Iran Focus: Baghdad, Jan. 15 – A member of Iraq’s interim parliament speaking on national television strongly criticized the Iranian regime for its meddling in Iraq. Hossein Sadr, a candidate from the election list of the current interim-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, aired his comments on the Al-Iraqi network Thursday, saying that Iran should not be allowed to meddle in Iraq’s internal affairs.

Iran Focus: Strasbourg, Jan. 14 – After a debate in which a number of Euro-MPs spoke out against the terror-tag placed upon the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), the European Parliament yesterday adopted a resolution on Iran calling for a review of the European Union’s list of terrorist organisations.

Iran Focus: Paris, Jan. 14 – In its annual report on human rights practices around the globe Human Rights Watch said that “basic human rights in Iran, especially freedom of expression and opinion, deteriorated in 2004”. “Torture and ill-treatment in detention, including indefinite solitary confinement, are used routinely to punish dissidents… Abuses are carried out by what Iranians call ‘parallel institutions’: …

Iran Focus: Tehran, Jan. 14 – Some 1,459 guns have been confiscated over the past nine months in Kermanshah province (western Iran), according to the province’s chief of State Security Forces (SSF). “The confiscated weapons along with those caught smuggling them have been apprehended and will be …

Iran Focus: Tehran, Jan. 14 – More than 50,000 people have been arrested in Greater Tehran in the past nine months, according to the head of the Office to Combat Narcotics in Greater Tehran. “A large proportion of those in custody, who comprise people from different sectors of society, are between 25 and 30 years of age”, Major Ghodratollah Mahmoudi said in an interview with a state-run news agency
on Wednesday.