Blog Watch: A Real Probe into Prisons?

From Etemad, a Tehran daily newspaper:

A seven member delegation from parliament will be going to Evin Prison in Tehran and Shahid Rajaie Prison in Karaj to begin a probe into the condition of political prisoners.

The death of Mohsen Rooholamini, the son of a top ranking official, finally forced Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament to rapidly organize a special committee to look into the state of political prisoners and jouranlists. A number of MPs spoke of their worries about the prisoners yesterday and now believe the parliament should no longer remain silent.

From Tabnak website:

Ayatollah Shahroodi, the head of the judiciary, has ordered a probe into the condition of prisoners and the release of those whose crimes are not "great enough" for imprisonment.

According to Pedestrian:

I am hoping that these announcements will actually materialize into something significant. But for now, here's a little comparison:

Two people, a 25 year old boy and a 23 year old girl, were arrested in the July 9th demonstrations and were later reported dead.

For two weeks, both their families spent their energy, their tears, their screams, trying to find them, with no success.

One, was the son of high ranking official.

The other, the daughter of a teacher and a store owner.

The boy's broken, tortured body was given to his father after two weeks, and the cost of the funeral was compensated. The father was given access to the report of the doctors who had examined the body. The funeral was held in one of Tehran's biggest mosques - Balal mosque which belongs to IRIB. Mr. Zarghami, the head of IRIB is a close family friend.

A ceremony for the boy was canceled yesterday. His father wrote a letter two hours before the events stating that after receiving news that the ceremony would be disturbed and turned violent, he was going to cancel it. He also wrote that he would "diligently look into the condition of the other prisoners."

The girl's parents were forced to sign a statement saying that their daughter died in a car accident before they were given the body. The body was finally released, after they agreed to appear on state TV (Channel 5) to do an interview stating that "after the accident, they were donating her organs to those in need".

They have been in hiding since.

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Also from Pedestrian today:

As you may know, in the two months preceding the election, many government employees were given a raise of up to 15%.

From Tabnak:

The increase in the salary of government employees which took effect two months before the election, was not included in their salaries for the month of Tir (~July) and their salaries are back to what they were before the election.

This increase in pay was met with much criticism from Ahmadineajd's opponents, who accused him of using it for campaign purposes. This increase, along with the news of the "justice shares" were among the criticisms hurled at Ahmadinejad. It should be noted that government employees are baffled by this latest development.