Social and Political

RFL/RE – Iran’s military says two officials who worked in the field of aerospace have been killed in separate incidents inside the Islamic republic. Ali Kamani, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) aerospace division, was “martyred” in Khomein in central Markazi Province on June 12, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency said. Separately, Mohammad Abdous, an employee of …

RFL/RE – Authorities in Argentina have seized a Venezuelan Boeing 747 cargo plane with links to Iran due to questions over stated reasons for the aircraft entering the country. The Emtrasur cargo plane arrived in Buenos Aires on June 8, flight-tracking data show. It was then seized by the authorities, an Argentinian opposition lawmaker and Iranian media said on June …

RFL/RE – The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on Iran to resume talks “now” on reviving the 2015 nuclear accord before things get “much more problematic.” “Recent history tells us that it is never a good thing to start saying to international inspectors, go home…things get much more problematic,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in …

Iranwire – Farhad Meysami is a doctor, teacher, civil rights activist and political prisoner at Rajaei Shahr Prison near Tehran, also known as Gohardasht. He has provided IranWire with a written account of recent executions in that prison. Meysami was arrested on July 31, 2018 by agents of the Intelligence Ministry who found badges bearing a message against forced veiling at …

Iranwire – Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro arrived in Iran on Friday as part of a wider tour also set to take in Algeria and Turkey. The two governments signed a 20-year “strategic cooperation pact” covering the energy and finance sectors, as well as some “defense projects”. Both Maduro and Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi described the accord as the beginning of …

Iran-HRM – Reza Shahabi, a leading member of an independent trade union in Iran, who has been detained since May 12, started a hunger strike in protest at his continued detention. A board member of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkat-e Vahed), Shahabi was arrested on May 12. Intelligence Ministry officers arrested him shortly …

Iran-HRM – June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor. According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, members of the United Nations General Assembly, including Iran must combat the economic abuse of children, but the number of child laborers in Iran has increased due to poverty as well as lack of action on the part …

RFL/RE – The lawyer for a teachers’ union activist, who has been on hunger strike for nine days after being jailed for meeting with French counterparts, says his client has been transferred to a prison in Tehran amid concerns about his deteriorating health. Saleh Nikbakht, who represents Eskandar Lotfi, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda on June 10 that his client and other teachers …

RFL/RE – Dozens of students have issued a joint statement calling on authorities to end “authoritarian” restrictions at Iranian universities, including tighter rules around the wearing of hijabs by female students. In the statement, issued on June 10, the students criticized “the violent actions of university security officials” and called on other students and university professors “to protest against the authoritarian attack …

Iranwire – Hours after the Iranian government began to remove surveillance cameras operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, at nuclear facilities in Tehran, Natanz and elsewhere, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that reviving the nuclear deal depended on Iran abandoning any extraneous demands in the negotiations. Blinken added that Iran’s actions …