I don't recall Alexander Downer saying anything about this, or any
mention in the local news services.

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Iran's hangmen work overtime to silence opposition

By Con Coughlin

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 24/08/2007


Stonings, hangings, floggings, purges. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
might claim that United Nations sanctions can't hurt his country, but
that is not how it feels for Iran's long-suffering population which
now finds itself on the receiving end of one of the most brutal purges witnessed since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The most visible manifestation of the new oppression sweeping Iran has
been the wave of public executions and floggings carried out in
Teheran and provincial capitals over recent weeks in a blatant attempt
by the regime to intimidate political opponents. The official
government line is that the punishments are part of its "Plan to
Enforce Moral Behaviour".

It's the same kind of argument that was used immediately after
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took control to purge the country of its prosperous, secular middle class and secure his hold on power. Now Mr Ahmadinejad is adopting similar tactics in a desperate attempt to keep
his embattled regime in power.

Although Iran has one of the world's highest execution rates, until
recently most of the sentences were carried out within the confines
of prisons such a Teheran's notorious Evin complex. But this month
diplomats at the Japanese and Australian embassies in the capital
were alarmed to find the bodies of two convicted criminals hanging
from cranes stationed directly outside their office windows.

The location of the cranes, at a busy thoroughfare surrounded by
office blocks, was chosen as much to remind the diplomatic community
that Mr Ahmadinejad's hardline regime was still very much in charge as
to send a message to ordinary citizens.

[...]

Full article at " UK Telegraph" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/24/do2404.xml

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* Origin: Xaragmata / Adelaide SA telnet://xaragmata.thebbs.org (3:800/432)