thestar –VENTURING off the usual rainforests and hiking trails for a change, we bring you a story about the canyons and unusual landscapes of Iran. Back in November and December, my travel partner Natasha and I travelled through Iran, and while the big names like Isfahan and Shiraz beckoned, our target was the island of Hormuz, off Bandar Abbas in …

VOA – Iran decided not to escalate a stand-off over the extension of U.S. sanctions at a meeting of diplomats overseeing the nuclear deal it reached with world powers in 2015, senior Russian and Iranian diplomats said after the session Tuesday. Tehran threatened last month to retaliate against a U.S. Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), saying …

Al-Arabia – Iranian reformists on Tuesday turned the funeral of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani into an opportunity to protest against Russia, the Iranian regime’s ally in Syria. At one point, groups were heard chanting “Death to Russia,” rather than the traditional “Death to America”. Iranian state TV was forced to play somber music during the live broadcast of the …

Iranhumanrights – The public funeral of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on January 10, 2017, led to the outpouring in Tehran of public calls for the release of opposition leaders held under house arrest and political prisoners in a resurgence of support for reformist issues that have been harshly suppressed in Iran for the last decade. The events since Rafsanjani’s …

Iranhumanrights.org – UN Expert Urges Iran to Release All Political Prisoners Political prisoner Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, who was released on January 3, 2017 after her imprisoned husband Arash Sadeghi’s 71-day hunger strike resulted in a promised case review for his wife, is refusing to obey an order to return to Evin Prison. “By law, my prison term should be rescinded because …

Iranhumanrights.org – In the latest attempt by Iran’s security and intelligence establishments to censor and control internet usage in Iran, administrators of popular Iranian-owned channels on the widely used Telegram application are now being required to register with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance or face prosecution. Telegram is an instant messaging application that enables users to create membership-based online content channels and groups. “These popular channels …

Al-monitor — It was Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s last journey in Tehran. The 82-year-old symbol of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was given a hero’s goodbye, with hundreds of thousands of Iranians accompanying his coffin many kilometers on foot. People held up images of him — some new, some old, some with President Hassan Rouhani, a few with former Reformist …

RFL/RE – The funeral of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is being held in Tehran.  Hundreds of thousands of Iranians jammed streets around Tehran University, where Rafsanjani was laying in state on January 10.  A national holiday has been declared. Rafsanjani, who served as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997, died of heart failure on January 9 at the …

PayvandNews – In October 2013, I was part of a delegation of the Social-Democratic Group of the European Parliament (EP) to Iran. The trip, which took place shortly before the Geneva nuclear interim agreement was reached between the P5+1 and Iran, was meant as a confidence-building measure between the EU and Iran, aimed at widening the space for diplomacy and …

RFL/RE – A large crowd gathered in the Iranian city of Shiraz to protest against the government’s use of broadcast jamming equipment. On January 9, demonstrators stood outside the provincial governor’s headquarters complaining about the health effects of using electromagnetic pulses for disrupting broadcasts. Some chants called the jamming a “betrayal” of the nation. The video of the rare public …