Social and Political

RFL/RE -Iran is using Bitcoin mining to evade crippling U.S. sanctions on its economy, according to a new study. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates that around 4.5 percent of global Bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing the country to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies that can be used to “purchase imports and bypass sanctions.” U.S. sanctions have …

Iranwire – 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 are just some of the Islamic Republic’s attacks on Iranians in Sweden that have been exposed in the past 12 months. The multi-pronged threat the regime now poses to the 100,000 Iranians …

Iranwire – Anyone who has heard about the gruesome murder of Iranian film director Babak Khorramdin has been shocked. His dismembered body was found in three separate garbage cans on Nafisi Street in western Tehran in the early hours of May 16, and Khorramdim’s father confessed to the murder, with his wife admitting to being an accomplice. But in the …

Iranwire – In a “top secret” letter recently leaked on social media, Tehran Justice Department ordered that Instagram, Google Play (Android app store), VPNs and filter-breakers be blocked in Iran. The order was published by Nariman Gharib, a United Kingdom-based activist, on his Twitter account on May 19. It was attributed to Javad Javidnia, a deputy chief of the department. A few …

CHRI – Protests by hard-hit farmers over Iran’s worsening water crisis are being repressed by state security forces as officials increasingly describe the protests as a “national security” issue. Environmental scientist Kaveh Madani explained in an interview with the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that a major portion of the Iranian population “has become directly dependent on water for its …

(Reuters) – Iran has hand picked hundreds of trusted fighters from among the cadres of its most powerful militia allies in Iraq, forming smaller, elite and fiercely loyal factions in a shift away from relying on large groups with which it once exerted influence.FILE PHOTO: Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, the newly appointed commander of Iran’s Quds Force, reads the will …

Iranwire – A Canadian court has ruled the downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 last January was a deliberate act of terror. On Thursday, May 20 the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario ruled that “on the balance of probabilities” the Revolutionary Guards had deliberately shot the passenger plane out of the skies over Tehran, killing all 176 people onboard. …

Iranwire – On Monday, May 17 it emerged that Sina Estavi, CEO of Cryptoland, one of the biggest digital currency exchanges in Iran, had been arrested. The incident caught investors by surprise, and ever since then, the issue of cryptocurrency trading in Iran has been in the news. Estavi’s Twitter account was also seized by Iran’s Organized Cyber Crime Police as well and …

atlanticcouncil.org – The leaked audiotape of Islamic Republic Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has elicited much fanfare in recent weeks. Among the less scrutinized aspects of the tape has been Zarif’s reference to the Islamic Republic’s ongoing support of the Bashar al-Assad regime, including the fact that Iran Air—the flag carrier of the country—continues to transport arms and fighters into the Syrian …

gatestoneinstitute.org – These Arabs evidently understand what the anti-Israel activists around the world fail to see — that Hamas has brought nothing but disaster and despair to the two million Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip…. [They] also seem to understand that Israel is not waging war on the Palestinians, but against an Islamist terrorist group….. These …