Al-Arabia – At least nine people were injured in a blast on Sunday at a plant producing explosive materials in Iran’s central province of Isfahan, ISNA news agency reported. The blast ocurred at Sepahan Nargostar Chemical Industries at 4:00 am local time (2330 GMT) due to “unclear reasons still being investigated,” said Mansour Shisheforoush, head of the province’s crisis management …

VOA – Iran’s parliament speaker said Sunday that international inspectors may no longer access surveillance images of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites, escalating tensions amid diplomatic efforts in Vienna to save Tehran’s atomic accord with world powers. The comments by Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, aired by state TV, further underscored the narrowing window for the U.S. and others …

Iran-HRM – Inhumane treatment and torture of political prisoners to put them under profound psychological pressure is a common practice in Iran’s prisons to extract forced confessions from prisoners against their will. Torture and other inhuman treatment of prisoners cause irreversible psychological and physical harms to their health. Prolonged interrogations, intimidation, sexual harassment, beatings of detainees during interrogation, long-term solitary …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A prisoner sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Mashhad Central Prison on Wednesday. According to Khorasan newspaper, a man only identified as 25-year-old Sajad, was executed in Mashhad Central Prison on May 19. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder during a fight. Sajad was charged with murdering a 42 year old man during a …

Shabtabnews – In a letter a group of organizations, ask the members of the US congress to co-sponsor the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act . Forced organ harvesting and organ trafficking are interlinked crimes where organs are taken from victims through coercion or without informed consent and sold illegally. This means that patients undergoing organ transplants abroad are at-risk of …

RFL/RE – Less than a month before Iran’s June 18 presidential election, there are few signs of enthusiasm about the vote. For many Iranians, voting in the Islamic republic has often been a choice between bad or worse. Elections in Iran are tightly restricted, with candidates being preselected by hard-liners on the country’s unelected Guardians Council. Frustrated by the limited …

RFL/RE -Iran is using Bitcoin mining to evade crippling U.S. sanctions on its economy, according to a new study. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates that around 4.5 percent of global Bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing the country to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies that can be used to “purchase imports and bypass sanctions.” U.S. sanctions have …

Iranwire – A fake Persian-language driving licence app, concealing malicious software. A petrol bomb hurled onto a politician’s porch. The brazen kidnapping of an activist in exile. These are just some of the Islamic Republic’s attacks on Iranians in Sweden that have been exposed in the past 12 months. The multi-pronged threat the regime now poses to the 100,000 Iranians …

Iranwire – Anyone who has heard about the gruesome murder of Iranian film director Babak Khorramdin has been shocked. His dismembered body was found in three separate garbage cans on Nafisi Street in western Tehran in the early hours of May 16, and Khorramdim’s father confessed to the murder, with his wife admitting to being an accomplice. But in the …

Iranwire – In a “top secret” letter recently leaked on social media, Tehran Justice Department ordered that Instagram, Google Play (Android app store), VPNs and filter-breakers be blocked in Iran. The order was published by Nariman Gharib, a United Kingdom-based activist, on his Twitter account on May 19. It was attributed to Javad Javidnia, a deputy chief of the department. A few …