Radiofarda – In response to a tweet by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accusing the United States government of “murdering” young American protesters, State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said on Saturday that Iranians deserve “freedom and a future, not the Basij’s bullets.” “Khamenei’s thugs killed 1,500 Iranians on the streets of Iran last November,” Ortagus wrote, quoting Khamenei’s tweet. “At …

Radiofarda – Iranian society has been fighting systematic censorship for over four decades; from the ban on videotapes in 1980s, jamming satellite television, blocking news websites in 2000s and social media in recent years. Nonetheless, a glance at the past shows that the Iranian government’s extensive restrictions have had very little if any impact on the way Iranians have been …

Radiofarda – The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Sunday his group will facilitate the formation of a government that would be able to improve economic conditions in the crisis-stricken country and undertake major reforms. Hassan Nasrallah said his group is also open to calls from France for a new political contract in Lebanon, on condition that all Lebanese sects are …

Iran-HRM – The state security forces have summoned and arrested 130 locals in Abolfazl village who had protested the destruction of their homes and confiscation of their lands on orders of Khamanei’s “charity” Mostazafan Foundation. Some of these people who have currently been bailed out say that they were pressured in detention to sign a pledge and accept to have …

Radiofarda – Iranian human rights activists have reported that a court in Shiraz has sentenced a 27-year-old to two death sentences on charges that have not been officially explained. Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has reported that Navid Afkari who was arrested with his two brothers Vahid and Habib in August 2018 have been charged with forming a group …

Radiofarda – The Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) reports that in the second quarter of 2020, the country did not receive any natural gas from Iran. At the end of March, the separatist left-leaning Kurdish party, PKK, blew up the Iran-Turkey natural gas pipeline, but unlike previous cases Ankara delayed repairing the pipeline for three months. Therefore, it did …

Radiofarda – Iran’s central bank said on Saturday it was taking legal steps to counter a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court by creditors seeking to seize $1.7 billion of its assets held by Deutsche Boerse’s Clearstream unit. The German stock exchange operator said earlier the creditors had filed the suit in a New York court seeking to require Clearstream …

Radiofarda – A renowned Iranian writer, human rights lawyer and activist, Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh is reportedly in critical condition after being on hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin prison for over two weeks, the U.S. Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN) said in a statement Friday, August 28. Meanwhile, the PEN has called for the immediate release of Sotoudeh and other political …

RFL/RE – A group of 40 Iranian lawmakers has submitted a controversial draft bill to the parliament that could result in harsher online censorship by giving control of the country’s Internet gateways to the armed forces, including the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).The bill also calls for the creation of a board that will oversee social-media platforms and deal …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A number of August 2018 protesters in Shiraz were arrested a month and a half later on charges of murdering a person said to be a plainclothes agent. Of those, Navid Afkari was sentenced to qisas (retribution in-kind) for murder and his brother, Vahid sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of being the secondary to …