Social and Political

VOA – Iran executed seven men Wednesday in two prisons outside Tehran on drug and rape charges, a rights group said, accelerating what activists describe as a hanging spree over the past two weeks. The United Nations had warned on Tuesday of a “frighteningly” high number of executions in the country after a rare execution on Monday of two men …

VOA – Billboards across Iran’s capital proclaim that women should wear their mandatory headscarves to honor their mothers. But perhaps for the first time since the chaotic days following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, more women — both young and old — choose not to do so. Such open defiance comes after months of protests over the September death of 22-year-old …

RFL/RE – Students and teachers’ rights activists across Iran joined forces to stage nationwide rallies on May 9 against what they call the deteriorating state of the educational system and the systematic suppression of students, teachers, and parents. The call for action, dubbed a “revolution of women, life, and freedom,” was joined by a number of organizations, including the Iranian Retirees Council, …

RFL/RE – An Iranian newspaper has reported that an increasing number of poverty-stricken Iranians are selling their organs to make ends meet. The daily Jahan-e Sanat said in a May 4 report that kidneys, bone marrow, parts of livers, and “anything else that can be transplanted is being bought and sold on the black market” in Iran. The newspaper said …

Iranwire – Iranian authorities hanged seven men on drugs and rape charges, a Norway-based human rights group said, after the UN human rights chief warned of a “frighteningly” high number of executions in the country. Three men were executed on drug-related charges in Qezelhesar prison in the city of Karaj, near Tehran, Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said on May 10, adding that …

Iranwire – US human rights watchdog Freedom House has presented its 2023 Freedom Award to Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and the “women of Iran” in recognition of their “unwavering commitment and activism to advance democracy and freedom.” The May 9 award ceremony in Washington was attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who pointed out that “hundreds of thousands of Iranian women, girls…have demanded their …

Al-Monitor — Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian traveled to Moscow on Tuesday to attend a four-way meeting with his Syrian, Turkish and Russian counterparts in a summit hosted by the Kremlin.  Prior to the Iranian minister’s departure, the spokesman for the country’s Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, told reporters in Tehran that the Iranian side is pushing to “bridge differences” between Syria and Turkey …

Iranwire – The UN human rights office has called for a halt in executions in Iran, where it said 209 people were executed so far this year amid continuing protests against the country’s clerical establishment. “The UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk today expressed dismay at the frighteningly high number of executions this year in Iran,” Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing …

Iranwire – During at least three months after the nationwide protests started with the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police, international media outlets published pictures of women who cut off their hair and threw it to the ground or hanged their headscarves on sticks and burned them as a symbol of subjugation and misogyny. From the …

VOA – Jordan carried out rare airstrikes on southern Syria on Monday, hitting an Iran-linked drugs factory and killing a smuggler allegedly behind big hauls across the two countries’ border, local and intelligence sources said. The sources said one strike hit an abandoned drug facility in Syria’s southern Daraa province linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is allied …