Social and Political

RFL/RE – A group of 40 Iranian lawmakers has submitted a controversial draft bill to the parliament that could result in harsher online censorship by giving control of the country’s Internet gateways to the armed forces, including the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).The bill also calls for the creation of a board that will oversee social-media platforms and deal …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A number of August 2018 protesters in Shiraz were arrested a month and a half later on charges of murdering a person said to be a plainclothes agent. Of those, Navid Afkari was sentenced to qisas (retribution in-kind) for murder and his brother, Vahid sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of being the secondary to …

eaworldview-The health of political prisoner and human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh (pictured), who is on hunger strike in Iran’s Evin Prison, is deteriorating. Today in response at 18:30 CET there is a twitter storm campaign under #FreeNasrin to free Naserin Sotoudeh by putting pressure on the Iranian Regime. Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan wrote on social media on Thursday that her blood …

Radiofarda – Friday August 28 marked the 32nd anniversary of the mass execution of political prisoners in Iran. Family members of some of those killed in the 1988 massacre got together at a derelict graveyard in Tehran to pay tribute to their lost loved ones. None of them knew where their loved ones were buried or whether they were buried …

(AP) — The ruler of the United Arab Emirates issued a decree Saturday formally ending the country’s boycott of Israel amid a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two countries. The announcement now allows trade and commerce between the UAE, home to oil-rich Abu Dhabi and skyscraper-studded Dubai, and Israel, home to a thriving diamond trade, pharmaceutical companies and …

Radiofarda – In a series of tweets, the Islamic Republic foreign ministry officials have dismissed the U.S. Secretary of State’s Mike Pompeo’s remarks about returning the international sanctions on Iran. Accusing Secretary Pompeo of “living in an imaginary parallel world,” the spokesman for the Islamic Republic Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, argued that since Washington is not a party to the …

Radiofarda – The Association of the Families of the Victims of Flight P752 issued a video message on Friday urging anyone who has information or evidence about the downing of the plane to come forward. In a video message published on social media, Alireza Ghandchi, who lost his wife and two children in the crash, said that victims’ families want …

RFL/RE – An Iranian man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for beheading his 14-year-old daughter with an ax in a so-called “honor” killing that prompted widespread outrage in the country.The ruling was announced on August 28 in the northern province of Gilan, the ILNA news agency reported, adding that the girl’s mother called for the verdict to …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Tehran used that influx of revenues to expand its influence throughout the region and beyond, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Venezuela and the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The expansion campaign proved to be immensely successful. A recent statement issued by William Evanina, director of the US National Counterintelligence and Security Center …

foreignaffairs.com – Anew saying is making the rounds in Iran: power is being sucked away from heads to toes, which is to say, from men who wear turbans to men who wear boots. Iran’s new parliament furnishes the most recent evidence. Its speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is a former brigadier general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Two-thirds of the parliament’s presiding …