RFL/RE – Iran says there has been an “incident” at one of its nuclear facilities monitored by the UN’s atomic agency, but there was no damage to the site. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behruz Kamalvandi said the incident occurred early on July 2 at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in central Iran where a building under construction, described as …

RFL/RE – A confrontation is heating up between Tehran and Washington over the possible extension of a five-year arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in four months. The United States wants to extend the ban — which was part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers — indefinitely through a UN Security Council …

HRW – On June 30, an Iranian appeals court in Tehran upheld a five-year prison sentence against Fariba Adelkhah, an Iranian-French anthropologist at the Sciences Po university in Paris who has been detained for over a year. Adelkhah’s case is one of the half-dozen known instances of Iranian dual nationals who are detained in Iran on vaguely defined national security charges. Authorities …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Arash Sadeghi, a civil rights activist and political prisoner who is serving a 19-year sentence in Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, has now spent four years in prison despite deteriorating health and lack of access to medical care. According to Iran Human Rights, Arash Sadeghi who has been in prison for four years, is in a …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A Baloch man sentenced to “retribution” for premeditated murder has been executed in Iranshahr Prison. According to the Baloch Activists Campaign, on the morning of Tuesday, July 1, 2020, the death penalty of a Baloch man was carried out in Iranshahr Prison. The prisoner, whose identity has been verified as Vahid Mirbaloch-Zehi, had been imprisoned …

Al-Monitor – A year ago on July 1,  then Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi issued a decree ordering the factions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to integrate fully into the state security forces. A year later, they not only have not been integrated but are again resisting demands to assimilate with state security services, challenging the Iraqi government in multiple ways. Previous efforts by Haider …

france24.com – Iran’s judiciary said on Tuesday that a five-year jail sentence for French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah had been upheld, semi-official news agency ISNA reported. Adelkhah’s sentence, passed in May over “security charges including conspiring against national security”, was upheld by the appeals court and “she is going to serve five years” including time served since her arrest, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein …

responsiblestatecraft.org – Ever since Turkey’s military incursion into northeastern Syria in October 2019, dubbed “Operation Peace Spring,” and particularly after the Syrian government’s offensive on rebel stronghold Idlib in December with the crucial assistance of Iran-allied militias, bilateral ties between Ankara and Tehran have increasingly sourced. Until now.  In a surprise announcement that marked a noticeable shift in Iran’s regional policy, Iranian …

Radiofarda – Tehran’s Friday Prayer Imam and member of the influential Assembly of Experts (A.E.), Ahmad Khatami, has stepped in to defend the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader’s economic record. Khatami known as a hardliner and a close ally of Ali Khamenei insisted that the Supreme Leader has no responsibility in Iran’s economic affairs, adding that the executive branch of power …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said there is “no military solution” for Syria on Wednesday during a video conference with his Russian and Turkish counterparts about the war-torn country. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. “The Islamic republic believes the only solution to the Syrian crisis is political and not …