AFP.com – From the hustle and bustle of a startup, Fereshteh Kasrai now works from home, like many Iranian women fighting to keep hard-won tech jobs as the coronavirus outbreak stirs uncertainty. Iran says the COVID-19 disease has claimed more than 5,200 lives and infected close to 83,000 over the past two months, in the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak. Kasrai …

Radiofarda – Outspoken Iranian lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeqi (Sadeghi) on Tuesday confirmed that a court has sentenced him for charges brought against him by a high-ranking official appointed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On Tuesday a news agency linked with the Revolutionary Guard reported that Sadeqi has been sentenced to 21 months in prison and fifty million rials of cash …

Radiofarda – A council overseeing Friday Prayer Imams in the Islamic Republic of Iran has accepted the resignation of Iranshahr’s prayer leader, Shojauddin Abtahi, Hawza (seminary) news agency reports. On Saturday, April 18, a video was published on social media showing the mid-ranking clergy, Abtahi, sitting in a car, and distributing cash among people seeking a daily job in the …

Radiofarda – An official of the Iranian Agriculture Ministry on Monday said a huge new wave of locusts is expected to invade the southern provinces of Iran in two weeks. In late February and early March massive swarms of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) invaded the southern regions of Iran. The locusts that destroy all crops along their way have been …

Radiofarda – Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has reiterated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s responsibility in increasing the price of gasoline in mid-November 2019 when Iranian security forces are said to have killed around 1,500 protesters during unrest in reaction to a gasoline price hike. According to official news agency IRNA, Rahmani Fazli who was speaking via video teleconference in …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s judiciary has extended British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s temporary release from jail by another month, her lawyer told state news agency IRNA on Tuesday. Read the latest updates in our dedicated coronavirus section.In mid-March, Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, was temporarily released from Tehran’s Evin prison for two weeks along with thousands of other prisoners amid the coronavirus outbreak.“Zaghari’s furlough was …

Iran-HRM – Political prisoner Soheil Arabi was returned to the Greater Tehran Penitentiary from the IRGC’s detention center. In response to the threats made by his interrogators to silence him, Soheil Arabi said: “This is the era of communications. It is not the 1980s when you executed thousands of people and nobody found out. You silence your opponents by suppression …

Iran-HRM – Kurdish political prisoner Esmail Moridi has sewn his lips closed in protest being denied temporary prison leave amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Esmail Moridi has on hunger strike and stitched his mouth closed since April 12, after his request for temporary release was rejected by the authorities despite the Covid-19 pandemic.He has been imrisoned since five years ago serving …

RFL/RE – Suspected Israeli warplanes targeted Iranian and Iran-backed fighters in eastern Syria near the historic town of Palmyra. Syrian state media SANA said late on April 20 that air defenses “confronted an Israeli missile aggression” and “shot down a number of the hostile missiles before reaching their targets.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Juvenile offender Shayan Saeedpour was executed this morning at the prison of Saqqez city, Kurdistan province.  IHR strongly condemns Shayan Saeedpour’s execution and calls for a strong international reaction. IHR director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said: “Execution of juvenile offenders is an international crime and must be condemned by the international community, especially the European governments. The …