tabletmag.com – As the Biden administration gives every indication of removing most sanctions on the world’s top state sponsor of terror in pursuit of its nuclear deal, that regime has produced a new president personally culpable—and sanctioned by the United States—for large-scale crimes against humanity. As the handpicked sixty-year-old Ebrahim Raisi is also likely to succeed the ailing Ali Khamenei …

Al-Arabia – Iran accused the United States on Tuesday of interference for saying its presidential election on Friday was neither free nor fair, Iranian state media reported. A US State Department spokesman said on Monday the United States viewed the process that made Ebrahim Raisi Iran’s president-elect as “pretty manufactured,” reiterating the US view that the election was neither free …

Al-Arabia – A hardline victory in Iran’s presidential election has tilted the domestic balance of power toward the country’s anti-Western clergy and away from officials chosen by popular vote, a shift Tehran may one day seek to make permanent, six analysts who follow the Islamic republic’s politics say. In a tightly controlled race on Friday marked by voter apathy, judiciary …

Iranwire – In his first press conference after his electoral victory, Iran’s President-elect Ebrahim Raeesi had a clear message for the West: “The situation in Iran has changed.” This message was emphasized through both the tone and the substance of Raeesi’s responses to reporters’ questions, especially about his role in the mass executions of political dissidents of 1988, the allegations of crimes …

Iranwire – “Let the government be unified and fall completely into its own hands, so that it can be held responsible for everything, good or bad.” Such was the argument of some of those who preferred to stay at home on Friday, June 18, rather than vote in an election whose outcome they believed was already known. A flicker of …

Iranwire – Ebrahim Raeesi is the first president-elect in Iran to have been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union before even entering office. The sanctions against Raeesi relate to his horrifying judicial record and violations of Iranians’ human rights over decades. Amongst other international crimes, he was a member of the Tehran “death panel” that in 1988 sent thousands …

amnesty.org – Responding to the Iranian authorities’ plans on 28 June to execute 20-year-old Hossein Shahbazi, who was convicted of a murder that took place when he was just 17 years old based, in part, on “confessions” obtained through torture, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, Diana Eltahawy, said: “Iran’s authorities must immediately …

Al-Monitor – Sitting before dozens of microphones in his first press conference since the election Friday, Iran’s President-elect Ebrahim Raisi fielded questions from domestic and international media. According to his responses, he intends to continue many of Hassan Rouhani’s foreign policies. In regard to the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Raisi said the current negotiating team …

Al-Monitor – Iran wants a guarantee from the United States that it will not leave the Iran nuclear agreement again. “The US must give a guarantee,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters on Monday, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. The United States and Iran are currently participating in indirect talks in Vienna on a possible US return to the Iran nuclear …

RFL/RE – UN human rights experts have condemned the continued imprisonment of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, whose health has “seriously deteriorated” since her arrest three years ago. Iranian authorities have failed to release Sotoudeh despite “many calls” to do so, and instead last year transferred the lawyer to another prison, “farther away from her family and under dire …