Radiofarda – The conflicting reports about the length of jail term of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh seems to have been resolved. Her husband Reza Khandan told AFP on Tuesday that she will be serving 10 years of the 33 he had announced yesterday on his Facebook page and in an interview with Radio Farda. Initially, there was confusion …

Radiofarda – Iran’s foreign ministry warned the UK on Tuesday that giving diplomatic protection to a British-Iranian mother jailed in Tehran would not make the situation “easier”, state news agency IRNA reported. Britain on Friday extended the status to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was arrested in Tehran in 2016. “What is certain is that the British government’s move lacks goodwill and …

Radiofarda – U.S. Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo will meet with top oil executives before he addresses a conference on Tuesday, in an effort to get them to help the administration’s effort to boost crude exports to Asia and to support its policy of isolating Iran, according to three people at two companies briefed on the agenda. The outreach represents …

Radiofarda – U.S. Special Representative Brian Hook questioned President Hassan Rouhani’s “motives” regarding Iraq, while the Iranian leader was visiting the neighboring country. In an interview with Alhurrha TV, Hook on March 11 said that when the Rouhani’s government does “prioritize his own people so why on earth he would prioritize the welfare of the Iraqi people”. Rouhani arrived in …

Radiofarda – Reports from Tehran say the prime suspect in the financial corruption case involving Iran’s petrochemical industry is linked to a body under the aegis of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Meanwhile, social media posts by Iran-based journalists say that the accused, Reza Hamzehlou, is not in custody and has been seen in Qom on Sunday and travelled to Mashad …

RFL/RE – Iran’s newly appointed head of the judiciary, a controversial hard-line cleric accused of gross human rights violations, has been elected as deputy chief of the body that names and oversees the work of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, local media report. The semiofficial IRNA news agency said that the clerical Assembly of Experts elected Ebrahim Raisi to the …

RFL/RE – Videos shared on social media recently have demonstrated the “shocking levels of abuse” women in Iran face from morality police and pro-government “thugs” seeking to enforce the country’s strict dress code, Amnesty International says. “Iran’s forced hijab laws are not only deeply degrading and discriminatory, they are also being used to justify violent assaults on women and girls …

VOA – Iran’s human rights record came under sharp criticism at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday, with a U.N. expert singling out Iran’s crackdown on dissent and practice of sentencing children to death. Presenting his first report to the Geneva-based council since taking office in July, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, cited what …

VOA – Iranian construction companies are to build thousands of residential units in the suburbs of Syria’s capital, Damascus, an Iranian state-run news agency has reported. Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) recently quoted a business official with the country’s investment association, who announced that Iran would build 200,000 residential units near Damascus. Iraj Rahbar, vice president of Iran’s Mass Construction …

HRW – Draconian Sentence for Well-Known Activist The Iranian judiciary’s draconian sentence for a prominent human rights lawyer is an appalling travesty of justice, Human Rights Watch said today. Branch 28 of Tehran’s revolutionary court has reportedly sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been in prison since June 2018 serving a 5-year sentence, to an additional 33 years in prison and 148 …