Iran Focus, 2 Jan. - Reza Shahabi, a member of the Board of Directors Tehran’s Bus Drivers Syndicate, has staged a hunger strike in prison for the past 15 days because officials have refused to give him temporary leave to get treatment for his ailments, including urgently-needed surgery. He has refrained from eating or taking medicine in protest against his mistreatment in prison.

Ali Akbar Baghani, the secretary general of the Iranian Teachers Union sentenced to one year of imprisonment and ten years of exile. He was accused of propaganda against the regime in Iran.
The union has been advocating for the basic rights of its members that have been systematically denied by the mullahs in Iran.

Stop Fundamentalism – There are at least seven infants aging less than 2 years old, sharing their mothers' prison sentence at the women's ward of Semnan prison, reported the Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency today.

The prison's women's ward is a confinement of less than 50 square meters which currently hold about 70 women prisoners.   The hygienic conditions at the section are  quite poor and there aren't even enough beds in the ward to suffice the number of prisoners, reports the news agency.

On December 22, Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah published its interview with Mohammad Mohadesin, chairman of foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

In his interview, Mr. Mohaddesin explained that the regime of Tehran is faced with 5 crises: economic collapse, condensed popular anger, internal feuding, weakening of Bashar Assad’s regime and complicated nuclear issue.

About a dozen political prisoners in Gohar Dasht Prison in Karaj urged UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to intervene for the release of imprisoned lawyers and to urge for their sentences be rescinded.
The joint letter was signed by Shahrokh Zamani, Rasoul Badaghi, Saleh Kohandel, Misagh Yazdan Nejad, Saeed Massouri, Ali Jabari, Afshin Ossanlou, Reza Sharifi Boukani, Afshin Heyratian, Jafar Eghdami, and Khaled Hardani.

Hundreds of workers of  "Safa Looleh"  in Saveh (central Iran) staged a protest over the lack of payment of their salaries on January 1. The factory manufactures steel pipes.

According to the state-run news agency ILNA, the payment of the workers' salaries stopped six months ago.

The Iranian regime's Cyber Police (FATA) said on Monday that had arrested a "14 year old blogger in city of Karaj" "following a surveillance activity" in order to “increase security in the cyberspace."

The commander of mullahs' Cyber Police whose remark were published in the force's website claimed that the blogger Mehdi Kakvan published "obscene" stories.

In a letter to UN Secretary General, a number of Iraqi parliament deputies asked for Liberty to be declared a refugee camp under supervision of the High Commission of Refugees and for guaranteed rights of residents to sell their properties at Camp Ashraf, Arabic language service of Agence France Presse reported on Monday from Baghdad.

Berliner Umschau, 28 Dec 2012 – Just days before Christmas another resident of Liberty died due to Iraq’s inhumane and excessive pressures.
All of the camp grounds have been flooded with backtracking sewage water. The responsibility is on the shoulders of Martin Kobler, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Iraq (UNAMI).

Pastor Vervier Avanessian of Iran’s Church underwent surgery in a hospital under control of Iranian regime’s suppressive organs on Monday, December 31, on the eve of Christian New Year while one of his kidneys had stopped working due to brutal torture. Despite his serious conditions, he was transferred to Evin Prison.
Avanessian and 50 others were arrested during December 27 raid by the Iranian regime's agents on a house in Tehran where  they were observing a ceremony on the occasion of Christmas and the New Year.

Hamid (Mashallah) Ha’eri, whose son and brother are opposition activists at camps Ashraf and Liberty, has suffered from medication poisoning with serious cardiac complications.

In recent days, this political prisoner’s health conditions deteriorated when he was poisoned by wrong medicine. According to reports, he was transferred to Loghman Hospital and then to Tehran’s Taleghani Hospital.

By Ali Safavi - An Iranian opposition activist died of cardiac arrest in Iraq over the weekend after Iraqi authorities prevented him from receiving appropriate medical treatment, according to opposition sources.

Behrooz Rahimian, 56, was a veteran member of the main Ireanain opposition the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), whose members currently reside in Camp Liberty near Baghdad.