Radiofarda – President Hassan Rouhani’s administration has barred dozens of well-known reformist figures from running for the Iranian parliament (Majles) in the upcoming election in February. Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on Wednesday December 18 that the ministry’s executive committee for elections has endorsed the qualification of 91 percent of over 16,000 candidates for the 290 seats in the …

Iran-HRM – Tehran’s appeals court on December 2 sentenced two detainees and seven activists in connection with the protests of the Haft Tapeh Sugar Company to a total of 45 years in prison. According to the verdict of Atefeh Rangriz and Marzieh Amiri, two of the detainees of the International Labor Day and , seven labor activists who participated in the protests including …

Iran-HRM – The scale of the crimes the Iranian regime committed in cracking down on Iran protests in November becomes more evident every day. More than 1,500 have been killed by security forces, plainclothes agents and Revolutionary Guards. Over 4,000 have been wounded and at least 12,000 arrested and detained. Actual figures must be considered much higher. Many cases have not been registered due …

RFL/RE – Iranian President Hassan Rohani has kicked off a visit to Japan, as Tokyo seeks to mediate between Iran and the United States amid heightened tensions between the two countries.Rohani is the first Iranian leader to visit the East Asian country in nearly two decades. His trip comes after Shinzo Abe became in June the first Japanese prime minister …

WASHINGTON — The United States is implementing additional restrictive measures on Iran for what it says are ongoing human rights abuses, following a deadly crackdown last month on protesters in Tehran and more than 100 other cities and towns.At a panel discussion on the topic in Washington that he hosted, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on December 19 …

RFL/RE — European lawmakers have passed a resolution denouncing the “widespread and disproportionate” use of force by Iranian security forces against nonviolent protesters. The nonbinding resolution adopted on December 19 demands that all protesters, human rights defenders, and journalists currently held behind bars “for exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of expression and assembly” be released unconditionally.Iran is facing international …

VOA – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it is “appalled” by a Tehran court’s decision to uphold prison sentences for four journalists from the Gam (Step) online magazine. However, the appeals court in Tehran reduced the length of the jail terms from 18 to five years for each journalist — Amirhossein Mohammadifard, Sanaz Allahyari, Amir Amirgholi, and Assal Mohammadi — …

Amnesty – Detained labour rights activist Bakhtiar Rahimi, from Iran’s Kurdish minority, was arrested on 27 November 2019 in Marivan, Kurdistan province. Bakhtiar Rahimi has serious heart and kidney conditions for which he needs daily medication. The Iranian authorities have denied him access to a lawyer and permitted him only one very brief phone call to his family since his …

CHRI – Azar Mirzapour Zahabi, a 48-year-old nurse and mother of four, was killed by a bullet to the heart in the Golshahr district of Karaj on November 16, 2019, while Iranian authorities were repressing protests there, her sister told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). Zahabi’s sister, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, told …

Al-Monitor – On Dec. 8, President Hassan Rouhani presented his budget bill for the next Iranian year — starting March 21— which he termed a tool of “resistance against US sanctions.” Will the bill’s new approaches positively impact Iran’s sanctions-hit economy? Iran’s budget bills consist of two parts, i.e., a smaller part that reflects the government’s financial framework and a much larger segment that covers the forecasts for all …