Heard In Iran: Workers' Wages Below the Poverty Line

Political Prisoner Dies in Jail
March 6 -- A lawyer representing a political prisoner who died in custody this week told Radio Farda his client's family considers his death suspicious and wants it investigated. [read in Persian]

New Candidate in Iran's Presidential Race
March 11 -- Mir Hossein Musavi, Iran's Prime Minister from 1981-89, has announced his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections. Musavi has revolutionary credentials and is widely considered to be an honest politician. An architect by profession, as well as a painter, Musavi is a member of Iran's Expediency Council and the head of the Iranian Academy of Arts. [read in English or Persian]

Workers' Wages Below the Poverty Line
March 10 -- A journalist told Radio Farda that the average estimated monthly wage for an Iranian worker is $223 a month, well below the poverty line. Exact numbers don't exist because the Ministry of Welfare has not defined the poverty line since President Ahmadinejad has been in office. [listen in Persian]

Dozens of Sufi Mystics Still in Prison
March 7 -- A spokesperson for followers of the Sufi mystical sect known as the Gonabadi dervishes told Radio Farda that 41 dervishes are still being held in solitary cells at Tehran's Evin Prison after authorities cracked down on the religious community. He says one of the dervishes who had a heart attack was taken to the hospital, tied down to a bed for treatment, and immediately returned to solitary confinement at the prison. [listen in Persian]

Iranians Attempt to Celebrate Womens' Day
March 10 -- A women's rights activist in northwest Iran told Radio Farda that an annual trip to the mountains near Tabriz in order to celebrate Womens' Day is no longer possible because "there are more police than women there." [read in Persian]