Social and Political

RFL/RE – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) has fired on targets in Iraq’s northern Kurdish regional capital of Irbil, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency has reported. Tasnim said on May 11 that forces from the IRGC launched artillery attacks on “the positions of terrorist groups” in Irbil. No casualties were reported.“Headquarters of terrorist groups in Iraq’s northern region, including the …

Iranwire – IranWire has received information that a new wave of arrests of documentary filmmakers and cinematographers has started in Iran. So far all of the known detainees have been women. “Last night, May 9, Mina Keshavarz and Firoozeh Khosrovani, two documentary filmmakers, were arrested at their homes,” an informed source told Iranwire on Tuesday. The next day, they said, security agents had …

Iranwire – The Iranian Intelligence Ministry confirmed on Wednesday it has arrested two Europeans in the run-up to a visit by European Union envoy Enrique Mora. The pair’s identities and nationalities were not given. In a statement, the Ministry said they were professionals in “creating riots” and had come to Iran to stir up “chaos, social disorder and instability”. It …

Iranwire – On Saturday, May 7, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri reported that the government plans to repeal all domestic food and fuel subsidies, apparently without a Plan B. The report predicted that after the recent repeal of flour subsidies, the next to be axed could be cooking oil, followed by gasoline. The Raisi administration knew from the get-go that it was running …

VOA – The daughter of Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani faces prosecution over social media comments on the Revolutionary Guards and the Prophet Mohammed, the judiciary said Tuesday. Faezeh Hashemi, 59, is “summoned by the prosecutor over these two affairs,” judiciary spokesman Zabihollah Khodayian told a news conference, quoted by the service’s Mizan Online website. Khodayian referred to “remarks …

Iran-HRM – Internet outages, arrests, and the presence of state security forces throughout the Khuzestan Province have continued after people came to the streets to protest skyrocketing prices of essential goods. On Friday and Saturday evenings, May 6 and 7, 2022, the people of Khuzestan Province, came to the streets in the cities of Ahvaz, Izeh, Baghmalek, and Susangerd, protesting …

iranhr.net – The results of many dams and water transfer projects in Iran have been environmental injustice and migration to the city margins and shantytowns. For the past seven years, Abangan has sought to raise public awareness about water resource management, and in cooperation with the Iran Human Rights organization, it has addressed this issue from the perspective of human …

Al-Monitor – The European Union dispatched to Tehran its coordinator on the talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal in an effort to bring the sides back to the negotiating table. Following a two-month pause, senior EU diplomat Enrique Mora came to meet with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani on May 10 and pick up from where the sides left off in Vienna. …

RFL/RE – Iran’s judiciary says the death sentence of Swedish-Iranian national Ahmadreza Djalali will be carried out, as Tehran does not plan to seek a prisoner exchange for an Iranian being tried in Stockholm for his alleged role in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at an Iranian prison in the 1980s. Judiciary spokesman Zabihollah Khodaian on May …

Iranwire – Street protests broke out in cities across Khuzestan, western Iran, last Thursday over a sudden hike in the cost of basic goods. The government cut off flour subsidies and began rationing bread two weeks ago – Iran imports much of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine and is one of several countries badly affected by shortages due to …