Monday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 7.18.2005:

Ganji Is Near Death in Iranian Prison, a Dissident Reports
Eli Lake, The NY Sun:

Akbar Ganji's 36-day hunger strike has nearly cost the Iranian dissident his life, according to a writer recently released from the Tehran prison that holds Mr. Ganji, whom President Bush and European Union leaders have demanded the mullahs set free.

In a telephone interview from Tehran, a former political prisoner who was released temporarily from Evin prison at the end of June, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, told The New York Sun that Mr. Ganji's kidneys had failed and that he was seen yesterday by two fellow inmates in Evin's hospital wing laying unconscious on a floor as two guards tried to prop him up. ...

Recent attention from intellectuals and activists may not be enough to save the journalist this newspaper has called the Iranian Vaclav Havel. Mr. Fakhravar yesterday said he feared that Mr. Ganji would soon be dead. At the end of the interview yesterday, he said: "Never in these past 25 years has the Islamic republic been in so much turmoil. The minute Akbar Ganji dies, you will see what a revolution looks like here." READ MORE

The article also called into question the authenticity of the "second letter" of Ganji from prison.
Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Rachel Zabarkes Friedman, National Review reported that Iranian dissident Ganji's health has been deteriorating, and some say he could be near his end.
• Fox News reported that free speech advocates are frustrated with a host of American companies they say have been collaborating with oppressive regimes.
• The Washington Times reported that Iran promised to help curb raging violence in Iraq, saying it has been cracking down on al Qaeda militants on its soil.
• Michael Ledeen, National Review questions the reports that the young men involved in the London bombing were suicide bombers.
• Iran Focus reported that a colonel in the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was killed in a fashionable neighbourhood of Tehran.
• The Independent UK reported that the Guardian newspaper is refusing to sack one of its staff reporters despite confirming that he is a member of one of Britain's most extreme Islamist groups.
• And finally, Baku Today reported that European nations negotiating with Iran over its controversial nuclear program may be ready to help build nuclear reactors and supply them with fuel.