Al-Monitor — Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian traveled to Moscow on Tuesday to attend a four-way meeting with his Syrian, Turkish and Russian counterparts in a summit hosted by the Kremlin.  Prior to the Iranian minister’s departure, the spokesman for the country’s Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, told reporters in Tehran that the Iranian side is pushing to “bridge differences” between Syria and Turkey …

Iranwire – The UN human rights office has called for a halt in executions in Iran, where it said 209 people were executed so far this year amid continuing protests against the country’s clerical establishment. “The UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk today expressed dismay at the frighteningly high number of executions this year in Iran,” Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing …

Irabwire – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged the Iranian authorities to immediately release a journalist who was arrested last week on unknown charges amid a crackdown on dissent and the media. “Iranian authorities must free journalist Sajjad Shahrabi immediately and unconditionally and cease the practice of arbitrarily locking up members of the press,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de …

Iranwire – During at least three months after the nationwide protests started with the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police, international media outlets published pictures of women who cut off their hair and threw it to the ground or hanged their headscarves on sticks and burned them as a symbol of subjugation and misogyny. From the …

Iranwire – Iranian authorities have filed legal cases against two more actresses who recently appeared in public without wearing the mandatory headscarf, local media reported, the latest in a series of similar indictments against celebrities in the country. Baran Kosari, 37, attended the funeral of actor Hesam Mahmoudi without a headscarf on May 5, Tasnim news agency reported, adding that …

VOA – Iranian American Sanaz Toossi won the Pulitzer Prize in drama Monday for her play English. The play takes place in 2008 near Tehran, where four Iranian adults prepare for an English proficiency test. It examines how family separation and travel restrictions push them to learn a new language and how that may change their identity. The Pulitzer board called …

VOA – Jordan carried out rare airstrikes on southern Syria on Monday, hitting an Iran-linked drugs factory and killing a smuggler allegedly behind big hauls across the two countries’ border, local and intelligence sources said. The sources said one strike hit an abandoned drug facility in Syria’s southern Daraa province linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is allied …

CHRI—The execution of three men over the last three days in Iran—two men for “insulting the prophet” and an Iranian-born Swedish citizen and dissident who was abducted in Turkey by Iranian agents—continues the intensifying use of the death penalty to silence dissent in the Islamic Republic. In just the past 10 days, 42 people, including 22 Baluchi citizens, have been …

Iranwire – The Tehran Municipality has installed billboards in the city accusing the hundreds of protesters who were targeted in the eyes by security forces during nationwide protests of being “liars.” Doctors said that at least 580 protesters had sustained severe eye injuries after being hit by pellets, tear gas canisters, paintball bullets or other projectiles in Tehran and in …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Islamic Republic’s Judiciary reported the execution of Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare for offences against religion including “blasphemy” and “insulting the prophet.” Emphasising the inhumanity of the death penalty, Iran Human Rights strongly condemns its use against freedom of expression and beliefs, and calls on the international community for an urgent and serious response. …