Shabtabnews – Ambassador Sam Brownback , the US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom , yesterday expressed in a formal letter his condolences on the passing of the Gonabadi Sufi’s spiritual leader, Dr Noor Ali Tabandeh and the plight of the Sufis in Iran. In the latter he stated “Nobody should suffer abuse because of their faith. Dr Tabandeh’s steadfast advocacy …

Radiofarda – Iran’s conservative dominated Guardian Council has barred nearly one third of the current members of the Iranian Parliament (Majles) from running for the upcoming parliamentary elections, official news agency IRNA and semei-official agency ISNA reported Sunday January 12. Some 800 candidates were also disqualified by the Interior Ministry last month. However, the 80 or so MPs whose disqualification …

Radiofarda – In a new daring letter to the Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a top Iranian dissident politician Mehdi Karroubi has dismissed him as “unqualified” for running the country. Referring to the downing of Ukraine Airlines Boeing 737 that killed all 176 passengers and crew January 8, Karroubi has insisted in the letter that Khamenei has none of …

Radiofarda – Iran’s exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi says the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is responsible for the downing of a Ukraine Airlines Boeing, which killed all 176 people onboard. Three days after the airliner crashed on a flight from Tehran to Kyiv, the Islamic Republic admitted that it was “erroneously” shot down by an anti-aircraft missile. The …

RFL/RE – Britain’s ambassador to Tehran has said he was detained briefly by Iranian authorities as he attended a vigil for the victims of last week’s crash of a Ukrainian passenger jet. Iran’s Mehr news agency said Rob Macaire was arrested on January 11 for his alleged “involvement in provoking suspicious acts” at the gathering in front of Tehran’s Amir …

RFL/RE – Kimia Alizadeh, Iran’s only female Olympic medalist, says she has permanently left the country, decrying what she called the “injustice” and “hypocrisy” of an Iranian political system that uses and humiliates athletes for political purposes. “Should I start with hello, goodbye, or condolences?” she wrote on Instagram on January 11.The 21-year-old Alizadeh, who won a bronze medal in taekwondo at …

RFL/RE – Pakistan’s foreign minister is set to hold talks with top Iranian officials in Tehran amid spiraling tensions in the region following the U.S. drone killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani. The January 12 visit by Shah Mehmood Qureshi follows protests two days earlier in the Pakistani city of Peshawar by hundreds of Shi’ite Muslims outraged by Soleimani’s …

RFL/RE – Iranian students have protested outside several universities for a second day amid mounting outrage over officials’ admission that an Iranian antiaircraft battery was responsible for downing a Ukrainian passenger jet. Videos circulating on social media on January 12 showed protesters gathering outside Beheshti University in Tehran, chanting “the students are vigilant and are fed up with that Ali” …

VOA – Iranian officials told the truth about the circumstances of a Ukrainian jetliner crash only after it became apparent that the evidence on the ground from the doomed flight would not allow the Iranians to continue to lie, according to a leading U.S. newspaper. The plane crashed Wednesday, but Iran did not reveal that it had shot down the …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Soleimani had his own network of lobbyists in many Arab countries and some Western democracies. Hundreds of Iranian and Arab militants have enrolled in Western universities with scholarships from the Quds Force. Soleimani, who loved making and publishing “selfies” showing himself close to battlegrounds in the Middle East, was never present anywhere near a battle but was always …