Iranwire – Yesterday it was claimed that Farhad Salmanpour Zaheer, a political detainee since 2009 and recent whistleblower on a death in custody, had escaped from Evin Prison. Sparing no enthusiasm on Wednesday, the Iranian lawyer Mohammad Moghimi wrote on Twitter: “Today, August 24, my former client Farhad Salmanpour Zaheer made a bold and clever escape from prison, misleading the …

Iranwire – Two more filmmakers, Majid Barzegar and Mohsen Amir-Yousefi, have been summoned by a security agency and indicted with political charges, it emerged on Wednesday. The indictments came in the midst of an officially-sanctioned drive to censor and intimidate Iranian filmmakers, linked to the now widely-circulated “put down your guns” open letter: a call to security forces to stand with protesters in Abadan that was signed …

Iranwire – “All my grades are 20s [the highest grade in Iran’s education system]. I couldn’t breathe when they told me I couldn’t go to school. The teachers and the school staff tried hard to keep me; they were all crying when they found out I had to stop coming.” After the 2022 Nowruz holidays they told me that I …

Iranwire – Two-hundred Baha’is have been targeted in Iran in the past three weeks in a crackdown against the community unlike any seen in recent years. Dozens of people have either been arrested and jailed, according to the Baha’i International Community, lost their homes to bulldozers and state confiscation, or have been denied access to university, tagged with electronic ankle bracelets, …

CHRI – As the government of President Ebrahim Raisi, a devoted soldier of unelected “supreme leader” Ali Khamenei, works to implement stricter enforcement of the compulsory hijab as well as harsher repression of basic rights, a report by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) notes that not all Iranian politicians support the forced hijab. Since it was imposed by the founder of …

VOA — Targets in Syria hit by U.S. airstrikes earlier this week were critical facilities for Iranian-linked groups operating in the country, experts said. The U.S. military said late Tuesday it carried out strikes in eastern Syria against “infrastructure facilities used by groups linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC].” “Today’s strikes were necessary to protect and defend U.S. personnel. …

Al-Monitor – The United States and Iran are inching closer to re-entering the nuclear agreement after more than 16 months of intermittent negotiations that until recently appeared headed for collapse.   But despite reported concessions from Tehran, it’s far from a done deal.   The ping-pong continues. On Wednesday, the US gave its formal response to the European Union on Iran’s latest proposals …

RFL/RE – One of Iran’s biggest cash cows, the Mobarakeh Steel Company, is reeling from the release of a lengthy parliamentary investigation that alleges corruption amounting to $3 billion tied to the administration of former President Hassan Rohani.Since the Iranian parliamentary investigatory commission read out its damning allegations on August 18 following a three-year investigation, the Iranian stock exchange suspended …

RFL/RE – A group of female political prisoners incarcerated in Iran’s notorious Evin prison have published a letter expressing concern about the conditions they endure at the institution. Signed by Hasti Amiri, Narges Adib, Fariba Asadi, Sepideh Gholian, Gelareh Abbasi, Saba Kordafshari, Alieh Motlebzadeh, Narges Mohammadi, and other prisoners, the letter emphasizes concerns over a sharp rise in the number of inmates …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The mullahs appear convinced that once the Biden administration capitulates completely to their demands for reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, they will be able to step up their already significant efforts to eliminate Israel and export their Islamic Revolution to Arab and Islamic countries. Iran already occupies four Arab countries: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Iran’s mullahs …