CHRI – Azam Taleghani: Constitution Does Not Bar Women From Running Despite being repeatedly disqualified in the past, one of Iran’s top political activists, Azam Taleghani, has registered to run in the country’s May 19, 2017 presidential election. The daughter of a moderate leader of Iran’s 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani (1911-1979), Azam Taleghani told the Center for Human Rights …

Al-monitor — The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has for some time been working on a plan to stop using the US dollar in its financial reports. In a program aired on Iranian state television Jan. 28, CBI Gov. Valiollah Seif vowed that the regulator would no longer use the US currency in its reports starting with the Iranian fiscal year that began March 21. …

Al-monitor – The two main conservative candidates seeking to unseat incumbent Hassan Rouhani in the May 19 presidential vote are Ebrahim Raisi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Despite their claims of unity ahead of the elections, a closer look indicates that the conservatives are deeply divided. AUTHOR Rohollah Faghihi Ghalibaf, the Tehran mayor who has now registered to run in three presidential elections, …

PayvandNews – In the past two decades, Iran’s presidential election kickoffs have increasingly become occasions for comedy. It did not disappoint this time. During the five-day registration period, beginning on April 11, over 1,600 people signed up (1,636 to be exact), ranging in age from 6 to 89 years old. Unlike for other offices, there are no clear minimum requirements …

PayvandNews- The Iranian men’s senior table football team has won the trophy at the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) World Cup and World Championships in Germany following a victory over Italy. Iranian squads at the ITSF World Cup and World Championships in Hamburg, Germany photo by Federation of Sport Associations of the Islamic Republic of Iran The Iranians recorded a 42-28 victory …

CHRI – The candidacy of Ebrahim Raisi in Iran’s May 19 presidential election “shows great contempt for human rights, the rights of the Iranian people, and the families of those killed in the 1980s,” international law expert Shadi Sadr told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). In 1988, Raisi was part of a four-man panel—with Hosseinali Nayeri, Morteza …

CHRI – Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer and former political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh has strongly criticized the candidacy of Ebrahim Raisi in Iran’s May 19, 2017 presidential election. “The competency of this candidate should not be approved for any reason until the events of 1988 are investigated and it is proven that he was not an accomplice,” she told the …

CHRI – After disqualifying the initial reformist winner, Iran’s conservative Guardian Council has now barred most reformist candidates from running in the second-round election for Isfahan’s vacant parliamentary seat. The vote will occur when Iranians head to the polls on May 19, 2017 to elect their new president and city and village councils. Reformist politician Minoo Khalegi won the February …

CHRI – Former political activist Majid Asadi has been detained without charge in Evin Prison’s Ward 209 under the control of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry since February 2017, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. In an interview with CHRI on April 13, Mohammad Asadi said his son also does not have a lawyer. “Majid has been in solitary, under interrogation for …

Al-monitor – “Today Iran stands at the forefront of the battle and confrontation with the project of the Islamic caliphate, in a way that it funds more than 90 … armed militia groups in Islamic cities,” the narrator proclaimed in a newly released Islamic State (IS) video in which Shiite-majority Iran is portrayed as the source of division in the Muslim world. …