Social and Political

Iran-HRM – Plainclothes agents beat and brutalized the Afkari family when they gathered Sunday outside the Adelabad prison in Shiraz to protest Vahid and Habib’s conditions in solitary confinement for 280 days. Saeed Afkari, brother to executed wrestling champion Navid Afkari tweeted Sunday that plainclothes agents attacked his family and other civil activists who had gone to the prison to …

RFL/RE – The influential political scion and speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, has demanded an explanation from the country’s vetters as to why he was excluded from running in next week’s Iranian presidential election. Larijani’s query toward the hard-line Guardians Council follows that body’s disqualification of hundreds of would-be candidates in a familiar feature of Iranian elections that left …

Iranwire – “Until further notice, we have no coronavirus vaccines”. This notice pinned to doors has greeted visitors to many vaccination centers in Iran over the past week. Elderly people aged over 70 are supposed to be receiving their second jab now, but countless patients have been turned away. This is deeply worrying because of the time-frame in which the …

Iranwire – Akbar Faraji is a political prisoner being held in Greater Tehran Penitentiary, commonly known as Fashafuyeh (Fashafouyeh). Arrested in January 2019 over a handful of social media posts, he told IranWire he was tricked by interrogators into incriminating himself. Faraji, who was born in 1981 and is a resident of Baqershahr in Shahr-e Rey, Tehran province, was abruptly …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) –  Yesterday, a draft bill was passed in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament), which if approved, can result in the death penalty for citizen journalists reporting on the death penalty. Iran Human Rights condemns the draft bill which is in breach of international human rights standards. IHR director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “Instead of adopting repressive measures …

RFL/RE – The departing head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has hinted at possible Israeli involvement in recent attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and on an Iranian scientist, though he stopped short of directly claiming responsibility. The statements to Israel’s Channel 12 by Yossi Cohen, broadcast late on June 10, included phrasing that suggested that other Iranian scientists working on …

washingtonpost – Russia is preparing to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will give Tehran an unprecedented ability to track potential military targets across the Middle East and beyond, according to current and former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials briefed on details of the arrangement. The plan would deliver to the Iranians a Russian-made Kanopus-V satellite equipped with …

(JNS) – When it comes to matching words with action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s political class have their heads deep in the sand. In a jaw-dropping May editorial on the webpage of the Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, the co-editor-in-chief, Julian Reichelt provides a bill of particulars for Merkel’s failing grade: “Germany is Iran’s most important …

VOA – The United States said Thursday it had removed sanctions on three former Iranian officials and two companies that previously traded Iranian petrochemicals, a step one U.S. official called routine but that could show U.S. readiness to ease sanctions when justified. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the U.S. official said the moves by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign …

VOA – The U.S. imposed sanctions Thursday on “members of a smuggling network” that generate millions of dollars for the Iranian-affiliated Houthi movement in Yemen.  The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned individuals from Yemen, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Somalia and India. Also sanctioned were entities in Dubai, Istanbul and the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa.  “This network generates tens of …