Monday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 7.25.2005:

Havel Joins Bush, Sharansky in Plea for Ganji's Life

Eli Lake, The NY Sun:

A new letter from Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji, authenticated yesterday by his wife, predicts that if he dies, his death will "water the harvest of freedom."

Also, a former Czech president, Vaclav Havel, has joined President Bush; a former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, and European Union leaders in calling for Mr. Ganji's unconditional release from prison by the Islamic Republic. This newspaper has called Mr. Ganji, who has become a symbol of the democratic opposition in his country, the Iranian Havel. He has been on a hunger strike since June 11 in protest of his detention for urging a boycott of last month's presidential election in Iran. READ MORE

• Iranian blogger, Maryam Kashani, Roozonline reported Tehran’s Prosecutor, Mortezavi, has demanded that Ganji have foot surgery despite medical counsel that putting him under anesthesia would mean death. Mortezavi has threatened that if the medical team at Milad hospital refrains from performing surgery, he will get another team from a different hospital. Ganji’s kidney is reported already to have stopped functioning due to torture and his hunger strike.
• Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at the behaviour of the judicial authorities towards Akbar Ganji and held them responsible for his slow drift towards death.
• Early reports of a demonstration in Tehran in front of Tehran University today in support of the political prisoners in Iran. Early reports indicate that several thousand took part. The regime has reportedly arrested more than a hundred protesters. READ MORE
  

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Potkin Azarmehr, Iran va Jahan reported that the state of repression in Mahabad is reaching new proportions. Unrest has continued for eight days and is spreading. The city is now under complete general strike. Not one Western correspondence as yet has gone to Mahabad to view the situation.
• British Ahwazi Friendship Society reported anti-government protests erupted in Ahwaz, the first since last month's presidential elections.
• Tehran Times reported that an Iranian MP demanded that the German government officially apologize to Iran.
• Opinion Journal asked, Is Old Europe finally learning that it must join the global war on terror?
• Iran Focus: an MEK Website reported on a senior Shiite cleric's involvement in his own son’s execution for disloyalty to the regime.
• Yahoo News reported that the lawyers representing the family of a Canadian photographer Kazemi who died in custody in Iran said she was deliberately killed and demanded an impartial court retry the case.
• Iranian blog, Roozonline reported on the charges by Hossein Ghaziyan, one of those imprisoned for conducting a poll on US-Iran relations. The article outlines the abuse he has received by the regime.
• And finally, Iran Focus: an MEK website reproduced an ad calling for suicide operations to "defend" Islam including an “application form” to become a suicide bomber. The ad runs weekly in an Iranian newspaper. Ad reproduced here with an English translation.