VOA – The State Department says it’s paying more than $2 million per month to provide 24-hour security to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a former top aide, both of whom face “serious and credible” threats from Iran. The department told Congress in a report that the cost of protecting Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook between …

RFL/RE – France, Britain, and Germany warned Russia on March 12 that its demands to have its trade guaranteed with Iran risked the collapse of an almost-completed nuclear deal. “Nobody should seek to exploit JCPOA negotiations to obtain assurances that are separate to the JCPOA,” France, Britain, and Germany — the so-called E3 European parties to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive …

RFL/RE – What began as an attempt by a Russian diplomat to explain his country’s position in the ongoing nuclear talks turned into a scolding over how Iranian journalists should refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Addressing a small number of reporters during a press briefing in Tehran on March 9, Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan took umbrage to a …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Many Iranians, meanwhile, in defiance of Iran’s regime, gathered outside the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran to express their support for the Ukrainian people, criticize the Iranian government for supporting Russia, and chanted “Death to Putin”. As police began cracking down on the protesters, the Biden administration and the EU remained silent. Why are the Biden administration and the …

HRW – Mehdi Gholian, the brother of imprisoned labor activist Sepideh Gholian, posted on his Instagram account on March 6, 2022, that despite his sister’s worsening health condition amid contracting Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the last outbreak at Evin prison, authorities are refusing to process her temporary medical release.  He explained that the multiple relocations, hunger strikes, and the toll of …

CHRI – Two lawyers in Iran, Arash Keykhosravi and Mohammad Reza Faghihi, filed an official complaint against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and 18 other state officials on March 6, 2022, alleging gross negligence in the officials’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although not explicitly outlawed, suing the supreme leader, the most powerful official in the Islamic Republic of Iran, is unprecedented. …

Al-Arabia – Russia has promised to respond in a few days over the question of the guarantees it has asked for in the Iran nuclear talks, a senior EU official said, adding that there were still some technical issues to be ironed out between the US and Iran. “They are thinking about that reaction and in the meantime, we cannot advance,” the …

Iranwire – Bijan Mortazavi, an Iranian composer and singer-songwriter, has released a new music video entitled Lalaie, orLullaby. First published by Radio Javan and later shared with IranWire, the track calls attention to the plight of refugees worldwide. According to the latest UN statistics, there are more than 82 million displaced people in the world today. That figure has grown by more than two …

Iranwire – In mid-February, the Tunisian President Kais Saied was widely criticized after he misused the name of a 10th-century Persian philosopher to justify his dissolution of the country’s Supreme Judicial Council. At a meeting of ministers in Carthage Palace, the embattled premier had described Ibn Miskawayh, a thinker and historian from Robat Karim in Tehran province, as an “Arab” jurist. …

Iranwire – Baha’is are experiencing “increasing insecurity” in the Islamic Republic of Iran and in a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to a new report and its annex by the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Dr Ahmed Shaheed. The report, “Rights of persons belonging to religious or …