Posted on 07/22/2005 5:17:43 AM PDT by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Iran Is Considering Pardon for Ganji
BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 21, 2005
WASHINGTON - Dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji may be pardoned for the remaining six months of his jail sentence, Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, said.
A pardon for Mr. Ganji would prove the efficacy of an international campaign in recent weeks demanding his unconditional release from prison. President Bush, E.U. leaders, and an Israeli politician and a former Russian political prisoner, Natan Sharansky, have called for the hunger-striker's unconditional release, as have human rights organizations and Western intellectuals, who signed a petition circulated by www.opendemocracy.net and the International Society for Iranian Studies-Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom.
Iran's student news agency, ISNA, yesterday quoted Mr. Shahrudi as saying, "Maybe a pardon can be applied to him. We are considering the matter." The agency also quoted Mr. Shahrudi as saying, "We are considering legal terms to see if public amnesties can be applied to his case or not."
The Iranian regime has scrambled in the face of mounting international pressure regarding Mr. Ganji. Initially, spokesmen from Evin Prison, where Mr. Ganji was held from June 11 until Sunday when he was rushed to Milad Hospital in Tehran, and other leaders in the Islamic Republic denied that Mr. Ganji was on a hunger strike. On Monday, the chief of Milad said Mr. Ganji had been admitted to receive routine knee surgery.
Yesterday, however, a conservative newspaper that often reflects the official line of the regime, the Daily Kahan, reported that Mr. Ganji's hunger strike was designed as a plot by his lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi, and America.
"Akbar Ganji was asked to go on hunger strike, and he had been given assurances that if his physical conditions deteriorated, they would intervene to prevent any serious damage to his health," the paper reported. "The plotters had at the same time promised a foreign party that once Akbar Ganji died, they would turn the issue into a big fiasco against the Islamic Republic. They were to be rewarded handsomely for their services."
Since starting a hunger strike on June 11 after being rearrested for urging a boycott of his country's presidential election, Mr. Ganji has become a symbol of the democratic opposition in Iran. He was initially sentenced in January 2001 for writing a book and publishing articles that charged his country's former president and intelligence ministers with authorizing a string of murders of Iranian intellectuals in the late 1990s.
On Sunday evening, Mr. Ganji was brought to Milad Hospital after numerous reports from inside Iran suggested his health was failing from the hunger strike. On Monday, his daughter told reporters that her father was being sustained by feeding tubes, effectively ending his hunger strike. In an open letter smuggled from Evin Prison last month, Mr. Ganji vowed to refuse food, including any sustenance delivered by feeding tube, until he was released from prison. The Sun on Monday reported that other political prisoners saw him collapsed in the hospital ward of Evin Prison, where he was being held, suggesting that he may have been unconscious when the feeding tube was inserted.
- The Times UK reported that the top al Qaeda of Briton called the London bombers just before the attack.
- Asia Times reported that the EU3 should be prepared for a possible change in attitude in Tehran.
- Iran Scan reported that Mehdi Karrubi, former speaker of the Parliament intends to launch a satellite TV station in the UK.
- Iran Focus quoted Germany's Interior Minister as saying that while Iran and Iraq “are saying that they want to be closer, the coming to power in Iran of an Islamic fundamentalist who does not have an absolute distance with terrorism gives cause for grave concern.� Iran is furious.
- Iran Focus reported on the appointment of Ali Larijani as the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
- Iran Focus reported that several members of the United States Congress are expected to introduce a bill on Wednesday calling on the U.S. judicial authorities to begin legal proceedings against Iranians who were involved in the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
- Tim Mcgrick, Time Magazine went to Iran to learn about Hasan-i Sabbah, leader of the 12th century Middle Eastern terror cult known as the Assassins.
- The Financial Times reported that the "brain" of the reformist movement in Iran thinks U.S. pressure threatens democracy in Iran. ????
- And finally, Reuters reported in Iran a conservative storm is brewing over Iran's energy deals.
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5-07-14 On the Frontline of Iranian Student Protests [Exclusive] OMNI captures a Tehran demonstration for an imprisoned journalist on hunger strike .
On Wednesday afternoon outside Tehran University, students gathered to protest the continued imprisonment of journalist Akbar Ganji, who is in his fourth week of a hunger strike. He has been in jail for 62 months. The secretary general of Advare Tahkime Vahdat the organization that led the protest, Mousavi Khoeeni, was also present. He was a legislator in the sixth parliament.
The sound of old protest songs sung by protestors filled the air that afternoon, as did the shouts from the police (in green and navy uniforms) who were using force to try to break up the demonstration. Note the man with the video camera, who is an intelligence agent filming all the protestor's faces. The man in the foreground is being dragged off to jail and an unknown fate."
In this photo, a photographer for an Iranian news agency is being pushed into a police car, around 6 p.m. Many of those arrested are still unaccounted for
Please see link for more photos.....
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=237387&rel_no=1
Continued prayers for Ganji. Doc, I really appreciate the updates.
Your welcome.
Pardon him?
Why?
Did he commit a crime that to be pardoned?
NO!
He did exercise his God given rights to say what he wished and he is in jail for that, why should they pardon him?
The regime makes it sound like he is a serious criminal.
Free Ganji Now!
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