RFL/RE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the Biden administration is considering possible action against Russia, a day after police used batons and tasers against protesters demanding the release of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. In a TV interview aired on February 1, Blinken said he was “deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown.” He also said in …

Iranwire – In the second half of the year 1997, efforts by Iran’s then-president to improve relations with the United States were defeated in the usual way: at the hand of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Mohammad Khatami had won the presidential election against the will of Ali Khamenei. In December that year, Khatami hosted a meeting of leaders of …

Iranwire – Touraj Amini, an Iranian writer and researcher of the Qajar era and Constitutional movement who is also a Baha’i, was taken to prison on January 29, to serve a six-month prison sentence on charges of spreading “propaganda against the regime” through his books and research. According to an informed source, for two days, Amini’s family has not known …

VOA – The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was hailed by its signatories at the time as a triumph of global diplomacy. The elation was short-lived. Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement three years later and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran’s economy. Tehran responded by increasing its nuclear enrichment activities, edging closer to the levels …

CHRI – Blue-collar workers as well as students who’ve been disproportionately impacted by the country’s struggling economy dominated media reports of people taking their own lives. The victims include an 11-year-old boy in Bushehr, located on the Persian Gulf coast, whose family could not afford to buy him a digital device to access online schooling, as well as a poor …

Amnesty – Ministry of Intelligence agents are torturing Iranian Kurdish woman Zeynab Jalalian by deliberately denying her health care to coerce her into providing a videotaped “confession”. This intentional denial of health care is causing her severe pain and suffering, particularly as she has serious medical conditions, including post-Covid-19 breathing difficulty. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1336052021ENGLISH.pdf

Iranwire – Exploiting unelected institutions to advance his policies has become normal for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. One of the institutions that has done the most to advance his plans, and those of Iran’s security establishment, is the country’s judiciary; which, in a functioning democracy, would have to be independent if the democracy were to work. Article 86 of the Islamic …

Iranwire – Some 21 Baluch citizens were executed in the cities of Mashhad, Isfahan and Zahedan between December 19, 2020 and January 30, 2021. At least four of these people were charged with political and security-related offences. Despite widespread condemnation of the accelerated executions both inside and outside Iran, the authorities have continued to issue more Baluch Iranians with the …

Iranwire – Jianli Yang, a mathematician and human rights activist, survived China’s Tiananmen massacre in 1989, after which he left China for the United States. He returned in 2002 and was jailed between 2002 and 2007 for supporting the country’s labor movement. He was intermittently held in solitary confinement for a total of 15 months – as detailed in a previous …