Social and Political

RFL/RE – Iran has begun construction on a new nuclear power plant in the country’s southwest, Iranian state TV announced, amid tensions with the United States over sweeping sanctions imposed after Washington pulled out of the Islamic republic’s nuclear deal with world powers. The new 300-megawatt plant, known as Karoon, will take eight years to build and cost around $2 …

Iranwire – Mizan news agency reported on Sunday that four prisoners have been executed on the charge of “collaboration with Israel”. This comes amid reports of protesters facing heavy sentences as mass anti-government protests continue across Iran. Four citizens, named Hossein Ordukhanzadeh, Shahin Imani Mahmudabad, Milad Ashrafi Atbatan and Manochehr Shahbandi Bejondi, were arrested in June of this year, charged with “intelligence …

Iranwire – A prominent Iranian human rights activist incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin Prison has published a letter urging the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran to investigate sexual assaults on women detainees. “Assaulting women during detention and in detention centers is part of the government’s suppression program against women protesters and fighters”, Narges Mohammadi wrote in the letter, …

Al-Arabia – More than 200 people have been killed in Iran during anti-regime protests sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September, authorities said on Saturday. The toll, provided by the interior ministry’s state security council, included security forces, ordinary citizens, “rioters” and armed anti-regime militants, according to a statement carried by state news agency IRNA. This is …

Al-Arabia – A prominent Iranian Sunni cleric said on Friday it was wrong to charge protesters with capital offenses as renewed demonstrations shook Iran’s restive southeast in the third month of protests despite a violent state clampdown. Videos posted by the Iran Human Rights group showed minority ethnic Baluch women chanting “I will kill whoever killed my brother,” and police shooting what …

RFL/RE – Several Iranian student associations have accused authorities of deliberate “serial poisoning” after reports that a large number of students from at least four Iranian universities across the country fell ill. In a report on December 1, the Union Councils of Iranian students reported that several schools experienced outbreaks of poisoning after eating at cafeterias, including Kharazmi University in Karaj, near …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The Biden administration appears to be repeating Obama administration’s policy of choosing to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime’s bloodshed, human rights violations, and crackdowns that kill and wound peaceful protesters — and has the same policy regarding brave Chinese protestors as well. One hospital staff member wrote in a message to CNN about a …

Iranwire – The United States says it has designated Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, among others, as “countries of particular concern” under the U.S. Religious Freedom Act. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on December 2 that those designated as countries of particular concern – which also include Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan …

Iranwire – Iranian Prosecutor-General Mohammad Javad Montazeri has said that access to the Internet should be entirely blocked in Iran, amid a heavy-handed state crackdown on weeks of nationwide anti-government protests. Known for its harsh Internet censorship, which includes banning thousands of websites, the authorities have to a large scale shut down the Internet for most of Iranians in an …

Iranwire – The Canadian government has imposed fresh sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities over the clerical regime’s “intensifying efforts to brutally repress” anti-government protests across the country. “Canada will not stand idly by while the regime’s human rights violations increase in scope and intensity against the Iranian people,” it said in statement on December 2. “That is why we …