Iranwire – One in three Iranian marriages now end in divorce, according to analysis of official figures by Iran Open Data. In 2019/20 the number of officially-registered marriages increased by 4.4 percent to 556,731, but in the same year the divorce rate also jumped by 3.6 percent, with 183,193 Iranian couples separating in the space of 12 months. For every 100 marriages …

RFL/RE – The head of Tehran’s city council says Iran’s Interior Ministry has approved hard-liner Alireza Zakani as the capital city’s new mayor. Mehdi Chamran announced on September 2 that the ministry had signed the relevant decree, three weeks after the city council vote for the 55-year-old to replace Pirouz Hanachi as the city’s leader. Zakani, who heads a parliamentary research …

Iran-HRM – Hacked footage from security cameras in Iran’s Evin Prison and the publication of some of the prison’s documents published online by a group of hackers “Edalat-e Ali” (Ali’s Justice) revealed a fraction of the crimes committed in Iran’s prisons. The footage shows guards beating and dragging prisoners on the floor. The videos also show inmates attempting to commit suicide, …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Mohammad Sadeghzadeh who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for an “honour-related” murder, was executed in Ardabil Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Ardabil Central Prison on the morning of September 1. His identity has been established as 30-year-old Mohammad Sadeghzadeh who was sentenced to qisas for murder. An informed source told …

jpost – Seyed Hamid Sajjadi Hazaveh, the newly appointed Iranian minister of sports, joined members of the Islamic Republic’s parliament in August in urging Iranian athletes from competing against their Israeli counterparts.Hamid Sajjadi termed Israel a “child killing and occupying regime,” sparking criticism from a highly decorated Iranian Greco-Roman wrestler.The former head of Iran’s Greco-Roman wrestling team, Sardar Pashaei, who is now …

freebeacon – The Biden administration is expanding the team dedicated to renegotiating the Iran deal, just days after Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett urged the United States to back out of negotiations, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Dan Shapiro, the Obama administration’s ambassador to Israel, is now working as an adviser on the Iran portfolio, the State Department confirmed to the Free …

Al-Monitor -Iran’s Revolutionary Court has started the trial of two Swedish men charged with drug trafficking, Iranian state news reported. This comes weeks after a former Iranian official accused of war crimes went on trial in Stockholm. The judiciary’s official Mizan news agency said Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Kasper Brown appeared before Branch 15 of Iran’s Revolutionary Court. Iranian prosecutors …

Al-Monitor — An Iranian man died after he was submitted to a lashing penalty inside a jail in Iran’s Turkish-majority eastern Azerbaijan province. The inmate, identified as Hadi Atazadeh, had been handed an unspecified prison sentence and lashes after being charged with alcohol possession one and a half years ago. Under the Islamic Republic’s strict penal code, consumption and possession of alcoholic …

RFL/RE – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is urging Iranian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release a financial reporter who was reportedly arrested this week on security charges, saying that the jailing of journalists for doing their jobs is “an outrageous form of censorship that must end.” The New-York-based media freedom watchdog made the call in a statement on September 1 …

Iranwire – Imprisoned journalist and editor Keyvan Samimi has blamed senior officials in the Islamic Republic for day-to-day violations of Iranian prisoners’ rights. The 72-year-old addressed the issue on Telegram shortly after a hacking group leaked CCTV footage from Evin Prison showing a litany of human rights violations. Samimi, the former editor-in-chief of Iran-e Farda who has been targeted several times by the regime, …