By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Evin House of Detention ( Zendān Evin) is a prison in Iran, located in Evin, northwestern Tehran. It is noted for its political prisoners' wing, where prisoners have been held both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Due to the number of intellectuals that the prison housed, it was nicknamed "Evin University." - Source: Wikipedia
Most Americans look at Iran with a mixture of revulsion and fatalism. The regime is about as bad as repressive regimes get, just behind North Korea. Like North Korea, it is working hard to develop a militarily useful arsenal of nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
As this is being written, Saeed Abedini, an American citizen and evangelical pastor, sits in an Iranian jail awaiting his trial. The expected ruling is death, for charges which are presumed to be related to his Christian faith. The State Department, which works closely with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to stamp out “intolerance” and “Islamophobia” against Muslims in America, has been virtually silent about Mr. Abedini’s predicament in Iran, one of the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
At the end of her 49-day hunger strike, Iranian activist Nasrin Sotoudeh smuggled a letter from her Evin prison cell letting the world know about the 36 other female political prisoners incarcerated with her in Evin.
The future of a pricey malaria program meant to provide cheap drugs for poor patients may be in jeopardy after health officials clashed over its effectiveness in two new reports.
Americans Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer are scheduled to face trial Sunday in Iran on charges of illegal entry and espionage. They and Sarah Shourd, who was later released, were detained by Iranian forces two years ago while hiking in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Whether they strayed over a poorly marked border or were seized on Iraqi territory is unclear. Either way, these Berkeley-educated social activists don't fit the profile of clandestine operatives sent to infiltrate the Islamic republic. The charges are farcical, and the hikers should be freed.
German public radio says a dissident Iranian actress was arrested as she prepared to leave for Germany to write a blog for the station about the women's football World Cup.
A year ago, The Washington Times helped bring the world's attention to the plight of Farzad Kamangar, a Kurdish school-teacher wrongly accused of being a terrorist by the Islamic regime in Tehran. He spent almost four years of physical and mental torture in Iran's prison system. Mr. Kamangar's suffering ceased Sunday at the end of a hangman's noose. He was 34 years old.
