Security forces arrested a number of peddlers on charges of selling ‘anti-cultural goods’ in the town of Asad Abad in Hamedan and shut down an internet service company in Shahin Shahr in Isfahan.

Death row political prisoner Ali Afshari is in critical condition after suffering an internal bleeding as a result of torture in the Central Orumieh Prison.

The Secretary of the Women and Family Affairs Office of the Ministry of Interior said that the initial phase of the Plan for the Fashion and Dress of Working Women in Tehran had been carried out.“In this plan, we are not looking to coordinate or make uniforms for working women”, she said.“In the designing of the clothes of the working women, our stress is on it being compatible with the work in question and Islamic laws”, Zahra Abbasi added.“[Only] colors and designs will be considered that are compatible with [Islamic teachings related to women] and surely hot colors that are not suitable for the workplace will not be used”, she stressed.“Women’s covering and dress in the workplace has to provide for the security of the workplace and instead of being flashy it should shed light on the moral character of women”, Abbasi said. (Mehr state-run News Agency)

[Regarding Dr. Mohammad Maleki] | January 25, 2012 | The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), has received new information and requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Iran.
The Observatory has been informed by the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LDDHI) of the summons of Dr. Mohammad Maleki to serve a one-year prison term.According to the information received, on January 23, 2012, Dr. Mohammad Maleki, founding member of the Iranian Association for the Defence of Liberty and Human Rights (IADLHR), was summoned to Evin prison to serve a one-year prison term (See background information) and was given three days to go to prison.  He stands a high risk of arrest at any time.The Observatory condemns the judicial harassment of Dr. Mohammad Maleki since it seems to merely aim at sanctioning his human rights activities and expresses its deep concern about the ongoing attempts to hinder the peaceful activities of human rights defenders in Iran.

NYT-The judicial authorities in Iran have arrested at least half a dozen journalists and bloggers over the past few weeks, according to their acquaintances, opposition Web sites and rights groups. The moves appear to be part of a pre-emptive campaign of intimidation to thwart protests surrounding the parliamentary elections that are scheduled to be held in early March.The arrests of the journalists and bloggers, including two prominent women whose blog posts are widely read in Iran, have not been reported by the official news media. Rights groups and people who know the detained journalists said the government apparently wanted word of the arrests to spread informally, to heighten the atmosphere of fear and paranoia.It also was unclear what specific charges, if any, had been lodged against those who were arrested. None seem to have been politically active or to have published anything that might be considered seditious since the last major Iranian government crackdown on free expression in February 2011. At that time, the authorities arrested a large number of journalists as part of what turned out to be a successful effort to subvert any ambition by Iran’s largely silenced political opposition to celebrate the revolutions that were then sweeping Tunisia and Egypt.