Social and Political

Radiofarda – In a joint letter to the leaders across the globe, 22 international human rights organizations are advocating for the establishment of a select committee at the next gathering of the UN’s Council of Human Rights to investigate “the grave violation of human rights in Iran” during and after the November 2019 protests. “We, the undersigned human rights organizations, …

VOA – President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain has agreed to recognize Israel, following a similar deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last month. The agreement is another sign of the shifting dynamic in the Middle East, one that brings Arab nations closer to Israel and is seen as isolating Palestinians. From …

VOA – A jailed Iranian blogger is intensifying his campaign to raise international awareness about worsening conditions at the notorious prison where he is detained, saying in a new audio recording that coronavirus-infected inmates are not being sent to hospitals until near death. In the audio message recorded this month and sent to VOA Persian by a source, citizen journalist …

HRW – The prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been on a hunger strike in Evin prison for almost a month in order to demand the release of the country’s scores of political prisoners. Several other imprisoned activists have also joined her hunger strike. By putting their health at risk, Sotoudeh and others are trying to draw attention to the …

CHRI – In the latest report by the UN’s top expert on Iran, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, expressed “alarm” and “dismay” over a broad range of human rights violations by the government of the Islamic Republic. The Special Rapporteur (SR) focused particular attention in the report on the …

Al-Monitor – An Iranian fuel tanker bound for Venezuela showed up on radar on Friday as off the coast of South Africa. Iranian fuel deliveries continue to the South American country after recent US seizures, and the lengthy route around Africa could be to avoid the US military. The website MarineTraffic received a signal from the tanker, named Fortune, on Friday …

theconversation.com – Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution was a defining event that changed how we think about the relationship between religion and modernity. Ayatollah Khomeini’s mass mobilisation of Islam showed that modernisation by no means implies a linear process of religious decline. Reliable large-scale data on Iranians’ post-revolutionary religious beliefs, however, has always been lacking. Over the years, research and waves of protests and …

Radiofarda – An outspoken whistle-blowing journalist, Yashar Soltani, has challenged a preacher close to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to explain a suspicious purchase of land he made in 2012. A day earlier, Khamenei’s close ally, the mid-ranking clergyman Alireza Panahian, said in an interview that an apartment was presented to him as a friendly gift. Panahian, a …

RFL/RE – U.S. tech giant Microsoft says hackers linked to Russia, Iran, and China have targeted people and organizations tied to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. The announcement on September 10 came at the same time that Biden’s main campaign advisory firm said it had been told by Microsoft it was being targeted by the …

Iran-HRM – In a letter to the Chief of Iranian Judiciary, the parents of champion wrestler Navid Afkari, urged him to allow their sons to be examined by the Coroner’s Office. In their letter to Ebrahim Raisi, Hossein Afkari and Bahieh Namjou, the parents of the Afkari brothers, noted that their sons had been brutalized in solitary confinement. This is …