CHRI – More than 100 people, including innocent bystanders, are killed every year in anti-smuggling operations in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province, according to human rights campaigner Habibollah Sarbazi. “There are no jobs in the area and even educated people have to resort to smuggling fuel to make a living,” Sarbazi, the director of the Baloch Activists Campaign, told the Center …

CHRI – Iran’s former reformist President Mohammad Khatami has been banned from making public appearances and receiving political guests for three months. The ban, first reported on October 5, 2017, was issued by the Special Court for the Clergy one week after six prominent reformist politicians, including Khatami’s younger brother, were sentenced to a year in prison for the charge of …

CHRI – First Vice President of Iran, Eshaq Jahangiri, has confirmed the arrest of his brother, Mehdi Jahangiri, calling it an “expected” event. “I don’t have any detailed information about how he was arrested or what the charges are, but in any case he is not employed by the government or engaged in political activity,” wrote Eshaq Jahangiri on Instagram on October 6, …

Reuters – Low on cash but high on hope, Iran’s technology entrepreneurs are learning to live with revived hostility in the United States and growing suspicion – or worse – from hardliners at home. Their startups and e-commerce apps are flourishing, driven by government infrastructure support and young Iranians educated both in the country and abroad. Some are even drawing foreign …

RFL/RE – Taghi Mehri, Iran’s police chief announced that 459,000 lost their lives in traffic accidents in Iran within less than two decades since 1998. According to Mehri, more than 4.5 million people were injured in accidents during the same time. Considering that in the last 19 years Iran’s population has been between 70 and 80 million, this number constitutes a …

DW- Ordinary Iranians have taken to social media in response to Saudi Arabia’s reforms allowing women to drive. Many compared the emergence of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia to the sluggish growth of Iran’s women’s movement.

VOA -U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to decertify the Iran nuclear agreement next week but stop short of scrapping it, according to media reports.

CHRI – Seven prominent Iranian reformist politicians who wrote in an open letter that the judiciary has been given an “open hand” to prosecute legal political activities with “security crimes” have been handed one-year prison sentences and a two-year ban on political and media activities.

PayvandNews – Iran’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology announced that Iran has been granted 5 orbital slots, adding arrangements to position the satellites at 43.5 degrees are underway. Speaking at the opening ceremony of World Space Week, ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said depending on the needs of countries, a satellite is placed in these slots, stressing that …

RFL/RE – An Iranian news website has reported the arrest of the brother of the country’s vice president over various finance-related matters.