CHRI – The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has declared some workplace regulations at the HL Glue factory in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province, to be in violation of the Labor Law, including a requirement that all employees participate in Islamic group prayers. An Iranian human rights lawyer has also compared the company’s regulations to slavery. “You can introduce rules that improve …

Al-monitor  — Iran and Turkey are among the oldest rivals in the Middle East. This rivalry between the former Ottoman and Persian empires has calmed in recent decades, yet, with the spark of the Arab Spring, the two nations with opposing alliances revived their bitter race for influence and power in the region. It was clear that the 1823 and 1847 Treaties of …

Al-Monitor – After 14 years of ruling Tehran, Principlists have relinquished power to Reformists, giving the mayorship and chairmanship of the city council to their rivals. On Aug. 21, Tehran City Council members decided to elect Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former head of Tehran’s subway system and son of late two-time President Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, as head of the council, and …

PayvandNews – A Russian bank has agreed to provide 1 billion euros to electrify a 500 km railway route in northern Iran, state news agency IRNA has quoted a senior official as saying. Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways for northern network, Yusef Gheranpasha, said the bank will finance the electrification of the line between the cities of Garmsar …

RFL/RE – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has denied a claim by Turkey that the two countries were planning to conduct joint military operations against Kurdish rebel groups beyond the country’s borders. “We have not planned any operations across the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the IRGC said in an August 22 statement published by Iranian news agencies. …

RFL/RE – The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has met with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials for what she has described as a fact-finding mission as part of the U.S. administration’s review of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. President Donald Trump in April ordered a review of whether a suspension of sanctions on Iran related to the agreement …

Al-Arabia – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said Iran wielded growing influence in Syria that was a “threat” to his country as he met Russian President Vladimir Putin, a figure in the Syrian crisis. “Iran is putting in great efforts to fortify its presence in Syria. This is a threat for Israel, for the Middle East and, I believe, …

VOA – The United States wants to know if the United Nations atomic watchdog plans to inspect Iranian military sites to verify Tehran’s compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said Tuesday. Haley will meet with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials in Vienna Wednesday for what she described as a fact-finding mission, …

Iran Human Rights  -A prisoner in his mid twenties was hanged in public in Isfahan on murder and rape charges. On the morning of Monday August 21, a young prisoner was hanged in public on murder and rape charges. The execution was carried out in the city of Nasrabad in Isfahan on the morning of Monday August 21. According a …

Amnesty – More than a dozen political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, have gone on hunger strike in protest at the cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions they have been forced to endure at a maximum-security prison in Karaj, Alborz province, Amnesty International said today. Political prisoners at Raja’i Shahr prison were recently transferred to a newly opened area where conditions have …