Iran-HRM – The lawyer of former political prisoner Keyvan Samimi said that his client was arrested after going to forensic medicine and sent to Semnan prison. On May 18, Keyvan Samimi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili tweeted, “Today, after business hours, the Implementation Bureau of the Moqadas Court called Mr. Keyvan Samimi and told him he must come to the Bureau to …

Al-Monitor – While in Tehran last week, the European Union’s chief nuclear negotiator, Enrique Mora, meeting with senior Iranian officials, may have given the Iran nuclear deal new life. Giving Mora’s mission a further push was that his visit coincided with that of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, who was also part of the diplomatic …

RFL/RE – After the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Afghanistan became an unlikely refuge for a small number of dissidents from neighboring Iran. The Western-backed Afghan government granted asylum to the Iranian nationals, who were allowed to live freely without the fear of political persecution. But after the Taliban seized power in August 2021, some Iranian dissidents expressed fear that they …

gatestoneinstitute.org – “[T]here are extensive, vague and arbitrary grounds in Iran for imposing the death sentence, which quickly can turn this punishment into a political tool…. In addition, the structural flaws of the justice system are so deep and at odds with the notion of rule of law that one can barely speak of a justice system. The entrenched flaws …

Iranwire – Ahmah Alam al-Hoda, the notoriously misogynist Friday Imam of Mashhad, has used yet another Friday sermon to rail against women having visible hair on their heads. The father-in-law of President Ebrahim Raisi entreated the faithful to intervene if they saw an unveiled woman in public. Alam al-Hoda declared: “From the beginning of the revolution until now, people have …

Iranwire – Iranian and pro-Islamic Republic propaganda channels are not just praising Putin’s war on Ukraine but “leveraging” it to promote their own worldview, a US cybersecurity firm has confirmed. In a report on Russia’s disinformation campaign since February 24, researchers at Mendiant noted that outlets sympathetic to the beliefs espoused by Khamenei and the regime had used narratives around the invasion …

Iranwire – On May 11, the final day of a visit by EU envoy Enrique Mora, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced that two more Europeans had been arrested, accusing them of fomenting and taking part in this year’s teachers’ strikes. Later, it emerged that the detainees were two French nationals, Cecile Kohler, 37, and her husband Jacques Paris, 69. They had arrived in Iran …

VOA – On February 14, the Marand High Court in Iran’s northern province of East Azerbaijan ruled that a newborn boy could not be named “Türkay” — a word meaning “Turkish moon” in Azeri Turkish. His parents, disturbed but not surprised by the decision, decided to fight back. Following more than two months of legal battles, the East Azerbaijan Appellate …

(HRW) – Iranian authorities have arrested several prominent activists on baseless accusations amid labor union strikes and ongoing protests against rising prices, since May 6, 2022, in dozens of small towns, Human Rights Watch said today. Those arrested include a prominent sociologist and four labor rights defenders. News outlets close to the intelligence apparatus have accused the detained activists of having contact with suspicious …

VOA – Iranian security forces fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters in several provinces on Thursday, according to posts on social media, as protests triggered by rising food prices continued to spread.Iranians took to the streets last week after a cut in food subsidies caused prices to soar by as much as 300% for some flour-based …