The following is the text of a statement released by Ali Saremi, 62, a political prisoner currently on death row, after the Iranian authorities upheld death sentences for a group of political prisoners for supporting the main opposition group (PMOI).Saremi has been imprisoned since 2007 after speaking at an event commemorating the summary executions of thousands of PMOI supporters in Iranian prisons in 1988. He was sentenced to death in December 2009 over his ties to the group. 

The clerical regime has confirmed a death sentence for a notable Bazaar merchant in Tehran, charging him with having contacts with the main opposition (PMOI/MEK).Mr. Javad Lari, a 55 year old political prisoner, was sentenced to death on charges of “moharebeh” (“waging war on God”) by the 15th branch of the regime’s Revolutionary Court in Tehran in a case presided over by Salavati.

Hundreds of people in the north-western Iranian city of Tabriz, provincial capital of East Azerbaijan, staged a public demonstration against the denial of the right to learn the Azeri language in schools and promote Azeri culture.

The protests began in the city’s Sa’at (Clock) Square on Sunday despite heavy police presence. Plainclothes agents failed to intimidate the protesters.

A Jordanian parliamentarian wrote a letter to the UN Secretary General on the first anniversary of the brutal attacks by the Iranian regime’s Iraqi proxies against Camp Ashraf. Experts of the text of Dr. Yousef al-Sarayereh’s letter are as follows:

“At this juncture, the Iranian regime seeks to exploit the legal vacuum and political anarchy reigning in Iraq.

The deputy chair and spokesman of the Human Rights section of the Berlin Bar Association,  Bernd Haeusler, described the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran as a crime against humanity, in an interview yesterday with the opposition satellite channel Simay-e Azadi Iranian National TV.

In his remarks broadcast on the Iranian opposition channel, Mr. Haeusler said, “It is unacceptable that today after the passing of 22 years from the massacre of political prisoners, which is a crime against humanity, (those responsible for it) have not been held accountable. 

The New York Times  — Iran’s conservative establishment appears to have reacted coldly to an entreaty by Brazil’s president to allow an Iranian woman convicted of adultery to take asylum in Brazil rather than face execution by stoning at home.

The reaction to the plea over the weekend by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may introduce a strain into what has been an increasingly cordial relationship between Iran and Brazil. It also reinforced what critics of Iran view as a barbaric form of justice that is especially repressive toward women.