Social and Political

RFL/RE – At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more injured after a train derailed near the central Iranian city of Tabas. “Seventeen people are dead and 37 injured people have been transferred to hospital,” emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi told state television on June 8.According to initial reports, the train was travelling between the pilgrimage city of Mashhad and …

RFL/RE – Human Rights Watch (HRW) says overwhelming evidence shows that the Iranian authorities’ mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 amounts to crimes against humanity. The rights group said in a report published on June 8 that Iranian authorities, acting on the orders of then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, “summarily and extrajudicially” executed thousands of political prisoners across the …

Iranwire – An Iranian former police commander who gave first-hand evidence of atrocities committed during the November 2019 protests is at risk of being “offshored” from the UK to Rwanda next week. The man arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker in May this year and is currently being held in Brook House Detention Center, a removal facility near an airport …

Iranwire – On Sunday, June 5, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported that the former governor of Khuzestan province, Gholamreza Shariati, had left Iran. The embattled politician was said to have “legally” bought a one-way ticket to the UAE. The news came barely two weeks after the collapse of the Metropol complex in Abadan, Khuzestan. The unfinished 10-storey Tower 2 of …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Official sources have reported the execution of an unnamed man by own his own son after being sentenced to retribution for murder. According to Rokna, an unnamed man was hanged by his own son in Raja Shahr Prison at an unspecified date. Iran Human Rights has established the date of the execution to have been …

RFL/RE – The family of an Iranian dissident journalist says their son has been missing since the end of last month and is likely to have been abducted by Iranian agents in Turkey, where he had taken refuge.The Daily Sabah newspaper reported on June 5 that the father of Mohammad Bagher Moradi, an opposition journalist who fled to Turkey nine …

Iranwire – The fatal collapse of the Metropol building in Abadan has sparked a wider discussion on the issue of building safety in Iran. A recent expert assessment found that in the last 50 years, the average useful lifespan of a building in Iran has fallen from an average of 32 years to 26. In the immediate present, an exclusive report by Ensaf News …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Mehdi Sarhadi, a Baluch man sentenced to death for drug-related charges, was executed in Isfahan Central Prison despite promise of pardon if he memorised Quran verses.            According to the Baluch Activists Campaign, a Baluch man was executed Isfahan Central Prison on May 29. His identity has been reported as 36-year-old Mehdi Sarhadi who was …

Al-Monitor – Iranian officials have continued to fire back at the United Nations nuclear watchdog over its findings as the negotiations to revive the Iranian nuclear deal remain at a standstill. During a television interview, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh discussed the latest findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Khatibzadeh said that the IAEA’s board of governors is …

Al-Arabia – The death toll in the collapse of a building in southwestern Iran rose Monday to at least 41, state media reported, two weeks after the disaster struck. Ehsun Abbaspour, the governor of the city of Abadan, gave the figure based on an official report, state television said. The May 23 collapse at the Metropol Building some 660 kilometers …