iranintl – Iran retained its position as the second highest country to imprison writers amid the country’s nationwide uprising, second only to China, according to the 2023 Freedom to Write Index. Released on Friday by PEN America, the latest report echoes the results of last year which found that Iranian authorities continue to detain authors, many of whom are associated with the Woman Life …

RFL/RE – An Iranian warship equipped with drones and missiles has crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere, Iran’s IRIB state radio reported on May 4. The report did not reveal the exact location of the Shahid Mahdavi, a converted container ship operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that was unveiled more than a year ago. This is …

VOA – Supporters of two U.S. nationals seen as unjustly imprisoned overseas are raising concerns about what they see as a murky process by which the U.S. government decides whether to designate such individuals as wrongfully detained. Granting a wrongful detention designation to a U.S. national means the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs is authorized to work with a …

RFL/RE – Iran has released the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel but remains in control of the vessel itself, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the container ship MSC Aries, with a crew of 25, in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Iran’s Encirclement of Israel, Control of Red Sea, Almost Complete “What makes the future in this case darker is Sudan’s history of hosting extremists and jihadists from the far right and far left. During the previous regime, Sudan hosted Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Carlos the Jackal. This warm embrace of violent extremists earned …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Sohrab Rafieian and Morteza Azimi, two co-defendants on death row for drug-related charges, was executed in Zanjan Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Zanjan Central Prison on 28 April. Their identities have been established as 35-year-old Sohrab Rafieian and 40-year-old Morteza Azimi who were sentenced to …

iranintl – High-ranking officials from the US treasury will travel to Singapore and Malaysia next week to urge the two Asian commerce hubs to do more to stop flow of funds to Iran and its affiliated armed groups. The US treasury has noticed that more money is getting to the regime in Tehran through the Malaysian financial system, Reuters reported …

iranintl – Just over two weeks have passed since Israel conducted its surgical strike against the regime in Iran in retaliation for its unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory. Once the strike was over, policymakers, experts and commentators rushed to announce the end of the tit-for-tat escalation between the Islamic Republic and Israel. But if you think things are “settling …

iranintl – Israel is building a “cyber dome” to counter online threats, in particular those originating from Iran and its proxies, an Israeli official told AFP on Thursday. While Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has been protecting it from incoming rocket attacks for years, it is now trying to beef up its cyber security by building a system to ward …

iranintl – Since the Mahsa protests, Iran’s courts have prosecuted dozens of individuals, issuing harsh sentences for alleged leadership of protests and labor strikes, without any basis in existing laws. Iranian authorities and state media invariably refer to anti-government protests as “riots”, so the accused are always dubbed as “leader of riots” or “leader of strikes”. Informed sources in Iran …