Human rights

Iranwire – Iranian sprinter Farzaneh Fasihi arrived at the Tokyo Olympics without any official support from the Islamic Republic. The Ministry of Sports, the Iranian sporting federation and Iran’s National Olympic Committee all turned their backs on her. And yet she made history: she became the first Iranian woman runner to compete in the Olympics for 57 years. She wore the hijab as Iranian law …

CHRI – In a bid to sidestep public scrutiny of a contentious new bill that would give Iran’s security agencies near-total control over internet use inside the country, the Iranian Parliament has voted to refer the bill to an internal committee that has the power to pass legislation without full parliamentary review. “This bill is simply another weapon that the Iranian authorities …

Al-Monitor – The highest-ranking and most popular Sunni cleric in Iran, Mawlawi Abdul-Hamid, expressed concern for the overall situation of minorities in Iran under the Islamic Republic, saying the same ethnicities in neighboring countries and the Persian Gulf region “are better off.” “When comparing their lives to people in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf nations, our fellow Arab countrymen clearly find themselves …

RFL/RE – Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Iranian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release those detained during protests against water shortages and economic hardships in Khuzestan and other provinces and to investigate the abusive use of lethal force.Demonstrations than began on July 15 in dozens of towns and cities in Khuzestan, a province with a large ethnic Arab …

Iranwire – On Wednesday, July 28, Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament voted to implement a new law that could further restrict Iranians’ access to the internet and social media. The hugely controversial and surreally-named “Bill for the Protection of Cyberspace Users” allows the Iranian armed forces to more stringently monitor internet traffic into and out of Iran. It also states that foreign …

Iranwire – Isfahan’s traffic police chief has insisted women in his central Iranian city are not allowed to obtain motorcycle licenses, in defiance of a court ruling two years ago. Mohammad Reza Mohammadi told local council-owned Iran Metropolis News Agency (IMNA) on Tuesday that this was his interpretation of Article 20 of Iran’s Law on Investigation of Road Traffic Violations. The law …

CHRI—As state security forces in Iran continue to violently suppress peaceful protests that erupted in Khuzestan province and have since spread to other areas of the country, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) calls on the U.S. and European countries to condemn the government’s lethal use of force against the protesters, and to demand that the Iranian authorities allow peaceful …

Al-Monitor – The State Department on Wednesday condemned the use of violence against anti-government protesters in Iran, a rebuke that comes as nuclear negotiations with Tehran remain at a standstill. The widespread protests, which erupted nearly two weeks ago over chronic water shortages in the southwestern region of Khuzestan, have spread to several cities including the capital, Tehran. Amnesty International has …

Iranwire – Furious anti-government protests continued in cities across Iran last night, almost two weeks after demonstrations first began over the water crisis in Khuzestan. In videos published from the city of Isfahan in central Iran, a large night-time crowd could be heard chanting “Isfahan, Khuzestan, Unity, Unity” while protesters tore down a banner depicting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Similar slogans were …

Iranwire – Former Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri is to stand trial on the charges of grave war crimes and murder in a Swedish court next month. Swedish public prosecutors Kristina Lindhoff Carleson and Martina Winslow have brought the case against the 60-year-old for his alleged part in the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq …