Social and Political

RFL/RE – France on Wednesday said a decision on salvaging Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers was just days away and that it was now up to Tehran to make the political choice. Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the tattered agreement resumed last week after a 10-day hiatus and officials from the other parties …

Iranwire – Detainees at Greater Tehran Penitentiary and Evin Prison have entered their 40th day of protests in the wake of the death of jailed writer Baktash Abtin. In an audio file sent to IranWire, inmate Hamid Haj Jafar Kashani read a statement dedicated to Abtin on behalf of the group, in which they reflect: “Maybe the next [to die in …

Iranwire – The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), an organization controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which controls extensive assets across Iran, is thought to be orchestrating an increasing number of confiscations of properties belonging to Iranian Baha’is. The Baha’i International Community (BIC) disclosed earlier today the latest example of this trend, in the province of Semnan, where a Revolutionary …

Iranwire – Ex-Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri shouted out in anger from the defendant’s bench at Stockholm District Court this week after a testifying witness described him as an “executioner”. The 60-year-old is standing trial in Sweden for war crimes and murder in connection with Iran’s 1988 prison massacre. That summer, thousands of Iranian political detainees, mostly members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) …

Al-Monitor – Talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna are now in what many observers have deemed their final stretch. But it’s far from a done deal, and US officials are warning that mere weeks remain before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s (JCPOA) original nonproliferation benefits are lost. Naysan Rafati, the International Crisis Group’s senior Iran analyst, says “the …

RFL/RE – A top Iranian security official has indicated that verification and guarantees would be among the things needed to reach an agreement to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal. “Verification and providing a guarantee is an integral part of a good deal,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on Twitter. Iran has previously said that it …

Iranwire – Iranians are so strapped for cash and badly affected by Iran’s soaring inflation and high unemployment rates that they are unable to purchase a simple gift such as socks to celebrate Father’s Day. The vice president of the Tehran Knitwear and Socks Union announced that in previous years, people often chose socks as gifts for their fathers to celebrate the …

Iranwire – Iran-backed militia groups have been taking advantage of US taxpayers’ money by strategically aligning themselves to arms of the Iraqi security forces, the Pentagon has alleged. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Pentagon’s inspector-general has told US congress that “officers sympathetic to Iranian or militia interests” are concentrated in the Iraqi Federal Police and the country’s Emergency Response Division, as well …

CHRI – Amid an intensifying campaign of political repression in Iran, state authorities have been summoning, detaining, and imprisoning peaceful labor rights activists and a journalist in various cities throughout the country. A lawyer who has represented several labor activists could also soon be sent to prison for doing her job. On April 26, 2022, Branch 16 of the Appeals Court in …

Al-Monitor – Iranian negotiators have presented “new solutions” to settle “the remaining issues” in Vienna, reported the IRNA news agency, echoing the official stance of the government of hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi. The latest round of talks resumed last week in the Austrian capital, where Tehran and world powers have engaged in intense diplomacy to reinstate the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. …