Social and Political

VOA – Iran on Sunday denounced the latest U.S. and U.K. strikes on targets in Yemen saying they “contradict” their declared intention of avoiding a wider Middle East conflict. These attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” Iran’s foreign ministry …

VOA – Iranian civil society organizations and professionals say suicide rates have reached crisis levels among school students and recent medical school graduates in the past month, with no sign of solutions from the government. Iranian state news agency IRNA acknowledged the worsening of the Islamic republic’s suicide problem generally in a January 6 article. It cited Hamid Parvih, the vice …

iranintl – Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had no presence in the military bases bombed by the United States, an IRGC general and a member of the Iranian parliament reiterated on Sunday. Esmail Kowsari, who is of many IRGC senior officers in the hardliner faction in the parliament, reiterated that if there were any Iranian bases among the targets hit by the US in …

Iranwire – The Islamic Republic knows that escalating the war in the Middle East risks direct confrontation with the United States, the potential loss of large numbers of IRGC soldiers and perhaps more popular unrest. Yet Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has long pursued proxy battles in the region and may think this is the right time to fulfil his …

RFL/RE – U.S. forces said they hit another Huthi target in Yemen overnight, destroying what they said was an “anti-ship cruise missile” site that had threatened Red Sea shipping traffic. The statement by U.S. Central Command, released early on February 4, came hours after the United States and Britain stuck more than three dozen targets in Yemen that officials identified as sites …

RFL/RE – A coalition of rights activists and writers have penned an open letter to Nada Al-Nashif, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, urging her to reconsider her planned visit to Iran saying the government will not allow her to see the “truth” about the situation in the country. Al-Nashif is scheduled to visit Iran from February 2 to February …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The common thread weaving Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shia militias together is the significant funding and support each receives from Iran, which has in turn received it from the Obama and Biden administrations. When the Biden administration came in, Iran had $6 billion of reserves; it now has, according to former US Army Gen. Jack Keane, more than …

gatestoneinstitute.org – [T]hose wishing to stand for a seat in the Majlis must be approved by the Council of the Guardians whose members are named by the “Supreme Guide”. Those elected won’t be considered elected unless the “Supreme Guide” approves. In an arrangement that might have amused Alice [in Wonderland], candidates are not allowed to criticize the leadership or to …

gatestoneinstitute.org – By not directly targeting the source of support and funding, the Iranian regime, the administration may inadvertently be treating the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem, and, instead of decreasing Iranian aggression, escalating it. One viable approach involves focusing on the economic lifelines that sustain the ruling ayatollahs. These lifelines include immediately restoring the “maximum …

Iran Human Rights – February 3, 2024: Protesters Abbas Deris and Reza Rasayi are at imminent risk of execution after their death sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court. Mojahed Kourkour’s death sentence confirmation was previously reported. Condemning the use of the death penalty against protesters, Iran Human Rights calls for the international community’s special attention to death row protesters. …