Social and Political

Al-Monitor – Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement of condemnation in response to a UN resolution that has raised alarm on human rights violations committed by the Islamic Republic. The resolution discussed and passed by the General Assembly Third Committee expressed “serious concern at the alarmingly frequent use of the death penalty.” It urged Iranian authorities to drop such sentences …

Al-Monitor – The United States sanctioned six Iranians and one Iranian cyber company on Thursday for attempting to sow discord ahead of the 2020 US presidential election, as the Department of Justice announced it had indicted two of the Iranians for their alleged involvement.  Between August and November 2020, a group of state-sponsored Iranian cyber actors obtained or attempted to …

Al-Arabia – Israel has charged a member of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s housekeeping staff with espionage, saying on Thursday he offered to spy on him on behalf of “a person identified with Iran,” the country’s arch-enemy. In a statement, the Shin Bet security service said the suspect corresponded with the unnamed person over social media. It said he provided photographs …

RFL/RE – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Iranian judiciary’s “unrelenting persecution” of an Iranian photojournalist and activist who must serve two years of internal exile after being released earlier this week from nearly eight years in imprisonment. On November 16, Soheil Arabi was released from prison, where he was mistreated and tortured, but he must now spend two years in …

Iranwire – “We’re going to kill you.” “You don’t think we have enough graves? We do.” These are the kinds of messages that Iranian human rights activists regularly receive on their Twitter and Instagram feeds. At a protest in Whitehall, London last week, they were photographed and filmed extensively as they held up placards calling for an end to impunity …

Iranwire – The below is an archived article first published by IranWire on May 21, 2021. It has been republished as part of our new series on transnational repression. Read more about the project here. A fake Persian-language driving licence app, concealing malicious software. A petrol bomb hurled onto a politician’s porch. The brazen kidnapping of an activist in exile. These …

Iran-HRM – UN Third Committee resolution censures serious rights abuses in Iran. This is the 68the resolution passed by the United Nations condemning the flagrant human rights violations in Iran. The Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution, censuring the brutal and systematic violations of human rights in Iran on November 17, 2021. The Third Committee resolution was passed …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Prominent human rights defender, Narges Mohammadi who was arrested at the ceremony of slain November 2019 protesters yesterday, has been informed in solitary confinement that her 30 month imprisonment and 80 lashes sentence will be enforced. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, in a phone call to her family from prison, Narges Mohammadi …

thedispatch – Personnel is policy, even in nuclear weapons programs that purport not to exist.  On November 13, Iranian media outlets revealed the name of the new director of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, an entity known by its Persian-language acronym, “SPND.” Created in 2011 to support Tehran’s restructured nuclear weapons quest, SPND was led by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, the Islamic Republic’s foremost military-nuclear scientist, from its …

Al-Monitor – Hackers “associated with the government of Iran” are actively targeting a wide range of US sectors, including with ransomware, a cybersecurity advisory issued by US, British and Australian governments said Wednesday.  The joint alert from the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Australian Cyber Security Center and the UK’s National Cyber Security Center said the hackers were targeting …