iranintl – Iran’s contentious hijab legislation has been shuffling back and forth between the parliament and the Guardian Council behind closed doors for months, despite hardliners stressing its urgency. The spokesman for the Guardian Council, the constitutional body tasked with vetting legislation for compliance with Sharia or the Constitution, announced on Thursday that the Council has once again sent the …

iranintl – Last Friday, my friend and journalist for Iran International TV, Pouria Zeraati, was brutally stabbed in London as he was leaving for work. The Iranian regime denies any involvement, but I, along with millions of Iranians, hold the clerical regime squarely responsible. Ali Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards bear full responsibility for this crime. This attack on Zeraati was a sinister message …

RFL/RE – Iranian justice authorities have rejected a report that a 20-year-old woman had been questioned by the intelligence services a day before she died at home. The circumstances surrounding the death of Sara Tabrizi were under investigation, the Mizan news agency — which is run by the country’s judiciary — reported on March 30. It said that her father …

VOA – The Indian navy said it had freed the 23-strong crew of an Iranian fishing vessel that was seized by armed pirates off Somalia. The Al-Kambar 786 was southwest of the Yemeni island of Socotra, in the Arabian Sea, on March 28 when it was reported to have been boarded by nine pirates, according to a naval statement Friday. The vessel …

iranintl – The stabbing of an exiled Iranian TV presenter in London has renewed calls for action to confront and deter the regime in Tehran from expanding its malign activities. Pouria Zeraati, a journalist and host at the UK-based Iran International, was attacked outside his home in Wimbledon Friday afternoon, reportedly by a few men who fled in a car …

iranintl – Controversy has ignited in Iran over a government plan to construct mosques in Tehran’s parks, with critics denouncing the project as either a misuse of public funds or driven by hidden motives. Public outrage erupted as images and reports circulated online revealing that the municipality of Tehran had initiated the construction of a mosque in Qeytarieh Park, located …

iranintl – An Iranian-Swedish citizen says he has been threatened by the Iranian authorities’ security forces over his involvement in anti-regime protests. Saman Taherpour says that the threat, received in a phone call two weeks ago, came from an Iranian official who urged him to end his activism in support of the Women, Life, Freedom protests. These protests, unprecedented and …

VOA – British counterterrorism detectives are investigating after a journalist working for a Persian-language media organization was stabbed Friday in London amid fears he had been targeted because of his job, police said. Police said the man, in his 30s, was attacked and suffered an injury to his leg in the Friday afternoon incident in Wimbledon, southwest London. Britain’s National …

VOA – The U.S. Department of State has strongly condemned the Iranian government’s imposition of harsh sentences on 11 women’s rights activists in Gilan province. The department’s spokesperson denounced the sentences as “unjust” and characterized them as “an attempt to intimidate and suppress their voices.” Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the Department of State, criticized the legal proceedings concerning human …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The bleak reality is that time is rapidly running out for concerted action to stop Iran’s march towards acquiring nuclear weapons capability. The Biden administration’s response, however, has been marked by silence, massive funding of Iran and a conspicuous absence of intervention. [T]he prospect of the world’s “leading sponsor of state terrorism” armed with nuclear weapons demands serious …