Radiofarda – In an unprecedented admission, the former Iranian ambassador to Germany has admitted that the Europeans have “evidence” of Iran’s involvement in “espionage and terrorism” that Tehran cannot easily deny.

Radiofarda – Iranian Writers Association (IWA) has strongly protested the decision by judicial authorities to set huge, unaffordable bails for three of its indicted members, which has led to their detention.

Radiofarda-  Following talks with his Turkish counterpart in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the two leaders discussed how they planned to stabilize the situation in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib.

RFL/RE – Iranian television anchorwoman Marzieh Hashemi has been released from U.S. detention after being held as a material witness in an unidentified case, officials concerned with her case say.

HRW – Broadcast of Coerced Confession, Failure to Investigate Torture

Amnesty – The Iranian authorities carried out a shameless campaign of repression during 2018, crushing protests and arresting thousands in a wide-scale crackdown on dissent, said Amnesty International, a year after a wave of protests against poverty, corruption and authoritarianism erupted across the country.

HRANA – The following is an overview of human rights violations in Iran on January 23rd, 2019 based on the information compiled and verified by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Al-Monitor – On Jan. 12, Seyed Hasan Aghamirii, a popular Iranian cleric, posted on his Instagram account that he had been sentenced to two years in prison and defrocked. The latter is an unusual and rather modern form of punishment in the world of Shiite Islam that is exclusive to the Islamic Republic of Iran. “After 10, 15 years of arrests and taking over my …

Al-Monitor – Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi is rising to become an ever more popular figure among the new generation of hard-liners in Iran, following the footsteps of hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi. Both men are waging a war against the present atmosphere at the Qom seminary — the theological center of Iran — charging that it is not sufficiently revolutionary.

Al-Monitor – The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran says his country has taken key steps toward being able to quickly resume uranium enrichment to the 20% level, an activity it agreed to suspend under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) struck with world powers in 2015.