Daily News Channel
Amid turmoil over the treatment of post-election detainees and controversy over the mass trials of political figures, Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday appointed a new judiciary chief, Iranian media reported.
With riot police out in force on the streets of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the oath of office Wednesday and began a second term as Iran’s president. Ahmadinejad, 52, was formally sworn in before Iran’s parliament as security forces guarded the building and the streets nearby in anticipation of possible protests.
Iran’s supreme leader endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term in office on Monday, state-run Press TV reported.
A sailor accused of killing another sailor was found dead in his cell in a southern California military jail, officials said Friday. Petty Officer Jonathan Campos was found dead in the brig at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, a military statement said
Crying “Death to the dictator!” supporters of Iran’s opposition movement charged once more into the breach on July 30, defying a government ban on protests by gathering in the thousands at Iran’s largest cemetery to honor slain victims of the government’s crackdown. The protest was timed to coincide with the traditional Shi’ite practice of observing the 40th day of mourning following a death — the deceased in this case being Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose videotaped shooting at a June 20 demonstration against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made her a global icon of Iran’s protest movement
No one is ever going to accuse the French of knee-jerk exuberance. Case in point: the reaction to Monday’s announcement by government officials that France’s main unemployment index actually shrank in June — the first reversal in rising joblessness since April 2008.
The Iranian government has released 140 people arrested in the aftermath of the Islamic republic’s disputed presidential election, a semi-official news agency reported Tuesday. Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, said the detainees posted bail and were freed from northern Tehran’s Evin Prison during an inspection of the prison by a task force made up of commission members, the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reported.
Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi and a fellow presidential candidate are requesting a permit to hold a commemoration ceremony for those killed in the fallout after the June 12 elections, according to a post on Moussavi’s Web site Sunday.
A week of U.S. diplomatic maneuvering in the Middle East began Sunday with special envoy George Mitchell meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before heading to Israel.
Human rights supporters in dozens of cities around the world plan to rally Saturday to show solidarity with Iranians seeking democracy and civil rights, one of the organizing groups said. United4Iran said it expects protests at Iranian embassies and other sites to condemn the Iranian government’s violent response to citizens who claim the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was fraudulent.