RFL/RE – The United States has condemned an Iranian court’s decision to issue death sentences against three men who took part in anti-government protests last year. Amir-Hossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi, and Mohammad Rajabi were sentenced to death in February in connection with acts of arson that took place during the protests against Iran’s government in November 2019.A statement tweeted by U.S. State …

RFL/RE — The United States has unveiled new sanctions against the Iranian metallurgical sector, blacklisting several companies, including domestic and foreign subsidiaries of the country’s main steel producer.The Treasury Department said on June 25 that the sanctioned entities included four manufacturing companies and four sales agents as part of a crackdown on entities believed to fund Iran’s “destabilizing behavior” worldwide.The …

RFL/RE – Iraqi security forces have raided the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia near Baghdad, seizing rockets and detaining more than a dozen pro-Iran fighters.The militia group targeted was Kataib Hezbollah, also identified as Brigade 45 of the Hashed al-Shaabi military force, Iraqi government officials said on June 26. The country’s elite Counterterrorism Service (CTS) carried out raid, they said.“Based …

RFL/RE – Iran’s Defense Ministry says there has been an explosion at an Iranian gas-storage facility in an area with a sensitive military site to the east of Tehran.The explosion took place in the “public area” of Parchin rather than the military site, Defense Ministry spokesman Davoud Abdi told Iranian state TV on June 26.Western intelligence services believe Tehran had …

Iran-HRM – A court in Iran has sentenced 42 workers of the Azarab factory, to lashes and prison for participating labor protests to demand months of unpaid wages.The workers are from AzarAb Industries in Arak, a large manufacturing and construction company located in the western province of Markazi.The state-run ILNA News Agency reported Wednesday that the 106th Branch of the …

Iran-HRM – Two protesters detained during November 2019 protests were severely beaten by two non-political inmates who have the support of authorities in the Greater Tehran Penitentiary. One of them was stabbed in the side and another in the back. The non-political inmates attacked Ali Ghahremani and Reza Bayat after they objected to the sale of drugs in ward 5 …

VOA – Iran’s U.N. ambassador said Thursday that he believes a U.S. resolution to extend an arms embargo against his country will be defeated and warned it would be “a very, very big mistake” if the Trump administration then tries to re-impose U.N. sanctions.  Ambassador Majid Ravanchi said restoring U.N. sanctions will end the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and …

CHRI – The family of Hedayatollah (Hedayat) Abdollahpour, a 27-year-old Kurdish-Iranian father of two who was on death row based on false charges since 2018, has been informed of his death weeks after he was secretly executed in western Iran, his father informed the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). The execution was carried out despite the fact that one of the judges in the case had earlier told Hedayat’s attorney that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and that the death sentence was a result of …

Amnesty – Kamal Hassan Ramezan Soulo, a Syrian Kurd arbitrarily detained in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, has been at risk of arbitrary execution for three years because ministry of intelligence officials refuse to acknowledge his real identity and instead are torturing and otherwise ill-treating him to make false “confessions” that he took part in an armed attack. They continue to …

CHRI – Freelance reporter Sepideh Qoliyan, issued a five-year sentence for reporting on a peaceful rally by sugar mill workers for unpaid wages, has had to report to prison to begin serving her sentence—even though some of her codefendants were pardoned—after refusing to sign a letter of apology to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Qoliyan, arrested in November 2018 in Shush, southwest Iran, for covering …