Environment

CHRI – Twenty-six members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to free eight conservationists who are currently being tried in the country’s secretive revolutionary court system:

Radiofarda – A member of the Iranian Parliament (Majles) has disclosed that the country’s Supreme National Security Council has banned the publication of news reports about water-related problems including shortage and misuse of resources.

PayvandNews – Two Persian leopards mated naturally for the first time at Tehran Zoological Garden on Wednesday and will breed by the next 100 days in case of reproductive success, Mehr news agency reported.

VOA – The brother of an Iranian environmentalist says Iranian authorities have detained the activist in an apparent continuation of a wave of arrests of environmentalists in western Iran in recent months.

Iran-HRM – Iranian authorities continue to arrest more environmental activists amid worsening crackdown on conservationists.

VOA – An Iranian state news agency says authorities have extended a travel ban on the widow of an Iranian-Canadian environmentalist who died in prison last year after being arrested on suspicion of espionage.

CHRI – Authorities Interrogated Three People, Warned Them Not to Speak About Cases

Radiofarda – A year after the Islamic Republic authorities claimed that a prominent Iranian-Canadian environmentalist and university professor had committed suicide in prison; the Judiciary spokesman says that he does not know anything about the suicide.

CHRI – Ten political activists and environmentalists arrested in Iran’s Kurdistan Province between December 31, 2018, and January 6, 2019, are being held at the Intelligence Ministry’s detention center in the city of Sanandaj while being denied access to legal counsel and contact with family members.

Radiofarda – As the trial for eight prominent Iranian environmentalists charged with “sowing corruption on earth,” and spying, intelligence agents are reportedly set to produce a new pseudo-documentary film against them.