Iranwire – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed “rogues” shot and killed people protesting against the water crisis in Khuzestan, and encouraged demonstrators to only take part in “legal action”. Rouhani, who is now in the final month of his eight-year tenure as president, used a speech on Thursday to deploy the time-worn claim that outsiders were responsible for stoking the public …

Iran-HRM – From July 10 to 21, at least 14 inmates were executed in Isfahan Prison on drug-related charges. On Monday, July 19, 2021, the death sentence was carried out for Hossein Sadeghi on drug-related charges. Hossein Sadeghi was from Zahedan, capital of Sistan and Baluchestan Province. He had been arrested 5 years ago for drug trafficking and sentenced to …

amnesty.org – Iran’s security forces have deployed unlawful force, including by firing live ammunition and birdshot, to crush mostly peaceful protests taking place across the southern province of Khuzestan, Amnesty International said today. Video footage from the past week, coupled with consistent accounts from the ground, indicate security forces used deadly automatic weapons, shotguns with inherently indiscriminate ammunition, and tear …

Al-Monitor – Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused a “corrupt ring” inside Iran’s intelligence apparatus of maintaining “a systematic link” with foreign espionage agencies. “They have to brace for trials,” Ahmadinejad, who served as head of state from 2005-2013, warned the group, without naming its members. But the former president left more than enough signs in his video message that “the ring” …

Al-Monitor – The Iranian government cut internet access in the past week during protests in an impoverished province, according to an internet watchdog. There were disruptions to internet access on cellphones from July 15-20, and the blockage knocked out approximately 3% to 4% of mobile data in Iran, the London-based NetBlocks announced Wednesday. The group said there were “widespread user reports of …

Al-Arabia – Protesters angry about water shortages took to the streets of southwest Iran for a sixth night in a row on Tuesday, with mounting violence, while Tehran residents chanted anti-government slogans, according to videos posted on social media on Wednesday and Iranian news outlets. Videos uploaded by social media users showed security forces using teargas to disperse protesters. The …

RFL/RE – Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, whose health has “seriously deteriorated” since her arrest three years ago, has been granted a five-day treatment leave from prison. Sotoudeh will undergo various medical examinations, according to a post her husband, Reza Khandan, wrote on his Facebook page, “Nasrin has come home on treatment leave for five days,” he wrote in the post, which also …

Iranwire – The thousands-strong protests over the water crisis in Khuzestan have refocused attention on an unfolding ecological disaster going back years. Since the turn of the century, Iran has been experiencing “anthropogenic drought”: severe water stress, caused specifically by destructive and unsustainable land and water management, by human beings. This summer, farmers in Khuzestan have been left unable to irrigate their …

RFL/RE – Iran says it has opened its first oil export terminal in the Gulf of Oman to allow Tehran to avoid using the strategic Strait of Hormuz shipping route that has long been a focus of regional tensions. “Today, the first shipment of 100 tons of oil is loaded outside the Strait of Hormuz,” President Hassan Rohani said in …

Iranwire – Demonstrations over the water crisis in Khuzestan took place in several cities in the Iranian province for the seventh night in a row on Wednesday. Videos posted online also showed security forces again opening fire on civilian protesters. Last night Iranians in other cities outside the province also again held rallies in support of their countrymen and women in Khuzestan. …