Iran-HRM – Khuzestan water shortage protests continued for the fifth consecutive night on Monday, July 19 in at least 17 cities in the southwest province. Verified video footage and local reports confirm that the state security forces used extreme force, sometimes lethal, against peaceful protesters who were demanding drinking water. Gunshots were heard in several videos. Large numbers of anti-riot …

Iran-HRM -Political prisoner Khaled Pirzadeh transferred to Sheiban Prison’s general ward. Political prisoner Khaled Pirzadeh was moved out of the quarantine of the Greater Tehran Penitentiary to an unknown location on July 14, 2021. Recent reports indicate that he is detained in the general ward 2 of Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz. Mr. Prizadeh’s lawyer in a post expressed concern about the …

Iran Human Rights – The Khuzestan civil and peaceful protests against water shortages and its consequences has been brutally suppressed by the Islamic Republic’s security forces. According to reports, several people have been killed and many injured and arrested in the last five days. Iran Human Rights strongly condemns the use of force against protesters demanding their most basic rights. …

Al-monitor – Outgoing Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s July 12 report to parliament offers a clear path for completing negotiations over restoring the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). All the incoming administration of President-elect Ebrahim Raisi needs to do is follow Zarif’s advice to adjust maximalist positions. This is not so easy, of course; …

Al-Monitor – Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said July 20 that a high-ranking committee has decided that an Iran-US agreement on the revival of the multilateral Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has to be rejected. Rabiei said the decision was made despite an “agreement in principle” that has already been reached between Iran and American negotiators, who have been indirectly …

nufdiran.org – As the US withdraws from Afghanistan, Iran is turning its eye to opportunities there to fill the void left by the decades of military existence of the US, as it becomes the most vulnerable in the region to the threats posed by the bordering country. With the Taliban taking over Afghan cities and districts, violence and chaos are …

VOA – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an Iranian American journalist targeted in what the Justice Department called an Iranian kidnapping plot “has demonstrated tremendous courage.”  Blinken tweeted Monday that he had a “good conversation” with Masih Alinejad, a VOA Persian TV host and outspoken Iranian government critic.  “I affirmed that the U.S. will always support the indispensable work of independent journalists around …

Iranwire – Unprecedented protests in Khuzestan over the province’s nightmarish water crisis entered their fifth night on July 18. Protesters gathered outside government buildings and marched in their hundreds through the streets in a number of major cities. Angry demonstrators amassed outside the governor’s office in the provincial capital of Ahvaz, where the city center also witnessed bigger crowds than on previous …

Iranwire – On Monday, July 19, US authorities reissued an offer of a $7 million reward in exchange for information on a pivotal member of Lebanese Hezbollah. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program has again issued a public call for information that could help in locating Salman Raouf Salman, a Columbian-Lebanese national in his mid-to late 50s also known as Samuel Salman El …

Iranwire – In one of his final addresses to the cabinet as President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani appeared to blame non-adherence to the Iranian Constitution for the fact that Iran was still in the grip of international sanctions in summer 2021. “If Article 60 of the Constitution had been respected, and not harmed in late November,” he said, “and were it not …