Amnesty – Responding to the news that Iranian human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi has been sentenced to 30 years in prison and 111 lashes for his human rights work, including publicizing violations through a channel he set up on the Telegram mobile messaging app and giving media interviews, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The new book, a sort of biography, was originally written in Arabic under the title “En Ma’a al-sabr fathan” (“Patience Leads to Victory”) but has just come out in Persian translation under a pseudo-poetical title, “The Drop of Blood That Became a Ruby”. The “Supreme Guide,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recalls his “passion for reading famous Iranian and world …

Al-Monitor – The recently intensified US pressure on Iran is, according to many observers, bridging the gap between the country’s rival political camps. But on the ground, signs indicate otherwise. Indeed, Iran’s multilayered politics remains plagued by fundamental internal strife — and the US pressure is exacerbating it.  Calls for unity from Iranian politicians have in recent months grown louder …

Al-Monitor — In a sign of President Donald Trump’s growing impatience with stalled nuclear diplomacy with Iran and North Korea, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo generated headlines when he offered Sunday to hold talks with Iran without any preconditions, even as he subsequently insisted that the position was not a new one. “We’re prepared to engage in a conversation with …

Al-Monitor – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made headlines June 2 when he said that the United States is ready to negotiate with Iran with “no preconditions.” Pompeo added that the Donald Trump administration simply wants Iran to act like a “normal nation.” The United States unilaterally reneged on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA) between Iran, the five permanent members of …

Radiofarda – Syrian state media said government air defenses responded to an act of “aggression” by Israel against an air base in the central Homs Province. The nature and the origin of the attack on the T4 air base, which was reported by the official SANA news agency, could not be immediately confirmed. “Our air defenses thwarted an Israeli aggression …

Radiofarda – Iran’s water management authority says that after a season of heavy rains and weeks of flooding, 82 percent of the country’s dam capacity is full. Iran was suffering from dangerous drought for nearly a decade and some cities were facing water shortages as recently as last summer. But the winter and spring of 2018-2019 had a different story …

Radiofarda – Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has threatened that U.S. military personnel and warships in the region are within the range of Iranian missiles. The threat from Iran came as the U.S. Air Force announced on Sunday June 2 that a B-52 bomber and USS Abraham Lincoln dispatched to the …

Radiofarda – A member of Shiraz city council in Iran was taken from his home to prison to serve a one-year sentence Sunday June 2, his wife said in a tweet. Mehdi Hajati was first arrested and detained for ten days last September for defending the rights of the Baha’i minority, which is severely persecuted by the Islamic Republic, especially the conservative …

Radiofarda – An Iranian lawyer has been jailed for 30 years after setting up a channel on the popular social media platform Telegram, highlighting human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic. Amir Salar Davoudi was convicted by a revolutionary court for “propaganda against the state” and “insulting officials” and is set to be flogged 111 times. According to his lawyer …