By YEGANEH JUNE TORBATI
The Educational Testing Service has announced that it is temporarily suspending registration for its tests in Iran, including the popular Test of English as a Foreign Language, in what may be one of the first tangible effects of the new sanctions levied against the country by the international community. Experts and Iranian expatriates were appalled, saying that if the sanctions prohibited Iranians from studying abroad, they would hurt precisely the kind of outward-looking young Iranians the West would like to help.
The Test of English as a Foreign Language, or Toefl, is a widely recognized measure of English proficiency and is often used by Western universities in evaluating international students for admission. The statement posted on the E.T.S. Web site on Wednesday cited the United Nations Security Council resolution "affecting banks and financial institutions that conduct business in Iran.
"As a result of this resolution, E.T.S. is currently unable to process payments from Iran," the statement said. In an interview with the Iranian Mehr news agency, Ibrahim Khodai, an official at the organization that manages student testing in Iran, said the organization had run into problems paying registration fees to the company, and that currently students could not take the test. However, he said that the test's cancellation was unrelated to the latest sanctions against Iran, and he instead cited "problems we've had in paying registration fees to the E.T.S., an American organization."
The United Nations Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Iran in June. The resolution, which aims to press Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program, mainly affects military purchases and financial transactions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which has been linked to the country's nuclear program. President Obama signed into law additional unilateral sanctions, including restrictions on foreign banks that do business with the Revolutionary Guards or other blacklisted Iranian institutions.
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said E.T.S. was exactly the kind of organization that should be exempt from the sanctions. "Prohibiting Toefl from operating in Iran is counterproductive to the spirit of smart sanctions," he said, noting that the exam is often a path to the outside world for young Iranians. "The government is not being hurt by Toefl not operating in Iran," he said. "It's the people, and precisely the people we're hoping to empower."
A State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said the government was "exploring whether there are alternative mechanisms" to allow E.T.S. to continue its work in Iran. "Our intent remains to apply pressure on the Iranian government without placing an undue burden on the Iranian people," he said.
source: The New York Times
Iranian MP Ahmad Tavakoli called for the prosecution of Saeed Mortazavi as one of the "perpetrators" of the crimes at the notorious Kahrizak Detention Centre. In the sidelines of the ceremony in Tehran marking the anniversary of the death of Mohsen Ruholamini, one of the victims of the Kahrizak tortures, Tavakoli told reporters that the parliamentary probe into the case has recommended the prosecution of the former Tehran prosecutor along with the "main perpetrators" of the Kahrizak events.
Abdolhossein Ruholamini, father of the victim, also told Mosalas weekly that Saeed Mortazavi must be prosecuted as "the one who ordered the dispatch of the detainees to Kahrizak."
Last summer, three of the detainees who were arrested in the course of street protests to the alleged fraud in the presidential elections were tortured to death at Kahrizak detention centre. Tehran prosecutor at the time, Saeed Mortazavi, attempted a cover-up by announcing that Amir JavadiFar, Mohsen Ruholamini and Mohammad Kamrani had died due to meningitis but soon after reports of torture at this centre were confirmed by official government reports.
After the appointment of the new head of judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, Mortazavi was removed from his position as Tehran prosecutor and soon after, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made him chief of Task Force to Combat Smuggling. At the same time, speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani appointed a panel to probe into the Kahrizak case. The fact-finding panel made direct reference to violations committed by Tehran prosecutor in the Kahrizak events.
Last month, the judicial branch of the armed forces announced that two of the individuals charged in the case of Kahrizak detention centre accused of "beating detainees to death" have been given the death penalty.
The other nine people accused in the case have reportedly been given sentences ranging from imprisonment, paying fines, suspension from work to flogging, but Tehran's prosecutor has not been involved in these trials. Kahrizak detention centre was shut down last August by the order of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei citing "substandard conditions" as the issue of concern.
source: Radio Zamaneh
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