Al-monitor – After a week of heavy pressure on the administration of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and senior members of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, the Council for Monitoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) held a meeting on Dec. 7 to discuss Washington’s recent move to renew the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA). AUTHOR Changiz M. Varzi Tasnim News Agency …

RFL/RE – British Prime Minister Theresa May says she hopes to deepen defense cooperation with Persian Gulf countries to “push back Iran’s aggressive regional actions.” “I want to assure you that I am clear-eyed about the threat that Iran poses to the Gulf and to the wider Middle East,” May told the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain on December 7, …

RFL/RE – The press agency for Iran’s hard-line conservative volunteer militia, the Basij, has quoted a senior official as saying that 50 Iranian student volunteers have been killed while fighting in Syria. Basij Press quoted Daud Gudrazi — the head of the Student Basij Organization, a branch of the militia force — as saying on December 6 that 50 students …

RFL/RE – A Saudi court has sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom’s archrival Iran, in a move that is likely to heighten regional tensions. The court in the capital, Riyadh, also sentenced 15 other defendants to prison terms ranging from six months to 25 years. Two defendants were acquitted at the December 6 session. Iranian Foreign …

VOA – Iran’s destabilizing actions across the Middle East constitute a security threat that rivals that of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, Republican and Democratic U.S. senators said Tuesday. “Iranian proxies remain a direct threat to the United States and our allies today,” said the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee, pointing to Lebanese Hezbollah, Shia …

Amnesty – Iranian musician Mehdi Rajabian was forced to return to Tehran’s Evin Prison on 4 December. He had been on medical leave following his month-long hunger strike. He was hospitalized during his leave and Amnesty International fears for his health. His brother Hossein Rabajian, a filmmaker, is on hunger strike. They are prisoners of conscience. Choose a language to …

Iranhumanrights.org  – Members of one of Iran’s oldest unions who were peacefully demanding their past due housing allowances and other benefits in front of the Tehran Municipality building were violently attacked by anti-riot police on December 4, 2016. “Four months ago these same people (bus drivers) gathered here and shouted the same slogans and resolved their issue peacefully after negotiating …

Al-monitor — The US House of Representatives voted to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) on Nov. 15, and the Senate followed suit on Dec. 1, approving the measure in a vote of 99-0 and sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature. “We believe the Iran Sanctions Act extension is not necessary, but we also believe it won’t …

Iranhumanrights.org – Police and plainclothes security agents arrested a prominent human rights lawyer and several members of the Writers Association of Iran at a commemoration event for victims of the “chain murders” of dissidents in the 1990s by agents of the Iranian government. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has learned that Nasser Zarafshan, the legal council for …

RFL/RE – An Iranian court has sentenced 12 people working in the fashion industry to jail for posting images on the Internet, according to a report in local media. The eight men and four women were given sentences ranging from five months to six years in jail by a court in the southern city of Shiraz on December 5, the …