Abbas Khorsandi, secretary of democrat party of Iran, who had been arrested in August 2007 in his house in Firoozkuh and was moved to 209 section of Evin prison , is sentenced to 8 years of jail by the 15th branch of revolution court.
The trial of this political activist was held on 3rd of March 2008 and on 16th, he had been given the verdict.
Abbas Khorsandi is charged with acting against the national security by starting an illegal party. He is currently imprisoned in 7th section of Evin prison.
it is easy to predict that the success of student activists in imposing their will and demands on government officials at academic institutions, such as the Teachers Training college and Zanjan University (where the students boldly took the initiative into their own hands), would result in a backlash by extreme right-wing officials who would plan an “instructive” counter-attack against the student movement.Hopefully such a reaction will not come. But from an analytic perspective, one must not negate it altogether. We hope that by being alert and preventive measures, the student movement will be able to pass the next few weeks and months with minimum turbulence and costs.
This is the reason that the moment imprisoned students step out of prison, it becomes clear to every one why they were put behind bars: for simply criticizing the president. It becomes instantly clear why they were subjected to interrogations and what questions were asked of them. These are the events that portray the image of this country. Students, social activists and journalists are certainly not on the list of those that dent this image. The publication of the arrest of students because of their criticism of the president brings forth a caricature image of Mahmud Ahmadinejad which does not match the claims that he made at Columbia University or the image that the regime strives to present about its standing.
There are at least 70 young people on death row who at the time of their arrest were under the age of 16. In the past 12 months, Iranian organisations claim that 80 feminists have been arrested and 20 of them have been sentenced from three to five years in jail. A total of 54 journalists have ended up in prison, several were released without trial after serving jail time, while others remain behind bars. In the past 12 months, 34 newspapers and magazines, among them the feminist magazine Zanan, have been shut down.
The families of Majid Tavakoli, Ahmad Ghasaban, and Ehsan Mansouri are releasing a Disclosing Statement of suffering to Ayatollah Hashemi Shadroudi, in an attempt to reveal what has happed to these three students while in prison. This letter states that 80 days after the trial of these three individuals, they are enduring mental and physical injuries as a result of being imprisoned and it has been requested of the judiciary to report on their condition.
Western diplomats and rights groups see the detention of women activists as part of a wider crackdown on dissent, which they say may be in response to Western pressure over Iran’s nuclear work. Iranian authorities have also clamped down on "immoral behaviour", including women flouting the strict Islamic dress code, since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005 with his pledge to revive revolutionary values. The women's rights activists say their campaign is not focused on what they wear, even if outsiders see conservative dress codes as a symbolic and visible barrier to equality.
