Iran-HRM – Exact statistics do not exist on the area of Iran’s forests, but current stats do indicate a process of destruction in Iran’s forests. Over the past five decades, the country’s forest area has dropped from about 18 million hectares to 12.4 million hectares while the northern forest area has dropped from about 3.4 million hectares to 1.8 million …

Al-Arabia – In the rich, transcendent city of Riyadh, shrapnel from a missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Sunday night killed an Egyptian resident and injured other civilians.

Amnesty – Eight detainees from Iran’s Gonabadi Dervish minority began a hunger strike on 27 March in protest against the torture and other ill-treatment to which they say they are subjected. One of the men, Abbas Dehghan, has allegedly been threatened with his wife being raped in front of him if he does not “confess”. The men require medical care …

Amnesty – At least 11 women from Iran’s Gonabadi Dervish religious minority have been arbitrarily detained in inhumane conditions, without access to their lawyers, since 20 February following the violent dispersal of a protest held by Gonabadi Derivshes in Tehran. Some urgently need medical care for injuries sustained from beatings at the time of their arrest.

CHRI – Iran’s cyber police, known as FATA, and the Intelligence Ministry have summoned rights activists in mainly Kurdish-populated provinces of the country and accused them of protesting against the state.

CHRI – Sharon Gardens, a valuable property near Tehran confiscated from Iran’s largest Christian Protestant organization by a group controlled by the country’s supreme leader, was hit with an eviction order on March 7, 2018.

Al-Monitor – When Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif began his tenure in 2013, the American-educated diplomat knew that he would need to bypass many of the traditional media outlets to spread Iran’s message directly on the international stage. At the time, there was no platform better suited for this objective than Twitter. There was only one problem. Since the …

Radiofarda – The rapid and record fall of the Iranian currency has made many Iranians angry at President Hassan Rouhani, who has repeatedly dismissed the rise of the dollar against the rial as insignificant and transient.

Radiofarda – An anti-drug police chief in Iran says security agencies have captured 14 metric tons of illegal drugs during the first week of the new Iranian year.

AFP – France on Thursday accused Iran of supplying weapons to Houthi rebels fighting a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.