Social and Political

Al-Arabia – Iran is excavating tunnels at its Imam Ali military base in Syria near the Iraqi border, according to new satellite images. Images released by ImageSat Intl. show Iran is building tunnels in Syria near Iraq border. (Supplied:ISI) The images released by ImageSat Intl. (ISI) estimated the tunnel’s width to be around four or five feet, which is suitable …

VOA – Russia’s challenge to NATO and democratic nations, as well as Iran’s influence on the wider Middle East, remain two of the top threats to world peace, two former White House advisers to presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump said Tuesday. The comments by the two former Marine generals, ex-Trump chief of staff John Kelly and Obama national security …

CHRI – The EU should lead calls for the UN to investigate Iranian state forces’ use of lethal means to repress the country’s mid-November 2019 protests which resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests, said the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “As an important potential trade and investment partner with substantial leverage over Iran, the EU …

Al-Monitor – As Iran’s Reformists map their strategy for the February 2020 election, their camp is struggling to improve its public image, given its dismal record in parliament. During the past two years, public criticism of Reformist parliamentarians has grown, as many are accused of not keeping their promises to constituents. In the 2016 parliamentary elections, many prominent Reformists were rejected by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council, which vets candidates. This caused Reformist leaders …

Al-Monitor – A delegation of senior Taliban officials arrived in Tehran on Nov. 27 for talks with Iranian authorities, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Headed by the group’s bureau chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the team comprised the Taliban’s highest-ranking members to have ever visited Iran. Since its emergence in the Afghan political landscape in the early 1990s, the Taliban …

Radiofarda – Under massive pressure from public opinion, the Iranian government has promised to reveal the number of those killed during the mid-November protests in Iran. Iran-Graves belonging to pepople who died in recent protest The Rouhani administration’s spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Monday December 9, that the administration will provide a list of those killed in individual provinces as …

Radiofarda – BBC’s Persian section says harassment directed at its journalists and their relatives who are in Iran has intensified and is appealing to UN bodies. BBC Persian appealed to the UN Special Rapporteurs on Monday to stop Iran’s harassment of journalists’ family members in Iran who have been subjected to various threats and even been put in “degrading prison …

Radiofarda – Nasrin Sotoudeh, one of the most prominent Iranian human rights defenders has published a statement from prison demanding a full independent investigation of government’s bloody crackdown on November protests that killed hundreds. Sotoudeh, a lawyer, is serving a 38-year sentence for defending women’s right to reject compulsory hijab. She was arrested in 2018. More than one million people …

Radiofarda – The newly chosen High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, says, “For the European Union and its Member States, the widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protestors (in Iran) is unacceptable.” Borrel, who succeeded Federica Mogherini on December 1, lambasted the Islamic Republic for its deadly response to widespread …

Radiofarda – In a fiery speech on Monday an outspoken female Iranian lawmaker criticized the Islamic Republic for “grim despotism” and the ever-increasing powers of parallel, unelected centers of power. In her speech Parvaneh Salahshouri who is a representative of Tehran in the Majles (Iranian parliament) said the concentration of power in unelected bodies is destroying the “republican nature of …