Social and Political

Iranwire – The mother of a teenager, Nika Shakarami, who died during recent protests in Iran has denounced a state television report in which her family was forced to disavow claims that Nika was killed by security forces. Nasrin Shakarami, Nika’s mother, added that she had been threatened with also being made to appear in a similar forced broadcast. Nika, …

VOA – As protests flare across Iran over the death of young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, the Kurdistan region of neighboring Iraq has paid a price, coming under bombardment from the Islamic republic’s forces. Their target is the long-exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition, installed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein during his war with Iran in the 1980s. Tehran regards these …

CHRI – The following letter, signed by 21 human rights groups including the Center for Human Rights in Iran, was sent on October 6, 2022, to the offices of U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the U.S. Representative to the UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Download a PDF of the letter here.  LETTER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN ON IRAN: FULFILL …

Amnesty – Iranian security forces unlawfully killed at least 66 people, including children, and injured hundreds of others after firing live ammunition, metal pellets and teargas at protesters, bystanders and worshippers during a violent crackdown after Friday prayers on 30 September in Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchistan province, Amnesty International said today. Since then, another 16 people were killed in separate …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Contradictory claims by the Islamic Republic about 17-year-old protester, Nika Shakarami’s cause of death based on grainy edited footage and her relatives’ forced televised confessions under duress are unacceptable. Given the Islamic Republic’s long history of concealing, lying and manipulating evidence, Iran Human Rights rejects the official account of Nika Shakarami’s death due to the …

Al-Monitor – Iranians have been appalled by the deaths of three 16-year-olds in the  anti-government protests that have been sweeping the country after Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody on Sept. 16.  Nika Shakarami: Her body was buried near her parents’ hometown, Khorramabad, on Tuesday. But the burial did little to stop questions surrounding her death. According to her family, she disappeared …

Al-Monitor – As protests over the death of Iranian citizen Mahsa Amini, an ethnic Kurd, at the hands of Iran’s notorious morality police reverberate across the globe, the Turkish government has been strikingly silent on the matter — unlike its Western counterparts.  While the protests were largely covered by Turkey’s independent media outlets, they were mostly downplayed by pro-government media …

Al-Monitor – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on seven senior Iranian leaders linked to the country’s violent suppression of nationwide protests and continued clampdown on internet access. Those blacklisted by the Treasury Department include Iranian Communications Minister Eisa Zarepour, who it blamed for Iran’s digital crackdown, and Minister of the Interior Ahmad Vahidi, who has oversight of Iran’s Law Enforcement …

Al-Arabia – France on Thursday condemned a video aired on Iranian state television showing “confessions” by two French nationals to fomenting unrest and formally described the detainees as hostages. “Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris have been arbitrarily detained in Iran since May 2022, and as such are state hostages,” the ministry said in an unusually harshly-worded statement. “The staging of their supposed …

gatestoneinstitute.org – US President Joe Biden and his administration have, it appears, decided to sacrifice not only the brave people of Iran now risking their lives in a bid for decent governance, but also the Arabs. This betrayal of longtime allies is taking place, it seems, to appease Russia, ever eager to keep the price of oil at a premium, …