Radiofarda – Days after the United States extended a sanctions waiver that enables Iraq to continue importing gas and electricity from Iran, Iraq announced that three thousand megawatts would soon be added to the country’s power grid. “Iraq will ‘soon’ add 3,000 megawatts of power to the country’s electricity grid as it seeks to decrease dependence on imported Iranian gas,” …

VOA – The United States is threatening to close its embassy in Baghdad amid frustrations over attacks by Shi’ite militias.  News organizations quoted U.S. and Iraqi officials Sunday as saying U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Iraqi leaders in recent days that the embassy would close unless Iraq worked to stop attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic sites.  Pompeo has not discussed the …

Iran-HRM – Mostafa Hashemizadeh, a student at Tehran University, was summoned Friday to Evin Court to begin serving his sentence of six years in prison and 74 lashes. Branch 26 of Tehran’s revolutionary court had sentenced Mostafa Hashemizadeh, a civil engineering student at the University of Tehran, to 5 years in prison on a charge of “assembly and collusion to disrupt national security.” In …

Shabtabnews – IRF US Ambassador, Sam Brownback, yesterday in a twitter statement welcomed the sanctioning of  several Iranian officials and entities for gross violations of human rights. The United States has sanctioned several Iranian officials and entities for gross violations of human rights, including denial of the right to liberty of those seeking to practice their faith.  Iran should respect the right …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The tweet contains interesting indicators to how [the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard] Haas tries to dodge the issue. He presents Afkari’s killing as a judicial “execution”, enabling Zarif to say “well, you have executions in some states of the US as well.” In November 1938, a few days after Kristallnacht, the French ambassador to …

Radiofarda – The 47 countries present at this week’s United Nations Human Rights Council meeting condemned the sudden execution of the young Iranian wrestler, Navid Afkari, also demanding the release of Nasrin Sotoudeh and Narges Mohammadi and an end to the repeated violations of human rights in Iran. In a joint statement, read by the German representative to the UN …

Radiofarda – The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has set “conditions” for the United States to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “The return of the United States to the nuclear deal is the first step that they should take. For this return, [the U.S.] must compensate for damage it …

Iran-HRM -Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence against a prisoner who suffered almost 29 years on death row. The prisoner, Moein Salavarzi has languished in a cruel limbo after being arrested and charged with murdering his brother in 1991. In a phone call to his family last week, the 55-year-old said that his death sentence has been upheld by the …

Iran-HRM – The coronavirus is spreading quickly in Sheyban Prison of Ahvaz as the number of inmates has risen in the past month, deteriorating hygienic conditions at the prison. The number of inmates contracting COVID-19 in the prison has jumped up in recent months. Following the March protests over COVID-19 safety fears in Sepidar and Sheyban prisons in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, most …

Iran-HRM -Four days after the death of a protester prison, new reports indicate that he was tortured in custody despite his critical health conditions. The relatives of Nader Mokhtari dismissed the judiciary’s claims about him as “shameless lies”, saying he died of injuries received while in custody. Responding to the head of Prisons Organization of Tehran province, Heshmatollah Hayatolgheib, who claimed that …