Radiofarda – Israel says it will join the U.S. effort to boost navigation security in the Persian Gulf as international concerns grow about tensions in the area. According to Israel-based Y-Net news, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said on Tuesday August 7 that his country is part of the U.S.-led coalition to protect the security of the Persian Gulf. Katz further …

Radiofarda – Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani had another telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron August 6, to discuss issues surrounding U.S. sanctions on Iran and related tensions. Rouhani and Macron have been reportedly discussing ways to reduce heightened tensions in recent weeks, with several telephone contacts between the two. Rouhani’s office quoted him as having told Macron, “Concurrent with …

Radiofarda – Two weeks after a visit to Tehran by representatives from HAMAS, Israeli media on Tuesday August 6 reported an eye-catching increase in Iran’s financial assistance to this Palestinian group. Quoting unnamed Israeli government sources, these reports say Iran has increased its usual annual $100 million aide to HAMAS to $360 million after the visit. The Jerusalem Post and …

Al-Arabia – French President Emmanuel Macron has not invited Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to the G7 summit to be held in Biarritz later this month, a French diplomatic source said on Wednesday. The official was responding to a report on the Al-Monitor website that Macron had invited Rouhani to the G7 meeting in Biarritz at the end of August to …

RFL/RE – Fourteen Iranian women’s rights activists have called for the resignation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and for a “full transition” which would allow the adoption of a new constitution granting equal rights to women.The activists, including lawyer Guiti Pourfazel, said in an August 5 statement published online that four decades of theocratic rule has led to “gender …

VOA – Iran asked U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to push back against the United States after it imposed sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, describing the move as a “dangerous precedent.” In a letter to Guterres, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi accused the United States of a “brazen violation of the fundamental principles of international …

Amnesty – Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali has been subjected to enforced disappearance since 29 July, when Iranian authorities transferred him from Tehran’s Evin prison to an unidentified location. He is under pressure to “confess” to new crimes and has been threatened with the implementation of his death sentence if he does not. Fifth UA: 038/17 Index: MDE 13/0853/2019 Iran Date: …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – At least 38 prisoners have been executed in Iran in July 2019. This is the highest number of executions in a month in the country during the past 20 months. According to the IHR statistic department, at least 37 prisoners have been executed in different Iranian prisons and one hanged in public. Most of the …

gatestoneinstitute.org – What, one has to ask, does Iran’s Islamic regime have to fear from the country’s Christians, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, Sufis, Sunni Muslims, or Jews? Yet its treatment of these minorities is so repressive that it seems not unreasonable to ask if the clerics might be afraid of what they consider challenges to their fantasy of pure Islamic identity. So …

​Al-Monitor – In a speech replete with both bellicose and conciliatory impulses, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic favored talks with the US administration if the latter lifted all the sanctions it reimposed following its withdrawal in May 2018 from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “Before everything else, they need to remove all of the sanctions regardless of whether …