Iran Human Rights (IHR) – In 2020, there was a sharp increase in the number of executions implemented in Kurdistan province compared to the previous years. Of the 267 execution in 2020, 60 people were executed in the four provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan, West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. This article is an extract from Iran Human Rights’ 2020 …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – In October 2019, days following his arrest and extradition from Iraq, dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam’s forced confessions were aired on IRIB. In another aired confession, IRIB reporter Ali Rezvani is seen interrogating a visibly exhausted and dishevelled Zam. This article is an extract from Iran Human Rights’ 2020 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in …

AL-Monitor – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has restated Tehran’s support for a cease-fire in Yemen and talks between the country’s Houthi rebels and the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. Zarif met with Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam in Muscat, Oman’s capital, Wednesday. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said its top diplomat “emphasized our country’s …

Al-Monitor – Hesamoddin Ashena, a longtime aide to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and an influential member of his office, has resigned, according to reports circulated across Iranian media April 29. Rouhani appointed government spokesman Ali Rabiei as the director of the Center for Strategic Research, affiliated with Iran’s Presidential Office, where an interview with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was conducted for confidential archives but was …

justthenews.com – The Biden administration will “talk about a longer, stronger, broader deal [with Iran] that will remain a fiction,” Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the hawkish defense and foreign policy think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, predicted Thursday in an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “So you’re going to go back into a deeply flawed nuclear deal that President …

foreignpolicy.com – Rushing back into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also called the Iran nuclear deal, would be a singularly seismic event leading to chaos and instability in the Middle East. U.S. President Joe Biden has inherited a relatively peaceful Middle East—not without its challenges—but one marked by historic peace agreements between several Arab countries and Israel …

Al-Arabia – A senior advisor to Iran’s president resigned from his post as head of a government-run think tank following allegations he was behind the leak of an audio recording in which Tehran’s foreign minister complained about the role of the military in diplomacy. For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.The resignation of Hesamoddin Ashena, …

Al-Arabia – Former US Secretary Mike Pompeo said releasing sanctions on Iran will not get the regime to “cease their malign activity” as the Biden administration considers a near wholesale rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions imposed on the Middle Eastern country. For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.“What I can’t understand …

RFL/RE – A German-Iranian human rights activist held in Iran on vague security-related charges has had her first hearing at a Revolutionary Court, her daughter and human rights groups said. Nahid Taghavi, 66, was arrested in Tehran in October while on a family visit and spent nearly five months in solitary confinement in the capital’s notorious Evin prison, in a …

Iranwire – In his recent, explosive interview with Saeed Leylaz, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was confronted with a name he has been trying to evade for years: that of Ghazanfar Roknabadi. Roknabadi, an Iranian diplomat, disappeared on September 24, 2015 in a stampede during Hajj rituals in Mina, near Mecca, when close to 2,000 pilgrims were crushed to death or injured. Eyewitnesses …