RFL/RE – A member of the Iranian team that negotiated a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers has been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of espionage, a semiofficial news agency reports. Iran’s Tasnim news agency on October 4 did not provide the name of the sentenced man, but the only member of the negotiating team known to …

Al-Arabia – A video shared on social media showed Iranian security forces humiliating blindfolded Ahwazi Arabs and forcing them to bark. A masked security officer is then seen beating them up by punching them using martial art techniques. He can also be heard calling them names. Iranian and Ahwazi Arab activists condemned the torture, which violates domestic and international laws and …

VOA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to Tehran Wednesday for meetings with Iran’s religious and political leadership. Bilateral relations have been strained in recent years, with the countries competing for influence across the region, but they now have found common ground in opposition to the Iraqi Kurdistan independence vote, which took place last month. “The most important motivation for …

CHRI – An attorney representing Iranian border couriers, “kulbar” in Farsi, has criticized a local governor in northwestern Iran for making “unreasonable” and “empty” promises of financial assistance to the impoverished, unlicensed tradesmen. On September 11, 2017, the governor of the city of Baneh, in Kurdistan Province, made the unusual pledge that all kulbars living within a nine-mile radius of the …

CHRI – Two residents of the Iranian city of Gorgan have been sentenced to prison and another fined for the content of their personal social media postings. The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned that Roozbeh Gilasian was sentenced to a year in prison and Nima Saffar to 80 days in prison while Elaheh Soroushnia was fined eight …

Al-monitor – The recurring debate in Iran over reviving the position of prime minister has been resumed. This time, however, the discussion appears to be taking a somewhat more serious turn, with a number of parliamentarians preparing to obtain the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to proceed from talk to action. For a decade after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, …

Al-monitor – Iran devoted enormous energy to try to prevent Iraqi Kurds from holding their Sept. 25 independence referendum, accusing the Kurdish leadership of recklessness and endangering the stability of the region. Having failed in that endeavor, officials in Tehran are now at a loss as to what punitive measures they can realistically take to punish the Kurds without causing further instability …

PayvandNews – The Islamic Republic’s Interior Minister has expressed concern about unemployment; especially in those cities where he says about 60% of the workforce is unemployed.   In an interview with Iran Students News Agency, ISNA, the minister noted, “Social harms are more acute in areas where the unemployment rate is high”. Read related report (in Persian) by Ghanoon daily In the interview he …

PayvandNews – Census reports indicate that the number of persons, aged 60 years or older, has increased by 1.5-fold over the past decade (2006-2016) in Iran.  In 2006, some 5.1 million people were 60 or older, but the number rose to 6.1 million in 2011 and to 7.4 million in 2016, ISNA reported. Currently, the country’s total population stands at about …

PayvandNews – Iran and Qatar have underlined the need for peaceful solutions to regional crises, as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visits Doha. Zarif on Tuesday sat down with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in the Qatari capital. During the meeting, Zarif highlighted the Iranian government’s principled policy to have the best relations with all its neighbors …