CHRI – For the second time, Iranian authorities have allowed two-time Iranian Paralympic gold medalist Zahra Nemati to travel abroad to compete despite her estranged husband’s attempts to force her to stay home. According to Article 18 of Iran’s Passport Law, a married woman needs her husband’s permission to travel abroad. “You cannot do something for selfish reasons to endanger the interests of the nation,” said Nemati …

Al-monitor  — Until just a few months ago, not many Iranians were familiar with the name Ebrahim Raisi. The 56-year-old cleric entered the game last year when he was appointed to head Iran’s largest charitable foundation, Astan Quds Razavi, which oversees the holy shrine of the eighth Shiite imam, Reza, in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Raisi, a former prosecutor and …

Al-monitor – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has taken issue with recent claims by conservative presidential candidates about the nuclear deal and what was termed the “weak” diplomacy of the moderate government of President Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking re-election. AUTHOR Rohollah Faghihi In a video interview with Entekhab news site May 9, Zarif, who played an important role in the international talks that resulted in …

PayvandNews – The national Iranian volleyball team has lifted the trophy at the conclusion of the 2017 Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship following a resounding victory over Japan in the final showdown of the tournament in the northwestern Iranian city of Ardabil. On Tuesday evening, the hosts triumphed over their East Asian counterparts 3-0 (27-25, 26-24 and 25-20) in an …

PayvandNews – An Iranian company says a top American technology leader plans to invest in an Iranian oil equipment production project – what could be the first direct investment by a US oil company in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Speaking at a press conference at Iran’s Oil Show, Neda Mousavizadegan, the managing director of Iran’s Panid Engineering, named …

PayvandNews – Iran says South Africa’s MTN will invest as much as $1.1 billion in an ambitious fiber optic internet connectivity project which will be launched in eight major cities across the country. www.mtn.com Mohsen Baqeri-Chenari, the managing director of Iranian Net Communications and Electronic Services Company (INCESC), was quoted by the domestic media as saying that MTN would invest $560 million …

VOA – Determined to protect a dominant security role and vast economic interests, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards military force is quietly backing a hardliner in May 19 presidential polls, with an eye towards a bigger prize: the succession of the supreme leader. President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013 in a landslide on promises to open up Iranian society …

Iran Human Rights –  On the morning of Monday May 8, two prisoners were reportedly hanged at Mashhad Central Prison. According to the Iranian state-run news agency Rokna, one of the prisoners, who was not identified by name, was 35 years old, while the other prisoner, who was identified by the initials M.M., was 27 years old.

CHRI – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, currently campaigning for a second term win in the May 19, 2017 presidential election, criticized two of his opponents’ records of human rights abuses during a speech in the city of Hamadan. “The people of Iran are saying they don’t accept those who only hung and imprisoned people for the past 38 years (since …

CHRI – A reformist journalist who was detained and tortured in a secret detention center under the supervision of current Iranian presidential candidate Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in 2004, when Ghalibaf was the commander of police forces, is demanding accountability. “Before thinking about becoming president, Ghalibaf should think about his numerous actions against the rights of citizens during his command and explain the dark …