Social and Political

iranintl – As cases of economic corruption continue to make headlines in Iran, more pundits are speaking out about how the prevailing system makes corruption inevitable. In an interview published Sunday, former chief of Iran’s central bank Valiollah Seif said the biggest challenge facing the country is economic corruption, mainly due to a government controlled system that that hands out …

Iranwire – A commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has provided false information about an American missile attack, the airspace closure and cancellation of flights, leading to the activation of air defense systems that shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane over Tehran in 2020, new court documents reveal.  Flight PS752 was traveling from Tehran to Kyiv on January …

Iranwire – Four years after the downing of a Ukrainian airliner that killed 176 people near Tehran, grief and the pursuit of justice remain central to the lives of the victims’ families and their supporters worldwide. Commemorations were held in various cities on January 7, including Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, and even at Shahedshahr, where Ukraine International Airlines …

Iranwire – The paramilitary Basij force, in collaboration with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian football federation, plans to send over 300 of its members to Qatar during the upcoming Asian Cup football tournament, IranWire reveals. The competition will be held in Doha from January 12. Iran’s national team has been placed in Group C alongside Palestine, …

VOA – Two fighters from Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi alliance have been killed in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, the pro-Iranian Hashed and an Iraqi security source said Sunday. The two fighters “succumbed after having been wounded while they were confronting an attack” by jihadis late Saturday in Salaheddin province north of Baghdad, the Hashed said in …

VOA – An anti-hijab advocate in Iran, Roya Heshmati, has been lashed 74 times by Iranian authorities on charges of “injury to public chastity” for not wearing the mandatory head covering. Heshmati was detained at her home in Tehran last April after sharing an unveiled image of herself on social media, according to her lawyer, Mazyar Tataie. Tataie said Heshmati …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The Biden administration needs to understand that, when it comes to dealing with autocratic states like Russia and Iran, brute force is the only language they understand, whereas the slightest hint of weakness will be gleefully exploited to their benefit. It would be preferable to have Iran concerned about US action, whether military or addressing the regime’s hold …

Al-Arabia – Iranian authorities have whipped a woman 74 times for “violating public morals” and fined her for not covering her head, the judiciary said. “The convicted, Roya Heshmati, encouraged permissiveness (by appearing) disgracefully in busy public places in Tehran,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said late on Saturday. “Her penalty of 74 strokes of the lash was carried out …

iranintl – Iran’s clerical watchdog, the Guardian Council, has rejected the qualifications of one in every ten current lawmakers to run in the March parliamentary elections. A report on the Etemad Online website said that out of the 290 lawmakers, 275 had registered their candidacy for the upcoming elections but the qualifications of only 26 have been rejected. Etemad Online has …

iranintl – A former intelligence minister has revealed Iran’s strategy of pursuing and repatriating dissidents through elaborate operations. “Our strategy was to bring anti-security elements back into the country, using intricate intelligence tactics, to the extent possible,” Mahmoud Alavi, a cleric who served as intelligence minister under President Hassan Rouhani, told the official new agency IRNA on Saturday. Alavi mentioned …