RFL/RE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of an investigation in Turkey into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer has testified. The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, told a New York court on December 11 that the Turkish investigation that he led in 2012-2013 …

RFL/RE – A top Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander has offered Iran’s “complete support” for Palestinian militants in their resistance campaign against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. General Qassem Soleimani, who oversees the IRGC’s foreign operations branch, made the offer to the Palestinian commanders of Islamic Jihad and the Izz Al-Deen Qassam brigades, …

Al-Arabia – From day one the regime of Iran has been based on the pillars of domestic crackdown, and exporting terrorism and a reactionary, religious mentality. As we speak, spreading extremism and Islamic fundamentalism remains a cornerstone policy of Iran’s state-run strategy, all hacked into this regime’s constitution. The real image Earlier this year Amnesty International’s 94-page report, “Caught in …

Al-Arabia – Qais Khazali, a leader of a Popular Mobilization Forces’ militia, recently visited the Lebanese borders with Israel. This is a dangerous development that falls within the framework of regional conflict. The leader of an Iraqi militia gets involved in an Iranian mission to spark a clash between Lebanon and Israel! Both parties, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iraqi …

Amnesty – The Iranian Supreme Court has run roughshod over the rule of law by upholding the death sentence of Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-born Swedish resident and specialist in emergency medicine, through a secret and hasty process and without allowing any defence submission, Amnesty International revealed today. Ahmadreza Djalali’s lawyers learned on Saturday 9 December that Branch 1 of the …

CHRI – Security forces prevented a gathering near Tehran marking the 19th anniversary of a series of murders and disappearances by the Intelligence Ministry of dissidents in the 1990s known as the “chain murders.” The Writers Association of Iran (WAI) issued a statement on December 7, 2017, hours after many of its members and supporters were prevented from entering Imamzadeh …

CHRI – Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence issued against Iranian-born Swedish resident Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been imprisoned in Tehran since April 2016 after being arrested by the Intelligence Ministry. Djalali’s wife, Vida Mehran-nia, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that her husband’s main lawyer was told the Supreme Court’s decision in court on …

Al-Monitor – Once again, Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made headlines following his controversial remarks targeting judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani and his brother, parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. The war of words illustrates yet again Ahmadinejad’s typical strategy, which is to attack influential political families to gain more popularity with the public. Thus, his latest attacks on the …

Al-Monitor – Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Iran on Dec. 10. Ahead of the trip, Johnson said that he would address British concerns over the imprisonment of dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was arrested and sentenced in 2016 to five years in prison. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is employed by Thomson Reuters Foundation, was charged with plotting to overthrow the Iranian …

PayvandNews – Nine Iranian climbers were fatally buried by an avalanche on Oshtoran Kooh Mountain, in the country’s west on Friday. The climbers were among a group of 15 men and women from the city of Mashhad and a local guide who were trapped by the avalanche on Thursday. source: Haft-e Sobh daily They were heading back from Oshtoran Kooh, one of …