Iranwire – Outgoing Iranian health minister Saeed Namaki is understood to have missed a meeting of the National Coronavirus Headquarters on Friday that was being chaired by new president Ebrahim Raisi. The minister’s absence is believed to be linked to growing criticism of the Islamic Republic and the Ministry of Health’s policies on Covid-19 vaccine imports. Over the past 48 hours, …

Iranwire – Two kolbars have been hospitalized after being shot on the Iran-Iraq border in the latest in a string of attacks this summer. Human rights organization Hengaw reports that on the morning of Friday, August 13, officers with Sardasht Border Regiment in Kurdistan opened fire on a group of kolbars carrying goods in the Bitoush area. One of the …

Iranwire – In one of Iran’s first official responses to the Taliban’s shock incursion into Afghanistan’s southern provinces, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh issued a plea for the country’s diplomatic staff to be kept safe. In a tweet on Friday, August 13, Khatibzadeh wrote: “The Islamic Republic of Iran, while expressing concern over the escalation of violence in Afghanistan given …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Prominent imprisoned human rights defender, Atena Daemi has begun an indefinite hunger strike in protest to the frequent and unjustified restrictions on prisoners’ right to telephone use. The interruptions to phone calls in recent weeks had forced Atena’s parents to travel from Tehran to the northern city of Rasht, leading to their contraction of Covid-19. …

Al-Monitor – The United States unveiled terrorism-related sanctions on an oil-smuggling operation with alleged links to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Friday as talks to resurrect the landmark nuclear deal remain in limbo.  In a statement announcing the designations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the IRGC’s elite overseas branch, known as the Quds Force, of funding its …

Al-Monitor – Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian and UK ambassadors in Tehran after a controversial photo showed the two sitting atop the steps of the Russian Embassy in central Tehran. While the photo might not at first sight appear particularly provocative, to many Iranians it was an “insult” that reopened old wounds and stirred up anti-Russian and anti-British sentiments.   The 2021 photo showed three …

nufdiran.org – Iran continues to be rocked by protests, the COVID crisis caused by Khamenei’s ban of the American and British vaccines, and the inauguration of the criminal Ebrahim Raisi as the Islamic Republic’s new president.The people of Iran are suffering under unimaginable pressure from the regime and its brutality. At NUFDI, we are doing everything we can to bring …

Iranwire – Yesterday Ebrahim Raisi released a final, full list of his proposed new cabinet members to the Iranian parliament. In line with both political analysts’ forecasts and media speculation, alongside the names already announced this week were those of several relatively little-known figures with scant experience, as well as a hefty compliment of officials who last served in the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …

Iranwire – On the second day of the criminal trial of ex-Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri in Sweden, prosecutors painted a harrowing picture of how thousands of people were systematically sent to their deaths in the summer of 1988. Arrested in November 2019, Nouri is on trial for war crimes and murder over his alleged part in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners on the orders …

Iranwire – British diplomat Simon Shercliff was appointed as ambassador to Iran earlier this month. He  seemed to be off to a great start: he had already spent three years in Iran, from 2000 to 2003, all the time when reformist President Mohammad Khatami was in power. Things seemed more hopeful for the country in general, and Western diplomats had more wide-ranging …