Al-Arabia – Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday denied reports that Tehran had closed a border crossing with northern Iraq in response to an independence referendum in Iraq’s Kurdish region last month, the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported. “As we announced earlier, we blocked our airspace to the Kurdish region on a request from the central government of Iraq, and as …

Al-Arabia – A Kurdish source said on Sunday that the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Qasem Soleimani, arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan Region to discuss the escalation of the crisis between Erbil and Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s spokesperson denied Baghdad has set a deadline for the Peshmerga forces to withdraw from the province of Kirkuk. According to Al …

VOA – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded Sunday that Iran is in “technical compliance” with the international agreement to curb its nuclear weapons development, but said that President Donald Trump wants Congress to adopt “a more complete strategy” to fix what the U.S. leader sees as flaws in the pact. The top U.S. diplomat told CNN that Tehran has …

Iran Human Rights  – A prisoner was executed on murder charges at Rasht Central Prison (Lakan). According to a close source, on the morning of Saturday October 14, a prisoner was executed at Rasht Central Prison. The prisoner, Hamidreza Khoshbakht, was sentenced to death on murder charges. Close sources told Iran Human Rights (IHR) that Hamidreza was born on 1993. Four …

Iran Human Rights  –  A prisoner was executed on Moharebeh charges at Kerman Prison. According to ISNA and the Deputy of Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s office of Kerman, Mokhtar Shamsuddini, on the morning of Thursday October 12, a prisoner was hanged at Kerman Prison. The prisoner identified as P.D. was charged with Moharebeh for blocking the road, kidnapping some Afghans, and …

CHRI – Imprisoned prominent human rights activist Narges Mohammadi has called on members of Iran’s Parliament to investigate and end the “illegal” practice of solitary confinement of prisoners. “As a defender of human rights who has been tortured by this practice, I consider it my duty to take every opportunity to express my protest against solitary confinement, the suffering victims of …

CHRI – Case Highlights State Sanctioning of Copyright Infringement in Iran The popular Iranian streaming movies website, TinyMoviez, which featured pirated material, was shut down for distributing “indecent” foreign films, announced Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi on October 10, 2017. The prosecutor was responding to media reports that the TinyMoviez website was shut down by a judicial order in response to …

CHRI – Seven reformist members of Iran’s Parliament who were recently sentenced to prison for their political views will sue the state TV and radio broadcasting agency for alleging the MPs engaged in espionage. On October 5, 2017, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s (IRIB) “20:30” news program displayed a blurry group photo of the MPs—Mohammad Reza Khatami, Mohsen Safaei Farahani, …

Four family members of the late Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani have been banned from traveling abroad by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), while one member is facing a “fabricated case” against her, an informed source told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). In addition to being banned from international travel, Rafsanjani’s daughter, former member of Parliament Faezeh Hashemi, is …

CHRI – The increasingly restrictive judicial bans issued against reformist leader Mohammad Khatami could morph into something much bigger and enflame the current political climate, an ally of the former president told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “What we have at the moment is only this order from the prosecutor, but we should not underestimate what could happen …