Social and Political

RFL/RE – Two Iranian IT experts have launched a modified version of Telegram to help their countrymen get around Tehran’s latest attempt to block the wildly popular messaging app.

Al-Arabia – A federal US judge has ordered Iran to pay $6 billion to families of the victims of 9/11 after he found various government entities were accountable in the attacks.

Radiofarda – Iran’s national currency, the rial, continues its downward spiral, and is approaching 60,000 rials to the dollar.

Iran-HRM – On May Day, when labor rights groups are celebrating across the globe, Iran’s State Security Force reportedly arrested a number of activists in Tehran and Iranian Kurdistan Province, west of Iran. The state police attacked to a May Day rally held in Saghez, Kurdistan Province, injuring Mahmoud Salehi, a prominent labor activist and arresting a number of protesters. …

RFL/RE – A senior Iranian lawmaker has warned that his country will retaliate against what he called Israeli “aggression” in Syria after missile strikes this week killed 26 mostly Iranian fighters stationed at a Syrian military base. “We will respond to any aggression on Iran at the right time and place,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security …

Al-Arabia – United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the UAE supports Morocco’s decision to sever its ties with Tehran after it was proven that it interfered in its internal affairs.

Al-Arabia – With the present Iran deal, put in place by US President Barak Obama and other world powers (P-5+1), Iran was invited back into the world’s political fold. There was hope that the country would become a cash cow in the form of billions of dollars coming from lucrative trade deals, and that its stalled nuclear program will remain …

VOA —A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck a remote, mountainous region in southern Iran on Wednesday, injuring at least 31 people and disrupting power and communication lines, state media reported. It says the temblor rocked the town of Sisakht, some 700 kilometers (430 miles) south of Tehran, causing people to rush out into the streets. The town has a population of …

HRW – The Iranian judiciary’s blocking of the messaging application Telegram is an unjustifiable restriction on freedom of expression and access to information, Human Rights Watch said today. With more than 40 million users, Telegram had become the main social media platform for Iranians. On April 30, 2018, Mizan Online News Agency, the judiciary’s news agency, reported that the prosecutor …

CHRI – Human Rights Deteriorated in Iran Since Signing of Charter, With Many Abuses by Rouhani’s Own Intelligence Ministry President Hassan Rouhani’s signature domestic initiative—a Citizens’ Rights Charter which lays out in 120 articles the rights and freedoms of Iranian citizens as stated in Iranian law—has no ability to impact the human rights situation in Iran in any meaningful way …