The Washington Post reported on Sunday that an Iranian woman blinded and disfigured by a man who threw acid into her face forgave him. A doctor was about to put several drops of acid in one of her attackers eyes in court-ordered retribution. It is a legal right for victims in Iran to ask for a strict enforcement of Islamic law, under which an attempt is made to reach a settlement with victims or their families. If no agreement is reached, then “qisas,” or eye-for-an-eye retribution, is enforced. Under the Iranian judiciary’s policy of qisas, convicted murderers are sentenced to death. In another example of a case where qisas was carried out, authorities amputated the hand of a convicted thief in front of other prisoners in October 2010.
The same agency reported yesterday that the lawyer for two Americans jailed in Iran on charges of espionage said Sunday the court will announce its verdict within a week, dashing hopes for their immediate release after a final hearing in the case. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, have been held in Iran’s Evin Prison since shortly after their arrest along the border with Iraq exactly two years ago on Sunday. The case has added to tensions between the United States and Iran that were already high over issues like Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. The Americans’ lawyer, Masoud Shafiei, had hoped that Sunday’s final court session would result in their immediate release because it coincided with the two-year anniversary of their arrest and came near the start this week of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when pardons are traditionally handed down.
The same theme is touched by the Los Angeles Times in the article headlined “U.S. hikers expect Iran verdict soon.” It says that Iranian authorities will announce a verdict and sentence within days in the case of two U.S. hikers arrested two years ago near an unmarked section of the Iran-Iraq border, their lawyer and court officials said Sunday after what appeared to be the final court hearing in the case. On the anniversary of their July 31, 2009, arrest, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal spent four hours at a hearing at the Tehran Revolutionary Court, where they face charges of espionage and trespassing.
“In Georgia, a Spy Case and a National Rorschach Test” is an article published by the New York Times on Saturday. It says that last week, several days after the photographer Giorgi Abdaladze confessed to selling classified documents to Russia’s foreign intelligence service, he was released without being sentenced to a prison term or even given a fine. After Georgian officials had publicly excoriated Mr. Abdaladze as being a participant in a brazen espionage campaign, his 15-day prosecution ended as abruptly as it had begun. It was a jaw-dropping case from the very beginning, not only because of the way the suspects were detained — plainclothes officers knocked on their doors between 2 and 3 a.m., waking their families and searching the premises — but also because of who they were.
The Guardian reported on Monday that Home Office ministers need to order an official assessment of the likely scale of legal migration to Britain should Turkey join the European Union, a Commons committee has urged. The home affairs select committee also says that much more must be done to improve security on Turkey's borders before it should be allowed to join the EU. The land border with Greece is now the main loophole for irregular migration into Europe with 350 migrants trying to cross it every day in 2010 and more than 75% of trafficked heroin into the EU also flows across its borders. The Home Office says that there are about 150,000 Turkish nationals living in Britain at present, with about 500,000 people of Turkish origin living in the country altogether. But Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and France all have larger Turkish communities which are more likely to attract a new wave of legal migration.
The Iranian information agency Press TV published the article subtitled “Iran kills elements behind gas pipe blast.” It says that Iran's security forces have killed three of the perpetrators behind an explosion that damaged the country's natural gas transmission pipeline to Turkey, an Iranian official says. With the efforts of Iran's security and intelligence forces “three of the perpetrators were killed and four others were arrested this morning,” Governor of Iranian northwestern city of Makou Hamid Ahmadian said on Monday. On Friday, an explosion in Iran's natural gas transmission line to Turkey temporarily disrupted gas flow to Iran's western neighbor. The explosion took place near a village around the northwestern town of Makou close to Iran's border with Turkey.
