Iranwire – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Iranian authorities to immediately release Seyed Mostafa Jaffari, a journalist who was re-arrested this week, and stop “arbitrarily locking up members of the press for reporting on matters of public interest.” “Journalists must be able to work without fear that they will be subject to arrest and detention for covering …

Iranwire – Iranian authorities have sentenced Kurdish civil activist Ayoub Javanpour to a total of 15 years in prison, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network. The Revolutionary Court in the western city of Saqqez on July 22 handed down a ten-year prison sentence for “leading a crowd of more than two people to disrupt security,” two years for “insulting the …

Iranwire – IranWire has obtained images from Tehran’s Shahrak Gharb neighborhood and Vanak Square showing a noticeable surge in the presence of Morality Police officers monitoring citizens’ clothing. The deployment of police comes amid heightened tension between the government and the Iranian population over the mandatory hijab rules, as the first anniversary of the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody draws …

Iranwire – Over the past 44 years, the religious and political missionaries of the Islamic Republic have relied on the deep belief of a significant portion of the Iranian people in the Third Shia Imam. Every year, millions of Iranians observe Ashura on the 10th day in the month of Muḥarram, the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar, as …

Iranwire – Late June to late July of this year has been one of the more difficult months for the Baha’is in Iran. And even since March, in an escalating situation with a Ministry of Intelligence official, Baha’is in Tehran have been denied of the right to bury their dead in a Baha’i-owned cemetery in the city. After days and sometimes after …

CHRI – The forced psychiatric hospitalization of jailed rapper Saman Yasin in Iran shortly after he demanded due process and justice for his case highlights the Iranian government’s continued weaponization of medical treatment in order to suppress dissent, in flagrant violation of international and Iranian law. Yasin was also previously tortured to force him to confess to a crime, according …

Al-Arabia – Iranian authorities have shut down one of the offices of the country’s biggest e-commerce company and launched judicial procedures after it published pictures online showing female employees not wearing the mandatory headscarf, semi-official media reported. The move appears to be part of a new campaign launched last week to impose the Islamic dress code nearly a year after the morality …

RFL/RE – Iranian authorities have banned a film festival that put out a publicity poster featuring an actress who was not wearing a hijab, state media reported on July 23. The ban comes after the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA) released a poster for its Short Film Festival featuring Iranian actress Susan Taslimi in the 1982 film The Death Of …

Iranwire – Jailed human rights activist Narges Mohammadi has responded to a new round of pressure by the government of the Islamic Republic to impose mandatory hijab on women, calling it a conspiracy by the country’s theocracy to subjugate women. “Contrary to claims by the theocracy, covering women’s hair was not meant to ‘protect women’s dignity’ and ‘control men’s sexual …

VOA – Iran on Sunday began an annual air force drill in the central part of the country, state media reported, as the United States sends more fighter planes to the region to deter the Islamic Republic from seizing commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf area. The official IRNA news agency said 11 Iranian air force bases participated in the …