Radiofarda – The UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution extending the mandate on Iran, the Islamic Republic’s official news agency IRNA reported. According to IRNA, “Adopted along with five other resolutions in a meeting in Geneva on Friday, the resolution on Iran extended by a period of one year the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation …

Radiofarda – High-ranking Shi’ite cleric Nasser Makarem Shirazi has criticized Iranian officials for using the expression “compulsory hijab,” fearing its “negative connotation” would undermine the Islamic nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Speaking in Qom during a meeting with Police Chief Hossein Ashtari on March 24, Makarem Shirazi, better known as Makarem, tried to reduce a social and political …

Iran-HRM – Four representatives of the “Iran Poplin” weaving company in Rasht, north of Iran have been dismissed for protesting not receiving wages for the past 3 months. Workers of Iran Poplin Company protested recently protested against the nonpayment of their salaries in January, February and March 2018. Iran Poplin Co. engages in manufacturing and exporting dyed and printed fabrics …

Iran-HRM – Mehdi Ghamari Binisly, an Azeri activist who lives in Tehran, was arrested by security forces last week in relation to a case involving the publishing of an Azeri calendar. He has been taken to an unknown location. The calendar in question was in Turkish and various events, including the Mother Tongue Day and images of a number of …

Iran-HRM – Energy Minister Reza Ardakaniyan said that water quality was a topic that has been overlooked thus far. “To date, we have contaminated water resources with industrial, agricultural and household wastewaters. It’s not possible to continue this situation,” he added. “We are facing a crisis when it comes to providing water rights for wetlands and the environment… We are …

RFL/RE – This latest session of the Majlis explored the ties Iran and Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have with the five Central Asian states. The expanding competition, for example, between Iran and Saudi Arabia has reached Central Asia, opening up new opportunities and seemingly closing off other possibilities. RFE/RL’s media relations manager, Muhammad …

Al-Arabia – One of the books I bought from this year’s Riyadh Book Fair is “Four important letters exchanged between Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I and Oman’s Imam Ahmed bin Saeed” by Saudi historian Mohammed al-Zalfa. The book was published by Dar Belad AlArab. After explaining why he copied these documents from the Ottoman archive, al-Zalfa said: “Oman was powerful …

Al-Monitor – Iranians have long been fond of cinema, and the country’s politicians are no exception. But in recent decades, politicians have been increasingly influencing the film industry to achieve political objectives. Iranian cinema and politics have always had a relationship with each other, but the role of cinema in politics surged in the late 1990s. Indeed, Iranian presidential candidates …

Long before the recent events in Teheran’s Golestan 7th street the minority religions, especially Sufi orders and particularly the Gonabadi Sufi order within Iran, were under the systematic persecution of the regime in Iran. Mid of February 2018 Teheran witnessed clashes between peacefully demonstrating Sufis and the security forces of Basij, Sepah and Police. These clashes resulted in several casualties along …

RFL/RE – U.S. authorities have charged nine Iranians and an Iranian company in what they say was a hacking scheme that stole “massive amounts” of data from hundreds of universities, dozens of companies, and parts of the U.S. government on behalf of the Iranian government.