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iranintl – The Iranian Writers’ Association says combatting censorship, a significant tool of suppression, is crucial to safeguarding freedom of speech against government tyranny. The statement, issued on the Day Against Censorship on December 4 by the long-banned Iranian Writers’ Association (IWA) on Facebook, asserts that censorship has been a decisive instrument over the past four decades to suppress writers, …

VOA – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised his country’s relations with Iran at a meeting in Moscow with his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi, as the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war. Since launching its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has sought to deepen its economic and political ties with Tehran. Both nations have been hit with Western …

Iranwire – As the noon sun beat down on the cemetery of Mirdeh, a village in Iran’s Kurdistan province, mourners gathered to pay their respects to Ahoan Dashti, a 28-year-old transborder porter, or kolbar, who was shot dead by border forces.  When the ambulance carrying Dashti’s body arrived from the city of Baneh, the anguished cries of Dashti’s father, Atta, echoed …

Iranwire – The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency has announced the transfer of entrepreneur Mohammad Rostami Safa to prison to serve a 15-year sentence for fraud.  Rostami Safa, the owner of the Rostami Safa Industrial Group, was sentenced in August for defrauding three major Iranian banks between 2003 and 2013.  Rostami Safa obtained large loans in foreign currencies and rials …

iranintl – The German human rights commissioner who rebuffed Iranian female dissidents on Thursday, reportedly views the hijab as a form of emancipation for women. The Iranian dissident, Masih Alinejad, pulled the plug on a meeting with the federal human rights commissioner, Luise Amtsberg, because Amtsberg did not wish to publicize the substance of the discussion. The German magazine Stern reported in …

Iranwire – Thirty-three years after being captured by Iraqis during the war while defending his homeland, a Baha’i citizen, Behrouz Farzandi, is once again behind bars. But time it is because of his faith. Throughout the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and up to this day, the Iranian government has consistently attempted to erase the Baha’is from the official list of casualties …

Iranwire – An Iranian-German national who was arrested during a trip to Iran in June fled the country after his release on bail, according to Deutsche Welle’s Persian service. Reza Shahri left Iran through the border with Iraq and then traveled to Germany via Turkey, the German broadcaster reported on November 23. Shahri is now back in the western German city …

Iranwire – Afagh Rahimian, the wife of Rahim Rahimian, a Baha’i executed in 1983, and mother to Keyvan and Kamran, passed away this week in Iran.  Rahimian’s life was marked by the repeated persecution of members of her family, from her husband Rahim to her two sons, Keyvan and Kamran, and who as a result faced profound challenges and sacrifices …

iranintl – The Islamic Republic enlists foreign students, training them as ideological emissaries for deployment in other nations, according to an audio file leaked on Sunday.  The speaker, purported to be Hamidreza Haddadpour, head of the International Affairs Center for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s university representatives network, reveals that recruiting foreign students establishes an ideological foothold for the Islamic Republic …

Iranwire – A new wave of arrests targeting dozens of members of the Baha’i faith in Iran over the past few weeks has triggered international concern. Baha’is, the country’s largest non-Muslim community, have faced persecution since the 1979 revolution with a fresh intensification of repression over the last year.  The US ambassador at large for international religious freedom, Rashad Hussain, …