Radiofarda – Outspoken former lawmaker Ali Motahari on Wednesday said a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official has admitted to him that Iran remains silent about the suppression of Chinese Muslims — mainly Uyghurs — because of economic dependence on China. Speaking to Asr-e Iran news website, Motahari said he asked the official about the reason of Iran’s silence a while back. …

Radiofarda – Tehran turns off the lights of its highest monument, the Milad Tower, Wednesday night August 5 in solidarity with Lebanon, as analysts and politicians in Tehran have reacted to the Tuesday’s massive blast in Beirut. At the same, Iran Air is to send two airplanes to Beirut to repatriate visiting Iranians. Reports from Beirut say that the international …

Al-Arabia – Hezbollah members and affiliates had previously been caught in London and Cyprus with large quantities of ammonium nitrate, the highly explosive compound thought to be the cause of the deadly explosion in Beirut this week, according to a report by British newspaper the Telegraph. The massive explosion that ripped through Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least 137 people and injuring over 5,000, …

VOA – Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian journalist who has been jailed in her country since 2015 for human rights advocacy and who told supporters last month she was showing coronavirus symptoms, appears to have recovered from them, according to her husband. In a written message sent to VOA Persian on Tuesday, Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, living in exile in Paris, …

Iran-HRM – There have been several attacks on political prisoners in Iran’s jails in the past few days. The attacks were carried out by common prisoners incited and hired by prison authorities. On Tuesday, August 4, in Evin Prison, several financial convicts attacked and brutalized prisoner of conscience Behnam Mahjoubifar and Behnam Mousivand without any justification. They threatened to kill the latter. …

Al-Monitor – The United States will submit a resolution to the United Nations Security Council next week to ensure the arms sale ban on Iran is extended “one way or another,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said today.   “The Security Council’s mission is to maintain international peace and security. The council would make an absolute mockery of that mission if it allowed the No. 1 …

nytimes.com – Mehrdad Oskouei’s latest documentary, “Sunless Shadows,” is a startling, raw confrontation with Iran’s patriarchy. A poignant follow-up to his 2016 “Starless Dreams,” about teenage girls in a Tehran juvenile detention center, the new movie focuses on a group of adolescent girls and older women imprisoned for murdering male relatives. (Both documentaries are part of a virtual Oskouei retrospective at the …

consequenceofsound.net – Yet another Iranian band faces prison time for playing heavy metal. Death metal act Arsames were reportedly arrested last month and charged with “15 years in jail for being in a satanic metal band and being against the Islamic government,” according to official government documents (via Metal Injection). The members of Arsames are currently out on bail and awaiting …

zdnet.com – An Iranian hacking group known as Oilrig has become the first publicly known threat actor to incorporate the DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) protocol in its attacks. Speaking in a webinar last week, Vincente Diaz, a malware analyst for antivirus maker Kaspersky, said the change happened in May this year when Oilrig added a new tool to its hacking arsenal. According to Diaz, Oilrig operators …

Radiofarda – A member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce has said that China’s Kunlun Bank is refusing to deal with Iran, as warnings from the international watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regarding banking ties with the Islamic Republic have become tougher this year. Ali Shariati told local news website ILNA August 5 that for Iran the toughest challenge …