Iranhr.net -As Iranian authorities prepare to welcome the UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures tomorrow[1], we denounce the Government’s instrumentalization of the system of UN human rights monitors in a cynical attempt to deflect attention from its well-documented record of human rights violations. The UN’s announcement of the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Iran this May 2022 comes after seventeen …

Al-Monitor – Iranians took to social media to draw the world’s attention to the Islamic Republic’s plans to send a Swedish-Iranian national to the gallows for espionage. The reactions followed a report by the official ISNA news agency indicating that Iran would implement the death penalty for Ahmad-Reza Djalali by May 21. A disaster medicine scientist, Djalali was arrested in Iran in 2016 while on a …

Iranwire – No further official information has been published in days on an apparent mass alcohol poisoning in the port city of Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan province, amid unofficial reports that the number of cases and deaths continues to climb. On Monday news that eight people in Bandar Abbas had died after drinking tainted homemade alcohol made international headlines. Another 51 were …

Iranwire – Last Friday evening it became known that Nader Talebzadeh, chief propagandist to the Islamic Republic, had died in Tehran aged 69. Though Iranian state media described him as a “documentary maker”, the vast funeral procession – and the fact that President Ebrahim Raisi himself recited the fatiha, a verse of the Quran, over Talebzadeh’s body, not to mention the message of …

Iranwire – Ilham Aliyev, president of the Republic of Azerbaijan, has accused Russia of having used airspace over the Caspian Sea to supply Armenia with arms and military equipment during the 44-day war between the two countries over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Despite his own government’s protestations, he said, other Caspian Sea littoral states had known and allowed Moscow to do so. Aliyev …

CHRI – The Iranian government’s threat to execute Swedish scientist Ahmadreza Djalali later this month is aimed at thwarting the trial in Sweden against Iranian official Hamid Nouri, who is accused of war crimes. “The Iranian government is engaging in blatant extortion,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “This thuggish behavior is an intimidation tactic aimed …

Al-Monitor – An Iranian minister said today that Afghan refugees in the country must participate in the census.  Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that not participating in the census is “illegal” and “called on the Afghan nationals to cooperate.” The government wants to determine exactly how many Afghans are in Iran in light of the influx following the Taliban takeover …

Al-Monitor – One of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s many campaign promises was that he would not put the country’s economic and political fate at the mercy of the nuclear negotiations. With the nuclear talks unofficially at a stalemate, Iran appears to be focused on regional diplomacy.  One of the most pressing issues is currently tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, who …

Shabtabnews – Yesterday USCIRF issued a twitter statement remembering Kasra Nouri, an imprisoned Gonabadi Sufi journalist on World Press Freedom Day. In February 2018, Kasra Nouri, a Gonabadi Sufi journalist, was arrested while covering religious protests in #Iran & the state’s violent crackdown. Later that same year, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison & 74 lashes. #WorldPressFreedomDay https://t.co/LtgjtAVuiU …

RFL/RE – Scores of Iranian teachers rallied in more than a dozen cities on May 1 to demand fair wages, better labor conditions, and the release of their jailed colleagues. In the days leading up to the planned rallies, dozens of teachers were detained and dozens of others were reportedly summoned for questioning by the police, in a move designed to prevent …