Iran-HRM – More than 4,000 child marriages of girls between 10 to 19 years of age have been reported in North Khorasan Province, from March 2018 to March 2019. Ali Zahedinia, the director of Iran’s Census Organization in North Khorasan province said that the largest number of marriages has been registered for girls between 15 and 19 years old. Admitting …

VOA – U.S. officials have expressed confidence that those who have been operating under waivers to buy Iranian oil will be able to find alternative supplies when those waivers expire next week. Speaking to reporters on a conference call, the officials cited China, Iran’s biggest oil customer, as a country they say should be able to fulfill its oil needs …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A man who was sentenced to death for rape charges, hanged at Ardabil Central prison last Thursday. According to IHR sources, on the morning of Thursday, April 18, a prisoner was hanged at the Iranian northwestern city of Ardabil’s Central Prison. He was sentenced to death for rape charges.   HRANA website identified the man …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A man who was sentenced to death for murder charges, hanged at Kermanshah Central Prison last Thursday. According to IHR sources, a man was hanged at Kermanshah Central Prison (known as Dizel Abad) on Thursday, April 18. He was sentenced to death for murder charges. Kurdpa website identified the man’s name as Jafar Hosseini. He …

CHRI – Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s statement today that he has the “authority” to exchange Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran with the US is a glaring admission that these prisoners are being held as political hostages. “If ever there was a question that imprisoned dual nationals in Iran are being used as political pawns, Zarif publicly admitted today that his government …

CHRI – Kamal Jafari Yazdi Had a Change of Heart After the 2009 Protests Kamal Jafari Yazdi, a former staunch supporter of the Iranian government, has been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment by a preliminary court for his social media activities, he informed the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on April 19, 2019. An unnamed judge at Branch …

CHRI – Twenty-five women and men were arrested at a private party near the Iranian city of Gorgan, Golestan Province, on April 19, 2019, judicial authorities announced. “They were arrested at a mixed [gender)] party,” said Reza Seyed-Hosseini, Gorgan’s city prosecutor. “They did not have appropriate [Islamic] clothing and were consuming alcohol.” “The judicial official on watch ordered the arrest after …

Al-Monitor – Much of the current debate on the Donald Trump administration’s “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran concerns its decision not to extend waivers allowing eight nations – including China, India and Turkey – to import limited amounts of Iranian oil. However, it is the possible revocation of waivers that allow the remaining parties to the deal signed in 2015 to engage …

Al-Monitor – “Their efforts will end nowhere. We are able to export as much oil as we need and wish,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said two days after the United States announced that sanctions waivers granted to eight countries on the list of Iran’s crude customers will not be extended. “They need to understand that this hostility [will] not go unanswered,” …

Radiofarda – Two days after the United States announced the elimination of exemptions for buying Iranian oil, announced April 22, official reactions in Iran have been minimal so far, while Iranians on social media have been debating the expected impact on the country. But Iran’s neighbors and major players on the international stage had mixed reactions to the American decision …