Al-Arabia – Israel has charged a member of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s housekeeping staff with espionage, saying on Thursday he offered to spy on him on behalf of “a person identified with Iran,” the country’s arch-enemy. In a statement, the Shin Bet security service said the suspect corresponded with the unnamed person over social media. It said he provided photographs …

RFL/RE – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Iranian judiciary’s “unrelenting persecution” of an Iranian photojournalist and activist who must serve two years of internal exile after being released earlier this week from nearly eight years in imprisonment. On November 16, Soheil Arabi was released from prison, where he was mistreated and tortured, but he must now spend two years in …

Iranwire – “We’re going to kill you.” “You don’t think we have enough graves? We do.” These are the kinds of messages that Iranian human rights activists regularly receive on their Twitter and Instagram feeds. At a protest in Whitehall, London last week, they were photographed and filmed extensively as they held up placards calling for an end to impunity …

Iranwire – The below is an archived article first published by IranWire on May 21, 2021. It has been republished as part of our new series on transnational repression. Read more about the project here. A fake Persian-language driving licence app, concealing malicious software. A petrol bomb hurled onto a politician’s porch. The brazen kidnapping of an activist in exile. These …

Iranwire – Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi has lashed out at the head of a state-run documentary-making group who suggested he had “both the [Iranian] government and those outside the government” on his side. The comment had come from Davood Mouradian, director of the government-run Fath (Victory) Narrative Cultural Foundation. In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Farhadi, whose film A Hero is currently being screened in …

Iran-HRM – UN Third Committee resolution censures serious rights abuses in Iran. This is the 68the resolution passed by the United Nations condemning the flagrant human rights violations in Iran. The Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution, censuring the brutal and systematic violations of human rights in Iran on November 17, 2021. The Third Committee resolution was passed …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Prominent human rights defender, Narges Mohammadi who was arrested at the ceremony of slain November 2019 protesters yesterday, has been informed in solitary confinement that her 30 month imprisonment and 80 lashes sentence will be enforced. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, in a phone call to her family from prison, Narges Mohammadi …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Whistleblower Farhad Salmanpour is facing new fabricated charges after speaking out about the suspicious death of Shahin Naseri in custody. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, Farhad Salmanpour who is held in the Greater Tehran Penitentiary, is facing new fabricated charges by the Fashafuyeh Revolutionary Court after exposing details of Shahin Naseri’s suspicious …

thedispatch – Personnel is policy, even in nuclear weapons programs that purport not to exist.  On November 13, Iranian media outlets revealed the name of the new director of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, an entity known by its Persian-language acronym, “SPND.” Created in 2011 to support Tehran’s restructured nuclear weapons quest, SPND was led by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, the Islamic Republic’s foremost military-nuclear scientist, from its …

Al-Monitor – Hackers “associated with the government of Iran” are actively targeting a wide range of US sectors, including with ransomware, a cybersecurity advisory issued by US, British and Australian governments said Wednesday.  The joint alert from the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Australian Cyber Security Center and the UK’s National Cyber Security Center said the hackers were targeting …