Iranwire.com – According to the Iranian Ministry of Health, as of December 19, no city in Iran is in a red state of alert. The number of Covid-19 fatalities has fallen to between 150 and 200 per day and the number of hospitalizations and visits to hospitals have fallen as well. Nevertheless, two upcoming occasions have been the cause of …

Iran-HRM- Agents of the clerical regime’s Intelligence Ministry destroyed the tomb of Navid Afkari, the wrestling champion who was hastily executed on September 12, 2020. A few hours after the arrest of father and brother of Navid Afkari by his grave, Elham Afkari, his sister, announced that the tomb of his brother had been destroyed. On Thursday, December 17, the father …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Two prisoners sentenced to death on “drug-related” charges, have been executed at Zahedan Central Prison. According to Iran Human Rights, two prisoners were executed at Zahedan Central Prison on the morning of Saturday, December 19. The two prisoners, identified as Behnam Rigi and Shoaib Rigi, had been on death row for “drug-related” charges. An informed …

Iranwire.com – During the past week, several Iranians active in cultural affairs, women’s and children’s rights, and voluntary social activities, were arrested in various cities of Khuzestan province and transferred to unknown locations. Fatemeh Tamimi, Maryam Ameri, Azhar Alboghbish and her two brothers, Reza and Abbas, Zeinab Savari, her brother Hamzeh and her niece Fatemeh, were among those arrested. All the detainees were involved in …

Iranwire.com – Dozens of Afghans abandon school and life in Afghanistan every day due to poverty, unemployment, insecurity and war, and travel to Iran. If they survive being smuggled across the border then they work as laborers – sometimes for generations because of the restrictions and discrimination against Afghans in Iranian society. Afghans are also regularly detained by the police during …

Iranwire.com – In a newly published study, a journal affiliated with the National Defense University examines the views held by Iran’s senior intelligence and security experts regarding social media. According to these officials, social media has an impact on national security in 15 distinct areas. Almost all of this impact is negative. Overall, these officials believe that social media threatens, …

Iranwire.com – Prison Narratives is a collection of reports narrated by prisoners – sometimes famous and sometimes unknown. The narrators, political and ideological prisoners as well as convicts of ordinary crimes, tell us about their lives in prison. Our latest report will address the issue of sexual behavior in prisons; from exchanging pictures of women, to instances of rape. Power relations …

Al-Arabia – Radoslaw Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister, has described Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif as a “Ribbentrop,” referring to Joachim von Ribbentrop who was minister of foreign affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. “I have a request to the diplomats from our nation states and from our [European External Action Service]. Next time you meet with …

Radiofarda -In Ebrahim Zalzadeh’s last editorial, addressed to the Iranian regime’s strong man, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, he declared, “Dictatorship will not last.” In response, regime forces broke his fingers and, after stabbing him 17 times, cut his artery and dumped his body in the deserts of Yaft Abad, a poverty-stricken district southwest of the Iranian capital city, Tehran. Iranian …

Iran-HRM – Execution in the Central Prison of Qom; 14 others await their verdicts An inmate was executed on Thursday morning, December 17, 2020, in the Central Prison of Qom. The executed prisoner was Shahab Javid. He had been arrested and detained ten years ago in 2010 on the charge of kidnapping and rape. He was sentenced to death on …