoo representative said that currently there were more than 20 million e-mail accounts and providing such a list would be a very time-consuming process. The IRGC [Islamic Republic Guardian Corps] replied by asking the representative to provide e-mail accounts of those individuals who have Yahoo accounts and are publishing blogs.

Apparently this made Yahoo’s task a bit easier, and the Yahoo representative agreed to provide such a list within a matter of hours. Upon the receipt of such a list, which included approximately 200,000 e-mails, by the Iranian authorities, the regime immediately unblocked access to the Yahoo.com website. The list went back as far as five years and included active and inactive accounts and blogs.

It is necessary to mention here that the Iranian Yahoo is managed by Yahoo Corporation in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur).