Social and Political

Iranwire – On May 27, while the bodies of young people from Khuzestan were being pulled from the wreckage of the Metropol complex in Abadan, thousands of children and adolescents were brought to Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to take part in a massive pro-regime rally. Those present were invited to sing along to the new pop song/anthem Hello Commander, also known as Hail …

Iranwire – On Thursday, June 2, the human rights activist Arash Sadeghi reported that a man convicted of theft in Iran been subjected to the medieval punishment of amputation. The previous Tuesday, he said, the man was transferred from Kermanshah to Ward 7 of Evin Prison, a guillotine was brought in, and the four fingers of one of his hands were sliced off. …

VOA – The death toll in a catastrophic tower collapse in southwestern Iran rose to at least 38 on Sunday, state TV reported, as emergency workers pulled another body from the rubble amid fears still more could be trapped in the destruction. It’s unclear how many more people remain unaccounted for in the collapse of the still-under-construction tower at the …

Al-Arabia – Microsoft has announced that it detected and disabled cyberattacks over the last three months from a group based in Lebanon with ties to the Iranian government targeting over 20 organizations inside Israel and one intergovernmental organization in Lebanon. According to statement released on Thursday, the group named POLONIUM was working in coordination with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security “based …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The latest protests, however, appear to be different in a number of ways. First, the main theme, although not the immediately acknowledged one, is regime change. So far such a move had been stalled because the regime’s many opponents regarded it as their second choice, each being its own first choice. That meant that each group would rather …

Iran-HRM – World Environment Day is an opportunity to briefly review the environment in Iran which is devastated in the past four decades. The destruction of the environment in Iran has led to poverty and the destitution of a large portion of the populace. Deforestation, drying up major lakes, water shortages, soil erosion, and heavy air pollution in Tehran, Khuzestan, …

Al-Arabia – A senior cleric and representative of Iran’s supreme leader was unharmed after being attacked in central Iran on Friday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. A man tried to attack Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai-Nejad after Friday prayers in the central city of Isfahan but “failed due to the intervention of the bodyguards” of the senior cleric, Tasnim reported. “After …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday said that the country’s seizure of two Greek oil tankers late last month was a retaliation against Greece because it “stole” Iranian oil. The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) boarded and took control of the two vessels in the Gulf on May 27, citing “violations,” which Greece condemned as “tantamount to acts of piracy.” The …

RFL/RE – The killing of a senior officer in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in broad daylight in the capital, Tehran, is rare. But the deaths of two senior members of the IRGC, the elite branch of Iran’s armed forces, inside the Islamic republic in the space of two weeks is unprecedented and has raised eyebrows. Iran’s official government …

RFL/RE – An Iranian opposition group says it has hacked more than 5,000 surveillance cameras in Tehran to coincide with the commemoration of the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO) released a video clip showing the Tehran municipality website and others with a graphic overlay that criticized the “anti-human Khomeini.” It …